Five Children on the Western Front Read online

  The Lamb was a great one for arguing; Father called him the barrack-room lawyer.

  ‘My dear Lamb, can’t you see this is an EMERGENCY?’ the Psammead groaned. ‘I don’t even have enough power to get myself home! For some infernal reason I’ve been de-magicked and dumped here.’

  Far away, from the other end of the garden, Mother’s voice called: ‘Hilary! Edith!’

  ‘That means it’s nearly lunch and we have to go,’ Edie said, gently stroking the top of the Psammead’s head with one finger. ‘It’s a special lunch, a sort of goodbye party for Cyril.’

  ‘For Cyril? Where’s he going?’

  ‘He’s Lieutenant Cyril now,’ the Lamb said casually (trying to sound as if this wasn’t the most thrilling thing in the world). ‘He’s going to the war.’

  ‘War? What are you talking about?’

  ‘Our country is at war with Germany. They’ve got this beastly little tick of an emperor called Kaiser Wilhelm, and they’ve invaded France and Belgium.’

  ‘Some men from the government took all the horses from the farm next door because they’re needed to pull the big guns,’ Edie said.

  ‘Hilary! Edith!’ Mother called again.

  ‘I seem to have turned over two pages at once,’ the Psammead said. ‘Who is “Hilary?”’

  ‘Me.’ The Lamb pulled a face. ‘I’m afraid it’s my real name. Please ignore it – Mother’s the only person who uses it.’ He stood up, brushing his knees. ‘You’d better get back into the sand. We’ll dig you out again later.’

  ‘Don’t you dare leave me!’ The little creature was horrified. ‘I REFUSE to have anything to do with this freezing damp sand! If I have to stay in this dreadful place, I’ll make do with the sand bath under Anthea’s bed. Take me there AT ONCE!’

  The Lamb and Edie looked at each other helplessly.

  ‘Awfully sorry,’ the Lamb said. ‘Anthea doesn’t keep a bath full of sand under her bed these days.’

  ‘I’ve told you, I can’t stay here. I need someone who knows about looking after sand fairies.’

  ‘We’ll have to tell the Bigguns sometime,’ Edie said (this was the family name for the four eldest children). ‘Won’t they be happy to see the Psammead again?’

  ‘Hmm, I don’t know about that,’ the Lamb said. ‘He hasn’t exactly popped out at the most convenient time.’

  ‘I could run and fetch them now—’

  ‘They won’t believe you.’ The Lamb was old enough to know that their big brothers and sisters were far too busy and impatient to listen to stuff about the old stories – especially today, when everything was at sixes and sevens.

  ‘Hilary! Edith!’

  ‘Nothing else for it – we’ll have to take him up to the house. They’ll have to listen when they actually see him. Can you carry him in your skirt?’

  ‘No, he’s too heavy – and his legs are too long.’

  The Lamb shrugged off his tweed jacket. ‘I’ll wrap him in this and carry him in my arms.’ He spread it out on the sand beside Edie.

  ‘I don’t seem to have much choice.’ The Psammead hopped from Edie’s lap onto the jacket, and yelped angrily. ‘Ouch! I’m sitting on something knobbly!’

  ‘Sorry,’ the Lamb said. ‘The pockets are full of conkers.’

  The Psammead pulled his eyes back into his head, until his face was nothing but a crease of crossness. ‘Hurry up – I’m freezing!’

  The Lamb carefully wrapped the creature in his jacket, so that not one hair of him was visible. He picked him up and cradled the strange tweed bundle in his arms.

  Edie giggled. ‘Now it looks like you’re holding a baby!’

  ‘Hilary! Edith! Where are you?’

  ‘Come on.’ Holding his bundle as tightly as he dared, the Lamb managed to scramble out of the gravel pit, and Edie helped him through the hedge into the garden.

  The garden of the White House was a long lawn surrounded by a deep shrubbery, and the two children were able to get to the kitchen door through the dripping branches without being seen from the windows. They halted in the shelter of the nearest rhododendron, a few yards from the back of the house. Mother was on the terrace outside the sitting room, flustered from calling them.

  ‘She mustn’t see me,’ the Lamb whispered. ‘You’ll have to create a diversion.’

  ‘But will she be able to see the Psammead?’ Edie whispered back. ‘Wasn’t he always invisible to grown-ups?’

