The Phoenix and the Carpet - Эдит Несбит 3 стр.

It pointed as it spoke to the floor, where lay the carpet which mother had bought in the Kentish Town Road for twenty-two shillings and ninepence.

At that instant fathers latch-key was heard in the door.

OH, whispered Cyril, now we shall catch it for not being in bed!

Wish yourself there, said the Phoenix, in a hurried whisper, and then wish the carpet back in its place.

No sooner said than done. It made one a little giddy, certainly, and a little breathless; but when things seemed right way up again, there the children were, in bed, and the lights were out.

They heard the soft voice of the Phoenix through the darkness.

I shall sleep on the cornice above your curtains, it said. Please dont mention me to your kinsfolk.

Not much good, said Robert, theyd never believe us. I say, he called through the half-open door to the girls; talk about adventures and things happening. We ought to be able to get some fun out of a magic carpet AND a Phoenix.

Rather, said the girls, in bed.

Children, said father, on the stairs, go to sleep at once. What do you mean by talking at this time of night?

No answer was expected to this question, but under the bedclothes Cyril murmured one.

Mean? he said. Dont know what we mean. I dont know what anything means.

But weve got a magic carpet AND a Phoenix, said Robert.

Youll get something else if father comes in and catches you, said Cyril. Shut up, I tell you.

Robert shut up. But he knew as well as you do that the adventures of that carpet and that Phoenix were only just beginning.

Father and mother had not the least idea of what had happened in their absence. This is often the case, even when there are no magic carpets or Phoenixes in the house.

The next morningbut I am sure you would rather wait till the next chapter before you hear about THAT.

CHAPTER 2. THE TOPLESS TOWER

The children had seen the Phoenix-egg hatched in the flames in their own nursery grate, and had heard from it how the carpet on their own nursery floor was really the wishing carpet, which would take them anywhere they chose. The carpet had transported them to bed just at the right moment, and the Phoenix had gone to roost on the cornice supporting the window-curtains of the boys room.

Excuse me, said a gentle voice, and a courteous beak opened, very kindly and delicately, the right eye of Cyril. I hear the slaves below preparing food. Awaken! A word of explanation and arrangement I do wish you wouldnt

The Phoenix stopped speaking and fluttered away crossly to the cornice-pole; for Cyril had hit out, as boys do when they are awakened suddenly, and the Phoenix was not used to boys, and his feelings, if not his wings, were hurt.

Sorry, said Cyril, coming awake all in a minute. Do come back! What was it you were saying? Something about bacon and rations?

The Phoenix fluttered back to the brass rail at the foot of the bed.

I sayyou ARE real, said Cyril. How ripping! And the carpet?

The carpet is as real as it ever was, said the Phoenix, rather contemptuously; but, of course, a carpets only a carpet, whereas a Phoenix is superlatively a Phoenix.

Yes, indeed, said Cyril, I see it is. Oh, what luck! Wake up, Bobs! Theres jolly well something to wake up for today. And its Saturday, too.

Ive been reflecting, said the Phoenix, during the silent watches of the night, and I could not avoid the conclusion that you were quite insufficiently astonished at my appearance yesterday. The ancients were always VERY surprised. Did you, by chance, EXPECT my egg to hatch?

Not us, Cyril said.

And if we had, said Anthea, who had come in in her nightie when she heard the silvery voice of the Phoenix, we could never, never have expected it to hatch anything so splendid as you.

The bird smiled. Perhaps youve never seen a bird smile?

You see, said Anthea, wrapping herself in the boys counterpane, for the morning was chill, weve had things happen to us before; and she told the story of the Psammead, or sand-fairy.

Ah yes, said the Phoenix; Psammeads were rare, even in my time. I remember I used to be called the Psammead of the Desert. I was always having compliments paid me; I cant think why.

Can YOU give wishes, then? asked Jane, who had now come in too.

Oh, dear me, no, said the Phoenix, contemptuously, at leastbut I hear footsteps approaching. I hasten to conceal myself. And it did.

I think I said that this day was Saturday. It was also cooks birthday, and mother had allowed her and Eliza to go to the Crystal Palace with a party of friends, so Jane and Anthea of course had to help to make beds and to wash up the breakfast cups, and little things like that. Robert and Cyril intended to spend the morning in conversation with the Phoenix, but the bird had its own ideas about this.

I must have an hour or twos quiet, it said, I really must. My nerves will give way unless I can get a little rest. You must remember its two thousand years since I had any conversationIm out of practice, and I must take care of myself. Ive often been told that mine is a valuable life. So it nestled down inside an old hatbox of fathers, which had been brought down from the box-room some days before, when a helmet was suddenly needed for a game of tournaments, with its golden head under its golden wing, and went to sleep. So then Robert and Cyril moved the table back and were going to sit on the carpet and wish themselves somewhere else. But before they could decide on the place, Cyril said

I dont know. Perhaps its rather sneakish to begin without the girls.

Theyll be all the morning, said Robert, impatiently. And then a thing inside him, which tiresome books sometimes call the inward monitor, said, Why dont you help them, then?

Cyrils inward monitor happened to say the same thing at the same moment, so the boys went and helped to wash up the tea-cups, and to dust the drawing-room. Robert was so interested that he proposed to clean the front doorstepsa thing he had never been allowed to do. Nor was he allowed to do it on this occasion. One reason was that it had already been done by cook.

When all the housework was finished, the girls dressed the happy, wriggling baby in his blue highwayman coat and three-cornered hat, and kept him amused while mother changed her dress and got ready to take him over to grannys. Mother always went to grannys every Saturday, and generally some of the children went with her; but today they were to keep house. And their hearts were full of joyous and delightful feelings every time they remembered that the house they would have to keep had a Phoenix in it, AND a wishing carpet.

