Five Children and It
strangers, and tried not to look at the others, for, though their voices
were their own, their faces were so radiantly beautiful as to be quite
irritating to look at.
"I don't believe we _shall_ turn to stone," said Robert, breaking a long
miserable silence, "because the Sand-fairy said he'd give us another
wish to-morrow, and he couldn't if we were stone, could he?"
The others said "No," but they weren't at all comforted.
Another silence, longer and more miserable, was broken by Cyril's
suddenly saying, "I don't want to frighten you girls, but I believe it's
beginning with me already. My foot's quite dead. I'm turning to stone, I
know I am, and so will you in a minute."
"Never mind," said Robert kindly, "perhaps you'll be the only stone one,
and the rest of us will be all right, and we'll cherish your statue and
hang garlands on it."
But when it turned out that Cyril's foot had only gone to sleep through
his sitting too long with it under him, and when it came to life in an
agony of pins and needles, the others were quite cross.
"Giving us such a fright for nothing!" said Anthea.
The third and miserablest silence of all was broken by Jane. She
said--
"If we _do_ come out of this all right, we'll ask the Sammyadd to make
it so that the servants don't notice anything different, no matter what
wishes we have."
The others only grunted. They were too wretched even to make good
resolutions.
At last hunger and fright and crossness and tiredness--four very nasty
things--all joined together to bring one nice thing, and that was sleep.
The children lay asleep in a row, with their beautiful eyes shut and
their beautiful mouths open. Anthea woke first. The sun had set, and the
twilight was coming on.
Anthea pinched herself very hard, to make sure, and when she found she
could still feel pinching she decided that she was not stone, and then
she pinched the others. They, also, were soft.
"Wake up," she said, almost in tears for joy; "it's all right, we're not
stone. And oh, Cyril, how nice and ugly you do look, with your old
freckles and your brown hair and your little eyes. And so do you all!"
she added, so that they might not feel jealous.
When they got home they were very much scolded by Martha, who told them
about the strange children.
"A good-looking lot, I must say, but that impudent."
"I know," said Robert, who knew by experience how hopeless it would be
to try to explain things to Martha.
"And where on earth have you been all this time, you naughty little
things, you?"
"In the lane."
"Why didn't you come home hours ago?"
"We couldn't because of _them_," said Anthea.
"Who?"
"The children who were as beautiful as the day. They kept us there till
after sunset. We couldn't come back till they'd gone. You don't know how
we hated them! Oh, do, do give us some supper--we are so hungry."
"Hungry! I should think so," said Martha angrily; "out all day like
this. Well, I hope it'll be a lesson to you not to go picking up with
strange children--down here after measles, as likely as not! Now mind,
if you see them again, don't you speak to them--not one word nor so
much as a look--but come straight away and tell me. I'll spoil their
beauty for them!"
"If ever we _do_ see them again we'll tell you," Anthea said; and
Robert, fixing his eyes fondly on the cold beef that was being brought
in on a tray by cook, added in heartfelt undertones--
"And we'll take jolly good care we never _do_ see them again."
And they never have.
CHAPTER II
GOLDEN GUINEAS
Anthea woke in the morning from a very real sort of dream, in which she
was walking in the Zoological Gardens on a pouring wet day without an
umbrella. The animals seemed desperately unhappy because of the rain,
and were all growling gloomily. When she awoke, both the growling and
the rain went on just the same. The growling was the heavy regular
breathing of her sister Jane, who had a slight cold and was still
asleep. The rain fell in slow drops on to Anthea's face from the wet
corner of a bath-towel out of which her brother Robert was gently
squeezing the water, to wake her up, as he now explained.
"Oh, drop it!" she said rather crossly; so he did, for he was not a
brutal brother, though very ingenious in apple-pie beds, booby-traps,
original methods of awakening sleeping relatives, and the other
little accomplishments which make home happy.
"I had such a funny dream," Anthea began.
"So did I," said Jane, wakening suddenly and without warning. "I dreamed
we found a Sand-fairy in the gravel-pits, and it said it was a Sammyadd,
and we might have a new wish every day, and"----
"But that's what _I_ dreamed," said Robert; "I was just going to tell
you,--and we had the first wish directly it said so. And I dreamed you
girls were donkeys enough to ask for us all to be beautiful as day, and
we jolly well were, and it was perfectly beastly."
"But _can_ different people all dream the same thing?" said Anthea,
sitting up in bed, "because I dreamed all that as well as about the Zoo
and the rain; and Baby didn't know us in my dream, and the servants shut
us out of the house because the radiantness of our beauty was such a
complete disguise, and"----
The voice of the eldest brother sounded from across the landing.
"Come on, Robert," it said, "you'll be late for breakfast again--unless
you mean to shirk your bath as you did on Tuesday."
"I say, come here a second," Robert replied; "I didn't shirk it; I had
it after brekker in father's dressing-room because ours was emptied
away."
Cyril appeared in the doorway, partially clothed.
"Look here," said Anthea, "we've all had such an odd dream. We've all
dreamed we found a Sand-fairy."
Her voice died away before Cyril's contemptuous glance.
