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

Cyril, thrust a stoutly-shod little foot against his brother’s chest; there was a crack!⁠—the innocent Lamb had broken the glass of father’s second-best Waterbury watch, which Cyril had borrowed without leave.

“Grow up some day!” said Cyril bitterly, plumping the Lamb down on the grass. “I daresay he will⁠—when nobody wants him to. I wish to goodness he would⁠—”

“Oh, take care!” cried Anthea in an agony of apprehension. But it was too late⁠—like music to a song her words and Cyril’s came out together⁠—

Anthea⁠—“Oh, take care!”

Cyril⁠—“Grow up now!”

The faithful Psammead was true to its promise, and there, before the horrified eyes of its brothers and sisters, the Lamb suddenly and violently grew up. It was the most terrible moment. The change was not so sudden as the wish-changes usually were. The Baby’s face changed first. It grew thinner and larger, lines came in the forehead, the eyes grew more deep-set and darker in colour, the mouth grew longer and thinner; most terrible of all, a little dark moustache appeared on the lip of one who was still⁠—except as to the face⁠—a two-year-old baby in a linen smock and white openwork socks.

“Oh, I wish it wouldn’t! Oh, I wish it wouldn’t! You boys might wish as well!” They all wished hard, for the sight was enough to dismay the most heartless. They all wished so hard, indeed, that they felt quite giddy and almost lost consciousness; but the wishing was quite vain, for, when the wood ceased to whirl round, their dazzled eyes were riveted at once by the spectacle of a very proper-looking young man in flannels and a straw hat⁠—a young man who wore the same little black moustache which just before they had actually seen growing upon the Baby’s lip. This, then, was the Lamb⁠—grown up! Their own Lamb! It was a terrible moment. The grown-up Lamb moved gracefully across the moss and settled himself against the trunk of the sweet chestnut. He tilted the straw hat over his eyes. He was evidently weary. He was going to sleep. The Lamb⁠—the original little tiresome beloved Lamb often went to sleep at odd times and in unexpected places. Was this new Lamb in the grey flannel suit and the pale green necktie like the other Lamb? or had his mind grown up together with his body?

That was the question which the others, in a hurried council held among the yellowing bracken a few yards from the sleeper, debated eagerly.

“Whichever it is, it’ll be just as awful,” said Anthea. “If his inside senses are grown up too, he won’t stand our looking after him; and if he’s still a baby inside of him how on earth are we to get him to do anything? And it’ll be getting on for dinnertime in a minute⁠—”

“And we haven’t got any nuts,” said Jane.

“Oh, bother nuts!” said Robert; “but dinner’s different⁠—I didn’t have half enough dinner yesterday. Couldn’t we tie him to the tree and go home to our dinners and come back afterwards?”

“A fat lot of dinner we should get if we went back without the Lamb!” said Cyril in scornful misery. “And it’ll be just the same if we go back with him in the state he is now. Yes, I know it’s my doing; don’t rub it in! I know I’m a beast, and not fit to live; you can take that for settled, and say no more about it. The question is, what are we going to do?”

“Let’s wake him up, and take him into Rochester or Maidstone and get some grub at a pastrycook’s,” said Robert hopefully.

“Take him?” repeated Cyril. “Yes⁠—do! It’s all my fault⁠—I don’t deny that⁠—but you’ll find you’ve got your work cut out for you if you try to take that young man anywhere. The Lamb always was spoilt, but now he’s grown up he’s a demon⁠—simply. I can see it. Look at his mouth.”

“Well then,” said Robert, “let’s wake him up and see what he’ll do. Perhaps he’ll take us to Maidstone and stand Sam. He ought to have a lot of money in the pockets of those extra-special bags. We must have dinner, anyway.”

They drew lots with little bits of bracken. It fell to Jane’s lot to waken the grown-up Lamb.

She did it gently by tickling his nose with a twig of wild honeysuckle. He said “Bother the flies!” twice, and then opened his eyes.

“Hullo, kiddies!” he said in a languid tone, “still here? What’s the giddy hour? You’ll be late for your grub!”

“I know we shall,” said Robert bitterly.

“Then cut along home,” said the grown-up Lamb.

“What about your grub, though?” asked Jane.

“Oh, how far is it to the station, do you think? I’ve a sort of notion that I’ll run up to town and have some lunch at the club.”

Blank misery fell like a pall on the four others. The Lamb⁠—alone⁠—unattended⁠—would go to town and have lunch at a club! Perhaps he would also have tea there. Perhaps sunset would come upon him amid the dazzling luxury of club-land, and a helpless cross sleepy baby would find itself alone amid unsympathetic waiters, and would wail miserably for “Panty” from the depths of a club armchair! The picture moved Anthea almost to tears.

“Oh no, Lamb ducky, you mustn’t do that!” she cried incautiously.

The grown-up Lamb frowned. “My dear Anthea,” he said, “how often am I to tell you that my name is Hilary or St. Maur or Devereux?⁠—any of my baptismal names are free to my little brothers and sisters, but not ‘Lamb’⁠—a relic of foolish and far-off childhood.”

This was awful. He was their elder brother now, was he? Well, of course he was, if he was grown up⁠—since they weren’t. Thus, in whispers, Anthea and Robert.

But the almost daily adventures resulting from the Psammead wishes were making the children wise beyond their years.

“Dear Hilary,” said Anthea, and the others choked at the name, “you know father didn’t wish you to go to London. He wouldn’t like us to be left alone without you to