Fairies -- Fiction; Great Britain -- History -- Edward VII, 1901-1910 -- Fiction; Siblings -- Fiction; Wishes -- Fiction
Anthea awoke at five. She had made herself wake, and I must tell
you 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 to your chest and then bang 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 nightgown. 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 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.'
'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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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