"Dream?" he said; "you little sillies, it's _true_. I tell you it all
happened. That's why I'm so keen on being down early. We'll go up there
directly after brekker, and have another wish. Only we'll make up our
minds, solid, before we go, what it is we do want, and no one must ask
for anything unless the others agree first. No more peerless beauties
for this child, thank you. Not if I know it!"
The other three dressed, with their mouths open. If all that dream about
the Sand-fairy was real, this real dressing seemed very like a dream,
the girls thought. Jane felt that Cyril was right, but Anthea was not
sure, till after they had seen Martha and heard her full and plain
reminders about their naughty conduct the day before. Then Anthea was
sure.
"Because," said she, "servants never dream anything but the things in
the Dream-book, like snakes and oysters and going to a wedding--that
means a funeral, and snakes are a false female friend, and oysters are
babies."
"Talking of babies," said Cyril, "where's the Lamb?"
"Martha's going to take him to Rochester to see her cousins. Mother said
she might. She's dressing him now," said Jane, "in his very best coat
and hat. Bread-and-butter, please."
"She seems to like taking him too," said Robert in a tone of wonder.
"Servants _do_ like taking babies to see their relations," Cyril said;
"I've noticed it before--especially in their best clothes."
"I expect they pretend they're their own babies, and that they're not
servants at all, but married to noble dukes of high degree, and they say
the babies are the little dukes and duchesses," Jane suggested dreamily,
taking more marmalade. "I expect that's what Martha'll say to her
cousin. She'll enjoy herself most frightfully."
"She won't enjoy herself most frightfully carrying our infant duke to
Rochester," said Robert; "not if she's anything like me--she won't."
"Fancy walking to Rochester with the Lamb on your back!" said Cyril in
full agreement.
"She's gone by the carrier's cart," said Jane. "Let's see them off, then
we shall have done a polite and kindly act, and we shall be quite sure
we've got rid of them for the day."
So they did.
Martha wore her Sunday dress of two shades of purple, so tight in the
chest that it made her stoop, and her blue hat with the pink
cornflowers and white ribbon. She had a yellow-lace collar with a green
bow. And the Lamb had indeed his very best cream-colored silk coat and
hat. It was a smart party that the carrier's cart picked up at the Cross
Roads. When its white tilt and red wheels had slowly vanished in a swirl
of chalk-dust--
"And now for the Sammyadd!" said Cyril, and off they went.
As they went they decided on the wish they would ask for. Although they
were all in a great hurry they did not try to climb down the sides of
the gravel-pit, but went round by the safe lower road, as if they had
been carts.
They had made a ring of stones round the place where the Sand-fairy had
disappeared, so they easily found the spot. The sun was burning and
bright, and the sky was deep blue--without a cloud. The sand was very
hot to touch.
"Oh--suppose it was only a dream, after all," Robert said as the boys
uncovered their spades from the sand-heap where they had buried them
and began to dig.
"Suppose you were a sensible chap," said Cyril; "one's quite as likely
as the other!"
"Suppose you kept a civil tongue in your head," Robert snapped.
"Suppose we girls take a turn," said Jane, laughing. "You boys seem to
be getting very warm."
"Suppose you don't come putting your silly oar in," said Robert, who was
now warm indeed.
"We won't," said Anthea quickly. "Robert dear, don't be so grumpy--we
won't say a word, you shall be the one to speak to the Fairy and tell
him what we've decided to wish for. You'll say it much better than we
shall."
"Suppose you drop being a little humbug," said Robert, but not crossly.
"Look out--dig with your hands, now!"
So they did, and presently uncovered the spider-shaped brown hairy body,
long arms and legs, bat's ears and snail's eyes of the Sand-fairy
himself. Everyone drew a deep breath of satisfaction, for now of course
it couldn't have been a dream.
The Psammead sat up and shook the sand out of its fur.
"How's your left whisker this morning?" said Anthea politely.
"Nothing to boast of," said it; "it had rather a restless night. But
thank you for asking."
"I say," said Robert, "do you feel up to giving wishes to-day, because
we very much want an extra besides the regular one? The extra's a very
little one," he added reassuringly.
"Humph!" said the Sand-fairy. (If you read this story aloud, please
pronounce "humph" exactly as it is spelt, for that is how he said it.)
"Humph! Do you know, until I heard you being disagreeable to each other
just over my head, and so loud too, I really quite thought I had dreamed
you all. I do have very odd dreams sometimes."
"Do you?" Jane hurried to say, so as to get away from the subject of
disagreeableness. "I wish," she added politely, "you'd tell us about
your dreams--they must be awfully interesting"--
"Is that the day's wish?" said the Sand-fairy, yawning.
Cyril muttered something about "just like a girl," and the rest stood
silent. If they said "Yes," then good-bye to the other wishes they had
decided to ask for. If they said "No," it would be very rude, and they
had all been taught manners, and had learned a little too, which is not
at all the same thing. A sigh of relief broke from all lips when the
Sand-fairy said--
"If I do, I shan't have strength to give you a second wish; not even
good tempers, or common-sense, or manners, or little things like that."
"We don't want you to put yourself out at all about _these_ things, we
can manage them quite well ourselves," said Cyril eagerly; while the