by E. Nesbit
CHAPTER 2. THE HALF AMULET
Long ago--that is to say last summer--the children, finding themselvesembarrassed by some wish which the Psammead had granted them, and whichthe servants had not received in a proper spirit, had wished that theservants might not notice the gifts which the Psammead gave. And whenthey parted from the Psammead their last wish had been that they shouldmeet it again. Therefore they HAD met it (and it was jolly lucky forthe Psammead, as Robert pointed out). Now, of course, you see thatthe Psammead's being where it was, was the consequence of one of theirwishes, and therefore was a Psammead-wish, and as such could not benoticed by the servants. And it was soon plain that in the Psammead'sopinion old Nurse was still a servant, although she had now a houseof her own, for she never noticed the Psammead at all. And that was aswell, for she would never have consented to allow the girls to keep ananimal and a bath of sand under their bed.
When breakfast had been cleared away--it was a very nice breakfast withhot rolls to it, a luxury quite out of the common way--Anthea went anddragged out the bath, and woke the Psammead.
It stretched and shook itself.
'You must have bolted your breakfast most unwholesomely,' it said, 'youcan't have been five minutes over it.'
'We've been nearly an hour,' said Anthea. 'Come--you know you promised.'
'Now look here,' said the Psammead, sitting back on the sand andshooting out its long eyes suddenly, 'we'd better begin as we mean togo on. It won't do to have any misunderstanding, so I tell you plainlythat--'
'Oh, PLEASE,' Anthea pleaded, 'do wait till we get to the others.They'll think it most awfully sneakish of me to talk to you withoutthem; do come down, there's a dear.'
She knelt before the sand-bath and held out her arms. The Psammead musthave remembered how glad it had been to jump into those same little armsonly the day before, for it gave a little grudging grunt, and jumpedonce more.
Anthea wrapped it in her pinafore and carried it downstairs. It waswelcomed in a thrilling silence. At last Anthea said, 'Now then!'
'What place is this?' asked the Psammead, shooting its eyes out andturning them slowly round.
'It's a sitting-room, of course,' said Robert.
'Then I don't like it,' said the Psammead.
'Never mind,' said Anthea kindly; 'we'll take you anywhere you like ifyou want us to. What was it you were going to say upstairs when I saidthe others wouldn't like it if I stayed talking to you without them?'
It looked keenly at her, and she blushed.
'Don't be silly,' it said sharply. 'Of course, it's quite natural thatyou should like your brothers and sisters to know exactly how good andunselfish you were.'
'I wish you wouldn't,' said Jane. 'Anthea was quite right. What was ityou were going to say when she stopped you?'
'I'll tell you,' said the Psammead, 'since you're so anxious to know. Iwas going to say this. You've saved my life--and I'm not ungrateful--butit doesn't change your nature or mine. You're still very ignorant, andrather silly, and I am worth a thousand of you any day of the week.'
'Of course you are!' Anthea was beginning but it interrupted her.
'It's very rude to interrupt,' it said; 'what I mean is that I'm notgoing to stand any nonsense, and if you think what you've done is togive you the right to pet me or make me demean myself by playing withyou, you'll find out that what you think doesn't matter a single penny.See? It's what _I_ think that matters.'
'I know,' said Cyril, 'it always was, if you remember.'
'Well,' said the Psammead, 'then that's settled. We're to be treated aswe deserve. I with respect, and all of you with--but I don't wish to beoffensive. Do you want me to tell you how I got into that horrible denyou bought me out of? Oh, I'm not ungrateful! I haven't forgotten it andI shan't forget it.'
'Do tell us,' said Anthea. 'I know you're awfully clever, but even withall your cleverness, I don't believe you can possibly know how--howrespectfully we do respect you. Don't we?'
The others all said yes--and fidgeted in their chairs. Robert spoke thewishes of all when he said--
'I do wish you'd go on.' So it sat up on the green-covered table andwent on.
'When you'd gone away,' it said, 'I went to sand for a bit, and slept. Iwas tired out with all your silly wishes, and I felt as though I hadn'treally been to sand for a year.'
'To sand?' Jane repeated.
'Where I sleep. You go to bed. I go to sand.'
Jane yawned; the mention of bed made her feel sleepy.
'All right,' said the Psammead, in offended tones. 'I'm sure _I_ don'twant to tell you a long tale. A man caught me, and I bit him. And he putme in a bag with a dead hare and a dead rabbit. And he took me to hishouse and put me out of the bag into a basket with holes that I couldsee through. And I bit him again. And then he brought me to this city,which I am told is called the Modern Babylon--though it's not a bit likethe old Babylon--and he sold me to the man you bought me from, and thenI bit them both. Now, what's your news?'
