The Story of the Amulet | Page 9

hasty hole in the sand, and went to
sleep in it.
The children hid the bath under the girls' bed, and had supper. Old
Nurse had got them a lovely supper of bread and butter and fried onions.

She was full of kind and delicate thoughts.
When Anthea woke the next morning, the Psammead was snuggling
down between her shoulder and Jane's.
'You have saved my life,' it said. 'I know that man would have thrown
cold water on me sooner or later, and then I should have died. I saw
him wash out a guinea-pig's hutch yesterday morning. I'm still
frightfully sleepy, I think I'll go back to sand for another nap. Wake the
boys and this dormouse of a Jane, and when you've had your breakfasts
we'll have a talk.'
'Don't YOU want any breakfast?' asked Anthea.
'I daresay I shall pick a bit presently,' it said; 'but sand is all I care
about--it's meat and drink to me, and coals and fire and wife and
children.' With these words it clambered down by the bedclothes and
scrambled back into the bath, where they heard it scratching itself out
of sight.
'Well!' said Anthea, 'anyhow our holidays won't be dull NOW. We've
found the Psammead again.'
'No,' said Jane, beginning to put on her stockings. 'We shan't be
dull--but it'll be only like having a pet dog now it can't give us wishes.'
'Oh, don't be so discontented,' said Anthea. 'If it can't do anything else it
can tell us about Megatheriums and things.'

CHAPTER 2
THE HALF AMULET
Long ago--that is to say last summer--the children, finding themselves
embarrassed by some wish which the Psammead had granted them, and
which the servants had not received in a proper spirit, had wished that
the servants might not notice the gifts which the Psammead gave. And

when they parted from the Psammead their last wish had been that they
should meet it again. Therefore they HAD met it (and it was jolly lucky
for the Psammead, as Robert pointed out). Now, of course, you see that
the Psammead's being where it was, was the consequence of one of
their wishes, and therefore was a Psammead-wish, and as such could
not be noticed by the servants. And it was soon plain that in the
Psammead's opinion old Nurse was still a servant, although she had
now a house of her own, for she never noticed the Psammead at all.
And that was as well, for she would never have consented to allow the
girls to keep an animal and a bath of sand under their bed.
When breakfast had been cleared away--it was a very nice breakfast
with hot rolls to it, a luxury quite out of the common way--Anthea went
and dragged out the bath, and woke the Psammead.
It stretched and shook itself.
'You must have bolted your breakfast most unwholesomely,' it said,
'you can'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 and
shooting out its long eyes suddenly, 'we'd better begin as we mean to
go on. It won't do to have any misunderstanding, so I tell you plainly
that--'
'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 without them;
do come down, there's a dear.'
She knelt before the sand-bath and held out her arms. The Psammead
must have remembered how glad it had been to jump into those same
little arms only the day before, for it gave a little grudging grunt, and
jumped once more.
Anthea wrapped it in her pinafore and carried it downstairs. It was

welcomed in a thrilling silence. At last Anthea said, 'Now then!'
'What place is this?' asked the Psammead, shooting its eyes out and
turning 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 if
you want us to. What was it you were going to say upstairs when I said
the 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 that you
should like your brothers and sisters to know exactly how good and
unselfish you were.'
'I wish you wouldn't,' said Jane. 'Anthea was quite right. What was it
you were going to say when she stopped you?'
'I'll tell you,' said the Psammead, 'since you're so anxious to know. I
was going to say this. You've saved my life--and I'm not
ungrateful--but it doesn't change your nature or