"Oh, don't bother me. You've had your wish."
"I didn't know it," said Cyril.
"Don't you remember yesterday?" said the Sand-fairy, still more disagreeably. "You asked me to let you have your wishes wherever you happened to be, and you wished this morning, and you've got it."
"Oh, have we?" said Robert. "What is it?"
"So you've forgotten?" said the Psammead, beginning to burrow. "Never mind; you'll know soon enough. And I wish you joy of it! A nice thing you've let yourselves in for!"
"We always do somehow," said Jane sadly.
And now the odd thing was that no one could remember anyone's having wished for anything that morning. The wish about the Red Indians had not stuck in anyone's head. It was a most anxious morning. Everyone was trying to remember what had been wished for, and no one could, and everyone kept expecting something awful to happen every minute. It was most agitating; they knew from what the Psammead had said, that they must have wished for something more than usually undesirable, and they spent several hours in most agonizing uncertainty. It was not till nearly dinner-time that Jane tumbled over The Last of the Mohicans,—which had of course, been left face downwards on the floor,—and when Anthea had picked her and the book up she suddenly said, "I know!" and sat down flat on the carpet.
"Oh, Pussy, how awful! It was Indians he wished for—Cyril—at breakfast, don't you remember? He said, 'I wish there were Red Indians in England,'—and now there are, and they're going about scalping people all over the country, as likely as not."
"Perhaps they're only in Northumberland and Durham," said Jane soothingly. It was almost impossible to believe that it could really hurt people much to be scalped so far away as that.
"Don't you believe it!" said Anthea. "The Sammyadd said we'd let ourselves in for a nice thing. That means they'll come here. And suppose they scalped the Lamb!"