E. Nesbit

“ The Phoenix has an egg, like all respectable birds. It makes a pile—that part’s all right—and it lays its egg, and it burns itself; and it goes to sleep and wakes up in its egg, and comes out and goes on living again, and so on for ever and ever. I can’t tell you how weary I got of it—such a restless existence; no repose.’
‘But how did your egg get HERE?’ asked Anthea.
‘Ah, that’s my life-secret,’ said the Phoenix. ‘I couldn’t tell it to any one who wasn’t really sympathetic. I’ve always been a misunderstood bird. ”

“ The strange sweet scent grew stronger, and the Phoenix put out its beak.
The policeman hesitated.
‘They’re MUSK-rats,’ said the Phoenix. ‘I suppose some cats eat them—but never Persian ones. What a mistake for a well-informed carpet to make! Oh, what a night we’re having!’
‘Do go away,’ said Robert, nervously. ‘We’re just going to bed—that’s our bedroom candle; there isn’t any row. Everything’s as quiet as a mouse.’
A wild chorus of mews drowned his words, and with the mews were mingled the shrieks of the musk-rats. ”

“ There were turtles basking lumpily on the water’s edge—but no cook, no clothes, and no carpet.
‘On, on! Into the sea!’ gasped Cyril. ‘They MUST hate water. I’ve—heard—savages always—dirty.’
Their feet were splashing in the warm shallows before his breathless words were ended. The calm baby-waves were easy to go through. It is warm work running for your life in the tropics, and the coolness of the water was delicious. They were up to their arm-pits now, and Jane was up to her chin.
‘Look!’ said the Phoenix. ”

“ Jane sobbed noisily, but the others were calm with what is sometimes called the calmness of despair. The Lamb was gone—the Lamb, their own precious baby brother—who had never in his happy little life been for a moment out of the sight of eyes that loved him—he was gone. He had gone alone into the great world with no other companion and protector than a carpet with holes in it. The children had never really understood before what an enormously big place the world is. And the Lamb might be anywhere in it! ”

“ There were the rainbow sands, the tropic glories of leaf and flower, and there, of course, was the cook, crowned with white flowers, and with all the wrinkles of crossness and tiredness and hard work wiped out of her face.
‘Why, cook, you’re quite pretty!’ Anthea said, as soon as she had got her breath after the tumble-rush-whirl of the carpet. The burglar stood rubbing his eyes in the brilliant tropic sunlight, and gazing wildly round him on the vivid hues of the tropic land. ”

“ Ugh!—oh!—I’ve put my hand in a puddle!’
‘Has any one got any matches?’ said Anthea, hopelessly. She felt sure that no one would have any.
It was then that Robert, with a radiant smile of triumph that was quite wasted in the darkness, where, of course, no one could see anything, drew out of his pocket a box of matches, struck a match and lighted a candle—two candles. And every one, with its mouth open, blinked at the sudden light.
‘Well done Bobs,’ said his sisters, and even Cyril’s natural brotherly feelings could not check his admiration of Robert’s foresight. ”

“ But the carpet—look at the bare worn patches, look at the great rent at yonder corner. The carpet has been your faithful friend—your willing servant. How have you requited its devoted service?’
‘Dear Phoenix,’ Anthea urged, ‘don’t talk in that horrid lecturing tone. You make me feel as if I’d done something wrong. And really it is a wishing carpet, and we haven’t done anything else to it—only wishes.’
‘Only wishes,’ repeated the Phoenix, ruffling its neck feathers angrily, ‘and what sort of wishes? Wishing people to be in a good temper, for instance. ”

“ For the Phoenix was not wanting in intelligence.
‘We were just saying—’ Cyril began, and I hope he was not going to say anything but the truth. Whatever it was he did not say it, for the Phoenix interrupted him, and all breathed more freely as it spoke.
‘I gather,’ it said, ‘that you have some tidings of a fatal nature to communicate to our degraded black brothers who run to and fro for ever yonder.’ It pointed a claw at the cupboard, where the blackbeetles lived. ”

“ There’s nothing there but packing and dust.’
‘Oh, isn’t there!’ said Jane. ‘That’s all you know.’
‘Little girl, don’t be rude,’ said Mrs Biddle, flushing violet.
‘She doesn’t mean to be; but there ARE some nice things there, all the same,’ said Cyril; who suddenly felt how impossible it was to inform the listening crowd that all the treasures piled on the carpet were mother’s contributions to the bazaar. No one would believe it; and if they did, and wrote to thank mother, she would think—well, goodness only knew what she would think. The other three children felt the same. ”

