“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.”
“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 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,” 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. Goodbye. 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 treacle 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 sandpit without the Lamb.
They did it, and in the lane Anthea, breathless from the skurry 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
