Five Children and It
the others had been a week in the country they had found a fairy. At
least they called it that, because that was what it called itself; and
of course it knew best, but it was not at all like any fairy you ever
saw or heard of or read about.
It was at the gravel-pits. Father had to go away suddenly on business,
and mother had gone away to stay with Granny, who was not very well.
They both went in a great hurry, and when they were gone the house
seemed dreadfully quiet and empty, and the children wandered from one
room to another and looked at the bits of paper and string on the floors
left over from the packing, and not yet cleared up, and wished they had
something to do. It was Cyril who said--
"I say, let's take our spades and dig in the gravel-pits. We can pretend
it's seaside."
"Father says it was once," Anthea said; "he says there are shells there
thousands of years old."
So they went. Of course they had been to the edge of the gravel-pit and
looked over, but they had not gone down into it for fear father should
say they mustn't play there, and it was the same with the chalk-quarry.
The gravel-pit is not really dangerous if you don't try to climb down
the edges, but go the slow safe way round by the road, as if you were a
cart.
Each of the children carried its own spade, and took it in turns to
carry the Lamb. He was the baby, and they called him that because "Baa"
was the first thing he ever said. They called Anthea "Panther," which
seems silly when you read it, but when you say it it sounds a little
like her name.
The gravel-pit is very large and wide, with grass growing round the
edges at the top, and dry stringy wildflowers, purple and yellow. It is
like a giant's washbowl. And there are mounds of gravel, and holes in
the sides of the bowl where gravel has been taken out, and high up in
the steep sides there are the little holes that are the little front
doors of the little bank-martins' little houses.
The children built a castle, of course, but castle-building is rather
poor fun when you have no hope of the swishing tide ever coming in to
fill up the moat and wash away the drawbridge, and, at the happy last,
to wet everybody up to the waist at least.
Cyril wanted to dig out a cave to play smugglers in, but the others
thought it might bury them alive, so it ended in all spades going to
work to dig a hole through the castle to Australia. These children, you
see, believed that the world was round, and that on the other side the
little Australian boys and girls were really walking wrong way up, like
flies on the ceiling, with their heads hanging down into the air.
The children dug and they dug and they dug, and their hands got sandy
and hot and red, and their faces got damp and shiny. The Lamb had tried
to eat the sand, and had cried so hard when he found that it was not,
as he had supposed, brown sugar, that he was now tired out, and was
lying asleep in a warm fat bunch in the middle of the half-finished
castle. This left his brothers and sisters free to work really hard, and
the hole that was to come out in Australia soon grew so deep that Jane,
who was called Pussy for short, begged the others to stop.
"Suppose the bottom of the hole gave way suddenly," said she, "and you
tumbled out among the little Australians, all the sand would get in
their eyes."
"Yes," said Robert; "and they would hate us, and throw stones at us, and
not let us see the kangaroos, or opossums, or bluegums, or Emu Brand
birds, or anything."
Cyril and Anthea knew that Australia was not quite so near as all that,
but they agreed to stop using the spades and to go on with their hands.
This was quite easy, because the sand at the bottom of the hole was very
soft and fine and dry, like sea-sand. And there were little shells in
it.
"Fancy it having been wet sea here once, all sloppy and shiny," said
Jane, "with fishes and conger-eels and coral and mermaids."
"And masts of ships and wrecked Spanish treasure. I wish we could find a
gold doubloon, or something," Cyril said.
"How did the sea get carried away?" Robert asked.
"Not in a pail, silly," said his brother.
"Father says the earth got too hot underneath, as you do in bed
sometimes, so it just hunched up its shoulders, and the sea had to slip
off, like the blankets do us, and the shoulder was left sticking out,
and turned into dry land. Let's go and look for shells; I think that
little cave looks likely, and I see something sticking out there like a
bit of wrecked ship's anchor, and it's beastly hot in the Australian
hole."
The others agreed, but Anthea went on digging. She always liked to
finish a thing when she had once begun it. She felt it would be a
disgrace to leave that hole without getting through to Australia.
The cave was disappointing, because there were no shells, and the
wrecked ship's anchor turned out to be only the broken end of a pick-axe
handle, and the cave party were just making up their minds that sand
makes you thirstier when it is not by the seaside, and someone had
suggested that they all go home for lemonade, when Anthea suddenly
screamed--
"Cyril! Come here! Oh, come quick--It's alive! It'll get away! Quick!"
They all hurried back.
"It's a rat, I shouldn't wonder," said Robert. "Father says they infest
old places--and this must be pretty old if the sea was here thousands of
years ago"--
"Perhaps it is a snake," said Jane, shuddering.
"Let's look," said Cyril, jumping into the hole. "I'm not afraid of
snakes. I like them. If it is a snake I'll tame it, and it will follow
me everywhere, and I'll let it sleep round my neck at night."
"No, you won't," said Robert firmly. He shared Cyril's bedroom. "But
you may if it's a rat."
"Oh, don't be silly!" said Anthea; "it's not a rat, it's _much_ bigger.
And it's not a snake. It's got feet; I saw them; and fur! No--not the
spade. You'll hurt it! Dig with your hands."