  ‘I can smell damp evergreens,’ said the muffled voice of the Psammead from the tweedy depths of his bundle. ‘Now I KNOW I’m back in wretched England.’

  ‘Anthea darling, do go and find the little ones,’ Mother said.

  Inside the sitting room they heard Anthea saying something.

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ Mother said. ‘I told them not to go anywhere – Mrs Field will be so cross if we’re late sitting down.’ She went into the house through the French windows and shut them behind her.

  ‘Good-oh,’ said the Lamb. He gave the Psammead a gentle squeeze. ‘Anthea’s the exact person we need. She’ll know what to do.’

  A moment later the kitchen door opened and Anthea came out into the garden. Because this was a special occasion she had left off what Mother called her ‘arty smocks’ and was looking very grown up in her smart green dress, with her curly brown hair pinned up in a bun.

  When she saw the Lamb and Edie scuttling out of the shrubbery she frowned at them. ‘There you are – where on earth have you been?’

  ‘We were in the gravel pit,’ Edie said. ‘And you’ll never guess who we found – the Psammead!’

  ‘Go and wash your hands,’ Anthea said. ‘I can’t imagine how you managed to get so filthy. Granny’s here and Mrs F is muttering darkly about gravy.’

  ‘Wait – didn’t you hear me? We met the Psammead!’

  ‘Oh, Edie – there’s no time for those old stories now.’

  ‘This isn’t a story!’ Edie scowled; a couple of years ago she would have stamped her foot. ‘Why won’t you listen?’

  ‘We brought him with us,’ the Lamb said. ‘He’s wrapped in my jacket.’

  For the first time, their eldest sister looked at them properly. ‘What on earth have you got there? Honestly, Lamb – of all the days to sneak in one of your smelly animals.’

  ‘For the last time, I am NOT an animal,’ the muffled voice of the Psammead said. ‘And I’m most certainly NOT “smelly”.’

  The effect on Anthea was dramatic and rather alarming; her lips went white and she looked as if she’d seen a ghost.

  ‘What—?’ she asked faintly.

  ‘Panther, darling.’ Edie grabbed her hand. ‘Please listen to us.’ ‘Panther’ was Anthea’s old childhood nickname. Cyril’s was ‘Squirrel’, Robert’s was ‘Bobs’ and Jane had been ‘Puss’, though she’d refused to answer to it for years. ‘It really is IT and he can’t get home to his temple and he can’t stay in the gravel pit and we don’t know what to do with him.’

  The Lamb gently unfolded his jacket to uncover the Psammead’s little head with its soft, floppy ears all squashed out of shape; his eyes shot out on their stalks.

  Anthea stared; the colour surged into her pale face and she beamed with astonished joy. ‘It’s really you – oh, how lovely!’ Her eyes filled with tears and she laughed softly. ‘But I mustn’t cry, or you won’t let me touch you.’

  ‘Certainly not,’ the Psammead said. ‘Tears are more painful to me than any other form of dampness – but surely you can’t be Anthea, you’re far too old.’

  ‘You dear, furry thing, how wonderful to see you again.’ She scrubbed at her eyes with her sleeve. ‘See? I’m as dry as a bone now – I’m going to give you a kiss.’

  Edie and the Lamb shot grins of relief at each other – this was the old Panther of the games and stories, and not the serious grown-up Anthea who drew naked people and argued with Father about art.

  ‘Ugh – don’t you dare! Kisses are wet, sloppy things – oh, well – perhaps occasi
onally.’

  Anthea leaned forward and gently kissed the top of the Psammead’s head, and though he was still trying to look cross, a smile flickered across his furry mouth.

  ‘Now I know I haven’t slipped into a dream,’ Anthea said. ‘But dear old Psammead, why have you come back?’ She frowned slightly. ‘And what on earth are we going to do with you?’

  Two

  THE BIGGUNS

  ‘WELL,’ THE PSAMMEAD SAID, in a better-tempered voice. ‘It’s a shame you don’t have a sand bath, but I will admit to a certain pleasure at seeing you all again.’

  He was sitting in the middle of the rug in Anthea’s bedroom, his long legs and arms comfortably folded. The six brothers and sisters knelt in a circle around him.

  Edie was very quiet, but her heart hammered with excitement; she could almost smell the wave of magic that had suddenly swept into her life. The Bigguns were so thrilled to see the Psammead that they had forgotten they were big – though Cyril was a soldier in uniform and Anthea a young lady with her hair up.

