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    Five Children and It
    Five Children and It
    Five Children and It
    Ebook219 pages4 hours

    Five Children and It

    By E. Nesbit

    4/5

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    Be careful what you wish for — you may get it! That's what happens to five children when they decide to dig a hole through the Earth to see whether people on the other side walk upside down. They don't get very far, though, before they uncover an ancient sand fairy. At least that's what the youngsters call him, even though his correct name is Psammead (pronounced Sammyadd). And what a bizarre creature he is, with bat's ears, a tubby body, furry arms and legs, and eyes that move in and out like telescopes!
    Obliged to grant the children their desires (because that's what sand fairies do), this oddity from another time and place warns of a catch: wishes come undone at sunset. And if they're not planned carefully, there could be some very serious problems.
    One of Edith Nesbit's best-loved tales of enchantment, Five Children and It will delight today's young readers as much as it did those of generations ago.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDover Publications
    Release dateJul 12, 2012
    ISBN9780486146072
    Author

    E. Nesbit

    Edith Nesbit was born in 1858 and, like her fictional characters in The Railway Children, her middle-class family was one whose fortunes declined. After surviving a tough and nomadic childhood she met and married her husband, Hubert Bland, in 1880 whilst pregnant with the couple's first child. Financial hardship was to dog Nesbit again when Bland's business failed, forcing her to write to support their burgeoning family. She only later in life focused on writing the children's stories for which she became so well known, including The Story of The Treasure Seekers (1899), The Wouldbegoods (1901), Five Children and It (1902) and The Railway Children (1906). She died in 1924.

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    Reviews for Five Children and It