'There's not quite so much biting in our story,' said Cyril regretfully;'in fact, there isn't any. Father's gone to Manchuria, and Mother andThe Lamb have gone to Madeira because Mother was ill, and don't I justwish that they were both safe home again.'
Merely from habit, the Sand-fairy began to blow itself out, but itstopped short suddenly.
'I forgot,' it said; 'I can't give you any more wishes.'
'No--but look here,' said Cyril, 'couldn't we call in old Nurse and gether to say SHE wishes they were safe home. I'm sure she does.'
'No go,' said the Psammead. 'It's just the same as your wishing yourselfif you get some one else to wish for you. It won't act.'
'But it did yesterday--with the man in the shop,' said Robert.
'Ah yes,' said the creature, 'but you didn't ASK him to wish, and youdidn't know what would happen if he did. That can't be done again. It'splayed out.'
'Then you can't help us at all,' said Jane; 'oh--I did think you coulddo something; I've been thinking about it ever since we saved your lifeyesterday. I thought you'd be certain to be able to fetch back Father,even if you couldn't manage Mother.'
And Jane began to cry.
'Now DON'T,' said the Psammead hastily; 'you know how it always upsetsme if you cry. I can't feel safe a moment. Look here; you must have somenew kind of charm.'
'That's easier said than done.'
'Not a bit of it,' said the creature; 'there's one of the strongestcharms in the world not a stone's throw from where you bought meyesterday. The man that I bit so--the first one, I mean--went intoa shop to ask how much something cost--I think he said it was aconcertina--and while he was telling the man in the shop how much toomuch he wanted for it, I saw the charm in a sort of tray, with a lot ofother things. If you can only buy THAT, you will be able to have yourheart's desire.'
The children looked at each other and then at the Psammead. Then Cyrilcoughed awkwardly and took sudden courage to say what everyone wasthinking.
'I do hope you won't be waxy,' he said; 'but it's like this: when youused to give us our wishes they almost always got us into some rowor other, and we used to think you wouldn't have been pleased if theyhadn't. Now, about this charm--we haven't got over and above too muchtin, and if we blue it all on this charm and it turns out to be not upto much--well--you see what I'm driving at, don't you?'
'I see that YOU don't see more than the length of your nose, and THAT'Snot far,' said the Psammead crossly. 'Look here, I HAD to give you thewishes, and of course they turned out badly, in a sort of way, becauseyou hadn't the sense to wish for what was good for you. But this charm'squite different. I haven't GOT to do this for you, it's just my owngenerous kindness that makes me tell you about it. So it's bound to beall right. See?'
'Don't be cross,' said Anthea, 'Please, PLEASE don't. You see, it'sall we've got; we shan't have any more pocket-money till Daddy comeshome--unless he sends us some in a letter. But we DO trust you. And Isay all of you,' she went on, 'don't you think it's worth spending ALLthe m
oney, if there's even the chanciest chance of getting Father andMother back safe NOW? Just think of it! Oh, do let's!'
'_I_ don't care what you do,' said the Psammead; 'I'll go back to sandagain till you've made up your minds.'
'No, don't!' said everybody; and Jane added, 'We are quite mindmade-up--don't you see we are? Let's get our hats. Will you come withus?'
'Of course,' said the Psammead; 'how else would you find the shop?'
So everybody got its hat. The Psammead was put into a flat bass-bag thathad come from Farringdon Market with two pounds of filleted plaice init. Now it contained about three pounds and a quarter of solid Psammead,and the children took it in turns to carry it.
'It's not half the weight of The Lamb,' Robert said, and the girlssighed.
The Psammead poked a wary eye out of the top of the basket every now andthen, and told the children which turnings to take.
'How on earth do you know?' asked Robert. 'I can't think how you do it.'
And the Psammead said sharply, 'No--I don't suppose you can.'
At last they came to THE shop. It had all sorts and kinds of thingsin the window--concertinas, and silk handkerchiefs, china vases andtea-cups, blue Japanese jars, pipes, swords, pistols, lace collars,silver spoons tied up in half-dozens, and wedding-rings in a redlacquered basin. There were officers' epaulets and doctors' lancets.There were tea-caddies inlaid with red turtle-shell and brasscurly-wurlies, plates of different kinds of money, and stacks ofdifferent kinds of plates. There was a beautiful picture of a littlegirl washing a dog, which Jane liked very much. And in the middle ofthe window there was a dirty silver tray full of mother-of-pearl cardcounters, old seals, paste buckles, snuff-boxes, and all sorts of littledingy odds and ends.
The Psammead put its head quite out of the fish-basket to look in thewindow, when Cyril said--
'There's a tray there with rubbish in it.'