“ Think of all the time that’s before you.’
‘Time,’ said the Phoenix, ‘is, as you are probably aware, merely a convenient fiction. There is no such thing as time. I have lived in these two months at a pace which generously counterbalances 500 years of life in the desert. I am old, I am weary. I feel as if I ought to lay my egg, and lay me down to my fiery sleep. ”

“ Cyril addressed the cook. ‘Look here!’ said he, ‘these brown people want you to be their queen. They’re only savages, and they don’t know any better. Now would you really like to stay? or, if you’ll promise not to be so jolly aggravating at home, and not to tell any one a word about to-day, we’ll take you back to Camden Town.’
‘No, you don’t,’ said the cook, in firm, undoubting tones. ‘I’ve always wanted to be the Queen, God bless her! and I always thought what a good one I should make; and now I’m going to. IF it’s only in a dream, it’s well worth while. ”

“ The Phoenix was nowhere to be found, and everything had suddenly settled down from the rosy wild beauty of magic happenings to the common damp brownness of ordinary November life in Camden Town—and there was the nursery floor all bare boards in the middle and brown oilcloth round the outside, and the bareness and yellowness of the middle floor showed up the blackbeetles with terrible distinctness, when the poor things came out in the evening, as usual, to try to make friends with the children. ”

“ Why’s it all got to stop?’
‘Perhaps something will happen,’ said Anthea, comfortably. ‘Do you know, sometimes I think we are the sort of people that things DO happen to.’
‘It’s like that in history,’ said Jane: ‘some kings are full of interesting things, and others—nothing ever happens to them, except their being born and crowned and buried, and sometimes not that.’
‘I think Panther’s right,’ said Cyril: ‘I think we are the sort of people things do happen to. I have a sort of feeling things would happen right enough if we could only give them a shove. It just wants something to start it. ”

“ So Anthea went on—
‘I love my little crocodile, I love his truthful toothful smile; It is so wonderful and wide, I like to see it—FROM OUTSIDE.’
‘Well, you see,’ Cyril was saying; ‘it’s just the old bother. Mother can’t believe the real true truth about the carpet, and—’
‘You speak sooth, O Cyril,’ remarked the Phoenix, coming out from the cupboard where the blackbeetles lived, and the torn books, and the broken slates, and odd pieces of toys that had lost the rest of themselves. ‘Now hear the wisdom of Phoenix, the son of the Phoenix—’
‘There is a society called that,’ said Cyril. ”

“ It is very difficult to remember things in the dark, unless you have matches with you, and then of course it is quite different, even if you don’t strike one.
Every one had come to agree with Jane’s constant wish—and despair was making the darkness blacker than ever, when quite suddenly the floor seemed to tip up—and a strong sensation of being in a whirling lift came upon every one. ”

“ A breathless stillness held the children. Then Anthea dried her eyes. She looked round her and caught up the poker. She held it out to Cyril.
‘Hit my hand hard,’ she said; ‘I must show mother some reason for my eyes being like they are. Harder,’ she cried as Cyril gently tapped her with the iron handle. And Cyril, agitated and trembling, nerved himself to hit harder, and hit very much harder than he intended.
Anthea screamed.
‘Oh, Panther, I didn’t mean to hurt, really,’ cried Cyril, clattering the poker back into the fender. ”

“ He was silent; this silence said many things.
‘I don’t see,’ Robert was beginning, when Anthea interrupted—
‘I’m quite sure. Sometimes you just think a thing’s wrong, and sometimes you KNOW. And this is a KNOW time.’
The Phoenix turned kind golden eyes on her and opened a friendly beak to say—
‘When it is, as you say, a “know time”, there is no more to be said. And your noble brothers would never leave you.’
‘Of course not,’ said Cyril rather quickly. ”

“ Cooks are ENGAGED, not eaten. They wish to engage her.’
‘How can you understand what they say?’ asked Cyril, doubtfully.
‘It’s as easy as kissing your claw,’ replied the bird. ‘I speak and understand ALL languages, even that of your cook, which is difficult and unpleasing. It’s quite easy, when you know how it’s done. It just comes to you. I should advise you to beach the carpet and land the cargo—the cook, I mean. You can take my word for it, the copper-coloured ones will not harm you now.’
It is impossible not to take the word of a Phoenix when it tells you to. ”

“ But Anthea tried.
‘It’s very horrid. I do hate thinking things about people, and not being able to say the things you’re thinking because of the way they would feel when they thought what things you were thinking, and wondered what they’d done to make you think things like that, and why you were thinking them.’
Anthea was so anxious that the Phoenix should not understand what she said that she made a speech completely baffling to all. It was not till she pointed to the cupboard in which all believed the Phoenix to be that Cyril understood. ”

