FIVE CHILDREN AND IT by E. NESBIT - CHAPTER 1

The house was three miles from the station, but, before the dusty hired hack
had rattled along for five minutes, the children began to put their heads out
of the carriage window and say, “Aren’t we nearly there?” And every time
they passed a house, which was not very often, they all said, “Oh, is this it?”
But it never was, till they reached the very top of the hill, just past the chalkquarry and before you come to the gravel-pit. And then there was a white
house with a green garden and an orchard beyond, and mother said, “Here
we are!”
“How white the house is,” said Robert.
“And look at the roses,” said Anthea.
“And the plums,” said Jane.
“It is rather decent,” Cyril admitted.
The Baby said, “Wanty go walky;” and the hack stopped with a last rattle
and jolt.
Everyone got its legs kicked or its feet trodden on in the scramble to get out
of the carriage that very minute, but no one seemed to mind. Mother,
curiously enough, was in no hurry to get out; and even when she had come
down slowly and by the step, and with no jump at all, she seemed to wish to
see the boxes carried in, and even to pay the driver, instead of joining in that
first glorious rush round the garden and orchard and the thorny, thistly,
briery, brambly wilderness beyond the broken gate and the dry fountain at
the side of the house. But the children were wiser, for once. It was not really
a pretty house at all; it was quite ordinary, and mother thought it was rather
inconvenient, and was quite annoyed at there being no shelves, to speak of,
and hardly a cupboard in the place. Father used to say that the iron-work on
the roof and coping was like an architect’s nightmare. But the house was
deep in the country, with no other house in sight, and the children had been
in London for two years, without so much as once going to the seaside even  for a day by an excursion train, and so the White House seemed to them a
sort of Fairy Palace set down in an Earthly Paradise. For London is like prison
for children, especially if their relations are not rich.

Of course there are the shops and theatres, and entertainments and things,
but if your people are rather poor you don’t get taken to the theatres, and
you can’t buy things out of the shops; and London has none of those nice
things that children may play with without hurting the things or
themselves—such as trees and sand and woods and waters. And nearly
everything in London is the wrong sort of shape—all straight lines and flat
streets, instead of being all sorts of odd shapes, like things are in the
country. Trees are all different, as you know, and I am sure some tiresome
person must have told you that there are no two blades of grass exactly
alike. But in streets, where the blades of grass don’t grow, everything is like
everything else. This is why many children who live in the towns are so

extremely naughty. They do not know what is the matter with them, and no
more do their fathers and mothers, aunts, uncles, cousins, tutors,
governesses, and nurses; but I know. And so do you, now. Children in the
country are naughty sometimes, too, but that is for quite different reasons.

Of course there are the shops and theatres, and entertainments and things,
but if your people are rather poor you don’t get taken to the theatres, and
you can’t buy things out of the shops; and London has none of those nice
things that children may play with without hurting the things or
themselves—such as trees and sand and woods and waters. And nearly
everything in London is the wrong sort of shape—all straight lines and flat
streets, instead of being all sorts of odd shapes, like things are in the
country. Trees are all different, as you know, and I am sure some tiresome
person must have told you that there are no two blades of grass exactly
alike. But in streets, where the blades of grass don’t grow, everything is like
everything else. This is why many children who live in the towns are so
extremely naughty. They do not know what is the matter with them, and no
more do their fathers and mothers, aunts, uncles, cousins, tutors,
governesses, and nurses; but I know. And so do you, now. Children in the
country are naughty sometimes, too, but that is for quite different reasons.

The children had explored the gardens and the outhouses thoroughly
before they were caught and cleaned for tea, and they saw quite well that
they were certain to be happy at the White House. They thought so from the
first moment, but when they found the back of the house covered with
jasmine, all in white flower, and smelling like a bottle of the most expensive
perfume that is ever given for a birthday present; and when they had seen
the lawn, all green and smooth, and quite different from the brown grass in
the gardens at Camden Town; and when they found the stable with a loft
over it and some old hay still left, they were almost certain; and when
Robert had found the broken swing and tumbled out of it and got a bump
on his head the size of an egg, and Cyril had nipped his finger in the door of

a hutch that seemed made to keep rabbits in, if you ever had any, they had
no longer any doubts whatever.
The best part of it all was that there were no rules about not going to places
and not doing things. In London almost everything is labelled “You mustn’t
touch,” and though the label is invisible it’s just as bad, because you know
it’s there, or if you don’t you very soon get told.
The White House was on the edge of a hill, with a wood behind it—and the
chalk-quarry on one side and the gravel-pit on the other. Down at the
bottom of the hill was a level plain, with queer-shaped white buildings
where people burnt lime, and a big red brewery and other houses; and when
the big chimneys were smoking and the sun was setting, the valley looked
as if it was filled with golden mist, and the limekilns and hop-drying houses
glimmered and glittered till they were like an enchanted city out of
the Arabian Nights.
Now that I have begun to tell you about the place, I feel that I could go on
and make this into a most interesting story about all the ordinary things that
the children did,—just the kind of things you do yourself, you know, and you
would believe every word of it; and when I told about the children’s being
tiresome, as you are sometimes, your aunts would perhaps write in the
margin of the story with a pencil, “How true!” or “How like life!” and you
would see it and would very likely be annoyed. So I will only tell you the
really astonishing things that happened, and you may leave the book about
quite safely, for no aunts and uncles either are likely to write “How true!” on
the edge of the story. Grown-up people find it very difficult to believe really
wonderful things, unless they have what they call proof. But children will
believe almost anything, and grown-ups know this. That is why they tell you
that the earth is round like an orange, when you can see perfectly well that
it is flat and lumpy; and why they say that the earth goes round the sun,
when you can see for yourself any day that the sun gets up in the morning
and goes to bed at night like a good sun as it is, and the earth knows its
place, and lies as still as a mouse. Yet I daresay you believe all that about the
earth and the sun, and if so you will find it quite easy to believe that before
Anthea and Cyril and 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 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 blackpudding 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 toiletjug 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 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 tomorrow, 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.

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