Five Children and It
eldest boy in the family would be told to wish for a Megatherium, ready
jointed for cooking. It was as big as an elephant, you see, so there was
a good deal of meat on it. And if they wanted fish, the Ichthyosaurus
was asked for,--he was twenty to forty feet long, so there was plenty of
him. And for poultry there was the Plesiosaurus; there were nice
pickings on that too. Then the other children could wish for other
things. But when people had dinner-parties it was nearly always
Megatheriums; and Ichthyosaurus, because his fins were a great delicacy
and his tail made soup."
"There must have been heaps and heaps of cold meat left over," said
Anthea, who meant to be a good housekeeper some day.
"Oh no," said the Psammead, "that would never have done. Why, of course
at sunset what was left over turned into stone. You find the stone bones
of the Megatherium and things all over the place even now, they tell
me."
"Who tell you?" asked Cyril; but the Sand-fairy frowned and began to dig
very fast with its furry hands.
"Oh, don't go!" they all cried; "tell us more about when it was
Megatheriums for breakfast! Was the world like this then?"
It stopped digging.
"Not a bit," it said; "it was nearly all sand where I lived, and coal
grew on trees, and the periwinkles were as big as tea-trays--you find
them now; they're turned into stone. We Sand-fairies used to live on the
seashore, and the children used to come with their little flint-spades
and flint-pails and make castles for us to live in. That's thousands of
years ago, but I hear that children still build castles on the sand.
It's difficult to break yourself of a habit."
"But why did you stop living in the castles?" asked Robert.
"It's a sad story," said the Psammead gloomily. "It was because they
_would_ build moats to the castles, and the nasty wet bubbling sea used
to come in, and of course as soon as a Sand-fairy got wet it caught
cold, and generally died. And so there got to be fewer and fewer, and,
whenever you found a fairy and had a wish, you used to wish for a
Megatherium, and eat twice as much as you wanted, because it might be
weeks before you got another wish."
"And did _you_ get wet?" Robert inquired.
The Sand-fairy shuddered. "Only once," it said; "the end of the twelfth
hair of my top left whisker--I feel the place still in damp weather. It
was only once, but it was quite enough for me. I went away as soon as
the sun had dried my poor dear whisker. I scurried away to the back of
the beach, and dug myself a house deep in warm dry sand, and there I've
been ever since. And the sea changed its lodgings afterwards. And now
I'm not going to tell you another thing."
"Just one more, please," said the children. "Can you give wishes now?"
"Of course," said it; "didn't I give you yours a few minutes ago? You
said, 'I wish you'd come out,' and I did."
"Oh, please, mayn't we have another?"
"Yes, but be quick about it. I'm tired of you."
I daresay you have often thought what you would do if you had three
wishes given you, and have despised the old man and his wife in the
black-pudding story, and felt certain that if you had the chance you
could think of three really useful wishes without a moment's hesitation.
These children had often talked this matter over, but, now the chance
had suddenly come to them, they could not make up their minds.
"Quick," said the Sand-fairy crossly. No one could think of anything,
only Anthea did manage to remember a private wish of her own and Jane's
which they had never told the boys. She knew the boys would not care
about it--but still it was better than nothing.
"I wish we were all as beautiful as the day," she said in a great hurry.
The children looked at each other, but each could see that the others
were not any better-looking than usual. The Psammead pushed out his long
eyes, and seemed to be holding its breath and swelling itself out till
it was twice as fat and furry as before. Suddenly it let its breath go
in a long sigh.
"I'm really afraid I can't manage it," it said apologetically; "I must
be out of practice."
The children were horribly disappointed.
"Oh, _do_ try again!" they said.
"Well," said the Sand-fairy, "the fact is, I was keeping back a little
strength to give the rest of you your wishes with. If you'll be
contented with one wish a day among the lot of you I daresay I can
screw myself up to it. Do you agree to that?"
"Yes, oh yes!" said Jane and Anthea. The boys nodded. They did not
believe the Sand-fairy could do it. You can always make girls believe
things much easier than you can boys.
It stretched out its eyes farther than ever, and swelled and swelled and
swelled.
"I do hope it won't hurt itself," said Anthea.
"Or crack its skin," Robert said anxiously.
Everyone was very much relieved when the Sand-fairy, after getting so
big that it almost filled up the hole in the sand, suddenly let out its
breath and went back to its proper size.
"That's all right," it said, panting heavily. "It'll come easier
to-morrow."
"Did it hurt much?" said Anthea.
"Only my poor whisker, thank you," said he, "but you're a kind and
thoughtful child. Good day."
It scratched suddenly and fiercely with its hands and feet, and
disappeared in the sand.
Then the children looked at each other, and each child suddenly found
itself alone with three perfect strangers, all radiantly beautiful.
They stood for some moments in silence. Each thought that its brothers
and sisters had wandered off, and that these strange children had stolen
up unnoticed while it was watching the swelling form of the Sand-fairy.
Anthea spoke first--
"Excuse me," she said very politely to Jane, who now had enormous blue
eyes and a cloud of russet hair, "but have you seen two little boys and
a little girl anywhere about?"