  ‘Thanks, Psammead,’ Robert said. ‘It’s stupendous to have you back – if only we had time for a wish before lunch!’

  ‘Technically,’ Jane said, ‘we could wish we had more time – but then we’d have used up the day’s wish, and there wouldn’t be anything to do with the extra time.’ In the days of the old adventures their wishes had always run out at sunset.

  ‘We could wish Granny wasn’t here,’ the Lamb suggested.

  Jane stifled a giggle. ‘Lamb!’

  ‘I don’t mean dead or ill or anything – just safely back in Tunbridge Wells, and not here, telling us not to fidget and calling us all by the wrong names.’

  ‘Poor old Granny – ignore him, Psammead.’

  The Psammead’s eyes rolled round to Jane. ‘As I have already explained to your baby brother, I shall NOT be granting wishes. It’s completely out of the question.’

  ‘I’m not a baby!’ The Lamb was indignant. ‘And I don’t believe you can’t do wishes anymore – you had enough magic to get here.’

  ‘We ought to wish for the end of the war,’ Jane said thoughtfully. ‘But it wouldn’t do much good if the wish ran out at sunset, like the old ones used to. Even if we made the same wish the next morning, that still leaves the night.’

  ‘Steady on,’ Cyril said, ‘I’m not wishing for the end of the war unless we win it – and our army can manage that without magic, thanks.’

  ‘Why won’t any of you listen to me?’ The Psammead’s long whiskers shivered angrily. ‘I have just been through some sort of violent magical upheaval. I woke up and I was here – I have no idea why. I only know that I’m not strong enough to get home to my proper hole. I couldn’t grant the smallest wish if I tried.’

  ‘You’re a refugee,’ Anthea said. ‘Like a Belgian.’ (Anthea and Mother belonged to a relief committee for the refugees who had been driven out of Belgium by the Germans.) ‘Well, we’re all thrilled to see you again, and you can stay in our gravel pit as long as you like.’

  ‘Hear, hear!’ Cyril and Robert said.

  ‘I can’t stay in that gravel pit. It tears my nerves to SHREDS.’

  The children looked at each other uncertainly.

  ‘You didn’t mind it last time,’ Robert said.

  ‘That was summer. The sand now has an autumnal chill, very dangerous for a delicate, valuable being like me – the last sand fairy left in the universe, may I remind you.’

  ‘You’re even sweeter than the picture Panther did for me when I was little,’ Edie said. ‘We’ll make you another sand bath, and if you slept under my bed I’d absolutely love it.’

  The Psammead had been working himself into a state; Edie’s adoration calmed him down at once. ‘My lodging must be warm and dry and extremely quiet.’

  ‘I’ll tiptoe and talk in whispers if you like.’

  ‘That won’t be necessary. It’s the incessant digging-up I can’t bear. Your big brothers and sisters were constantly promising to leave me alone – and constantly dragging me out with their dirty hands when they’d managed to mess up a perfectly good wish.’

  ‘Oh, lor – remember the wings?’ Robert said.

  All the Bigguns burst out laughing.

  ‘Remember when we wished the Lamb was grown up – and he turned into a horrid young man with a moustache?’ Jane said.

  ‘I just wish I remembered it too,’ the Lamb said.

  ‘And remember when Panther wished we were all divinely beautiful?’ Cyril nudged Robert. ‘You came out looking like the most utter girl.’

  ‘Shut up.’ Robert nudged him back. ‘She had you looking disgustingly wet – with long cow’s eyelashes.’

  ‘Shut up!’

  ‘Stop it,’ Anthea said. ‘I do know how silly I was. Now I’ve come to love your ugly old faces just as they are.’

  ‘Yes, the memories are surging back!’ Without moving his tubby body, the Psammead swivelled his long eyes around the circle. ‘But dear me, how old you all are! Cyril’s a soldier, Anthea is a grown lady – and am I to understand that this lanky young man in spectacles is little Robert?’

  ‘Less of the little,’ Robert said, grinning. ‘I’m nineteen now.’

  ‘Bobs is at Cambridge University,’ Cyril said. ‘That’s why he looks like a sickening, long-haired poet.’

  ‘I do not!’

  ‘Tragically, that promising little boy grew up to be a four-eyed swot – ow!’ Cyril laughed harder as Robert gave him a rude shove, which made all the older children laugh too.

  ‘Shhh – or Mother will hear us and come upstairs,’ Jane said.

