The Story of the Amulet, E. Nesbit [free ebook reader for iphone txt] 📗

“But will the Amulet work both ways?” inquired Robert.

“It ought to,” said Cyril, “if time’s only a thingummy of whatsitsname. Anyway we might try.”

“Let’s put on our best things, then,” urged Jane. “You know what people say about progress and the world growing better and brighter. I expect people will be awfully smart in the future.”

“All right,” said Anthea, “we should have to wash anyway, I’m all thick with glue.”

When everyone was clean and dressed, the charm was held up.

“We want to go into the future and see the Amulet after we’ve found it,” said Cyril, and Jane said the word of Power. They walked through the big arch of the charm straight into the British Museum. They knew it at once, and there, right in front of them, under a glass case, was the Amulet⁠—their own half of it, as well as the other half they had never been able to find⁠—and the two were joined by a pin of red stone that formed a hinge.

“Oh, glorious!” cried Robert. “Here it is!”

“Yes,” said Cyril, very gloomily, “here it is. But we can’t get it out.”

“No,” said Robert, remembering how impossible the Queen of Babylon had found it to get anything out of the glass cases in the Museum⁠—except by Psammead magic, and then she hadn’t been able to take anything away with her; “no⁠—but we remember where we got it, and we can⁠—”

“Oh, do we?” interrupted Cyril bitterly, “do you remember where we got it?”

“No,” said Robert, “I don’t exactly, now I come to think of it.”

Nor did any of the others!

“But why can’t we?” said Jane.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Cyril’s tone was impatient, “some silly old enchanted rule I suppose. I wish people would teach you magic at school like they do sums⁠—or instead of. It would be some use having an Amulet then.”

“I wonder how far we are in the future,” said Anthea; “the Museum looks just the same, only lighter and brighter, somehow.”

“Let’s go back and try the Past again,” said Robert.

“Perhaps the Museum people could tell us how we got it,” said Anthea with sudden hope. There was no one in the room, but in the next gallery, where the Assyrian things are and still were, they found a kind, stout man in a loose, blue gown, and stockinged legs.

“Oh, they’ve got a new uniform, how pretty!” said Jane.

When they asked him their question he showed them a label on the case. It said, “From the collection of⁠—.” A name followed, and it was the name of the learned gentleman who, among themselves, and to his face when he had been with them at the other side of the Amulet, they had called Jimmy.

“That’s not much good,” said Cyril, “thank you.”

“How is it you’re not at school?” asked the kind man in blue. “Not expelled for long I hope?”

“We’re not expelled at all,” said Cyril rather warmly.

“Well, I shouldn’t do it again, if I were you,” said the man, and they could see he did not believe them. There is no company so little pleasing as that of people who do not believe you.

“Thank you for showing us the label,” said Cyril. And they came away.

As they came through the doors of the Museum they blinked at the sudden glory of sunlight and blue sky. The houses opposite the Museum were gone. Instead there was a big garden, with trees and flowers and smooth green lawns, and not a single notice to tell you not to walk on the grass and not to destroy the trees and shrubs and not to pick the flowers. There were comfortable seats all about, and arbours covered with roses, and long, trellised walks, also rose-covered. Whispering, splashing fountains fell into full white marble basins, white statues gleamed among the leaves, and the pigeons that swept about among the branches or pecked on the smooth, soft gravel were not black and tumbled like the Museum pigeons are now, but bright and clean and sleek as birds of new silver. A good many people were sitting on the seats, and on the grass babies were rolling and kicking and playing⁠—with very little on indeed. Men, as well as women, seemed to be in charge of the babies and were playing with them.

“It’s like a lovely picture,” said Anthea, and it was. For the people’s clothes were of bright, soft colours and all beautifully and very simply made. No one seemed to have any hats or bonnets, but there were a great many Japanese-looking sunshades. And among the trees were hung lamps of coloured glass.

“I expect they light those in the evening,” said Jane. “I do wish we lived in the future!”

They walked down the path, and as they went the people on the benches looked at the four children very curiously, but not rudely or unkindly. The children, in their turn, looked⁠—I hope they did not stare⁠—at the faces of these people in the beautiful soft clothes. Those faces were worth looking at. Not that they were all handsome, though even in the matter of handsomeness they had the advantage of any set of people the children had ever seen. But it was the expression of their faces that made them worth looking at. The children could not tell at first what it was.

“I know,” said Anthea suddenly. “They’re not worried; that’s what it is.”

And it was. Everybody looked calm, no one seemed to be in a hurry, no one seemed to be anxious, or fretted, and though some did seem to be sad, not a single one looked worried.

But though the people looked kind everyone looked so interested in the children that they began to feel a little shy and turned out of the big main path into a narrow little one that wound among trees and shrubs and mossy, dripping springs.

It was here, in a deep, shadowed cleft between tall cypresses, that they found the expelled little boy. He was lying face downward on the mossy turf,