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

and rivers and trees and towns and farms and fields. It reminded everybody of a certain time when all of them had had wings, and had flown up to the top of a church tower, and had had a feast there of chicken and tongue and new bread and soda-water. And this again reminded them how hungry they were. And just as they were all being reminded of this very strongly indeed, they saw ahead of them some ruined walls on a hill, and strong and upright, and really, to look at, as good as new—a great square tower.

‘The top of that’s just the exactly same size as the carpet,’ said Jane. ‘I think it would be good to go to the top of that, because then none of the Abby-what’s-its-names—I mean natives—would be able to take the carpet away even if they wanted to. And some of us could go out and get things to eat—buy them honestly, I mean, not take them out of larder windows.’

‘I think it would be better if we went—’ Anthea was beginning; but Jane suddenly clenched her hands.

‘I don’t see why I should never do anything I want, just because I’m the youngest. I wish the carpet would fit itself in at the top of that tower—so there!’

The carpet made a disconcerting bound, and next moment it was hovering above the square top of the tower. Then slowly and carefully it began to sink under them. It was like a lift going down with you at the Army and Navy Stores.

‘I don’t think we ought to wish things without all agreeing to them first,’ said Robert, huffishly. ‘Hullo! What on earth?’

For unexpectedly and greyly something was coming up all round the four sides of the carpet. It was as if a wall were being built by magic quickness. It was a foot high—it was two feet high—three, four, five. It was shutting out the light—more and more.

Anthea looked up at the sky and the walls that now rose six feet above them.

‘We’re dropping into the tower,’ she screamed. ‘THERE WASN’T ANY TOP TO IT. So the carpet’s going to fit itself in at the bottom.’

Robert sprang to his feet.

‘We ought to have—Hullo! an owl’s nest.’ He put his knee on a jutting smooth piece of grey stone, and reached his hand into a deep window slit—broad to the inside of the tower, and narrowing like a funnel to the outside.

‘Look sharp!’ cried every one, but Robert did not look sharp enough. By the time he had drawn his hand out of the owl’s nest—there were no eggs there—the carpet had sunk eight feet below him.

‘Jump, you silly cuckoo!’ cried Cyril, with brotherly anxiety.

But Robert couldn’t turn round all in a minute into a jumping position. He wriggled and twisted and got on to the broad ledge, and by the time he was ready to jump the walls of the tower had risen up thirty feet above the others, who were still sinking with the carpet, and Robert found himself in the embrasure of a window; alone, for even the owls were not at home that day. The wall was smoothish; there was no climbing up, and as for climbing down—Robert hid his face in his hands, and squirmed back and back from the giddy verge, until the back part of him was wedged quite tight in the narrowest part of the window slit.

He was safe now, of course, but the outside part of his window was like a frame to a picture of part of the other side of the tower. It was very pretty, with moss growing between the stones and little shiny gems; but between him and it there was the width of the tower, and nothing in it but empty air. The situation was terrible. Robert saw in a flash that the carpet was likely to bring them into just the same sort of tight places that they used to get into with the wishes the Psammead granted them.

And the others—imagine their feelings as the carpet sank slowly and steadily to the very bottom of the tower, leaving Robert clinging to the wall. Robert did not even try to imagine their feelings—he had quite enough to do with his own; but you can.

As soon as the carpet came to a stop on the ground at the bottom of the inside of the tower it suddenly lost that raft-like stiffness which had been such a comfort during the journey from Camden Town to the topless tower, and spread itself limply over the loose stones and little earthy mounds at the bottom of the tower, just exactly like any ordinary carpet. Also it shrank suddenly, so that it seemed to draw away from under their feet, and they stepped quickly off the edges and stood on the firm ground, while the carpet drew itself in till it was its proper size, and no longer fitted exactly into the inside of the tower, but left quite a big space all round it.

Then across the carpet they looked at each other, and then every chin was tilted up and every eye sought vainly to see where poor Robert had got to. Of course, they couldn’t see him.

‘I wish we hadn’t come,’ said Jane.

‘You always do,’ said Cyril, briefly. ‘Look here, we can’t leave Robert up there. I wish the carpet would fetch him down.’

The carpet seemed to awake from a dream and pull itself together. It stiffened itself briskly and floated up between the four walls of the tower. The children below craned their heads back, and nearly broke their necks in doing it. The carpet rose and rose. It hung poised darkly above them for an anxious moment or two; then it dropped down again, threw itself on the uneven floor of the tower, and as it did so it tumbled Robert out on the uneven floor of the tower.

‘Oh, glory!’ said Robert, ‘that was a squeak. You don’t know how I felt. I say, I’ve had about enough for a bit. Let’s wish ourselves at home again and have a go at that jam tart and mutton. We can go out again afterwards.’

‘Righto!’ said every one, for the adventure had shaken the nerves of all. So they all got on to the carpet again, and said—

‘I wish we were at home.’

And lo and behold, they were no more at home than before. The carpet never moved. The Phoenix had taken the opportunity to go to sleep. Anthea woke it up gently.

‘Look here,’ she said.

‘I’m looking,’ said the Phoenix.

‘We WISHED to be at home, and we’re still here,’ complained Jane.

‘No,’ said the Phoenix, looking about it at the high dark walls of the tower. ‘No; I quite see that.’

‘But we wished to be at home,’ said Cyril.

‘No doubt,’ said the bird, politely.

‘And the carpet hasn’t moved an inch,’ said Robert.

‘No,’ said the Phoenix, ‘I see it hasn’t.’

‘But I thought it was a wishing carpet?’