  ‘And this tall, grave young person is Jane!’

  ‘I’m sixteen now,’ Jane said. ‘I’m at high school.’ She wore a white blouse and a blue skirt, and had a long plait of brown hair and fingers that were always inky.

  ‘High?’ the Psammead echoed. ‘Is it on a mountain?’

  ‘No, it’s a perfectly ordinary school for girls.’

  ‘I suppose you’ll be leaving soon, when you marry that vet – what? What is it now?’

  They were all in fits of laughter again.

  ‘I changed my mind about marrying a vet,’ Jane said. ‘I’m a lot more interested in curing humans these days, and I mean to study medicine when I leave school. Lots of people think girls can’t be doctors, but that’s rot. Actually, girls can do most things boys do, and in the future—’

  ‘Crikey, you’ve set her off,’ Robert said. ‘Now we’ll get one of her lectures about the rights of women – how the poor little dears should have votes, and sit in Parliament.’

  Jane snatched a cushion from the bed and whacked Robert’s head with it. ‘Beast! Pig!’

  ‘Ow – just like a girl, beating up an unarmed man—’

  ‘Stinker! Poltroon!’

  ‘An unarmed man in glasses—’

  ‘Stop it!’ Edie didn’t think her elder brothers and sisters were taking this seriously enough. ‘We’re supposed to be working out what to do with the Psammead.’

  ‘Dash it, she’s right,’ Cyril said. ‘The gong will be going any minute and we can’t just leave the old boy in the middle of the floor. Maybe we should get some sand from the gravel pit and warm it by the gas fire.’

  ‘We don’t have time.’ Robert turned to the Psammead. ‘Where can we stow you while we’re having lunch?’

  ‘I told you – it must be WARM but not STUFFY, and PERFECTLY DRY.’

  ‘You could hide in my bed,’ Edie said, thinking how cuddly the Psammead would look on her eiderdown beside her plush, brown teddy bear.

  ‘Too cold and too smooth,’ the Psammead said. ‘I might be tolerably comfortable in a bath full of feathers. Do you have any feathers?’

  ‘No,’ Anthea said.

  ‘We have feathers inside our pillows,’ the Lamb said. ‘I’ll get mine—’

  ‘No!’ Anthea grabbed his sleeve. ‘You can’t just take the feathers out of your pillow – there’ll be no end of a fuss.�
�

  ‘Good thinking, Lamb,’ Cyril said, ignoring Anthea. ‘We can take the feathers out of my pillows. I’m going away so it’ll be ages before anybody notices.’

  ‘I’m pretty sure the old tin bath from the nursery is still in the attic.’ Robert stood up. ‘Lamb, come and help me carry it – Squirrel, go and get the pillows.’

  They hurried out of Anthea’s bedroom, trying to keep as quiet as possible. Jane helped Cyril bring both the pillows from his bed, and his eiderdown in case the pillows weren’t enough. Robert and the Lamb managed to carry the old tin bath down the attic stairs without too many thumps.

  They had to be quick; downstairs there were sounds of crockery and footsteps, which meant (as Cyril said) that lunch was looming. He slashed open his pillows with his army knife and a cloud of feathers puffed out into the air, making them all burst into yet another fit of laughing.

  It turned out that one pillow wasn’t nearly enough.

  ‘It’s just a thin layer of feathers at the bottom of the bath,’ Jane said. ‘And half of it hasn’t gone in the bath at all.’ She sneezed.

  Cyril, enjoying himself, slashed open another pillow. After that he briskly slashed into the puffy bits of his red satin eiderdown, until Anthea’s room was a snowstorm of whirling feathers and the eiderdown was a heap of red ribbons.

  ‘I’ll try to put it back on your bed,’ Anthea said. ‘Goodness knows what we’ll say when it gets noticed – Psammead, couldn’t you manage a small spell so that nobody notices?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Your fur’s full of feathers,’ Edie said. ‘You look like a snow-Psammead.’

  ‘Or a polar-Psammead,’ Robert said. ‘The Arctic version.’

  ‘Haven’t you finished yet? I’m collapsing with fatigue. And by the way,’ the creature added, ‘thousands of years ago there were a few of us in the Arctic. Unsurprisingly, they were the first sort of sand fairies to die out.’

  The old tin bath was now more or less filled with feathers. Cyril lifted up the Psammead and gently put him into his improvised bed.