    4/5

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    • 4/5
      When the five children in this story ask what 'It' is, and It tells them it is a Psammead, the immediate comment is the stock phrase "It's all Greek to me." And of course that is the point: Psammead would be Greek for 'sand fairy', which is what It is. This is perhaps a clear indication that Nesbit was writing not just for children but also for adults, herself included, the kind of educated middleclass adults alive at the tail-end of Victorian Britain. Which is a point that many modern-day readers often miss, especially those that criticise the chapter on American Indians for not being politically correct (it was published in 1902, when such stereotypes were perpetuated, and which Nesbit was satirising), or who chastise the author for speaking down to children (they clearly haven't read many of the contemporary morally-improving tomes for children, compared with which Nesbit's voice comes across as thoroughly modern and sensitive in its understanding of, and sympathy for, sheltered bourgeois mentality and experience).Having risen to the defence of Nesbit, I have to say that I didn't find Five Children and It as captivating as I might have hoped, though it was rather better paced than her preceding titles centred on the Bastable children, The Treasure Seekers (1899) and The Wouldbegoods (1901). Originally appearing in installments (ideal for bedtime reading), the story follows the by now familiar pattern of a group of children who, despite often good intentions, find the outcomes not going the way they hoped. Unlike the Bastable children, this family (Cyril, Anthea, Robert and Jane, plus the baby Hilary they call 'Lamb') has its adventures spiced up by magic, provided by their wishes being granted by the creature they find in an old sand quarry.To describe the adventures would be to lose any magic gained by reading the story, but of course the precise wishes, formulated through the distorting prisms of juvenile brains, are all granted in rather diverting ways. What I did find captivating, however, was the Psammead itself, not unsurprisingly a rather grumpy personnage considering not only its extreme age but also its constant disturbance by a bunch of kids. As a grumpy personnage muself (though not of a similar age) I thoroughly sympathised with its tic of having to grant whimsical wishes to all and sundry. Whilst only slightly bemused by its command of contemporary English, I was rather more irritated by its equally whimsical portrayal by more recent book cover designers and film makers, in defiance of Nesbit's very clear description: it had eyes ... on long horns like a snail’s eyes, and it could move them in and out like telescopes, and ears like a bat’s ears, and its tubby body was shaped like a spider’s and covered with thick soft fur; its legs and arms were furry too, and it had hands and feet like a monkey’s, not to mention rat-like whiskers. My edition has a cover illustration depicting the Psammead with bat's ears, a furry body (green, to be sure) and primate hands and feet as expected, but, horror of horrors, eyes in a face rather than on those telescopic stalks emerging from the top of its head. And the creature in the recent film of the same name is a travesty of Nesbit's careful portrait.
    • 5/5
      Beautiful book of wisdom. :)
    • 3/5
      I read this book because it was a classic, but i found it too fluffy, whimsical, not enough of a thought provoking storyline for me. It is very much the Alice in Wonderland type fantasy - pure etc. Being able to see the movie and then revisit the book made it more enjoyable the second time around. I prefer Roald Dahl's fantasy narrative style.
    • 5/5
      This is the 5 Stories About An Animal That Fulfills Our Wish.Five Children meet it And They Ask It To Fulfill Their Wish.I Thought This Book Is for children. However,That`s Good Point Of This Book.While I Read　This Book、I Could Enjoy As If I Was An Child(But I'm Not)
    • 5/5
      Five children find a fairy at the beach who grants wishes, though with surprising consequences.
    • 4/5
      E. Nesbit is a writer I've been meaning to read since about 4th grade. In many of Edgar Eager's books ("Half-Magic" absolutely delighted me as a child) he mentions her magical tales, and I believe I tried reading one at that age, but found its Victorian sentences too long, convoluted and boring for me. Nevertheless, I've always intended to read her books and have been collecting them slowly from various used book stores. This last year I read A.S. Byatt's "The Children's Book" which I loved, and I have read that the mother/children's book writer at the center of the main family in this novel was based on E. Nesbit. "Five Children and It" is the story of a set of siblings who one day find a psammead or sand-fairy. The sand-fairy can grant them one wish a day, which lasts only until sunset. To the chagrin of the children (two boys, two girls and a baby) their wishes seem to always cause them more trouble than expected, but does lead them into all sorts of imaginative adventures. It is a delightful story. The language is perfectly readable and the adventures interesting. (I'm not sure which book I tried reading of hers in elementary school, but I'm sure it was not this one.) I'm actually surprised that a movie has not been made based on this book. The characters of the children reminded me of some of the movies set during the turn-of-the-century shown on "The World of Disney" show from the sixties and starring British child actors. [Anyone remember "The Three Lives of Thomasina"?] Anyway, it is highly recommended for ages 9 - 12.
    • 5/5
      I loved this book as a child and really recommend it especially to parents who are trying to get their young children to read more. Its a sweet little fantasy story that has held up over time.
    • 5/5
      One of my favorite Nesbit books, aside from the The Magic City, the 5 Children series are my favorites.
    • 5/5
      One day, when the children dug a hole in the gravel-pit, they found a sand-fairy. His name is Pasammead. He can use magic, and he grants the children's wishes. But their wishes make a lot of funny problems.Children’s idea is very interesting and imaginable. So I enjoy reading this book. I think this story is pure and warm.
    • 4/5
      I loved Five Children and It as an 11 year old. I reread it recently and it did hold up. The children were almost as appealing as the Bastables.
    • 4/5
      A surprising story of a fantastic creature and the things that can go wrong with wishes. The kids really enjoyed this book and were pleased to learn there are more in this series. We read this as a family and even Daddy laughed out loud. This is our first Nesbit book but we excited to read more by this lovely author.
    • 4/5
      When the children dug a hole in the gravel-pit, they were very surprised at a Psammead.This story is pure and warm.I like this story.
    • 3/5
      Five children left on their own during summer holidays discover a sand-fairy called a Psammead in a gravel pit who will grant them one wish each day. Of course, the wishes go awry in a humorous way, but thankfully, the effects wear off at sunset.I never got around to reading Nesbit as a child. I read this aloud to my 8-year-old son. We both enjoyed the humorous adventures and the cranky Psammead, and it led to lots of conversations about wishes and unintended consequences. I found the characterizations of the girls don't pass muster for modern sensibilities, and the chapter about Indians was uncomfortably stereotyped. Despite those hiccups, this was a fun read.
