Five Children on the Western Front Read online

  Jane was thoughtful. ‘This is a result – the message couldn’t have been clearer. He’s here to repent, so he didn’t appear because of Cyril or the war. But perhaps they’re somehow caught up in his repentance.’

  ‘Stop saying that word,’ the Psammead muttered.

  ‘We can’t take him downstairs,’ Anthea said. ‘Oh dear, where can we leave him?’

  ‘Leave him up here with us, Miss Pemberton. We’ll entertain him royally,’ Ernie said.

  ‘So many questions to ask him!’ Jimmy murmured. ‘Where does one begin? Haywood, could you take notes?’

  Being worshipped like this always improved the Psammead’s temper. A smile flickered across his mouth. ‘Yes, you may leave me with this scholar and his warrior slave.’

  Edie screwed her eyes shut when they went past the skeleton, and they all ran downstairs to the kitchen. Old Nurse and Ivy had covered the table with sandwiches, cakes and sliced chicken, which the children ate as if they had never seen food before. By the time they were all stuffed full, the short December afternoon had darkened to evening and it was time to set off on the long journey home. They trooped wearily upstairs to put the Psammead back in his basket.

  ‘Thank you for being so kind, Mr Haywood.’ Anthea shook hands with Ernie.

  ‘Don’t mention it, Miss Pemberton,’ he said. ‘I’ve had the time of my life – skeleton and all.’

  Jimmy absently kissed the girls. ‘Goodbye, my dears. Goodbye, oh most wonderful sand fairy!’

  ‘You see?’ the Psammead said. ‘That is the correct way to address me. Goodbye, young warrior.’

  ‘It’s been a pleasure, chum.’ Ernie patted his head. ‘I hope we meet again. I’ll enjoy thinking about this afternoon when I’m back in a trench, with a hundred German shells raining down on my head.’ He spoke to the Psammead but was looking at Anthea.

  A few minutes later they were outside in the noisy, dirty, bustling street. It was freezing after Old Nurse’s stuffy kitchen, and a sharp wind whipped at their clothes.

  ‘I don’t think I’ve ever been so tired,’ Jane said forlornly. ‘First the tram, then the train, then three miles in the pony-trap.’

  ‘I know, and this basket is dragging my arm off.’ Anthea hugged Edie with her free arm. ‘Are you all right, baby?’

  ‘I’m so incredibly tired that I don’t even mind being called “baby”. Oh, I do WISH we could just be at home right now!’

  Something knocked her legs from under her, and before she hit the ground, the noise and bustle of the street suddenly switched off and threw her into dark, cold silence.

  Instead of the pavement they were all lying on a rutted unlit road. Anthea struggled to her feet, brushing her long skirt. ‘It’s all right, the Psammead’s still safe in the basket. But where on earth are we?’

  Jane suddenly laughed. ‘Don’t you see? It’s the bottom of the lane at home!’

  It made a wonderful end to the day. They had all been dreading the long trek home, and here they were, with the lights of the White House twinkling cheerfully at them through the bare branches. And more importantly, the Psammead had granted a wish.

  The Lamb whooped and punched the air. ‘Good stuff, Edie – you made a wish and it came true!’

  ‘I didn’t know I was making a wish.’ Edie’s tiredness had melted away, and she was chuckling softly with the others.

  ‘Lamb, be a dear,’ Anthea said, ‘run ahead and tell Mother we took an earlier train. She’ll be so pleased not to have to turn Field out to meet us that she won’t ask too many questions.’

  ‘Righto!’ This sudden blast of magic filled the Lamb with excitement. He didn’t go on about it but he longed for the kind of adventures the Bigguns had had with the Psammead, and this was the first real sign that it was possible. He stumbled up the lane whistling, making a shortlist of favourite wishes, and wondering if there was a way to involve Winterbum without the whole school knowing.

  Anthea and Jane carried the basket between them.

  ‘It’s been a lovely day,’ Anthea said. ‘I’m glad we took the Psammead.’

  ‘Me too, or we would never have met Ernie,’ Edie said. ‘Isn’t he nice? And don’t you think he’s handsome?’ When the older girls at school liked a boy they called it ‘having a crackation’; Edie decided Ernie was her first crackation.

  Jane giggled. ‘Anthea does – oh, you can’t hide it from me, old girl.’

