Five Children And It Chapter 1: Bedtime Story

Hello beloveds,

Welcome to today's reading of Edith Nesbit's Five Children and It chapter 1.

Five Children and It is a delightful story about 5 siblings who find themselves in the English countryside in summertime. Whilst out exploring one day they discover a sand-fairy who has the ability to grant them wishes.

Let's head into their world and see what unfolds.

Have a beautiful day.

Transcript

Hello dear ones and welcome to today's reading of Five Children and It written by Edith Nesbitt.

As always just taking a moment to arrive here wherever you are putting down the to-do list for now and if you're in bed or tucked up ready for sleep taking a big big stretch and allowing your muscles to sink heavier and heavier as you get ready to be taken on an adventure.

Chapter One.

Beautiful as the day.

The house was three miles from the station but before the dusty hired hike had rattled along for five minutes the children began to put their heads out of the carriage window and say are we nearly there yet?

And every time they passed a house which was not very often they all said oh is this it?

But it never was until 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 orchard beyond and mother said here we are.

Oh 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 want to go walkie and the hike stopped with the last rattle and a jolt.

Everyone got its legs kicked or its feet trodden 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 steps 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 about the garden and the orchard.

But the children were wiser for once.

It was not really a pretty house at all.

It was quite ordinary.

A 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 iron work on the roof was 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 a prison for children especially if their relations are not rich.

Of course there are the shops and the theatres and entertainments and things but if your people are rather poor you don't get taken to the theatres 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 themselves or the things such as trees and sand and woods and waters and nearly everything in London is the wrong sort of shape or 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 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,

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 very 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 perfume that is ever given as a 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 a 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 bump 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 they no longer had any doubts whatsoever.

