Five Children and It, E. Nesbit [good summer reads TXT] 📗

to Anthea’s pleading and accepted her despicable apology, Robert could not, in honour, have done anything to him at any future time. But Robert’s fears, if he had any, were soon dispelled. Chivalry was a stranger to the breast of the baker’s boy. He pushed Anthea away very roughly, and he chased Robert with kicks and unpleasant conversation right down the road to the sandpit, and there, with one last kick, he landed him in a heap of sand.

“I’ll larn you, you young varmint!” he said, and went off to pick up his loaves and go about his business. Cyril, impeded by Jane, could do nothing without hurting her, for she clung round his legs with the strength of despair. The baker’s boy went off red and damp about the face; abusive to the last, he called them a pack of silly idiots, and disappeared round the corner. Then Jane’s grasp loosened. Cyril turned away in silent dignity to follow Robert, and the girls followed him, weeping without restraint.

It was not a happy party that flung itself down in the sand beside the sobbing Robert. For Robert was sobbing⁠—mostly with rage. Though of course I know that a really heroic boy is always dry-eyed after a fight. But then he always wins, which had not been the case with Robert.

Cyril was angry with Jane; Robert was furious with Anthea; the girls were miserable; and not one of the four was pleased with the baker’s boy. There was, as French writers say, “a silence full of emotion.”

Then Robert dug his toes and his hands into the sand and wriggled in his rage. “He’d better wait till I’m grown up⁠—the cowardly brute! Beast!⁠—I hate him! But I’ll pay him out. Just because he’s bigger than me.”

“You began,” said Jane incautiously.

“I know I did, silly⁠—but I was only rotting⁠—and he kicked me⁠—look here⁠—”

Robert tore down a stocking and showed a purple bruise touched up with red.

“I only wish I was bigger than him, that’s all.”

He dug his fingers in the sand, and sprang up, for his hand had touched something furry. It was the Psammead, of course⁠—“On the lookout to make sillies of them as usual,” as Cyril remarked later. And of course the next moment Robert’s wish was granted, and he was bigger than the baker’s boy. Oh, but much, much bigger. He was bigger than the big policeman who used to be at the crossing at the Mansion House years ago⁠—the one who was so kind in helping old ladies over the crossing⁠—and he was the biggest man I have ever seen, as well as the kindest. No one had a foot-rule in its pocket, so Robert could not be measured⁠—but he was taller than your father would be if he stood on your mother’s head, which I am sure he would never be unkind enough to do. He must have been ten or eleven feet high, and as broad as a boy of that height ought to be. His Norfolk suit had fortunately grown too, and now he stood up in it⁠—with one of his enormous stockings turned down to show the gigantic bruise on his vast leg. Immense tears of fury still stood on his flushed giant face. He looked so surprised, and he was so large to be wearing an Eton collar, that the others could not help laughing.

“The Sammyadd’s done us again,” said Cyril.

“Not us⁠—me,” said Robert. “If you’d got any decent feeling you’d try to make it make you the same size. You’ve no idea how silly it feels,” he added thoughtlessly.

“And I don’t want to; I can jolly well see how silly it looks,” Cyril was beginning; but Anthea said⁠—

“Oh, don’t! I don’t know what’s the matter with you boys today. Look here, Squirrel, let’s play fair. It is hateful for poor old Bobs, all alone up there. Let’s ask the Sammyadd for another wish, and, if it will, I do really think we ought to be made the same size.”

The others agreed, but not gaily; but when they found the Psammead, it wouldn’t.

“Not I,” it said crossly, rubbing its face with its feet. “He’s a rude violent boy, and it’ll do him good to be the wrong size for a bit. What did he want to come digging me out with his nasty wet hands for? He nearly touched me! He’s a perfect savage. A boy of the Stone Age would have had more sense.”

Robert’s hands had indeed been wet⁠—with tears.

“Go away and leave me in peace, do,” the Psammead went on. “I can’t think why you don’t wish for something sensible⁠—something to eat or drink, or good manners, or good tempers. Go along with you, do!”

It almost snarled as it shook its whiskers, and turned a sulky brown back on them. The most hopeful felt that further parley was vain.

They turned again to the colossal Robert.

“What ever shall we do?” they said; and they all said it.

“First,” said Robert grimly, “I’m going to reason with that baker’s boy. I shall catch him at the end of the road.”

“Don’t hit a chap littler than yourself, old man,” said Cyril.

“Do I look like hitting him?” said Robert scornfully. “Why, I should kill him. But I’ll give him something to remember. Wait till I pull up my stocking.” He pulled up his stocking, which was as large as a small bolster-case, and strode off. His strides were six or seven feet long, so that it was quite easy for him to be at the bottom of the hill, ready to meet the baker’s boy when he came down swinging the empty basket to meet his master’s cart, which had been leaving bread at the cottages along the road.

Robert crouched behind a haystack in the farmyard, that is at the corner, and when he heard the boy come whistling along he jumped out at him and caught him by the collar.

“Now,” he said, and his voice was about four times its usual size, just as his body