  ‘Stop it. I don’t know what you mean.’ Anthea’s expression was invisible in the dark but her voice was smiling. ‘He was very nice, that’s all.’

  *

  Letter from Lt C. Pemberton, 9th Loamshires

  Somewhere in France, 12th December 1914

  Dear Anthea, Jane, Lamb, Edie and ‘Sammy’,

  Bad news first, kids – I won’t be getting any Christmas leave, as things are busy in our part of the world. Harper and I were pretty sick that we were staying put, but not surprised. I’m counting on you lot to keep things cheery for Mother and Father.

  Your letter certainly cheered me up. I wish I’d been there when that ghost appeared and gave Sammy his orders, and I wish like anything I’d been included in that first magic trick; there’s nothing I’d like better than to find myself suddenly whisked back home – but seriously, if Sammy’s granting wishes again, please don’t go making any wishes like that on my behalf. I don’t want to be shot as a deserter, as I would be if I vanished from my dugout and turned up in Kent.

  We go up the line to the front tomorrow (we’re slightly behind the lines now, camping out in what used to be the post office of a village that has now been flattened by the Huns), so it’ll be a while before I can send another letter. Don’t get too worried, though – the mud’s the worst of it.

  I spent the whole of yesterday afternoon dragging out a poor old horse who’d sunk into the mud up to his belly. He was thrashing and whinnying and the sergeant wanted to shoot him, but Harper and I refused to give up. He held the horse’s head and calmed him down, and the rest of us managed to haul him out with a couple of ropes. We’re now plastered with mud from head to foot, but it was worth it – the whole platoon gave that extremely muddy horse a cheer when he was led away.

  Happy Christmas! I’ll see you next year,

  Love

  Squirrel

  Postcard from Robert Pemberton,

  King’s College, Cambridge

  Can’t get back till next week, though term’s ended – the army’s everywhere and they can’t find a place for us to sit our exams. I WISH they’d get a move on.

  Bobs

  Eight

  FALLEN IDOL

  ‘I KEEP TELLING YOU,’ THE Psammead snapped. ‘I didn’t grant any wishes.’

  ‘Yes you did!’ the Lamb said, through gritted teeth. ‘Edie wished we were at home, and then we were. If you didn’t grant it, who did?’

  ‘I don’t know! It happened by itself and I’m as puzzled as you are.’

  The Psammead had been very tired after the trip to London. He had insisted on spending the whole weekend in his sand bath, and Anthea had begged them not to dig him out. It was now Monday afternoon, and the Lamb raced up to the attic the moment he got back from school. Term was about to end, and all anyone could talk about was the holidays. The Lamb had spent most of the day dreaming up the wishes he would make in all that glorious free time, and was very annoyed that the Psammead wasn’t even trying to grant them.

  ‘I know what this is – you’re still frightened of that skeleton woman who told you to repent.’

  The Psammead’s whiskers stiffened furiously. ‘Frightened – of her? Certainly not!’

  Edie was up there too, perched on top of an old suitcase. She’d been deep in conversation with the Psammead and was irritated at the interruption. ‘Look, if he says he can’t do wishes, you should just believe him.’

  ‘He’s afraid old whatsername will reveal more of his crimes,’ the Lamb said.

  ‘My dear Lamb, I was a god, and gods don’t commi
t crimes.’

  ‘Stop it!’ Edie hissed. ‘Leave him alone!’ Her school had already broken up for the holidays, and she’d just been to a children’s tea party at the vicarage – people were making a special effort not to let the war ruin Christmas. It had been great fun, and only slightly spoiled by horrid Agnes Foster being there too. Edie had been in the middle of telling the Psammead about Agnes blatantly cheating at ‘Pin the Tail on the Donkey’ when the Lamb came crashing in.

  ‘Oh, I’ll leave him alone.’ The Lamb stood up. ‘He’s no earthly use to anyone – all he does is moan! I’m going downstairs to get warm.’ Both children were still wearing their coats; the attic was bitterly cold, and they didn’t have a cosy sand bath to sit in.

  ‘Nobody understands me,’ the Psammead said. ‘All you care about is your shallow notion of “fun”, while I’m fighting for my very existence!’

  ‘Maybe you should do as the skeleton said, and start repenting,’ Edie suggested.