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 very 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 chimneys were smoking and the sun was setting the valley looked as if it was filled with golden mist and the lime kilns and hot drying houses glimmered and glittered until 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 that you do yourself 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 oh how true and how like life and you would see it and you would be very 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 around 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 and the earth knows its place and lies still as a mouse yet I dare say 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 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 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 they wish they had something to do and it was Cyril who said I say let's take our spades and dig in the gravel pits we can pretend it's the seaside father says it was once Anthea said he says there are shells there thousands of years old and 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 that father should say that they mustn't play there and it was 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 bar was the first thing he ever said they called Anthea panther which seems silly when you read it but when you say it it does sound a little like her name the gravel pit is very large and wide with grass growing around the edges at the top and dry stringy wildflowers purple and yellow it is like a giant's wash bowl and there are mounds of gravel and holes in the side of the ball where the gravel has been taken out 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 to wet everybody up to the waist at least Cyril wanted to dig out a cave to place 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 the wrong way up like flies do on the ceiling with their heads hanging down into the air the children dug and dug and 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 three to work really hard and the hole that was to come out in Australia soon grew so deep that Jane said to the others suppose the bottom of the hole gave way suddenly 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 the blue gums or the 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 to 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 well not in a pail silly said his brother father says the earth got too hot underneath as you do in bed sometimes so it just hunched up its shoulders and the sea had to slip off like the blankets do us and the shoulder was left sticking out and turned into dry land let's go and look for shells I think that that little cave looks likely and I see something sticking out there a bit like a 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 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 only be the broken end of a pickaxe handle and the cave party were just making up their minds that sand makes you thirstier when it is not by the seaside and someone had suggested that they all go home for lemonade when Anthea suddenly screamed Cyril come here oh come quick it's alive and it'll get away hurry and 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's 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's a snake I'll tame it and it will follow me everywhere and I'll let it sleep around 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 no not the spade you'll hurt it dig with your hands and let it hurt me instead that's likely isn't it said Cyril seizing a spade oh don't said Anthea squirrel don't I it sounds silly I know but it said something it really and truly did what it said you leave me alone but Cyril merely observed that his sister must have gone off her head 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 leave me alone it said and now everyone heard the voice and looked at the others to see if they had heard it 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 edge 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 and 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 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 just like monkeys what on earth is it Jane said shall we take it home the thing turned its long eyes to look at her and said does she always talk nonsense or is it only the rubbish on her head that makes her so silly and it looked scornfully at Jane's hat as it spoke she doesn't mean to be silly Anthea said gently we none of us do whatever you may think don't be frightened we don't want to hurt you you know hurt me it said me frightened upon my word why you talk as if I were nobody in particular and all its fur stood out like a cat's when it is going to fight well perhaps if we knew who you are in particular we could think of something to say that wouldn't make you angry everything we've said so far seems to have done so who are you and don't get angry really please because we don't know you don't know it said well I knew the world had changed but well really do you mean to tell me seriously that you don't know what a Samoyed is when you see one a Samoyed that sounds Greek to me it is well in plain English then a sand fairy don't you know a sand fairy when you see one it looked so grieved and hurt that Jane hastened to say of course I see you are now it's quite plain now one comes to look at you you came to look at me several sentences ago it said crossly beginning to curl up again in the sand oh don't go away again do talk some more Robert cried I didn't know you were a sand fairy but I knew directly I saw you that you were much the wonderfulest thing I'd ever seen the sand fairy seemed a shade less disagreeable after this it isn't talking I mind it said as long as you're reasonably civil but I'm not going to make polite conversation for you if you talk nicely to me perhaps I'll answer you and perhaps I won't now say something of course no one could think of anything to say but at last Robert thought of how long have you lived here oh ages several thousand years replied the Samoyed oh do tell us about it do it's all in the books you're not in the books Jane said oh tell us everything you can about yourself we don't know anything about you and you are so nice the sand fairy smoothed his long rat-like whiskers and smiled between them oh do please tell please said the children all together it is wonderful how quickly you get used to things even the most astonishing things five minutes before the children had had no more of an idea than you that there was such a thing as a sand fairy and now they were talking to it as though they had known all their lives it drew its eyes in and said how very sunny it is quite like old times where do you get your megatheriums from now what said the children all at once it is very difficult always to remember that what is not polite especially moments of surprise or agitation what do you have for breakfast the fairy said impatiently and who gives it to you eggs and bacon and bread and milk and porridge and things and mother gives it to us why almost everyone had peridactyl for breakfast in my time peridactyls were something like crocodiles and something like birds i believe they were very good grilled you see it was like this of course there were