The E. Nesbit Megapack: 26 Classic Novels and Stories (50 page)

Have you ever been up at five o’clock on a fine summer morning? It is very beautiful. The sunlight is pinky and yellowy, and all the grass and trees are covered with dew-diamonds. And all the shadows go the opposite way to the way they do in the evening, which is very interesting and makes you feel as though you were in a new other world.

Anthea woke at five. She had made herself wake, and I must tell y
ou how it is done, even if it keeps you waiting for the story to go on.

You get into bed at night, and lie down quite flat on your little back, with your hands straight down by your sides. Then you say “I
must
wake up at five” (or six, or seven, or eight, or nine, or whatever the time is that you want), and as you say it you push your chin down on your chest and then whack your head back on the pillow. And you do this as many times as there are ones in the time you want to wake up at. (It is quite an easy sum.) Of course everything depends on your really wanting to get up at five (or six, or seven, or eight, or nine); if you don’t really want to, it’s all of no use. But if you do—well, try it and see. Of course in this, as in doing Latin proses or getting into mischief, practice makes perfect.

Anthea was quite perfect.

At the very moment when she opened her eyes she heard the black-and-gold clock down in the dining-room strike eleven. So she knew it was three minutes to five. The black-and-gold clock always struck
wrong, but it was all right when you knew what it meant. It was like a person talking a foreign language. If you know the language it is just as easy to understand as English. And Anthea knew the clock language. She was very sleepy, but she jumped out of bed and put her face and hands into a basin of cold water. This is a fairy charm that prevents your wanting to get back into bed again. Then she dressed, and folded up her night dress. She did not tumble it together by the sleeves, but folded it by the seams from the hem, and that will show you the kind of well-brought-up little girl she was.

Then she took her shoes in her hand and crept softly down the stairs. She opened the dining-room window and climbed out. It would have been just as easy to go out by the door, but the window was more romantic, and less likely to be noticed by Martha.

“I will always get up at five,” she said to herself. “It was quite too awfully pretty for anything.”

Her heart was beating very fast, for she was carrying out a plan quit
e her own. She could not be sure that it was a good plan, but she was quite sure that it would not be any better if she were to tell the others about it. And she had a feeling that, right or wrong, she would rather go through with it alone. She put on her shoes under the iron verandah, on the red-and-yellow shining tiles, and then she ran straight to the sand-pit, and found the Psammead’s place, and dug it out; it was very cross indeed.

“It’s too bad,” it said, fluffing up its fur as pigeons do their feathers at Christmas time. “The weather’s arctic, and it’s the middle of the night.”

“I’m so sorry,” said Anthea gently, and she took off her white pinafore and covered the Sand-fairy up with it, all but its head, its bat’s ears, and its eyes that were like a snail’s eyes.

“Thank you,” it said, “that’s better. What’s the wish this morning?”

“I don’t know,” she said; “that’s just it. You see we’ve been very unlucky, so far. I wanted to talk to you about it. But—would you mind not giving me an
y wishes till after breakfast? It’s so hard to talk to anyone if they jump out at you with wishes you don’t really want!”

“You shouldn’t say you wish for things if you don’t wish for them. In the old days people almost always knew whether it was Megatherium or Ichthyosaurus they really wanted for dinner.”

“I’ll try not to do so,” said Anthea, “but I do wish—”

“Look out!” said the Psammead in a warning voice, and it began to blow itself out.

“Oh, this isn’t a magic wish—it’s just—I should be so glad if you’d not swell yourself out and nearly burst to give me anything just now. Wait till the others are here.”

“Well, well,” it said indulgently, but it shivered.

“Would you,” asked Anthea kindly—“would you like to come and sit on my lap? You’d be warmer, and I could turn the skirt of my frock up around you. I’d be very careful.”

Anthea had never expected th
at it would, but it did.

“Thank you,” it said; “you really are rather thoughtful.” It crept on to her lap and snuggled down, and she put her arms round it with a rather frightened gentleness. “Now then!” it said.

“Well then,” said Anthea, “everything we have wished has turned out rather horrid. I wish you would advise us. You are so old, you must be very wise.”

“I was always generous from a child,” said the Sand-fairy. “I’ve spent the whole of my waking hours in giving. But one thing I won’t give—that’s advice.”