You can always keep the Lamb good and happy for quite a long time if you play the Noahs Ark game with him. It is quite simple. He just sits on your lap and tells you what animal he is, and then you say the little poetry piece about whatever animal he chooses to be.

Of course, some of the animals, like the zebra and the tiger, havent got any poetry, because they are so difficult to rhyme to. The Lamb knows quite well which are the poetry animals.

Im a baby bear! said the Lamb, snugging down; and Anthea began:

And when she said very, of course there was a real bears hug.

And when she said very, of course there was a real bears hug.

Then came the eel, and the Lamb was tickled till he wriggled exactly like a real one:

Perhaps you didnt know that a snig was a baby eel? It is, though, and the Lamb knew it.

Hedgehog now-! he said; and Anthea went on:

And then she loved him front ways round, while he squealed with pleasure.

It is a very baby game, and, of course, the rhymes are only meant for very, very small peoplenot for people who are old enough to read books, so I wont tell you any more of them.

By the time the Lamb had been a baby lion and a baby weazel, and a baby rabbit and a baby rat, mother was ready; and she and the Lamb, having been kissed by everybody and hugged as thoroughly as it is possible to be when youre dressed for out-of-doors, were seen to the tram by the boys. When the boys came back, every one looked at every one else and said

Now!

They locked the front door and they locked the back door, and they fastened all the windows. They moved the table and chairs off the carpet, and Anthea swept it.

We must show it a LITTLE attention, she said kindly. Well give it tea-leaves next time. Carpets like tea-leaves.

Then every one put on its out-door things, because as Cyril said, they didnt know where they might be going, and it makes people stare if you go out of doors in November in pinafores and without hats.

Then Robert gently awoke the Phoenix, who yawned and stretched itself, and allowed Robert to lift it on to the middle of the carpet, where it instantly went to sleep again with its crested head tucked under its golden wing as before. Then every one sat down on the carpet.

Where shall we go? was of course the question, and it was warmly discussed. Anthea wanted to go to Japan. Robert and Cyril voted for America, and Jane wished to go to the seaside.

Because there are donkeys there, said she.

Not in November, silly, said Cyril; and the discussion got warmer and warmer, and still nothing was settled.

I vote we let the Phoenix decide, said Robert, at last. So they stroked it till it woke. We want to go somewhere abroad, they said, and we cant make up our minds where.

Let the carpet make up ITS mind, if it has one, said the Phoenix.

Just say you wish to go abroad.

So they did; and the next moment the world seemed to spin upside down, and when it was right way up again and they were ungiddy enough to look about them, they were out of doors.

Out of doorsthis is a feeble way to express where they were. They were out ofout of the earth, or off it. In fact, they were floating steadily, safely, splendidly, in the crisp clear air, with the pale bright blue of the sky above them, and far down below the pale bright sun-diamonded waves of the sea. The carpet had stiffened itself somehow, so that it was square and firm like a raft, and it steered itself so beautifully and kept on its way so flat and fearless that no one was at all afraid of tumbling off. In front of them lay land.

The coast of France, said the Phoenix, waking up and pointing with its wing. Where do you wish to go? I should always keep one wish, of coursefor emergenciesotherwise you may get into an emergency from which you cant emerge at all.

But the children were far too deeply interested to listen.

I tell you what, said Cyril: lets let the thing go on and on, and when we see a place we really want to stop atwhy, well just stop. Isnt this ripping?

Its like trains, said Anthea, as they swept over the low-lying coast-line and held a steady course above orderly fields and straight roads bordered with poplar treeslike express trains, only in trains you never can see anything because of grown-ups wanting the windows shut; and then they breathe on them, and its like ground glass, and nobody can see anything, and then they go to sleep.

Its like tobogganing, said Robert, so fast and smooth, only theres no door-mat to stop short onit goes on and on.

You darling Phoenix, said Jane, its all your doing. Oh, look at that ducky little church and the women with flappy cappy things on their heads.

Dont mention it, said the Phoenix, with sleepy politeness.

OH! said Cyril, summing up all the rapture that was in every heart. Look at it alllook at itand think of the Kentish Town Road!

Every one looked and every one thought. And the glorious, gliding, smooth, steady rush went on, and they looked down on strange and beautiful things, and held their breath and let it go in deep sighs, and said Oh! and Ah! till it was long past dinner-time.

It was Jane who suddenly said, I wish wed brought that jam tart and cold mutton with us. It would have been jolly to have a picnic in the air.

The jam tart and cold mutton were, however, far away, sitting quietly in the larder of the house in Camden Town which the children were supposed to be keeping. A mouse was at that moment tasting the outside of the raspberry jam part of the tart (she had nibbled a sort of gulf, or bay, through the pastry edge) to see whether it was the sort of dinner she could ask her little mouse-husband to sit down to. She had had a very good dinner herself. It is an ill wind that blows nobody any good.

Well stop as soon as we see a nice place, said Anthea. Ive got threepence, and you boys have the fourpence each that your trams didnt cost the other day, so we can buy things to eat. I expect the Phoenix can speak French.

The carpet was sailing along over rocks 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 newa great square tower.

The top of thats 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-whats-its-namesI mean nativeswould be able to take the carpet away even if they wanted to. And some of us could go out and get things to eatbuy 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 dont see why I should never do anything I want, just because Im the youngest. I wish the carpet would fit itself in at the top of that towerso 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 dont 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 highit was two feet highthree, four, five. It was shutting out the lightmore and more.