heaps of sand fairies then and in the morning early you went out and hunted for them and when you'd found one it would give you your wish people used to send the little boys down to the seashore in the morning before breakfast to get the day's wishes and very often the eldest boy in the family would be told to wish for a megatherium ready jointed for cooking it was as big as an elephant you see so there was a good deal of meat on it and if they wanted fish it was the itchy thesaurus they asked for he was 20 to 40 feet long so there was plenty of him and for poultry there was the plesaurius they were nice pickings on that too and then the other children could wish for other things but when people had dinner parties it was nearly always megatheriums there must have been heaps and heaps of cold meat left over said anthia who meant to be a good housekeeper someday oh no said the samiad that would have never done why of course at sunset what was left over turned into stone you'll find the stone bones of the megatherium and things all over the place even now they tell me who tells you asked cyril but the sand fairy frowned and began to dig very fast with its furry hands oh don't go they all cried tell us more about when it was megatheriums for breakfast what was the world like then it stopped digging it was nearly all sand where i lived it said and coal grew on trees and the periwinkles were as big as tea trays you find them now they've turned into stone and we sand fairies used to live on the seashore and the children used to come with their little flint spades and flint pails and make castles for us to live in that's thousands of years ago but i hear that children still build castles on the sand it's difficult to break yourself of a habit but why did you stop living in the castles said robert it's a sad story said the samiad gloomily it was because they would build moats to the castles and the nasty wet bubbling sea used to come in and of course as soon as a sand fairy got wet it caught cold and generally died and so there got to be fewer and fewer and whenever you found a fairy and had a wish you used to wish for a megatherium and eat twice as much as you wanted because it might be weeks before you got another wish and did you get wet robert inquired the sand fairy shuddered only once it said the end of the 12 hair on my top left whisker i feel the place still in damp weather it was only once but it was quite enough for me i went away as soon as the sun had dried my poor dear whisker i scurried away to the back of the beach and dug myself a house deep in warm dry sand and there i've been ever since and the sea changed its lodgings afterwards and now i'm not going to tell you another thing oh just one more please said the children can you give wishes now of course it said didn't i give you yours a few minutes ago you said i wish you'd come out and i did oh please may we have another yes but be quick about it i'm tired of you i dare say you have often thought what you would do if you had three wishes given to you and have despised the old man and his wife in the black pudding story and felt certain that if you have the chance you could think of three really useful wishes without a moment's hesitation these children had often talked this matter over but now the chance had suddenly come to them they could not make up their minds quick said the sand fairy crossly no one could think of anything only anthia did manage to remember a private wish of her own which they had never told the boys she knew the boys would not care about it but still it was better than nothing i wish we were all as beautiful as the day she said the children looked at each other but each could see that the others were not any better looking than usual the samiad pushed out his long eyes and seemed to be holding its breath and swelling itself out until it was twice as fat and furry as before suddenly it let its breath go in a long sigh i'm really afraid i can't manage it he said i must be out of practice the children were horribly disappointed oh do try again they said well said the sand fairy the fact is i was keeping back a little strength to give the rest of you your wishes but if you'll be contented with one wish a day among the lot of you i dare say i can screw myself up to it do you agree to that oh yes yes said jane and anthia and the boys nodded they did not believe the sand fairy could do it you can always make girls believe things much easier than you can make boys it stretched out its eyes farther than ever and swelled and swelled and swelled oh i do hope it won't hurt itself said anthia or crack its skin said robert everyone was very much relieved when the sand fairy after getting so big that it almost filled up the hole in the sand suddenly let out its breath and went back to its proper size that's all right it said panting heavily it'll come easier tomorrow did it hurt much said anthia only my poor whisker thank you said he but you are a kind and thoughtful child good day it scratched suddenly and fiercely with its hands and feet and disappeared in the sand then the children looked at each other and each child suddenly found itself alone with three perfect strangers all radiantly beautiful they stood for some moments in silence each thought that its brothers and sisters had wandered off and that these strange children had stolen up unnoticed while it was watching the swelling form of the sand fairy anthia spoke first excuse me she said very politely to jane who now had enormous blue eyes and a cloud of russet hair but have you seen two little boys and a little girl anywhere about i was just going to ask you that said jane and then cyril cried why it's you i know the hole in your pinafore you're jane aren't you and you're the panther i can see your dirty handkerchief that you forgot to change after you'd cut your thumb the wish has come off after all i say am i as handsome as you are if you're cyril i liked you much better as you were before said anthia decidedly you look like the picture of the young chorister with your golden hair you'll die young i shouldn't wonder and if that's robert he's like an italian organ grinder his hair's black you two girls are like christmas cards silly christmas cards said robert angrily and jane's hair is simply carrots it was indeed of that venetian tint so much admired by artists well it's no use finding fault with each other said anthia let's get the lamb and lug it home for dinner the servants will admire us most awfully you'll see baby was just waking up when they got to him and the children were relieved to find that he at least was not as beautiful as the day but was just the same as usual i suppose he's too young to have wishes said jane we shall have to mention him specially next time anthia ran forward and held out her arms come on then she said but the baby looked at her disapprovingly and put a sandy pink thumb in his mouth anthia was his favorite sister come on then she said go away said the baby come to jane said jane wants my panty said the lamb dismally and his lip trembled here come on said robert come and have a yiddy on yobby's back yeah knocky knocky boy how the baby giving way altogether then the children realized the worst the baby did not