The wishing-chair drifted for a long time over an endless glassy sea, until at last a small green island rose into view. It was so pretty — palm trees along the shore, a curling white beach, a little ring of hills at the centre — that the children begged to land at once. Chinky agreed, but his face was thoughtful. He had heard rumours of magic islands that would appear from nowhere, welcome visitors, and then vanish beneath the waves as if they had never existed. At first the visit went beautifully. Peter and Mollie ran along the sandy shore. Chinky poked about in the trees, looking for the singing shells and golden birds he had heard tales of. But then the tide began to rise more quickly than any tide the children had ever seen. The sand under their feet grew softer. The palm trees seemed to lean a little closer together. The whole island, they suddenly realised, was beginning to shrink. "To the chair!" Chinky cried, in an urgent voice they had never heard him use before. "If we do not fly this minute, the island will take us with it!" Peter and Mollie hurried across the shifting sand, their feet sinking a little deeper with every step. Chinky was already hovering above the seat, tugging it into position. They scrambled on. The chair rose safely into the air just as the last patch of sand vanished beneath the sparkling waves. Below them, there was now only open sea — as if the island had never existed at all.