And then its long snail's eyes saw something that made them stretch outso much that they were as long and thin as new slate-pencils. Its furbristled thickly, and its voice was quite hoarse with excitement as itwhispered--
'That's it! That's it! There, under that blue and yellow buckle, you cansee a bit sticking out. It's red. Do you see?'
'Is it that thing something like a horse-shoe?' asked Cyril. 'And red,like the common sealing-wax you do up parcels with?' 'Yes, that's it,'said the Psammead. 'Now, you do just as you did before. Ask the price ofother things. That blue buckle would do. Then the man will get the trayout of the window. I think you'd better be the one,' it said to Anthea.'We'll wait out here.'
So the others flattened their noses against the shop window, andpresently a large, dirty, short-fingered hand with a very big diamondring came stretching through the green half-curtains at the back of theshop window and took away the tray.
They could not see what was happening in the interview between Antheaand the Diamond Ring, and it seemed to them that she had had time--ifshe had had money--to buy everything in the shop before the moment camewhen she stood before them, her face wreathed in grins, as Cyril saidlater, and in her hand the charm.
It was something like this: [Drawing omitted.] and it was made of a red,smooth, softly shiny stone.
'I've got it,' Anthea whispered, just opening her hand to give theothers a glimpse of it. 'Do let's get home. We can't stand here likestuck-pigs looking at it in the street.'
So home they went. The parlour in Fitzroy Street was a very flatbackground to magic happenings. Down in the country among the flowersand green fields anything had seemed--and indeed had been--possible. Butit was hard to believe that anything really wonderful could happen sonear the Tottenham Court Road. But the Psammead was there--and it initself was wonderful. And it could talk--and it had shown them where acharm could be bought that would make the owner of it perfectly happy.So the four children hurried home, taking very long steps, with theirchins stuck out, and their mouths shut very tight indeed. They went sofast that the Psammead was quite shaken about in its fish-bag, but itdid not say anything--perhaps for fear of attracting public notice.
They got home at last, very hot indeed, and set the Psammead on thegreen tablecloth.
'Now then!' said Cyril.
But the Psammead had to have a plate of sand fetched for it, for it wasquite faint. When it had refreshed itself a little it said--
'Now then! Let me see the charm,' and Anthea laid it on the greentable-cover. The Psammead shot out his long eyes to look at it, then itturned them reproachfully on Anthea and said--
'But there's only half of it here!'
This was indeed a blow.
'It was all there was,' said Anthea, with timid firmness. She knew itwas not her fault. 'There should be another piece,' said the Psammead,'and a sort of pin to fasten the two together.'
'Isn't half any good?'--'Won't it work without the other bit?'--'It costseven-and-six.'--'Oh, bother, bother, bother!'--'Don't be silly littleidiots!' said everyone and the Psammead altogether.
Then there was a wretched silence. Cyril broke it--
'What shall we do?'
'Go back to the shop and see if they haven't got the other half,' saidthe Psammead. 'I'll go to sand till you come back. Cheer up! Even thebit you've got is SOME good, but it'll be no end of a bother if youcan't find the other.'
So Cyril went to the shop. And the Psammead to sand. And the other threewent to dinner, which was now ready. And old Nurse was very cross thatCyril was not ready too.
The three were watching at the windows when Cyril returned, and evenbefore he was near enough for them to see his face there was somethingabout the slouch of his shoulders and set of his knickerbockers andthe way he dragged his boots along that showed but too plainly that hiserrand had been in vain.
'Well?' they all said, hoping against hope on the front-door step.
'No go,' Cyril answered; 'the man said the thing was perfect. He saidit was a Roman lady's locket, and people shouldn't buy curios if theydidn't know anything about arky--something or other, and that he neverwent back on a bargain, because it wasn't business, and he expected hiscustomers to act the same. He was simply nasty--that's what he was, andI want my dinner.'
It was plain that Cyril was not pleased.
The unlikeliness of anything really interesting happening in thatparlour lay like a weight of lead on everyone's spirits. Cyril had hisdinner, and just as he was swallowing the last mouthful of apple-puddingthere was a scratch at the door. Anthea opened it and in walked thePsammead.
'Well,' it said, when it had heard the news, 'things might be worse.Only you won't be surprised if you have a few adventures before you getthe other half. You want to get it, of course.'
'Rather,' was the general reply. 'And we don't mind adventures.'
'No,' said the Psammead, 'I seem to remember that about you. Well, sitdown and listen with all your ears. Eight, are there? Right--I am gladyou know arithmetic. Now pay attention, because I don't intend to tellyou everything twice over.'
