“Let’s put on our best things, then,” urged Jane. “You know what people say about progress and the world growing better and brighter. I expect people will be awfully smart in the future.”
“All right,” said Anthea, “we should have to wash anyway, I’m all thick with glue.”
When everyone was clean and dressed, the charm was held up.
“We want to go into the future and see the Amulet after we’ve found it,” said Cyril, and Jane said the word of Power. They walked through the big arch of the charm straight into the British Museum. They knew it at once, and there, right in front of them, under a glass case, was the Amulet—their own half of it, as well as the other half they had never been able to find—and the two were joined by a pin of red stone that formed a hinge.
“Oh, glorious!” cried Robert. “Here it is!”
“Yes,” said Cyril, very gloomily, “here it is. But we can’t get it out.”
“No,” said Robert, remembering how impossible the Queen of Babylon had found it to get anything out of the glass cases in the Museum—except by Psammead magic, and then she hadn’t been able to take anything away with her; “no—but we remember where we got it, and we can—”
“Oh, do we?” interrupted Cyril bitterly, “do you remember where we got it?”
“No,” said Robert, “I don’t exactly, now I come to think of it.”
Nor did any of the others!