Edith Nesbit: Children's Books Collection (Illustrated Edition). Эдит Несбит
(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 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 quite 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 any 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 that 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, and 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 apologetically. "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