know them they looked at each other in despair and it was terrible to each this dire emergency to meet only the beautiful eyes of perfect strangers instead of the merry friendly commonplace twinkling jolly little eyes of its own brothers and sisters this is most truly awful said cyril when he had tried to lift up the lamb but the lamb had screeched like a cat and bellowed like a bull we've got to make friends with him i can't carry him home screaming like that fancy having to make friends with our own baby it's so silly that however was exactly what they had to do it took over an hour and the task was not rendered any easier by the fact that the lamb was by this time as hungry as a lion and as thirsty as a desert at last he consented to allow these strangers to carry him home by turns but as he refused to hold on to such new acquaintances he was a dead weight and most exhausting oh thank goodness we're home said jane staggering through the iron gate to where martha the nursemaid stood at the front door shading her eyes with her hand and looking out anxiously here martha do take baby martha snatched the baby from her arms thanks be he's safe back where are the others and whoever to goodness gracious are all of you we're us of course said robert and who's us when you're at home asked martha scornfully i tell you it's us only we're beautiful as the day said cyril i'm cyril and these are the others and we're jolly hungry do let us in and don't be a silly idiot martha merely dratted cyril's impotence and tried to shut the door in his face i know we look different but i'm anthia and we're so tired and it's long past dinner time then go home to your dinners whoever you are and if our children put you up to this play acting you can tell them from me they'll catch it that they will and with that she did bang the door cyril rang the bell violently but no answer presently cook put her head out of a bedroom window and said if you don't take yourselves off and that pressure's sharp i'll go and fetch the police and she slammed down the window oh it's no good said anthia oh do come away before we get sent to prison the boys said it was nonsense and the law of england couldn't put you in prison for just being as beautiful as the day but all the same they followed the others out into the lane we shall be our proper selves after sunset i suppose said jane i don't know cyril said sadly it might not be like that things have changed a good deal since megatherium times oh cried anthia perhaps we shall turn into stone at sunset like the megatheriums did so that there won't be any of us left over for the next day she began to cry and so did jane even the boys turned pale no one had the heart to say anything it was a horrible afternoon there was no house near where the children could beg a crust of bread or even a glass of water they were afraid to go into the village because they had seen martha go down there with a basket and there was a local constable true they were all as beautiful as the day but that is a poor comfort when you are as hungry as a hunter and as thirsty as a sponge three times they tried in vain to get the servants in the white house to let them in and to listen to their tale and then robert went alone hoping to be able to climb in at one of the back windows and then so open the door for the others but all the windows were out of reach and martha emptied a toilet jug of cold water all over him from a top window and said go along with you you nasty little monkey it came at last to their sitting down in a row under the hedge with their feet in a dry ditch waiting for sunset and wondering whether when the sun did set they would turn into stone or only into their own old natural selves each of them still felt lonely and among strangers and tried not to look at the others for though their voices were their own their faces were so radiantly beautiful as to be quite irritating to look at i don't believe we shall turn to stone said robert breaking a long miserable silence because the sand fairy said he'd give us another wish tomorrow and he couldn't if we were stone could he the others said no but they weren't at all comforted another silence longer and more miserable was broken by cyril suddenly saying i don't want to frighten you girls but i believe it's beginning with me already my foot is quite dead i think i'm turning to stone i know i am and so will you in a minute never mind said robert kindly perhaps you'll be the only stone one and the rest of us will be all right and we'll cherish your statue and hang garlands on it but when it turned out that cyril's foot had only gone to sleep through his sitting too long with it under him and when it came to life in an agony of pins and needles that others were quite cross giving us such a fright for nothing said anthia the third and miserablest silence of all was broken by jane she said if we do come out of this all right we'll ask the samiad to make it so that the servants don't notice anything different no matter what wishes we have the others only grunted they were too wretched even to make good resolutions at last hunger and fright and crossness and tiredness four very nasty things all joined together to bring one nice thing and that was sleep the children lay asleep in a row with their beautiful eyes shut and their beautiful mouths open anthia woke first the sun had set and the twilight was coming on anthia pinched herself very hard to make sure and when she found she could still feel pinching she decided that she was not stone and then she pinched the others they also were soft wake up she said almost in tears for joy it's all right we're not stone and oh cyril how nice and ugly you do look with your old freckles and your brown hair and your little eyes and so do you all she added so that they might not feel jealous when they got home they were very much scolded by martha who told them about the strange children a good-looking lot i must say i know said robert who knew by experience how hopeless it would be to try to explain things to martha and where on earth have you been all this time you naughty little things you in the lane well why didn't you come home hours ago we couldn't because of them said anthia because of who the children who were as beautiful as the day they kept us there until after sunset we couldn't come back until they'd gone you don't know how we hated them so oh do give us some supper we are so hungry hungry i should think so said martha out all day like this well i hope it'll be a lesson to you not to go picking up strange children now mind if you do see them again don't you speak to them not one word nor so much as a look but come straight away and tell me i'll spoil their beauty for them if ever we do see them again we'll tell you martha anthia said and robert fixing his eyes fondly on the cold beef that was being brought in on a tray by cook added in heartfelt undertones and we'll take jolly good care that we never do see them again and they never have

Reviews

So fun to be back With the kids! So excited for more of this story, thank you for sharing!😍🙏🏼❤️

Really promising start of this tale. Makes me wonder again what I would wish.

I’m the oldest of 5….🧚🏾🦄🌊💕
Lovely to hear this charming story, Sally! 🙏