    • 5/5
      This was mysteriously missing from my shelves, so it got added to my Christmas wishlist and reread accordingly. Still wonderful even after 100 years; few people have ever written children as convincingly as Edith Nesbit (notably, btw, her children are seldom orphans, although the parents tend to be conveniently absent for whatever reason), who also throws in a little social of her own social conscience for the adults: "If grown-ups got hold of me," says the Psammead, "… they'd ask for a graduated income-tax, and old-age pensions, and manhood suffrage, and free secondary education and dull things like that, and get them and keep them, and the whole world would be turned topsy-turvy."
    • 4/5
      One of my favorites. Lots of British language - hard read-aloud, but worth the time!
    • 4/5
      In reading this book to my young daughter, I was delighted that she so enjoyed a book written over 100 years ago. While some of the terminology and language is outdated enough to be a bit confusing to a child, the story itself is as fresh and charming as can be.Four children (the fifth child from the title is only a baby) discover a Psammead or Sand-fairy, which grants them a wish a day. However, at sunset, all traces of the wish disappear forever. The children quickly discover that wishing is not as easy as it sounds, and every wish they make turns out to have quite unforseen consequences - mostly bad. The story is clever, often funny, occasionally laugh-out-loud funny, and has a sweet ending.
    • 4/5
      The Psammead is a grumpy sand fairy who grants wishes to five children. Unfortunately, the children find out that having wishes granted can come with unintended consequences. They wish for gold coins, but can't spend them without being accused of being thieves. They wish for a castle but find themselves in the middle of a siege. It goes on like this. In the end they wish for no more wishes!
    • 4/5
      "Fairy of sand" has come out when five children dig up his large pit in the stone quarry. The fairy is said Psammead. Psammead is said the living for several thousand years, and says that it will realize any wish of one a day. However, validity term is limited the first. Children become glad, and do various wishes. The person in the town is neither surprised, it is not trusted, and it goes anyway well though Psammead realizes the wish in every case as it is a promise. Finally, the major disruption is caused over expensive jewels stolen from a rich house. Though children who panicked go again in Psammead but….When it is every child, I think that the theme that is the ideal is a story, and the fantasy story that can be happily read.
    • 5/5
      I adore E. Nesbit's fantasies. They are very Edwardian, very British and invoke a world that doesn't exist any more (if it ever really did).
    • 5/5
      Four children and their baby brother stumble upon a Sand Fairy and learn from It that he can grant them one wish a day but the wish will only last until sunset. They quickly learn that making and getting wishes is not as easy as it seems. They wish for the wrong things at the wrong time and even when they get it right it never turns out as they thought it would. Such as when they wish they were all beautiful and return home to find that the servants don't know who they are and turn them away. And when they wish the baby was grown up, and all grown up he does become, even older than they and what a stuffy, snobby man he turns out to be. Some wishes so do turn out fun such as when they wish for wings, only they forget to get home in time and at sunset find themselves stuck on the top of a church roof. Lot's of fun!E. Nesbit is credited with creating modern fantasy where fantastical creatures or elements become a part of the 'real' world. Even with having been written over a hundred years ago the writing and style is immensely readable. The 7yo loved this book very much. He found it quite all very exciting and wants to continue on with the series. This is an old-fashioned type of story (all the horse and carriages for instance) and it is very British plus this time period in England was very class conscious which makes it a bit hard for a modern North American child to comprehend at times but most of it was a non-issue. I loved these books when I was a kid and loved this just as much this time as an adult. The 7yo boy is anxious to read more about this group of children and their magical adventures. Recommended.
    • 5/5
      Five Children and It is a thoroughly delightful book chronicling the adventures of four young English children and their little brother "Lamb." Told splendidly by Nesbit this book deserves to be read again and again and again.
    • 4/5
      Not sure why I have this marked as 'to read'. I loved this a lot when I was younger -- my copy is a hand-me-down from someone else who loved it, and therefore very battered. The tone is a little preachy at times, but the story is fun.
    • 4/5
      When I was a child, I loved this book. I loved the illustrations. The edition I have now doesn't have illustrations, alas.
    • 3/5
      What I like about E. Nesbit, and Five Children and It in particular, is the sense of reality that pervades the books in contrast to the plot. Despite having found a wish-granting entity, the kids are always hungry and tired, and they get mad at each other, and they forget lessons they should have learned in the last chapter, and they're afraid of getting in trouble.
    • 5/5
      A classic children's story from 1902, about five children (or, really, four children and their baby brother) who encounter a slightly bad-tempered magical creature who can grant wishes at a rate of one a day, with the limitation that whatever is wished for inevitably disappears by sunset. Which turns out to be a good thing, as, of course, the kids keep accidentally wishing for entirely the wrong things, or wishing for things that seem like a good idea but turn out less than ideally. They end up missing dinner a lot.This was a favorite of mine when I was young. Revisiting books you loved as a child is always a little worrying, as there's a real possibility of discovering that they're not as good as you thought they were, thus tinging your beloved childhood memories with disappointment. But I'm pleased to say that this is not one of those books. I found it utterly charming, and every bit as delightful as I did as a kid. I think back then, I was probably mostly taken with the cute fantasy story. Now, what I mostly appreciate is the humor, including a lot of extremely amusing authorial asides that clearly come from someone who remembers what it's like to be a child but also has an adult's perspective on kids. And both adult me and kid me can appreciate the way the book has a pleasant sort of quaintness to it, while at the same time being as breezily readable as any modern kid's story, although I'm sure the younger me wouldn't have thought of it in quite those terms.
    • 5/5
      A London family takes a modest house in the country for the summer, and the five children discover a sand fairy with the power to grant wishes.

