AN: I've been humming "Nothing ever happens here in Galilee" from The Witness as I wrote this. It was inspired by the beginning of The Story of the Amulet, in which the children remember their adventures of the previous summer and winter and wish wonderful things would continue happening to them. The Psammead (pronounced Sammy-ad) was the "It" of Five Children and It, a "sand-fairy" who granted wishes and was generally cantankerous but a useful friend. Many, many thanks to Laura Andrews and WillowDryad for helping me perfect things and being unfailingly positive. I couldn't ask for better friends and readers.
Dedicated to my younger sisters, Ballerina and LittleScientist (sometimes referred to as Thing One and Thing Two), who inspired certain lines in this tale. I shan't say which.
Disclaimer: You know the drill.
Before the Adventures Began
"This house of the Professor's-which even he knew so little about-was so old and famous that people from all over England used to come and ask permission to see over it. It was the sort of house that is mentioned in guide books and even in histories; and well might it be, for all manner of stories were told about it, some of them even stranger than the one I am telling you now."
~ The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
"[Anthea] found the parlour in deepest gloom, hardly relieved at all by the efforts of Robert, who, to make the time pass, was pulling Jane's hair-not hard but just enough to tease.
"'Look here,' said Anthea. 'Let's have a palaver.'"
~ E. Nesbit, The Story of the Amulet
It was raining. Of course it was raining. It was also an odd sort of day when term had just ended and yet the holidays seemed not properly begun; a Saturday with only the fun they invented for themselves. The children were in what had once been the nursery and now was called their sitting-room. Susan was sitting in the armchair-the one with the stuffing coming through the arm from that time when it was Becky's day off and the boys sneaked kitchen knives to add excitement to the game of knights. She was reading again the story of Mary Lennox and Misselthwaite Manor. Lucy was lying on the floor playing checkers with Peter; her blue-eyed doll-a week-old gift from Mother and Father for her eighth birthday-on the rug beside her. "No, not that one, Lu," Peter was saying. "Do that and I'll capture half your men in three moves. Try this one-see? four jumps all in a row."
The gap where her fourth tooth had come out just the day before showed adorably when she grinned.
For Edmund, though, the day had already begun to wear. He was staring out the window, and looked to be working up to a healthy case of Kipling's "cameelious hump." "And ten to one it'll go on all day!"
"Oh, do stop grousing," said Susan. "It'll surely clear up soon enough, and then your precious ball game can go on just as before."
But by the time Lucy had won the game of checkers and Susan had finished another chapter of her book, the rain had settled into that steady grey drizzle which can go on for days and days and does not act kindly upon racetracks, putting greens, ball fields, or cricket pitches. It was left to Peter to take charge of the situation, and this he did by saying as he gathered up the checkers, "Let's have a council."
"Whatever for?" grumbled Edmund. "There's nothing to have a council about."
"To take stock of things."
Susan closed her book with a thump and stood up before Edmund could say anything more. "That's a splendid idea."
When they had arranged themselves in a circle of four on the rug (five if you counted the blue-eyed doll, on Lucy's lap), Peter stood up. He was the eldest and the one to call the council, so naturally he got to be chairman-only they all were sitting on the floor. Perhaps he was a floorman. I do not know.
"We all know," said he with an air of one who must face the facts, "that we shan't be going to the seashore these holidays."
And there was a pause as that truth impressed itself once more on the soul of each present, and a painful silence as they remembered the simply ripping time they'd had at the seashore the year before with Mother and Father-paddling in the tidepools, looking for shells dropped by mermaids, pretending they were explorers marooned on a deserted island, following a pirate map to buried treasure, building castles on the beach, crouching around driftwood fires and hearing and telling the most splendid stories with Father and Mother. And Mother had laughed often, what Lucy called her "holiday laugh," and Father had smiled his broad smile. It had been a sunny month of a holiday, at the end of which Mother had said, "We shall remember this always." Then Herr Hitler had disrupted everything. A mournful sigh was heard from the assembled company at the thought (in every mind) that nothing might ever be so lovely again, and certainly shouldn't be this summer.
After this moment of silence for their dearly departed summer, all four began talking at once.
"If it weren't for this bally war," began Edmund;
"Oughtn't we make the best of it?" asked Susan, just as Lucy put in,
"Aren't there things we can do here in London?"
Peter cleared his throat pompously and called for order. "The council recognizes Susan," who deferred to Lucy, who coaxed the blue-eyed doll to a straighter posture and began.
"In Mrs. Nesbit's books, the children had all sorts of adventures right in their sitting-room."
"Yes, but they had a Phoenix and a magic carpet," said Edmund. "Wherever should we get those?"
Peter made a quelling noise at Edmund.
Lucy, undaunted, pressed on. "And when they thought their holidays were going to be perfectly dreadful, they went out determined to amuse themselves all the same, and adventures just-found them. Couldn't we do the same, and maybe adventures will find us?"
Peter forgot he was the chairman (I think "floorman" is just silly, don't you?) then and said, "I think not. That sort of thing comes only in books."
"You see, Lucy," put in Susan, "those children already knew the Psammead, and so when they chanced to meet him in London, he recognized them, and that's how the adventures began." She saw a question forming itself on Lucy's tongue and hurried on.
"I'm afraid there aren't any more Psammeads in England-and if there were, we wouldn't find them in London-and there's only ever one Phoenix in the world at a time, and he shan't be hatched for another two thousand years."
