The Phoenix and the Carpet, E. Nesbit [best summer reads .TXT] 📗

wouldn’t do,’ said Cyril. ‘Let’s chuck it and go to the North Pole, or somewhere really interesting.’

‘No,’ said the girls together, ‘there must be SOME way.’

‘Wait a sec,’ Anthea added. ‘I’ve got an idea coming. Don’t speak.’

There was a silence as she paused with the darning-needle in the air! Suddenly she spoke:

‘I see. Let’s tell the carpet to take us somewhere where we can get the money for mother’s present, and—and—and get it some way that she’ll believe in and not think wrong.’

‘Well, I must say you are learning the way to get the most out of the carpet,’ said Cyril. He spoke more heartily and kindly than usual, because he remembered how Anthea had refrained from snarking him about tearing the carpet.

‘Yes,’ said the Phoenix, ‘you certainly are. And you have to remember that if you take a thing out it doesn’t stay in.’

No one paid any attention to this remark at the time, but afterwards every one thought of it.

‘Do hurry up, Panther,’ said Robert; and that was why Anthea did hurry up, and why the big darn in the middle of the carpet was all open and webby like a fishing net, not tight and close like woven cloth, which is what a good, well-behaved darn should be.

Then every one put on its outdoor things, the Phoenix fluttered on to the mantelpiece and arranged its golden feathers in the glass, and all was ready. Every one got on to the carpet.

‘Please go slowly, dear carpet,’ Anthea began; we like to see where we’re going.’ And then she added the difficult wish that had been decided on.

Next moment the carpet, stiff and raftlike, was sailing over the roofs of Kentish Town.

‘I wish—No, I don’t mean that. I mean it’s a PITY we aren’t higher up,’ said Anthea, as the edge of the carpet grazed a chimney-pot.

‘That’s right. Be careful,’ said the Phoenix, in warning tones. ‘If you wish when you’re on a wishing carpet, you DO wish, and there’s an end of it.’

So for a short time no one spoke, and the carpet sailed on in calm magnificence over St Pancras and King’s Cross stations and over the crowded streets of Clerkenwell.

‘We’re going out Greenwich way,’ said Cyril, as they crossed the streak of rough, tumbled water that was the Thames. ‘We might go and have a look at the Palace.’

On and on the carpet swept, still keeping much nearer to the chimney-pots than the children found at all comfortable. And then, just over New Cross, a terrible thing happened.

Jane and Robert were in the middle of the carpet. Part of them was on the carpet, and part of them—the heaviest part—was on the great central darn.

‘It’s all very misty,’ said Jane; ‘it looks partly like out of doors and partly like in the nursery at home. I feel as if I was going to have measles; everything looked awfully rum then, remember.’

‘I feel just exactly the same,’ Robert said.

‘It’s the hole,’ said the Phoenix; ‘it’s not measles whatever that possession may be.’

And at that both Robert and Jane suddenly, and at once, made a bound to try and get on to the safer part of the carpet, and the darn gave way and their boots went up, and the heavy heads and bodies of them went down through the hole, and they landed in a position something between sitting and sprawling on the flat leads on the top of a high, grey, gloomy, respectable house whose address was 705, Amersham Road, New Cross.

The carpet seemed to awaken to new energy as soon as it had got rid of their weight, and it rose high in the air. The others lay down flat and peeped over the edge of the rising carpet.

‘Are you hurt?’ cried Cyril, and Robert shouted ‘No,’ and next moment the carpet had sped away, and Jane and Robert were hidden from the sight of the others by a stack of smoky chimneys.

‘Oh, how awful!’ said Anthea.

‘It might have been worse,’ said the Phoenix. ‘What would have been the sentiments of the survivors if that darn had given way when we were crossing the river?’

‘Yes, there’s that,’ said Cyril, recovering himself. ‘They’ll be all right. They’ll howl till some one gets them down, or drop tiles into the front garden to attract attention of passersby. Bobs has got my one-and-fivepence—lucky you forgot to mend that hole in my pocket, Panther, or he wouldn’t have had it. They can tram it home.’

But Anthea would not be comforted.

‘It’s all my fault,’ she said. ‘I KNEW the proper way to darn, and I didn’t do it. It’s all my fault. Let’s go home and patch the carpet with your Etons—something really strong—and send it to fetch them.’

‘All right,’ said Cyril; ‘but your Sunday jacket is stronger than my Etons. We must just chuck mother’s present, that’s all. I wish—’

‘Stop!’ cried the Phoenix; ‘the carpet is dropping to earth.’

And indeed it was.

It sank swiftly, yet steadily, and landed on the pavement of the Deptford Road. It tipped a little as it landed, so that Cyril and Anthea naturally walked off it, and in an instant it had rolled itself up and hidden behind a gate-post. It did this so quickly that not a single person in the Deptford Road noticed it. The Phoenix rustled its way into the breast of Cyril’s coat, and almost at the same moment a well-known voice remarked—

‘Well, I never! What on earth are you doing here?’

They were face to face with their pet uncle—their Uncle Reginald.

‘We DID think of going to Greenwich Palace and talking about Nelson,’ said Cyril, telling as much of the truth as he thought his uncle could believe.

‘And where are the others?’ asked Uncle Reginald.

‘I don’t exactly know,’ Cyril replied, this time quite truthfully.

‘Well,’ said Uncle Reginald, ‘I must fly. I’ve a case in the County Court. That’s the worst of being a beastly solicitor. One can’t take the chances of life when one gets them. If only I could come with you to the Painted Hall and give you lunch at the “Ship” afterwards! But, alas! it may not be.’

The uncle felt in his pocket.

‘I mustn’t enjoy myself,’ he said, ‘but that’s no reason why you shouldn’t. Here, divide this by four, and the product ought to give you some desired result. Take care of yourselves. Adieu.’

And waving a cheery farewell with his neat umbrella, the good and high-hatted uncle passed away, leaving Cyril and Anthea to exchange eloquent glances over the shining golden sovereign that lay in Cyril’s hand.