      Cyril, Anthea, Robert, and Jane, and their two-year-old brother whom they call the Lamb, also discover that wishes aren't always all they're cracked up to be. What could be more harmless than Jane's wish that they all be "as beautiful as the day"? How could wishing for untold wealth--in gold coins--go wrong? Yet over the course of the summer, the children find that more often than not they are figuring out how to get through to sunset, when the sand fairy's gifts go away.

      This was a cherished favorite when I was a child, and it's still a lovely, wonderful book to read and reread. It ages very well; Nesbit's girls and boys are equally brave, clever, and loyal, with the impulsivity and unreliable judgment of real children.

      Highly recommended.
    • 4/5
      I found the book, on an obvious reread, still quite funny and entertaining. I wonder if the Disney Factory has done a rewrite for modern tastes. Or was that "E.T.?
    • 3/5
      A family moved to London.The family contains five children-Robert,Anthea,Jane,Cyril,and baby.When the children dug a hole in the gravel-pit,they were very surprised atwhat they found. That is "IT". A sand-fairy,thousands of years old."IT"is fat and furry, and with eyes on long stalks. IT said the children to grant their wishes when every time they found IT.They were glad. They said,"I wish we were very beautiful." "Gold,pldase.""Wings please."....IT granted all things they wished easily,but they caused trouble many times.The book is a story with a happy ending, and easy to understand.But I was a little bored.
    • 5/5
      I think that this book does a great job of being interesting and that the author should make more ( if not dead ). (by my child not me)
    • 5/5
      This is another delightful classic from the pen of Edith Nesbit. Our five young heroes and heroines (or four really as one is a baby the others call Lamb) discover a Psammead or sand fairy who can grant them a wish a day. Needless to say they get the wishes wrong and don;t think through the consequences, but it all turns out right by sunset each day. I didn't enjoy this quite as much as The Railway Children, but it was still very enjoyable, with a lot of nice illustrations throughout.