“ It IS a temple, and they do.’
‘Don’t let’s waste the sunshine,’ said Anthea; ‘we might argue as we go along, to save time.’
So the Phoenix consented to make itself a nest in the breast of Robert’s Norfolk jacket, and they all went out into the splendid sunshine. The best way to the temple of the Phoenix seemed to be to take the tram, and on the top of it the children talked, while the Phoenix now and then put out a wary beak, cocked a cautious eye, and contradicted what the children were saying. ”

“ But do not let us be unjust, even in a dream. Do not hold the children; they have done no harm. As I said before, it was I who opened the box.’
The strong, bony hands unwillingly loosened their grasp. Robert shook himself and stood in sulky resentment. But Jane ran to the curate and embraced him so suddenly that he had not time to defend himself.
‘You’re a dear,’ she said. ‘It IS like a dream just at first, but you get used to it. Now DO let us go. There’s a good, kind, honourable clergyman.’
‘I don’t know,’ said the Reverend Septimus; ‘it’s a difficult problem. ”

“ But the housemaid, more acute, judged that someone must have been in the house—a view confirmed by the sight of the breakfast things on the nursery table.
The cupboard under the stairs was very tight and paraffiny, however, and a silent struggle for a place on top ended in the door bursting open and discharging Jane, who rolled like a football to the feet of the servants.
‘Now,’ said Cyril, firmly, when the cook’s hysterics had become quieter, and the housemaid had time to say what she thought of them, ‘don’t you begin jawing us. We aren’t going to stand it. We know too much. ”

“ They say that it lives about five hundred years in the wilderness, and when advanced in age it builds itself a pile of sweet wood and aromatic gums, fires it with the wafting of its wings, and thus burns itself; and that from its ashes arises a worm, which in time grows up to be a Phoenix. Hence the Phoenicians gave—’
‘Never mind what they gave,’ said the Phoenix, ruffling its golden feathers. ‘They never gave much, anyway; they always were people who gave nothing for nothing. ”

“ Then Anthea, with a beating heart, tried to milk the cow. Next moment the cow had knocked the saucer out of her hand and trampled on it with one foot, while with the other three she had walked on a foot each of Robert, Cyril, and Jane.
Jane burst into tears. ‘Oh, how much too horrid everything is!’ she cried. ‘Come away. Let’s go to bed and leave the horrid cats with the hateful cow. Perhaps somebody will eat somebody else. And serve them right.’
They did not go to bed, but they had a shivering council in the drawing-room, which smelt of soot—and, indeed, a heap of this lay in the fender. ”

“ Yet it was Anthea who said—
‘Do, PLEASE, let us have the bird.’
‘Dew, PLEASE, get along and leave us an’ our bird alone.’
‘If you don’t,’ said Anthea, ‘I shall fetch the police.’
‘You better!’ said he who was named Urb. ‘Say, Ike, you twist the bloomin’ pigeon’s neck; he ain’t worth tuppence.’
‘Oh, no,’ cried Jane, ‘don’t hurt it. Oh, don’t; it is such a pet.’
‘I won’t hurt it,’ said Ike; ‘I’m ‘shamed of you, Urb, for to think of such a thing. Arf a shiner, miss, and the bird is yours for life.’
‘Half a WHAT?’ asked Anthea. ”

“ Anthea looked up at the sky and the walls that now rose six feet above them.
‘We’re dropping into the tower,’ she screamed. ‘THERE WASN’T ANY TOP TO IT. So the carpet’s going to fit itself in at the bottom.’
Robert sprang to his feet.
‘We ought to have—Hullo! an owl’s nest.’ He put his knee on a jutting smooth piece of grey stone, and reached his hand into a deep window slit—broad to the inside of the tower, and narrowing like a funnel to the outside. ”

“ He wriggled off Anthea’s lap.
‘Mammy’s asleep,’ said Jane, hastily. ‘Come and be wild beasts in a cage under the table.’
But the Lamb caught his feet and hands, and even his head, so often and so deeply in the holes of the carpet that the cage, or table, had to be moved on to the linoleum, and the carpet lay bare to sight with all its horrid holes.
‘Ah,’ said the bird, ‘it isn’t long for this world.’
‘No,’ said Robert; ‘everything comes to an end. It’s awful.’
‘Sometimes the end is peace,’ remarked the Phoenix. ”