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

‘No altar, no fire, no incense!’ and then, before any of the children could even begin to think of stopping it, it spread its bright wings and swept round the theatre, brushing its gleaming feathers against delicate hangings and gilded woodwork.

It seemed to have made but one circular wing-sweep, such as you may see a gull make over grey water on a stormy day. Next moment it was perched again on the chair-back—and all round the theatre, where it had passed, little sparks shone like tinsel seeds, then little smoke wreaths curled up like growing plants—little flames opened like flower-buds. People whispered—then people shrieked.

‘Fire! Fire!’ The curtain went down—the lights went up.

‘Fire!’ cried every one, and made for the doors.

‘A magnificent idea!’ said the Phoenix, complacently. ‘An enormous altar—fire supplied free of charge. Doesn’t the incense smell delicious?’

The only smell was the stifling smell of smoke, of burning silk, or scorching varnish.

The little flames had opened now into great flame-flowers. The people in the theatre were shouting and pressing towards the doors.

‘Oh, how COULD you!’ cried Jane. ‘Let’s get out.’

‘Father said stay here,’ said Anthea, very pale, and trying to speak in her ordinary voice.

‘He didn’t mean stay and be roasted,’ said Robert. ‘No boys on burning decks for me, thank you.’

‘Not much,’ said Cyril, and he opened the door of the box.

But a fierce waft of smoke and hot air made him shut it again. It was not possible to get out that way.

They looked over the front of the box. Could they climb down?

It would be possible, certainly; but would they be much better off?

‘Look at the people,’ moaned Anthea; ‘we couldn’t get through.’

And, indeed, the crowd round the doors looked as thick as flies in the jam-making season.

‘I wish we’d never seen the Phoenix,’ cried Jane.

Even at that awful moment Robert looked round to see if the bird had overheard a speech which, however natural, was hardly polite or grateful.

The Phoenix was gone.

‘Look here,’ said Cyril, ‘I’ve read about fires in papers; I’m sure it’s all right. Let’s wait here, as father said.’

‘We can’t do anything else,’ said Anthea bitterly.

‘Look here,’ said Robert, ‘I’m NOT frightened—no, I’m not. The Phoenix has never been a skunk yet, and I’m certain it’ll see us through somehow. I believe in the Phoenix!’

‘The Phoenix thanks you, O Robert,’ said a golden voice at his feet, and there was the Phoenix itself, on the Wishing Carpet.

‘Quick!’ it said. ‘Stand on those portions of the carpet which are truly antique and authentic—and—’

A sudden jet of flame stopped its words. Alas! the Phoenix had unconsciously warmed to its subject, and in the unintentional heat of the moment had set fire to the paraffin with which that morning the children had anointed the carpet. It burned merrily. The children tried in vain to stamp it out. They had to stand back and let it burn itself out. When the paraffin had burned away it was found that it had taken with it all the darns of Scotch heather-mixture fingering. Only the fabric of the old carpet was left—and that was full of holes.

‘Come,’ said the Phoenix, ‘I’m cool now.’

The four children got on to what was left of the carpet. Very careful they were not to leave a leg or a hand hanging over one of the holes. It was very hot—the theatre was a pit of fire. Every one else had got out.

Jane had to sit on Anthea’s lap.

‘Home!’ said Cyril, and instantly the cool draught from under the nursery door played upon their legs as they sat. They were all on the carpet still, and the carpet was lying in its proper place on the nursery floor, as calm and unmoved as though it had never been to the theatre or taken part in a fire in its life.

Four long breaths of deep relief were instantly breathed. The draught which they had never liked before was for the moment quite pleasant. And they were safe. And every one else was safe. The theatre had been quite empty when they left. Every one was sure of that.

They presently found themselves all talking at once. Somehow none of their adventures had given them so much to talk about. None other had seemed so real.

‘Did you notice—?’ they said, and ‘Do you remember—?’

When suddenly Anthea’s face turned pale under the dirt which it had collected on it during the fire.

‘Oh,’ she cried, ‘mother and father! Oh, how awful! They’ll think we’re burned to cinders. Oh, let’s go this minute and tell them we aren’t.’

‘We should only miss them,’ said the sensible Cyril.

‘Well—YOU go then,’ said Anthea, ‘or I will. Only do wash your face first. Mother will be sure to think you are burnt to a cinder if she sees you as black as that, and she’ll faint or be ill or something. Oh, I wish we’d never got to know that Phoenix.’

‘Hush!’ said Robert; ‘it’s no use being rude to the bird. I suppose it can’t help its nature. Perhaps we’d better wash too. Now I come to think of it my hands are rather—’

No one had noticed the Phoenix since it had bidden them to step on the carpet. And no one noticed that no one had noticed.

All were partially clean, and Cyril was just plunging into his great-coat to go and look for his parents—he, and not unjustly, called it looking for a needle in a bundle of hay—when the sound of father’s latchkey in the front door sent every one bounding up the stairs.

‘Are you all safe?’ cried mother’s voice; ‘are you all safe?’ and the next moment she was kneeling on the linoleum of the hall, trying to kiss four damp children at once, and laughing and crying by turns, while father stood looking on and saying he was blessed or something.

‘But how did you guess we’d come home,’ said Cyril, later, when every one was calm enough for talking.

‘Well, it was rather a rum thing. We heard the Garrick was on fire, and of course we went straight there,’ said father, briskly. ‘We couldn’t find you, of course—and we couldn’t get in—but the firemen told us every one was safely out. And then I heard a voice at my ear say, “Cyril, Anthea, Robert, and Jane”—and something touched me on the shoulder. It was a great yellow pigeon, and it got in the way of my seeing who’d spoken. It fluttered off, and then some one said in the other ear, “They’re safe at home”; and when I turned again, to see who it was