Enna Hittims was small enough. The name was Anne Smith backward, of course. But there is no way you can say “Htims” without putting in a noise between the H and the t, so Enna’s second name had to be Hittims. It suited her. She was a bold and heroic lady, even if she was only an inch or so high. She was tall and slim and muscular, and she wore her raven locks cut short around her thin brown face. There was no trace of mumps about Enna Hittims, and no trace of cowardice either. Enna Hittims was born to explore and have adventures.

Enna Hittims started life on her parents’ farm beside the Crease River, just below Leftoe Mountain. She was plowing their cornfield one day, when the plow turned up an old sword. Enna Hittims picked it up and swished it, and it cut through the plow. It was an enchanted sword that could cut through anything. Enna Hittims took the sword home to where her parents were lazing about and cut the kitchen table in half to show them what it could do.

“I’m leaving,” she said. “I want to have adventures.”

“No, you’re not,” said her parents. “We forbid it. We need you to do the work.”

Then Enna Hittims realized that her parents were exploiting her. She cut both their heads off with the enchanted sword and set off from the farm with a small bundle of food, to look for what she might find.

In this way Enna Hittims began the most exciting and interesting kind of life. For the next few days Anne found it hard to think of anything else. She lay in bed and looked at the landscape on the bedspread and imagined adventures for Enna Hittims to go with it.

The first heroic deed Enna Hittims did was to kill a tiger at Ankle Bend. Tibby put this idea into Anne’s head by coming to sleep on her bed. After that Enna Hittims climbed on up the mountain, where the landscape grew ever more wondrous. In the giant fern forest near the top of Leftoe Mountain, where monkeys chattered and parrots screamed, Enna Hittims came upon two more intrepid travelers, who were about to be killed by a savage gorilla. Enna Hittims cut the gorilla’s head off for them, and the two travelers became her faithful friends. They were called Marlene and Spike. The heroic three set off to find the treasure guarded by the dragon on Knee Heights.

By this time, Anne was finding Enna Hittims and her friends so interesting that she just had to get out of bed for her drawing book and felt tips and draw pictures of their adventures. Of course, when she got back into bed, the landscape had changed. The green patch which had been the fern forest had got down between Anne’s feet and become the Caves of Emerald, and the Crease River had turned into Toagara Falls. Enna Hittims and her friends realized they were exploring an enchanted land and took it all quite calmly. As the landscape changed every time Anne got in and out of bed, they soon understood that a powerful magician was trying to stop them getting the treasure. Enna Hittims vowed to conquer the magician when they had killed the dragon.

The three friends explored all over the bedspread. Anne made drawing after drawing of them. She no longer minded Tibby’s being so boring. While Tibby was curled up asleep on the bed, she held still for Anne to draw her. Anne intended Tibby to be the dragon in the end, but meanwhile, Tibby made a useful model for all the other monsters the three heroes killed. For the human monsters, Anne fetched snapshots of her parents and her cousins and copied them with glaring eyes and long teeth.

Enna Hittims was easy to draw. Her bold dark face gave Anne no trouble at all. Marlene was almost as easy, because she was the opposite of her friend, fair and small and not very brave. Enna Hittims often had to snap at Marlene for being so scared. Spike was more trouble to draw. Of course he had spiky hair, but his name really came from the enchanted spike he used as a weapon. He was small and nimble, with a puckered face. Anne kept getting him looking like a monkey, until she got used to drawing him. She drew and drew. Every time she got out of bed and the landscape changed, she thought of new adventures. She hardly noticed what Mrs. Harvey brought her for lunch. She hardly noticed whether her parents were in or out.

“Thank goodness!” said Mr. and Mrs. Smith.

And then disaster struck. Just before lunchtime, when Anne was all alone in the house, every one of her felt tips ran out.

“Oh, bother!” Anne wailed, almost in tears. She scribbled angrily, but even the mauve felt tip only made a pale, squeaky line. It was awful. Enna Hittims and her friends were in the middle of meeting the hermit who knew where to find the dragon. Anne was dying to draw the hermit’s cave. Enna Hittims was holding her enchanted sword threateningly at the foolish hermit’s throat. Anne had a photograph of Mr. Smith all ready to copy as the hermit. She was looking forward to giving him long hair and a scraggly beard and a look of utter terror.

“Oh, bother!” she shouted, and threw the felt tips across the room.

Tibby by now knew all about Anne in this mood. She jumped off Anne’s bed and galloped for the door. Mrs. Harvey came in with Anne’s lunch just then. Tibby slipped around Mrs. Harvey and ran away.

“Here you are, dear,” Mrs. Harvey said, puffing rather. She put a tray down on Anne’s knees. “I’ve done you macaroni cheese and some nice stewed apple. You can eat that, can’t you?”

Anne knew Mrs. Harvey was being very kind. She smiled, in spite of her crossness, and said, “Yes, thank you.”

“I should think you’d be well enough to go downstairs a bit now,” Mrs. Harvey said, a little reproachfully. “The stairs are hard work.” She went away, saying, “Tell your dad to pop the dishes back tonight. I’m out till then.”

Anne sighed and looked back at the bedspread. To her surprise, Enna Hittims had killed the hermit during the interruption. Anne had meant the hermit to stay alive and guide the heroes to the dragon. She stared at Enna Hittims coolly wiping her enchanted sword clean on a handy tuft of cloth. “Sorry if I lost my temper,” Enna Hittims was saying, “but I don’t think the old fool knew a thing about that dragon.”

Anne was rather shocked. She had not known that Enna Hittims was that unfeeling.

“You did quite right,” said Spike. “You know, I’m beginning to wonder if that dragon exists at all.”

“Me, too,” answered Enna Hittims. She hitched her sword to her belt rather grimly. “And if someone’s having us on—”

“Enna,” Marlene interrupted, “the landscape’s changed again. Over there.”

The three heroes swung around and shaded their eyes with their hands to look at the tray across Anne’s lap. “So it has!” said Enna Hittims. “Well done, Marlene! What is it up there?”

“A tableland,” said Spike. “There are two white mountains, and one’s steaming. Do you think it could be the dragon?”

“Probably only a new volcano,” said Enna Hittims. “Let’s go and see.”

The three heroes set off along the top of Anne’s right leg, walking swiftly in single file, and Anne watched them in some alarm. She did not want them climbing over her lunch while she tried to eat it.

“Go back,” she said. “The dragon’s going to be down by my right knee.”

“What was that?” Marlene whispered nervously as she followed the other two up the slant of Anne’s thigh.

“Just thunder. We’re always hearing it,” said Enna Hittims. “Don’t whinge, Marlene.”

The three heroes stood in a row with their chins on the edge of the lunch tray.

“Well, how about that!” said Enna Hittims. She pointed to the plate of macaroni cheese. “That hill of hot pipes—do you think it’s an installation of some kind?”

“There could be a baby dragon in each pipe,” Marlene suggested.

“What are those shiny things?” Spike wondered, pointing at the knife, fork, and spoon.

“Silver bars,” Enna Hittims said. “We’ll have to find an elephant and tow them away. This must be the dragon’s lair. But what’s that?”