“You see,” Anthea went on, “it’s such a wonderful thing—such a splendid, glorious chance. It’s so good and kind and dear of you to give us our wishes, and it seems such a pity it should all be wasted just because we are too silly to know what to wish for.”

Anthea had meant to say that—and she had not wanted to say it before the others. It’s one thing to say you’re silly, a
nd quite another to say that other people are.

“Child,” said the Sand-fairy sleepily, “I can only advise you to think before you speak—”

“But I thought you never gave advice.”

“That piece doesn’t count,” it said. “You’ll never take it! Besides, it’s not original. It’s in all the copy-books.”

“But won’t you just say if you think wings would be a silly wish?”

“Wings?” it said. “I should think you might do worse. Only, take care you aren’t flying high at sunset. There was a little Ninevite boy I heard of once. He was one of King Sennacherib’s sons, and a traveller brought him a Psammead. He used to keep it in a box of sand on the palace terrace. It was a dreadful degradation for one of us, of course; still the boy
was
the Assyrian King’s son. And one day he wished for wings and got them. But he forgot that they would turn into stone at sunset, and when they did he fell on to one of the winged lions at the top of his father’s great staircase; and what with
his
stone wings and the lion’s stone
wings—well it’s not a very pretty story! But I believe the boy enjoyed himself very much till then.”

“Tell me,” said Anthea, “why don’t our wishes turn into stone now? Why do they just vanish?”

“
Autre temps autres mœurs
,” said the creature.

“Is that the Ninevite language?” asked Anthea, who had learned no foreign language at school except French.

“What I mean is,” the Psammead went on, “that in the old days people wished for good solid everyday gifts,—Mammoths and Pterodactyls and things,—and those could be turned into stone as easy as not. But people wish such high-flying fanciful things nowadays. How are you going to turn being beautiful as the day, or being wanted by everybody, into stone? You see it can’t be done. And it would never do to have two rules, so they simply vanish. If being beautiful as the day
could
be turned into stone it would last an awfully long time, you know—much longer than you would. Just look at the Greek
statues. It’s just as well as it is. Good-bye. I
am
so sleepy.”

It jumped off her lap—dug frantically, and vanished.

Anthea was late for breakfast. It was Robert who quietly poured a spoonful of molasses down the Lamb’s frock, so that he had to be taken away and washed thoroughly directly after breakfast. And it was of course a very naughty thing to do; yet it served two purposes—it delighted the Lamb, who loved above all things to be completely sticky, and it engaged Martha’s attention so that the others could slip away to the sand-pit without the Lamb.

They did it, and in the lane Anthea, breathless from the hurry of that slipping, panted out—

“I want to propose we take turns to wish. Only, nobody’s to have a wish if the others don’t think it’s a nice wish. Do you agree?”

“Who’s to have first wish?” asked Robert cautiously.

“Me, if you don’t mind,” said Anthea apo
logetically. “And I’ve thought about it—and it’s
wings
.”

There was a silence. The others rather wanted to find fault, but it was hard, because the word “wings” raised a flutter of joyous excitement in every breast.

“Not so dusty,” said Cyril generously; and Robert added, “Really, Panther, you’re not quite such a fool as you look.”

Jane said, “I think it would be perfectly lovely. It’s like a bright dream of delirium.”

They found the Sand-fairy easily. Anthea said—

“I wish we all had beautiful wings to fly with.”

The Sand-fairy blew himself out, and next moment each child felt a funny feeling, half heaviness and half lightness, on its shoulders. The Psammead put its head on one side and turned its snail eyes from one side to the other.

“Not so bad,” it s
aid dreamily. “But really, Robert, you’re not quite such an angel as y
ou look.” Robert almost blushed.

The wings were very big, and more beautiful than you can possibly imagine—for they were soft and smooth, and every feather lay neatly in its place. And the feathers were of the most lovely mixed changing colors, like the rainbow, or iridescent glass, or the beautiful scum that sometimes floats on water that is not at all nice to drink.

“Oh—but how can we fly?” Jane said, standing anxiously first on one foot and then on the other.

“Look out!” said Cyril; “you’re treading on my wing.”

