Melly had collected her bags over years of birthdays and Christmases. Her aunt had started it — she kept a great box of silk remnants and one day offered to make Melly a whole set of little bags, one for her purse, one for her handkerchief, one for odds and ends — each in a different colour. Yellow, blue, pink, grey, orange, purple, tan, rose, green, white. From then on, new bags appeared on birthdays and at Christmas, each made from a remnant the aunt had saved.
One evening, while Melly slept, the bags were talking.
“I’m just a baby,” said the pale blue bag. “Only a few years old.”
“I’m very old,” said a small plaid bag. “I belonged to her grandmother.”
“It does feel strange to be in the world again,” said the purple bag. “I’d been in that piece box so long I’d got used to the dark. When I came out I blinked — at least as much as a bag can blink.”
“Isn’t it wonderful,” said the green bag, “to go everywhere and see everything? Yesterday I went on a picnic. Somehow a crumb of bacon got into me — just a small crumby piece — and I felt the strangest thing, almost like having breakfast. I don’t eat, of course. No mouth, no stomach. But I do get to go along.”
“I’m so glad I was made,” said the rose bag. “This afternoon I’m going to a dancing party. There’ll be ice cream. I’ll hear the children laughing. Someone will ask Melly which bag she brought today, and she’ll show me.” The rose bag rustled happily.
“We are the lucky ones,” said the yellow bag, “the pieces of silk who are seeing the world for a second time.”