    Book preview

    Five Children and It - E. Nesbit

    alas!

    1. Beautiful as the Day

    THE house was three miles from the station, but before the dusty hired fly had rattled along for five minutes the children began to put their heads out of the carriage window and to say, Aren’t we nearly there? And every time they passed a house, which was not very often, they all said, "Oh, is this it? But it never was, till they reached the very top of the hill, just past the chalk-quarry and before you come to the gravel-pit. And then there was a white house with a green garden and an orchard beyond, and mother said, Here we are!"

    How white the house is, said Robert.

    And look at the roses, said Anthea.

    And the plums, said Jane.

    It is rather decent, Cyril admitted.

    The Baby said, Wanty go walky; and the fly stopped with a last rattle and jolt.

    Everyone got its legs kicked or its feet trodden on in the scramble to get out of the carriage that very minute, but no one seemed to mind. Mother, curiously enough, was in no hurry to get out; and even when she had come down slowly and by the step, and with no jump at all, she seemed to wish to see the boxes carried in, and even to pay the driver, instead of joining in that first glorious rush round the garden and the orchard and the thorny, thistly, briery, brambly wilderness beyond the broken gate and the dry fountain at the side of the house. But the children were wiser, for once. It was not really a pretty house at all; it was quite ordinary, and mother thought it was rather inconvenient, and was quite annoyed at there being no shelves, to speak of, and hardly a cupboard in the place. Father used to say that the ironwork on the roof and coping was like an architect’s nightmare. But the house was deep in the country, with no other house in sight, and the children had been in London for two years, without so much as once going to the seaside even for a day by an excursion train, and so the White House seemed to them a sort of Fairy Palace set down in an Earthly Paradise. For London is like prison for children, especially if their relations are not rich.

    Of course there are the shops and the theaters, and Maskelyne and Cook’s, and things, but if your people are rather poor you don’t get taken to the theaters, and you can’t buy things out of the shops; and London has none of those nice things that children may play with without hurting the things or themselves—such as trees and sand and woods and waters. And nearly everything in London is the wrong sort of shape—all straight lines and flat streets, instead of being all sorts of odd shapes, like things are in the country. Trees are all different, as you know, and I am sure some tiresome person must have told you that there are no two blades of grass exactly alike. But in streets, where the blades of grass don’t grow, everything is like everything else. This is why so many children who live in towns are so extremely naughty. They do not know what is the matter with them, and no more do their fathers and mothers, aunts, uncles, cousins, tutors, governesses, and nurses; but I know. And so do you now. Children in the country are naughty sometimes, too, but that is for quite different reasons.

    The children had explored the gardens and the outhouses thoroughly before they were caught and cleaned for tea, and they saw quite well that they were certain to be happy at the White House. They thought so from the first moment, but when they found the back of the house covered with jasmine, all in white flower, and smelling like a bottle of the most expensive scent that is ever given for a birthday present; and when they had seen the lawn, all green and smooth, and quite different from the brown grass in the gardens at Camden Town; and when they had found the stable with a loft over it and some old hay still left, they were almost certain; and when Robert had found the broken swing and tumbled out of it and got a lump on his head the size of an egg, and Cyril had nipped his finger in the door of a hutch that seemed made to keep rabbits in, if you ever had any, they had no longer any doubts whatever.

    The best part of it all was that there were no rules about not going to places and not doing things. In London almost everything is labelled You mustn’t touch, and though the label is invisible, it’s just as bad, because you know it’s there, or if you don’t you jolly soon get told.

    The White House was on the edge of a hill, with a wood behind it—and the chalk-quarry on one side and the gravel-pit on the other. Down at the bottom of the hill was a level plain, with queer-shaped white buildings where people burnt lime, and a big red brewery and other houses; and when the big chimneys were smoking and the sun was setting, the valley looked as if it was filled with golden mist, and the limekilns and oasthouses glimmered and glittered till they were like an enchanted city out of the Arabian Nights.

