Fairies -- Fiction; Great Britain -- History -- Edward VII, 1901-1910 -- Fiction; Siblings -- Fiction; Wishes -- Fiction
Now you remember that, as a special favour, the Psammead had
arranged that the servants in the house should never notice any
change brought about by the wishes of the children. Therefore
Martha merely saw the usual party, with the baby Lamb, about whom
she had been desperately anxious all the afternoon, trotting beside
Anthea on fat baby legs, while the children, of course, still saw
the grown-up Lamb (never mind what names he was christened by), and
Martha rushed at him and caught him in her arms, exclaiming:
'Come to his own Martha, then - a precious poppet!'
The grown-up Lamb (whose names shall now be buried in oblivion)
struggled furiously. An expression of intense horror and annoyance
was seen on his face. But Martha was stronger than he. She lifted
him up and carried him into the house. None of the children will
ever forget that picture. The neat grey-flannel-suited grown-up
young man with the green tie and the little black moustache -
fortunately, he was slightly built, and not tall - struggling in
the sturdy arms of Martha, who bore him away helpless, imploring
him, as she went, to be a good boy now, and come and have his nice
bremmilk! Fortunately, the sun set as they reached the doorstep,
the bicycle disappeared, and Martha was seen to carry into the
house the real live darling sleepy two-year-old Lamb. The grown-up
Lamb (nameless hence- forth) was gone for ever.
'For ever,' said Cyril, 'because, as soon as ever the Lamb's old
enough to be bullied, we must jolly well begin to bully him, for
his own sake - so that he mayn't grow up like that.'
'You shan't bully him,' said Anthea stoutly; 'not if I can stop
it.'
'We must tame him by kindness,' said Jane.
'You see,' said Robert, 'if he grows up in the usual way, there'll
be plenty of time to correct him as he goes along. The awful thing
to-day was his growing up so suddenly. There was no time to
improve him at all.'
'He doesn't want any improving,' said Anthea as the voice of the
Lamb came cooing through the open door, just as she had heard it in
her heart that afternoon:
'Me loves Panty - wants to come to own Panty!'
CHAPTER 10
SCALPS
Probably the day would have been a greater success if Cyril had not
been reading The Last of the Mohicans. The story was running in
his head at breakfast, and as he took his third cup of tea he said
dreamily, 'I wish there were Red Indians in England - not big ones,
you know, but little ones, just about the right size for us to
fight.'
Everyone disagreed with him at the time, and no one attached any
importance to the incident. But when they went down to the
sand-pit to ask for a hundred pounds in two-shilling pieces with
Queen Victoria's head on, to prevent mistakes - which they had
always felt to be a really reasonable wish that must turn out well
- they found out that they had done it again! For the Psammead,
which was very cross and sleepy, said:
'Oh, don't bother me. You've had your wish.'
'I didn't know it,' said Cyril.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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