"And let _it_ hurt _me_ instead! That's so likely, isn't it?" said
Cyril, seizing a spade.
"Oh, don't!" said Anthea. "Squirrel, _don't_. I--it sounds silly, but it
said something. It really and truly did"--
"What?"
"It said, 'You let me alone.'"
But Cyril merely observed that his sister must have gone off her head,
and he and Robert dug with spades while Anthea sat on the edge of the
hole, jumping up and down with hotness and anxiety. They dug carefully,
and presently everyone could see that there really was something moving
in the bottom of the Australian hole.
Then Anthea cried out, "_I'm_ not afraid. Let me dig," and fell on her
knees and began to scratch like a dog does when he has suddenly
remembered where it was that he buried his bone.
"Oh, I felt fur," she cried, half laughing and half crying. "I did
indeed! I did!" when suddenly a dry husky voice in the sand made them
all jump back, and their hearts jumped nearly as fast as they did.
"Let me alone," it said. And now everyone heard the voice and looked at
the others to see if they had heard it too.
"But we want to see you," said Robert bravely.
"I wish you'd come out," said Anthea, also taking courage.
"Oh, well--if that's your wish," the voice said, and the sand stirred
and spun and scattered, and something brown and furry and fat came
rolling out into the hole, and the sand fell off it, and it sat there
yawning and rubbing the ends of its eyes with its hands.
"I believe I must have dropped asleep," it said, stretching itself.
The children stood round the hole in a ring, looking at the creature
they had found. It was worth looking at. Its eyes were on long horns
like a snail's eyes, and it could move them in and out like telescopes;
it had ears like a bat's ears, and its tubby body was shaped like a
spider's and covered with thick soft fur; its legs and arms were furry
too, and it had hands and feet like a monkey's.
"What on earth is it?" Jane said. "Shall we take it home?"
The thing turned its long eyes to look at her, and said--
"Does she always talk nonsense, or is it only the rubbish on her head
that makes her silly?"
It looked scornfully at Jane's hat as it spoke.
"She doesn't mean to be silly," Anthea said gently; "we none of us do,
whatever you may think! Don't be frightened; we don't want to hurt you,
you know."
"Hurt _me_!" it said. "_Me_ frightened? Upon my word! Why, you talk as
if I were nobody in particular." All its fur stood out like a cat's when
it is going to fight.
"Well," said Anthea, still kindly, "perhaps if we knew who you are in
particular we could think of something to say that wouldn't make you
angry. Everything we've said so far seems to have done so. Who are you?
And don't get angry! Because really we don't know."
"You don't know?" it said. "Well, I knew the world had
changed--but--well, really--Do you mean to tell me seriously you don't
know a Psammead when you see one?"
"A Sammyadd? That's Greek to me."
"So it is to everyone," said the creature sharply. "Well, in plain
English, then, a _Sand-fairy_. Don't you know a Sand-fairy when you see
one?"
It looked so grieved and hurt that Jane hastened to say, "Of course I
see you are, _now_. It's quite plain now one comes to look at you."
"You came to look at me, several sentences ago," it said crossly,
beginning to curl up again in the sand.
"Oh--don't go away again! Do talk some more," Robert cried. "I didn't
know you were a Sand-fairy, but I knew directly I saw you that you were
much the wonderfullest thing I'd ever seen."
The Sand-fairy seemed a shade less disagreeable after this.
"It isn't talking I mind," it said, "as long as you're reasonably civil.
But I'm not going to make polite conversation for you. If you talk
nicely to me, perhaps I'll answer you, and perhaps I won't. Now say
something."
Of course no one could think of anything to say, but at last Robert
thought of "How long have you lived here?" and he said it at once.
"Oh, ages--several thousand years," replied the Psammead.
"Tell us about it. Do."
"It's all in books."
"_You_ aren't!" Jane said. "Oh, tell us everything you can about
yourself! We don't know anything about you, and you _are_ so nice."
The Sand-fairy smoothed his long rat-like whiskers and smiled between
them.
"Do please tell!" said the children all together.
It is wonderful how quickly you get used to things, even the most
astonishing. Five minutes before, the children had had no more idea than
you had that there was such a thing as a Sand-fairy in the world, and
now they were talking to it as though they had known it all their lives.
It drew its eyes in and said--
"How very sunny it is--quite like old times! Where do you get your
Megatheriums from now?"
"What?" said the children all at once. It is very difficult always to
remember that "what" is not polite, especially in moments of surprise or
agitation.
"Are Pterodactyls plentiful now?" the Sand-fairy went on.
The children were unable to reply.
"What do you have for breakfast?" the Fairy said impatiently, "and who
gives it to you?"
"Eggs and bacon, and bread and milk, and porridge and things.
Mother gives it to us. What are Mega-what's-its-names and
Ptero-what-do-you-call-thems? And does anyone have them for breakfast?"
"Why, almost everyone had Pterodactyl for breakfast in my time!
Pterodactyls were something like crocodiles and something like birds--I
believe they were very good grilled. You see, it was like this: of
course there were heaps of Sand-fairies then, and in the morning early
you went out and hunted for them, and when you'd found one it gave you
your wish. People used to send their little boys down to the seashore in
the morning before breakfast to get the day's wishes, and very often the