They found the Psammead easily. "I wish we all had beautiful wings to fly with," Anthea said.

The next morning, while Martha was busy with Baby, the children left the house quietly and went to see the Psammead. On the way, Anthea said to the others, "I know what we can ask for -- wings!"

The others were silent for a minute, but then they all agreed that they too would like to have wings.

The next day was very wet. It rained all day and the children could not go to see the Psammead. They stayed at home and wrote letters to their mother. But none of them told her about the Psammead. And the day after that, their Uncle Richard came and took them out, so they did not see the Psammead for two days. But Anthea spent a lot of time thinking about what to wish for.

The Psammead made itself very big and then went small again. The children felt strange for a minute and when they looked, they saw that they had beautiful soft wings of many colours. They moved them about and jumped up and down, and soon they could see the green fields and sunny woods below them and the blue sky above. They could fly! It was wonderful, and they flew over the woods and trees, the town sand villages, for a long time. But they began to get hungry.

They were finishing the plums when they saw a very angry little fat man, who was hurrying through the trees. They were his plums and the poor man thought that boys from the village were stealing them. But when he saw that the children had wings, his mouth fell open and his face went green. Anthea did not want to steal anything, of course, so she flew down and pushed some money into his pocket.

So they flew down onto the trees, and they ate as many of the plums as they could.

"We've got wings," Jane answered quickly, "so we're birds. It's all right for birds to take things. Birds can't steal."

Just then they saw below them some trees full of large red plums. "We mustn't steal," Cyril said.

The little man sat there on the ground and looked up into the sky. "Talking birds! Children with wings! This is a lesson for me. From now on, I'm going to live a better life," he said. And he went into the house and was very kind to his wife.

"Don't be afraid," she said. "We've had some of your plums. We thought that it wasn't stealing, but now I'm not so sure. So that was some money to pay for them."

"We can't possibly fly all the way home without something to eat," said Robert.

Plums are very nice, of course, but you soon feel hungry again. So the children stopped first at one house, then another, to ask for something to eat. They didn't get anything because everyone was afraid of them and screamed and ran away when they saw them. By four o'clock they were getting very tired and hungry, so they flew down onto the roof of a church, to think what to do.

Cyril got in through the window and gave the food to the others, who were outside. There was some cold meat, half a cold chicken, some bread and a bottle of soda-water. Then they all flew back up onto the church roof to eat it. They were very hungry, so they really enjoyed it. But when you are very hungry, and then you eat a big meal and sit in the hot sun on a roof, it is very easy to fall asleep. And so they did -- while the sun slowly went down in the west.

"He's a good man. He'll understand. We'll leave some money for the food," Cyril said, "and a note saying that we're sorry."

In the end they decided to take some food from the vicar's house next to the church.

"We must get home," Cyril said. "There's a door over there. That's the way down."

They slept for a long time. When they woke up it was dark -- and, of course, they had no wings.

Then Cyril said, "I know. Let's shout! The lights are on in the vicar's house. Someone will hear us and get us down."

But when they tried the door, they found that it was locked from the other side. They were on top of the church and they had no wings! How were they going to get down?

Anthea put her arm round Jane, who was beginning to cry. "It will only be for one night," she said.

So they shouted and screamed as loudly as they could, and the people in the house heard them. The vicar ran out with his servant.

"Someone is murdering somebody in the church!" the vicar said, afraid. "Perhaps it's the thief who stole the cold chicken and things."

But they could not understand why the voices were coming from the sky. So the children shouted, "We're up here -- on top of the church!"

The two men were still afraid, but, slowly and carefully, they went up the stairs inside the church. When they came to the top, the vicar shouted through the closed door, "How many of you are there? Have you got guns?"

"But who locked the door?" the vicar asked.

"Yes, but we can't tell you about him," said Anthea, thinking of the Psammead. "We really are very sorry, and please, can we go home now?"

"We don't know," Jane answered. "But we're not telling you everything."

The vicar still did not understand, but he was a kind man, so he sent the children home in a carriage with his servant. Martha, of course, was very angry with them, but Mr Beale explained everything very well. He was a good-looking young man with a nice smile, and after a while Martha forgot to be angry.

"We went up there because we wanted to see what it was like," said Cyril. "But then we couldn't get down again because the door was locked." He didn't say anything about the wings, of course.

"Ah! There's a friend in it, then," said the vicar's servant man, who was called Beale.

"There are four of us, and, no, we haven't got guns," Cyril answered.

So the vicar and his servant took them down and into the vicar's house. Of course, the vicar wanted to know why the children were on the church roof.

"Oh, please take us down," cried Jane.

So the day ended happily after all.

Slowly, the vicar opened the door.

"Good Heavens!" he cried. "They're children!"