"Magic doesn't happen in London, anyway," said Peter, "only in little countryside cottages and mysterious and spooky old houses-and not very often in those. It's Sherlock Holmes and things like that which happen in London, mostly."
"I don't think magic is real at all," said Edmund in a very superior tone. "I think it's all just a lot of rot they make up to put in books."
No one could think what to say to that. Susan didn't like to say so, especially after reassuring Lucy, but the truth of the matter was that she, too, did not really believe in magic. I do not know whether Peter did or not, for after a moment he recalled his duties as chairman and said, "If we were children in a book, doubtless we could open a door and find adventure, but as it is we shall just have to make the best of a bad job. I move we have a sword fight and then, when the rain clears up, we can feed the ducks in St. James Park."
"Second the movement of ducks," said Lucy.
Susan felt it her duty to remind Peter of the row there had been the last time he and Edmund staged a sword-fight indoors and Edmund felt it his duty to remind Lucy that one seconds the motion and not the movement; Peter felt obliged to remind Susan that there had only been a row after Edmund stumbled and knocked over the flowered pitcher, and then Lucy spoke up to say she distinctly remembered it being Peter who stumbled and knocked Edmund over. . . .
You may guess how the rest of it went, I am sure, especially if you have brothers or sisters of your own, and I do not need to tell you that it was several minutes before order was restored. The next thing that was said which is worth repeating was when Peter said (rather crossly, I must admit), "We'll play at soldiers then." With a valiant effort he mastered his temper enough to add, "And you can be Wellington, Edmund. I'll be Napoleon."
Since the rain showed no sign of intending to let up, Edmund grudgingly agreed to this most generous offer, and the council was adjourned. Susan returned to the tale of Mary Lennox and Lucy was soon busily engaged in putting her doll to bed.
So the time passed tolerably, if not altogether enjoyably. An hour or two after dinner, there was a lull in the rain and Edmund scurried outdoors. He did not come back until just before teatime, and he was all over mud and in a foul mood, muttering about unfair losses and cheaters.
"Oh, stow it," said Peter, just as Nurse swooped down and marched her soggy, grubby charge off to be bathed. He was late coming in to tea, and arrived just as Father made an announcement, so nothing more was said regarding the game. The announcement was made in this way:
When Father had finished his third cup of tea (and while Edmund was still damply blowing on his first cup) he pushed back his chair, wiped his mustache, laid down his napkin, and said, "Well, children. I received a letter in the evening post from Professor Kirke, and it has all been arranged. You are to go Monday next, by train, to stay with the Professor this summer."
A chorus of voices-surprised, dismayed, and pleased all at the same time-greeted this proclamation, and Father had to call for silence. "Yes, Peter?"
"Who is the Professor, Father?"
"Professor Digory Kirke, my old tutor at Oxford. He lives in a large house-very old and well-known-in the countryside, far from the air raids. When I was last there, there were suits of armour and many books in the house and the grounds contained stables, kennels, woods, and a river. I believe the stables and kennels were closed down some years ago, but I am sure the four of you will not lack for diversions."
"You must remember to do as you're told and not to disturb the Professor," said Mother, but they only half heard her.
"When were you there, Daddy?" asked Lucy.
"Quite a few years ago, at the beginning of the Great War. Old Kirke was not there at the time, having just joined His Majesty's army."
"But why were you there?" said Susan, voicing the question burning in every breast, for they sensed a story behind their father's brief answer.
"Our mothers were schoolmates when girls. Kirke is nearly twenty years my senior, but our mothers were of an age, and dear friends. Mrs. Kirke was in fact my godmother, and twice or thrice when I was a boy we visited their estate in the country. There are plenty of ways for a boy to amuse himself on the grounds without getting into mischief, and, what is more important, you shall be quite safe there."
Safe, as every child knows, is usually a grown-up word for dull, and the interest the children had felt in the person and estate of the Professor died away into gloom, so that Mother said, "You know how many children have been sent away this winter last, and how many of them have had to go to the houses of perfect strangers, and been quite unhappy. It was Kind Providence that your father was able to arrange for you to go to the Professor's."
"Thank you, Father," they chorused, and then there was a silence as they considered the unexpected prospect before them.
"Can Muriel go to the Professor's, too?" asked Lucy, holding up her blue-eyed doll. "Muriel likes adventures."
At that word, adventures, a crack appeared in the spell of gloom holding them captive, and at Mother's next words the last of the bad fairy's magic crumbled away. "Certainly," said Mother. "And you must write and tell us all about the things you discover-family ghosts or secret stairwells or whatever it happens to be. And if the Professor still keeps horses and you are offered the chance, you may even learn to ride."
Unbidden, images arose in each one's brain of himself exploring the forgotten halls of the great house and galloping astride a horse through the park and the woods like a knight-errant in search of adventure. Lucy thought of climbing trees and of tea parties with Muriel and the flower fairies; Susan imagined finding the dusty journals of a long-ago Kirke girl in a trunk filled with the glorious and forgotten hats and gowns of a bygone era. Edmund wondered if they might get a chance to take the suit of armor apart and if there might be a fox-hunt, and he thought to himself that there would definitely be a chance to pretend to be a ghost and give Lucy a good scare. And Peter saw himself, the intrepid explorer, fording the river at the head of a column of loyal men, blazing a trail through an uncharted forest, discovering the ruins of a crumbled castle, raising the Union Jack from the highest tower and claiming it in the King's name.
Adventure or no, it would be a better summer than they had dared to hope, and they already knew it.
~ introitus ~