“Does it hurt?” asked Anthea with interest; but no one answered, for Robert had spread his wings and jumped up, and now he was slowly rising in the air. He looked very awkward in his knickerbocker suit—his boots in particular hung helplessly, and seemed much larger than when he was standing in them. But the others cared but little how he looked,—or how they looked, for that matter. For now they all spread out their wings and ros
e in the air. Of course you all know what flying feels like, because everyone has dreamed about flying, and is seems so beautifully easy—only, you can never remember how you did it; and as a rule you have to do it without wings, in your dreams, which is more clever and uncommon, but not so easy to remember the rule for. Now the four children rose flapping from the ground, and you can’t think how good the air felt as it ran against their faces. Their wings were tremendously wide when they were spread out, and they had to fly quite a long way apart so as not to get in each other’s way. But little things like this are easily learned.

All the words in the English Dictionary, and in the Greek Lexicon as well, are, I find, of no use at all to tell you exactly what it feels like to be flying, so I will not try. But I will say that to look
down
on the fields and woods instead of
along
at them, is something like looking at a beautiful live map, where, instead of silly colors on paper, you have real moving sunny woods and green fields laid out one after t
he other. As Cyril said, and I can’t think where he got hold of such a strange expression, “It does you a fair treat!” It was most wonderful and more like real magic than any wish the children had had yet. They flapped and flew and sailed on their great rainbow wings, between green earth and blue sky; and they flew over Rochester and then swerved round towards Maidstone, and presently they all began to feel extremely hungry. Curiously enough, this happened when they were flying rather low, and just as they were crossing an orchard where some early plums shone red and ripe.

They paused on their wings. I c
annot explain to you how this is done, but it is something like treading water when you are swimming, and hawks do it extremely well.

“Yes, I daresay,” said Cyril, though no one had spoken. “But stealing is stealing even if you’ve got wings.”

“Do you really think so?” said Jane briskly. “If you’ve got wings you’re a bird, and no one minds birds breaking the commandments. At least, t
hey may
mind
, but the birds always do it, and no one scolds them or sends them to prison.”

It was not so easy to perch on a plum-tree as you might think, because the rainbow wings were so
very
large; but somehow they all managed to do it, and the plums were certainly very sweet and juicy.

Fortunately, it was not till they had all had quite as many plums as were good for them that they saw a stout man, who looked exactly as though he owned the plum-trees, come hurrying through the orchard gate with a thick stick, and with one accord they disentangled their wings from the plum-laden branches and began to fly.

The man stopped short, with his mouth open. For he had seen the boughs of his trees moving and twitching, and he had said to himself, “Them young varmint—at it again!” And he had come out at once, for the lads of the village had taught him in past seasons that plums want looking after. But when he saw the rainbow wings flutter up out of the plum-tree h
e felt that he must have gone quite mad, and he did not like the feeling at all. And when Anthea looked down and saw his mouth go slowly open, and stay so, and his face become green and mauve in patches, she called out—

“Don’t be frightened,” and felt hastily in her pocket for a threepenny-bit with a hole in it, which she had meant to hang on a ribbon round her neck, for luck. She hovered round the unfortunate plum-owner, and said, “We have had some of your plums; we thought it wasn’t stealing, but now I am not so sure. So here’s some money to pay for them.”

She swooped down toward the terror-stricken grower of plums, and slipped the coin into the pocket of his jacket, and in a few flaps she had rejoined the others.

The farmer sat down on the grass, suddenly and heavily.

“Well
—I’m blessed!” he said. “This here is what they call delusions, I suppose. But this here threepenny”—he had pulled it out and bitten it,—“
that’s
real enough. Well, from this day
forth I’ll be a better man. It’s the kind of thing to sober a chap for life, this is. I’m glad it was only wings, though. I’d rather see the birds as aren’t there, and couldn’t be, even if they pretend to talk, than some things as I could name.”

He got up slowly and heavily, and went indoors, and he was so nice to his wife that day that she felt quite happy, and said to herself, “Law, whatever have a-come to the man!” and smartened herself up and put a blue ribbon bow at the place where her collar fastened on, and looked so pretty that he was kinder than ever. So perhaps the winged children really did do one good thing that day. If so, it was the only one; for really there is nothing like wings for getting you into trouble. But, on the other hand, if you are in trouble, there is nothing like wings for getting you out of it.