The Enchanted Castle and Five Children and It

by Edith Nesbit; H. R. Millar; Sanford Schwartz

  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 veranda, 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 like pigeons do their feathers at Christmas time. “The weather’s arctic, and it’s the middle of the night.”

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

  “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,” said she; “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,” 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 round 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 copybooks.”am

  “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,an 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 slap on to one of the winged lions at the top of his father’s great staircase; and what with his stone wings and the lions’ stone wings—well, it’s not a 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?”

  “Autres temps, autres mœurs,”ao 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 treacleap 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 scurry 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’s eyes from one to the other.

  “Not so dusty,” it said dreamily. “But really, Robert, you’re not quite such an angel as you 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 colours, 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 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 knicker-bocker suit—his boots in particular hung helplessly, and seemed much larger than when he was standing in them. But the ot
hers cared but little how he looked—or how they looked, for that matter. For now they all spread out their wings and rose in the air. Of course you all know what flying feels like, because everyone has dreamed about flying, and it 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 running 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 colours on paper, you have real moving sunny woods and green fields laid out one after the 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 right 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 cannot 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, they 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 varmints—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 he 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:

  They flew right over Rochester

  “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 towards 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 three-penny”—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 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.

  This was the case in the matter of the fierce dog who sprang out at them when they had folded up their wings as small as possible and were going up to a farm door to ask for a crust of bread and cheese, for in spite of the plums they were soon just as hungry as ever again.

  Now there is no doubt whatever that, if the four had been ordinary wingless children, that black and fierce dog would have had a good bite out of the brown-stockinged leg of Robert, who was the nearest. But at first growl there was a flutter of wings, and the dog was left to strain at his chain and stand on his hind-legs as if he were trying to fly too.

  The farmer sat down on the grass suddenly

  They tried several other farms, but at those where there were no dogs the people were far too frightened to do anything but scream; and at last when it was nearly four o’clock, and their wings were getting miserably stiff and tired, they alighted on a church-tower and held a council of war.

  “We can’t possibly fly all the way home without dinner or tea,” said Robert with desperate decision.

  “And nobody will give us any dinner, or even lunch, let alone tea,” said Cyril.

  “Perhaps the clergyman here might,” suggested Anthea. “He must know all about angels—”

  “Anybody could see we’re not that,” said Jane. “Look at Robert’s boots and Squirrel’s plaid necktie.”

  “Well,” said Cyril firmly, “if the country you’re in won’t sell provisions, you take them. In wars I mean. I’m quite certain you do. And even in other stories no good brother would allow his little sisters to starve in the midst of plenty.”

  “Plenty?” repeated Robert hungrily; and the others looked vaguely round the bare leads of the church-tower, and murmured, “In the midst of?”

  “Yes,” said Cyril impressively. “There is a larderaq window at the side of the clergyman’s house, and I saw things to eat inside—custard pudding and cold chicken and tongue—and pies—and jam. It’s rather a high window—but with wings—”

  “How clever of you!” said Jane.

  “Not at all,” said Cyril modestly; “any born general—Napoleon or the Duke of Marlborought would have seen it just the same as I did.”

  “It seems very wrong,” said Anthea.

  “Nonsense,” said Cyril. “What was it Sir Philip Sidney said when the soldier wouldn’t stand him a drink?3 ‘My necessity is greater than his.’ ”

  “We’ll club our money, though, and leave it to pay for the things, won’t we?” Anthea was persuasive, and very nearly in tears, because it is most trying to feel enormously hungry and unspeakably sinful at one and the same time.

  “Some of it,” was the cautious reply.

  Everyone now turned out its pockets

  Everyone now turned out its pockets on the lead roof of the tower, where visitors for the last hundred and fifty years had cut their own and their sweethearts’ initials with penknives in the soft lead. There was five-and-sevenpence-half-penny altogether, and even the upright Anthea admitted that that was too much to pay for four people’s dinners. Robert said he thought eighteen pence.

  And half-a-crown was finally agreed to be “handsome.”

  So Anthea wrote on the back of her last term’s report, which happened to be in her pocket, and from which s
he first tore her own name and that of the school, the following letter:Dear Reverend Clergyman,We are very hungry indeed because of having to fly all day, and we think it is not stealing when you are starving to death. We are afraid to ask you for fear you should say “No,” because of course you know about angels, but you would not think we were angels. We will only take the nessessities of life, and no pudding or pie, to show you it is not grediness but true starvation that makes us make your larder stand and deliver. But we are not highwaymen by trade.

  “Cut it short,” said the others with one accord. And Anthea hastily added:Our intentions are quite honourable if you only knew. And here is half-a-crown to show we are sinseer and grateful.Thank you for your kind hospitality.From Us Four.

  The half-crown was wrapped in this letter, and all the children felt that when the clergyman had read it he would understand everything, as well as anyone could who had not seen the wings.

  “Now,” said Cyril, “of course there’s some risk; we’d better fly straight down the other side of the tower and then flutter low across the churchyard and in through the shrubbery. There doesn’t seem to be anyone about. But you never know. The window looks out into the shrubbery. It is embowered in foliage, like a window in a story. I’ll go in and get the things. Robert and Anthea can take them as I hand them out through the window; and Jane can keep watch—her eyes are sharp—and whistle if she sees anyone about. Shut up, Robert! she can whistle quite well enough for that, anyway. It ought not to be a very good whistle—it’ll sound more natural and birdlike. Now then—off we go!”

  These were the necessaries of life, which Cyril handed out of the larder window

  I cannot pretend that stealing is right. I can only say that on this occasion it did not look like stealing to the hungry four, but appeared in the light of a fair and reasonable business transaction. They had never happened to learn that a tongue—hardly cut into—a chicken and a half, a loaf of bread, and a siphon of soda-water cannot be bought in shops for half-a-crown. These were the necessaries of life, which Cyril handed out of the larder window when, quite unobserved and without hindrance or adventure, he had led the others to that happy spot. He felt that to refrain from jam, apple turnovers, cake, and mixed candied peel was a really heroic act—and I agree with him. He was also proud of not taking the custard pudding—and there I think he was wrong—because if he had taken it there would have been a difficulty about returning the dish; no one, however starving, has a right to steal china pie-dishes with little pink flowers on them. The soda-water siphon was different. They could not do without something to drink, and as the maker’s name was on it they felt sure it would be returned to him wherever they might leave it. If they had time they would take it back themselves. The man appeared to live in Rochester, which would not be much out of their way home.