    Now that I have begun to tell you about the place, I feel that I could go on and make this into a most interesting story about all the ordinary things that the children did—just the kind of things you do yourself, you know—and you would believe every word of it; and when I told about the children’s being tiresome, as you are sometimes, your aunts would perhaps write in the margin of the story with a pencil, How true! or How like life! and you would see it and very likely be annoyed. So I will only tell you the really astonishing things that happened, and you may leave the book about quite safely, for no aunts and uncles either are likely to write How true! on the edge of the story. Grown-up people find it very difficult to believe really wonderful things, unless they have what they call proof. But children will believe almost anything, and grown-ups know this. That is why they tell you that the earth is round like an orange, when you can see perfectly well that it is flat and lumpy; and why they say that the earth goes round the sun, when you can see for yourself any day that the sun gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night like a good sun as it is, and the earth knows its place, and lies as still as a mouse. Yet I daresay you believe all that about the earth and the sun, and if so you will find it quite easy to believe that before Anthea and Cyril and the others had been a week in the country they had found a fairy. At least they called it that, because that was what it called itself; and of course it knew best, but it was not at all like any fairy you ever saw or heard of or read about.

    It was at the gravel-pits. Father had to go away suddenly on business, and mother had gone away to stay with Granny, who was not very well. They both went in a great hurry, and when they were gone the house seemed dreadfully quiet and empty, and the children wandered from one room to another and looked at the bits of paper and string on the floors left over from the packing, and not yet cleared up, and wished they had something to do. It was Cyril who said:

    I say, let’s take our Margate spades and go and dig in the gravel-pits. We can pretend it’s seaside.

    Father said it was once, Anthea said; he says there are shells there thousands of years old.

    So they went. Of course they had been to the edge of the gravel-pit and looked over, but they had not gone down into it for fear father should say they mustn’t play there, and the same with the chalk-quarry. The gravel-pit is not really dangerous if you don’t try to climb down the edges, but go the slow safe way round by the road, as if you were a cart.

    Each of the children carried its own spade, and took it in turns to carry the Lamb. He was the baby, and they called him that because Baa was the first thing he ever said. They called Anthea Panther, which seems silly when you read it, but when you say it it sounds a little like her name.

    The gravel-pit is very large and wide, with grass growing round the edges at the top, and dry stringy wildflowers, purple and yellow. It is like a giant’s wash-hand basin. And there are mounds of gravel, and holes in the sides of the basin where gravel has been taken out, and high up in the steep sides there are the little holes that are the little front doors of the little sand-martins’ little houses.

    The children built a castle, of course, but castle-building is rather poor fun when you have no hope of the swishing tide ever coming in to fill up the moat and wash away the drawbridge, and, at the happy last, to wet everybody up to the waist at least.

    Cyril wanted to dig out a cave to play smugglers in, but the others thought it might bury them alive, so it ended in all spades going to work to dig a hole through the castle to Australia. These children, you see, believed that the world was round, and that on the other side the little Australian boys and girls were really walking wrong way up, like flies on the ceiling, with their heads hanging down into the air.

    The children dug and they dug and they dug, and their hands got sandy and hot and red, and their faces got damp and shiny. The Lamb had tried to eat the sand, and had cried so hard when he found that it was not, as he had supposed, brown sugar, that he was now tired out, and was lying asleep in a warm fat bunch in the middle of the half-finished castle. This left his brothers and sisters free to work really hard, and the hole that was to come out in Australia soon grew so deep that Jane, who was called Pussy for short, begged the others to stop.

    Suppose the bottom of the hole gave way suddenly, she said, and you tumbled out among the little Australians, all the sand would get in their eyes.