As the children settled themselves on the floor--it was far morecomfortable than the chairs, as well as more polite to the Psammead, whowas stroking its whiskers on the hearth-rug--a sudden cold pain caughtat Anthea's heart. Father--Mother--the darling Lamb--all far away. Thena warm, comfortable feeling flowed through her. The Psammead was here,and at least half a charm, and there were to be adventures. (If youdon't know what a cold pain is, I am glad for your sakes, and I hope younever may.)
'Now,' said the Psammead cheerily, 'you are not particularly nice, norparticularly clever, and you're not at all good-looking. Still, you'vesaved my life--oh, when I think of that man and his pail of water!--soI'll tell you all I know. At least, of course I can't do that, because Iknow far too much. But I'll tell you all I know about this red thing.'
'Do! Do! Do! Do!' said everyone.
'Well, then,' said the Psammead. 'This thing is half of an Amulet thatcan do all sorts of things; it can make the corn grow, and the watersflow, and the trees bear fruit, and the little new b
eautiful babiescome. (Not that babies ARE beautiful, of course,' it broke off to say,'but their mothers think they are--and as long as you think a thing'strue it IS true as far as you're concerned.)'
Robert yawned.
The Psammead went on.
'The complete Amulet can keep off all the things that make peopleunhappy--jealousy, bad temper, pride, disagreeableness, greediness,selfishness, laziness. Evil spirits, people called them when the Amuletwas made. Don't you think it would be nice to have it?'
'Very,' said the children, quite without enthusiasm.
'And it can give you strength and courage.'
'That's better,' said Cyril.
'And virtue.'
'I suppose it's nice to have that,' said Jane, but not with muchinterest.
'And it can give you your heart's desire.'
'Now you're talking,' said Robert.
'Of course I am,' retorted the Psammead tartly, 'so there's no need foryou to.'
'Heart's desire is good enough for me,' said Cyril.
'Yes, but,' Anthea ventured, 'all that's what the WHOLE charm can do.There's something that the half we've got can win off its own bat--isn'tthere?' She appealed to the Psammead. It nodded.
'Yes,' it said; 'the half has the power to take you anywhere you like tolook for the other half.'
This seemed a brilliant prospect till Robert asked--
'Does it know where to look?'
The Psammead shook its head and answered, 'I don't think it's likely.'
'Do you?'
'No.'
'Then,' said Robert, 'we might as well look for a needle in a bottle ofhay. Yes--it IS bottle, and not bundle, Father said so.'
'Not at all,' said the Psammead briskly-, 'you think you knoweverything, but you are quite mistaken. The first thing is to get thething to talk.'
'Can it?' Jane questioned. Jane's question did not mean that she thoughtit couldn't, for in spite of the parlour furniture the feeling of magicwas growing deeper and thicker, and seemed to fill the room like a dreamof a scented fog.
'Of course it can. I suppose you can read.'
'Oh yes!' Everyone was rather hurt at the question.
'Well, then--all you've got to do is to read the name that's written onthe part of the charm that you've got. And as soon as you say the nameout loud the thing will have power to do--well, several things.'
There was a silence. The red charm was passed from hand to hand.
'There's no name on it,' said Cyril at last.
'Nonsense,' said the Psammead; 'what's that?'
'Oh, THAT!' said Cyril, 'it's not reading. It looks like pictures ofchickens and snakes and things.'
This was what was on the charm: [Hieroglyphics omitted.]
'I've no patience with you,' said the Psammead; 'if you can't read youmust find some one who can. A priest now?'
'We don't know any priests,' said Anthea; 'we know a clergyman--he'scalled a priest in the prayer-book, you know--but he only knows Greekand Latin and Hebrew, and this isn't any of those--I know.'
The Psammead stamped a furry foot angrily.
'I wish I'd never seen you,' it said; 'you aren't any more good than somany stone images. Not so much, if I'm to tell the truth. Is there nowise man in your Babylon who can pronounce the names of the Great Ones?'
'There's a poor learned gentleman upstairs,' said Anthea, 'we might tryhim. He has a lot of stone images in his room, and iron-looking onestoo--we peeped in once when he was out. Old Nurse says he doesn't eatenough to keep a canary alive. He spends it all on stones and things.'
'Try him,' said the Psammead, 'only be careful. If he knows a greatername than this and uses it against you, your charm will be of no use.Bind him first with the chains of honour and upright dealing. And thenask his aid--oh, yes, you'd better all go; you can put me to sand as yougo upstairs. I must have a few minutes' peace and quietness.'
So the four children hastily washed their hands and brushed theirhair--this was Anthea's idea--and went up to knock at the door of the'poor learned gentleman', and to 'bind him with the chains of honour andupright dealing'.