I got out of bed in the morning and changed into my borrowing clothes. My borrowing clothes consist of a tatty shirt that patches in the elbows, pants made from borrowed thin denim cloth, and a belt made from string which held my father's hooks and a few paper clips (which were my idea). The pants were my idea, but my mother never approved. See, female beans used to wear dresses all the time when my mother was a girl. Over time, they moved on to trousers, so I did the same. Anyways, I always wore my borrowing clothes in the morning. They were comfortable, as all borrowing clothes should be. To top it all off, I slipped on a pair of cloth shoes. They were slip-on shoes that were almost socks.

I walked out of my room and into the kitchen we had under the floor. Our kitchen had a dollhouse table in the center. There are various types of seats: matchboxes, bent-wire campaign cork holders, old-fashioned wooden spools, etc. Our vent was near the end of the house that had the hot and cold water, and the gas for the beans' stove and fireplace. My dad hooked up our stove to the gas so that we could cook, and the hot and cold water to a makeshift faucet made of two straws that connected to the pipes. The faucet had stoppers so that it wouldn't keep flowing. Throughout the entire living space we had under the carpeted floor, we had Christmas lights hung around (just the plain kind with no color) that could be turned on and off with a switch. We have shelves made out of pencils cut in half, which held our food and pots and pans and such. Our pots and pans are made from thimbles and old coke bottle caps. And, of course, we had a few random borrowings jus lying around; the ones that had no place: crayons, short pencils, an old bead necklace, etc. The walls were covered with small envelopes, postcards, and dance programs.

I sat down at the table and ate a few doughnuts (they're actually Cheerios, but we call them doughnuts). I glanced at the clock. Our clock was a digital wristwatch without he straps, which told the date and the time. It was almost 8:00 AM, on a Thursday. The children would be in school and the father would be at work. I sighed. I walked into our sitting room, which was adjacent to the kitchen.

Our sitting room has many decorations, like bottle caps, postage stamps, and rings hanging from the walls. The walls are papered with several pieces of paper from a wastepaper basket. They're aligned very randomly, making no particular pattern at all. There's a dollhouse rocking chair, a ring-box—the kind that beans used to propose to one another—for a seat, and a child's building block as a coffee table. There's a carpet made from a checker-board patterned tablecloth and a fireplace made out of two ashtrays cut in half.

I picked up a long nail and a handful of wood shavings. The wood shavings I borrowed from the father bean's bedroom. He's fond of whittling and making model ships, and kept the excess wood shavings in a bag. My mother and I use them as fuel for our fire.

I tossed the wood shavings into the fire and stoked it with the nail. I sat down in the ring-box seat as I did so. After the fire was big enough, I hung the nail in its place. I sat back down and thought about what I might get to do today. Just as I did, my mother walked in. She looked at our supply of matches and frowned. There was only one left.

"Arrietty!" she called. I sighed and turned. "Yes?" I answered. "Do you wish to have fire for the rest of the week?" she asked. I rolled my eyes. "Yes." She pointed to the container for the matches; it's an umbrella stand made from a large pen. "Then, I guess you wouldn't mind going upstairs and borrowing me a few more?" she urged. I sighed. "Sure, whatever. " My mother smiled. "Good. Now, you just bring what you think you'll need, and be very careful around the beans. Make sure that you are not seen."

I'd heard this warning for as long as I could remember. Being "seen" is the worst thing that could happen to a borrower. If a borrower is seen by a bean, they get squished.

I nodded, and walked into my room. I grabbed a few borrowing bags, my hooks, put on my dad's dental floss, and hung a long hat pin from two of my belt loops. I walked back through the rooms, out of the sitting room, and was off.

Just outside the sitting room was a passageway that led to a ladder made of staples that took me up to the inside of the walls. I passed by the air vent after which our family was named. Just after it was a makeshift elevator made from one of those automatic tape measures. My mother and I had them all over the house. This particular one led to the upstairs bedrooms. I stepped up onto the tape measure and pulled a string that unlocked the system, sending me shooting up. I sped through a hole, which marked the 2nd floor. The elevator stopped there and I stepped off. I walked through the walls until I reached a turn-able near-the-ceiling piece in the wall molding. I turned it and entered the teenage bean's bedroom.

I enjoyed borrowing things from his room because there's always random stuff just lying around. Anyway, I turned the piece and emerged onto the bean's bookshelf. I could get the best view from there and could see everything. I could see the boy's guitar, which served as the centerpiece in his room. I latched my hook into the side and jumped down. I landed on his desk. I looked around and found a triangular piece of plastic. I recognized it as a guitar pick. I picked it up. It was made of thin, translucent blue plastic and had the words "Fender Medium" on it. I figured it would look good in my room, so I stuffed it in my bag.

I looked around and found something even more interesting. It was a rectangular object that, after I lifted it upright, came up to nearly my collarbone in height. I looked at it; it had a rectangle that looked like a screen near the top and a circle thing a little lower than the middle. "Whoa." I said. I threw it onto the top of the bookshelf and climbed up the twine rope. I grabbed this thing and exited through the molding, careful to close it behind me.

I traveled through the walls to the kitchen to get the matches that mom wanted me to get. I entered the hole that led to the spice cabinet (which was useful for cooking). Using the hook and rope, I climbed down and ran across the counter to the junk drawer

I used my feet to open the great drawer. I had to rummage awhile, but I managed to find some matches, plus some string (a borrower can do a lot with string), a few paper clips, and a few birthday candles with holders. All of which I stuffed into my bags.

As I climbed out of the drawer and closed it, the joints in my fingers and wrists began to ache. I knew what this meant. It was my feeling. That's what a borrower gets when a human bean's around.

I looked up. The mother was coming in! I quickly hid behind the nearby microwave oven.

I looked around the corner of the microwave and saw her come in she rummaged through the junk drawer that I'd just been in. I held my breath, hoping that she wouldn't notice anything was missing. Finally, she took out a pen and pad and wrote down what looked like a grocery list. Humming to herself, she left.

With a sigh of relief, I came out of hiding. My feeling had faded slowly. I climbed back up, collected the rope, and returned home.