“Well, if ever I did!” she said. “What’s gone wrong? You’ve soon tired of your picnic.”
The children took this to be bitter irony, which means saying the exact opposite of what you mean in order to make yourself disagreeable; as when you happen to have a dirty face, and someone says, “How nice and clean you look!”
“We’re very sorry,” began Anthea, but old Nurse said—
“Oh, bless me, child, I don’t care! Please yourselves and you’ll please me. Come in and get your dinners comf’table. I’ve got a potato on a-boiling.”
When she had gone to attend to the potatoes the children looked at each other. Could it be that old Nurse had so changed that she no longer cared that they should have been away from home for twenty-four hours—all night in fact—without any explanation whatever?
But the Psammead put its head out of its basket and said—
“What’s the matter? Don’t you understand? You come back through the charm-arch at the same time as you go through it. This isn’t tomorrow!”
“Is it still yesterday?” asked Jane.
“No, it’s today. The same as it’s always been. It wouldn’t do to go mixing up the present and the Past, and cutting bits out of one to fit into the other.”
“Then all that adventure took no time at all?”