  The sand fairy took this very badly; he pulled in his eyes until they were invisible. ‘SHE didn’t understand either!’

  ‘That’s a good idea, Edie.’ The Lamb was interested and changed his mind about going downstairs. ‘What do you have to do, exactly? In the olden days people used to repent by walking to Jerusalem or somewhere with pebbles in their shoes.’

  ‘That’s just for humans,’ the Psammead huffed. ‘What do you people know about gods, anyway? Oh, the loneliness! I WISH I could talk to another fallen idol!’

  A force like strong hands made of cloud and wind lifted them off their feet.

  ‘Good stuff!’ yelled the Lamb. ‘I knew you could do it!’

  And suddenly they weren’t in the attic anymore. It was bright daylight and they were in a large formal garden covered with snow. The garden belonged to an enormous and rather ugly grey building with turrets like a castle.

  ‘Where are we?’ Edie looked around wildly. ‘Where’s the Psammead? I can’t see him!’

  ‘Don’t flap, old thing, he can’t have gone far.’ This sudden adventure had put the Lamb in a very good temper. ‘He wished to meet another fallen idol. This must be the idol’s castle.’

  ‘It doesn’t look a bit like the castles in fairy tales,’ Edie said. ‘It’s more like one of those big hotels at the seaside.’

  ‘Crikey, I hope we’re still in England – suppose they speak another language here? I don’t know any other languages. I’m rubbish at French and Latin at school.’

  ‘Nor do I,’ Edie said. ‘All I can remember from French lessons is “Maître corbeau sur un arbre perche,” and that won’t be much use, wherever we are. Are we going to be captured by guards?’

  ‘There don’t seem to be any guards. I’ll sneak a look through the windows.’ The Lamb scrambled across the snowy flowerbed to the nearest of the great windows and cautiously looked in. The room was furnished and decorated with grandeur, partly like a fairy tale and partly like the advertisement for Waring & Gillow’s that lined Mother’s sewing box. The portraits were of people wearing crowns and carrying swords. The room was deserted. ‘It’s all right, there’s no one here.’

  Edie scrambled after him. ‘No Psammead?’

  ‘No – but this place is huge. We just need to find a way to get inside, then we can make a proper search for him. Whoops – that’s torn it. Keep still!’

  Through the glass they saw a neat, grey-haired manservant walk into the empty room. They both froze. To their horror, the man walked towards the window. Hardly daring to breathe, they watched as he halted right in front of them – and calmly stared straight through them.

  ‘He can’t see us!’ the Lamb hissed. ‘I think we’re invisible! OYOYOY!’ he yelled at the top of his lungs and waved his arms wildly.

  ‘Don’t!’ Edie was horrified, but the man carried on staring calmly. He then turned his back and strolled out of the room.

  ‘This is more like it,’ the Lamb said in his normal voice. ‘Being invisible was on my list of wishes – though I actually wanted to be invisible at school. And it makes our Psammead-hunt a lot easier.’

  ‘Ugh!’ Edie shrieked. ‘What’s happened to your arm?’

  ‘Eh?’ He looked down and gulped ‘Cripes!’ His arm was buried up to the elbow in the grey stone wall, as if the bricks had turned to sponge.

  ‘Pull it out!’ Edie took a step backwards. ‘It looks so horrid!’

  The Lamb thought it looked hilarious. He tried sticking his arm in deeper, up to his shoulder. ‘This is peculiar – it’s sort of solid and sort of nothing, like a cloud, only thick and soupy. Is just my head sticking out now?’

  ‘Yes! It’s beastly.’ The sight of the castle wall with the Lamb’s head sticking out of it made Edie’s blood run cold. ‘Stop it!’

  ‘Wait a moment – this is getting better and better.’ The Lamb half stepped out of the wall. ‘We don’t need to look for a way in now, we can simply walk in through the walls. I’ve always wanted to do this.’ He took a long leap through the curious, soupy cloud, and found himself inside the splendid empty room. ‘Oh, Edie, come on – don’t be so WET!’

  ‘I’m not being wet!’ She was standing beside him on the rich, soft carpet. ‘I just didn’t like seeing your head all by itself. It looked as if you’d been executed.’

  The Lamb passed his hand through a large, yellow satin sofa. ‘We’re sort of here, and sort of not here.’