    Yes, said Robert; and they would hate us, and throw stones at us, and not let us see the kangaroos, or opossums, or blue-gums, or Emu Brand birds, or anything.

    Cyril and Anthea knew that Australia was not quite so near as all that, but they agreed to stop using the spades and go on with their hands. This was quite easy, because the sand at the bottom of the hole was very soft and fine and dry, like sea-sand. And there were little shells in it.

    Fancy it having been wet sea here once, all sloppy and shiny, said Jane, with fishes and conger-eels and coral and mermaids.

    And masts of ships and wrecked Spanish treasure. I wish we could find a gold doubloon, or something, Cyril said.

    How did the sea get carried away? Robert asked.

    Not in a pail, silly, said his brother. Father says the earth got too hot underneath, like you do in bed sometimes, so it just hunched up its shoulders, and the sea had to slip off, like the blankets do off us, and the shoulder was left sticking out, and turned into dry land. Let’s go and look for shells; I think that little cave looks likely, and I see something sticking out there like a bit of wrecked ship’s anchor, and it’s beastly hot in the Australian hole.

    The others agreed, but Anthea went on digging. She always liked to finish a thing when she had once begun it. She felt it would be a disgrace to leave that hole without getting through to Australia.

    The cave was disappointing, because there were no shells, and the wrecked ship’s anchor turned out to be only the broken end of a pickaxe handle, and the cave party were just making up their minds that the sand makes you thirstier when it is not by the seaside, and someone had suggested going home for lemonade, when Anthea suddenly screamed:

    Cyril! Come here! Oh, come quick! It’s alive! It’ll get away! Quick!

    They all hurried back.

    It’s a rat, I shouldn’t wonder, said Robert. Father says they infest old places—and this must be pretty old if the sea was here thousands of years ago.

    Perhaps it is a snake, said Jane, shuddering.

    Let’s look, said Cyril, jumping into the hole. I’m not afraid of snakes. I like them. If it is a snake I’ll tame it, and it will follow me everywhere, and I’ll let it sleep round my neck at night.

    No, you won’t, said Robert firmly. He shared Cyril’s bedroom. But you may if it’s a rat.

    Oh, don’t be silly! said Anthea; "it’s not a rat, it’s much bigger. And it’s not a snake. It’s got feet; I saw them; and fur! No—not the spade. You’ll hurt it! Dig with your hands."

    "And let it hurt me instead! That’s so likely, isn’t it?" said Cyril, seizing a spade.

    Oh, don’t! said Anthea. "Squirrel, don’t. I—it sounds silly, but it said something. It really and truly did."

    What?

    It said, ‘You let me alone.’

    But Cyril merely observed that his sister must have gone off her nut, and he and Robert dug with spades while Anthea sat on the edge of the hole, jumping up and down with hotness and anxiety. They dug carefully, and presently everyone could see that there really was something moving in the bottom of the Australian hole.

    Then Anthea cried out, "I’m not afraid. Let me dig," and fell on her knees and began to scratch like a dog does when he has suddenly remembered where it was that he buried his bone.

    Oh, I felt fur, she cried, half laughing and half crying. I did indeed! I did! when suddenly a dry husky voice in the sand made them all jump back, and their hearts jumped nearly as fast as they did.

    Let me alone, it said. And now everyone heard the voice and looked at the others to see if they had too.

    But we want to see you, said Robert bravely.

    I wish you’d come out, said Anthea, also taking courage.

    Oh, well—if that’s your wish, the voice said, and the sand stirred and spun and scattered, and something brown and furry and fat came rolling out into the hole and the sand fell off it, and it sat there yawning and rubbing the ends of its eyes with its hands.

    I believe I must have dropped asleep, it said, stretching itself.

    The children stood round the hole in a ring, looking at the creature they had found. It was worth looking at. Its eyes were on long horns like a snail’s eyes, and it could move them in and out like telescopes; it had ears like a

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