"I was just going to ask you that," said Jane. And then Cyril cried--
"Why, it's _you_! I know the hole in your pinafore! You _are_ Jane,
aren't you? And you're the Panther; I can see your dirty handkerchief
that you forgot to change after you'd cut your thumb! The wish _has_
come off, after all. I say, am I as handsome as you are?"
"If you're Cyril, I liked you much better as you were before," said
Anthea decidedly. "You look like the picture of the young chorister,
with your golden hair; you'll die young, I shouldn't wonder. And if
that's Robert, he's like an Italian organ-grinder. His hair's all
black."
"You two girls are like Christmas cards, then--that's all--silly
Christmas cards," said Robert angrily. "And Jane's hair is simply
carrots."
It was indeed of that Venetian tint so much admired by artists.
"Well, it's no use finding fault with each other," said Anthea; "let's
get the Lamb and lug it home to dinner. The servants will admire us most
awfully, you'll see."
Baby was just waking up when they got to him, and not one of the
children but was relieved to find that he at least was not as beautiful
as the day, but just the same as usual.
"I suppose he's too young to have wishes naturally," said Jane. "We
shall have to mention him specially next time."
Anthea ran forward and held out her arms.
"Come, then," she said.
The Baby looked at her disapprovingly, and put a sandy pink thumb in his
mouth. Anthea was his favourite sister.
"Come, then," she said.
"G'way 'long!" said the Baby.
"Come to own Pussy," said Jane.
"Wants my Panty," said the Lamb dismally, and his lip trembled.
"Here, come on, Veteran," said Robert, "come and have a yidey on Yobby's
back."
"Yah, narky narky boy," howled the Baby, giving way altogether. Then the
children knew the worst. _The Baby did not know them!_
They looked at each other in despair, and it was terrible to each, in
this dire emergency, to meet only the beautiful eyes of perfect
strangers, instead of the merry, friendly, commonplace, twinkling, jolly
little eyes of its own brothers and sisters.
"This is most truly awful," said Cyril when he had tried to lift up the
Lamb, and the Lamb had scratched like a cat and bellowed like a bull!
"We've got to _make friends_ with him! I can't carry him home screaming
like that. Fancy having to make friends with our own baby!--it's too
silly."
That, however, was exactly what they had to do. It took over an hour,
and the task was not rendered any easier by the fact that the Lamb was
by this time as hungry as a lion and as thirsty as a desert.
At last he consented to allow these strangers to carry him home by
turns, but as he refused to hold on to such new acquaintances he was a
dead weight, and most exhausting.
"Thank goodness, we're home!" said Jane, staggering through the iron
gate to where Martha, the nursemaid, stood at the front door shading her
eyes with her hand and looking out anxiously. "Here! Do take Baby!"
Martha snatched the Baby from her arms.
"Thanks be, _he's_ safe back," she said. "Where are the others, and
whoever to goodness gracious are all of you?"
"We're _us_, of course," said Robert.
"And who's Us, when you're at home?" asked Martha scornfully.
"I tell you it's _us_, only we're beautiful as the day," said Cyril.
"I'm Cyril, and these are the others, and we're jolly hungry. Let us in,
and don't be a silly idiot."
Martha merely dratted Cyril's impudence and tried to shut the door in
his face.
"I know we _look_ different, but I'm Anthea, and we're so tired, and
it's long past dinner-time."
"Then go home to your dinners, whoever you are; and if our children put
you up to this play-acting you can tell them from me they'll catch it,
so they know what to expect!" With that she did bang the door. Cyril
rang the bell violently. No answer. Presently cook put her head out of a
bedroom window and said--
"If you don't take yourselves off, and that precious sharp, I'll go and
fetch the police." And she slammed down the window.
"It's no good," said Anthea. "Oh, do, do come away before we get sent to
prison!"
The boys said it was nonsense, and the law of England couldn't put you
in prison for just being as beautiful as the day, but all the same they
followed the others out into the lane.
"We shall be our proper selves after sunset, I suppose," said Jane.
"I don't know," Cyril said sadly; "it mayn't be like that now--things
have changed a good deal since Megatherium times."
"Oh," cried Anthea suddenly, "perhaps we shall turn into stone at
sunset, like the Megatheriums did, so that there mayn't be any of us
left over for the next day."
She began to cry, so did Jane. Even the boys turned pale. No one had the
heart to say anything.
It was a horrible afternoon. There was no house near where the children
could beg a crust of bread or even a glass of water. They were afraid to
go to the village, because they had seen Martha go down there with a
basket, and there was a local constable. True, they were all as
beautiful as the day, but that is a poor comfort when you are as hungry
as a hunter and as thirsty as a sponge.
Three times they tried in vain to get the servants in the White House to
let them in and listen to their tale. And then Robert went alone, hoping
to be able to climb in at one of the back windows and so open the door
to the others. But all the windows were out of reach, and Martha emptied
a toilet-jug of cold water over him from a top window, and said--
"Go along with you, you nasty little Eye-talian monkey."
It came at last to their sitting down in a row under the hedge, with
their feet in a dry ditch, waiting for sunset, and wondering whether,
when the sun _did_ set, they would turn into stone, or only into their
own old natural selves; and each of them still felt lonely and among