  ‘Are we dead?’ Edie asked.

  ‘Of course not!’

  ‘We’re like ghosts.’

  ‘If I was a ghost I wouldn’t be hungry, would I? And I’m exactly as starving as I was in the attic just now.’

  This was good reasoning and they both cheered up. It was fascinating to stroll in and out of the magnificent, glittering, over-stuffed, deserted rooms, beneath the blind gazes of huge painted kings and queens. Occasionally they saw a quiet, unhurried servant. Otherwise, all they saw was emptiness, and not a sign of the Psammead.

  ‘If we can’t find him,’ Edie said, ‘does that mean we won’t be able to get home?’

  ‘We’re inside his wish.’ The Lamb didn’t want Edie to know that he was worried about this too. ‘We’ll go where he goes.’

  ‘I’m getting tired. I want to sit down, but if I sit on something here I’ll just sink right through it.’

  ‘Look, stop fretting. The Bigguns always got home all right, didn’t they?’

  ‘But that was different – they made their wishes on purpose.’

  ‘Stop acting like a little girl,’ the Lamb said sternly. ‘You’re spoiling the adventure.’ He wandered through the nearest fireplace – vast and cavernous and made to burn entire trees – and emerged into another empty sitting room.

  Edie followed him. ‘Funny, I can smell the soot when I walk through fireplaces. And walking through anything is a bit frightening – I can feel it right in the middle of my bones.’

  The Lamb stopped mid-yawn and went over to a small table. ‘A newspaper – this should tell us where we are.’

  The newspaper was called De Telegraaf.

  ‘I think that’s German,’ Edie said. ‘We’re in an enemy stronghold.’

  ‘It says “Amsterdam” there, and that’s in Holland,’ the Lamb said. ‘Which means this language must be Dutch – my hat!’ He suddenly let out a gasp and grabbed Edie’s hand. ‘Look at that!’

  ‘Let go – look at what?’

  ‘The date!’

  There it was, printed in stark black and white – ‘10 December 1938’.

  For a long moment they were both silent, taking in the incredible fact that they were in the distant future.

  ‘This isn’t what I expected at all,’ Edie said. ‘What’s the Psammead doing in Holland in 1938?’

  ‘It’s a rum place to find a fallen idol.’ The Lamb tried to pick up the newspaper, but his hand went right through it. ‘It’s a shame we can’t take this back with us – think how useful it’d be to have a paper from the future!’

  ‘I’d rea
lly like to go home. This is a creepy place, even without the spongy walls,’ Edie said.

  ‘I told you – we’ll find him in a minute.’

  They resumed their search through the splendid emptiness – until they turned a corner and heard a familiar voice floating from an open door. It was the dusty drone of their sand fairy in the middle of one of his rants. Edie gasped with relief; she could stand this castle if she knew he was safe.

  ‘My people were very ungrateful,’ the Psammead was saying. ‘The fact that I kept the streets spotless and built decent roads didn’t cut any ice at all! I ordered my soldiers to kill the troublemakers – but they REFUSED! Isn’t it awful when your army turns on you?’

  ‘Yes, it cuts to the very heart,’ another voice said. ‘You are a wise creature.’ The voice was old and rasping, with a slight foreign accent. ‘You will understand how I felt when my people overthrew me and bundled me off on a train – with practically nothing except the dress uniform I stood up in! And I’ve been in this poky castle, in this boring little country ever since.’

  The children followed the voices into a small, cluttered room, its walls hung with antique weapons and stuffed animal heads. The Psammead sat on a red satin cushion in front of the blazing fire, holding his skinny paws out to the flames.

  ‘Their so-called new government turned out to be a total mess, and I was so sorry for them that I offered to come back – but they said they didn’t want me!’

  The Psammead turned his head and saw the Lamb and Edie. ‘Oh, it’s you. I’ve been having a fascinating time with this very badly treated man, who used to be an emperor. I could talk to him all night – we have so much in common!’

  An old man with a white beard and a suit of checked tweed was sitting in a large armchair near the fireplace. When he saw the two children his mouth dropped open and he started shaking violently.

  ‘Hello,’ Edie said. ‘We’ve come to collect our sand fairy.’

  The old man mumbled something that ended in ‘Himmel!’