Five Fall Into Adventure (2 page)

‘Oh Joan - what a mean thing to do!’ said Dick.

‘Mean or not, it’s the only thing to do when all four of you are around, to say nothing of that great hungry dog,’ said Joan, rolling out some pastry vigorously. ‘Why, last holidays I left a meat pie and half a tongue and a cherry tart and trifle sitting on the shelves for the next day’s meals - and when I came back from my half-day’s outing there wasn’t a thing to be seen.’

‘Well, we thought you’d left them there for our supper,’ said Julian, sounding quite hurt.

‘All right - but you won’t get the chance of thinking anything like that again,’ said Joan, firmly. ‘That larder door’s going to be kept locked. Maybe I’ll unlock it sometimes and hand you out a snack or two - but I’m the one that’s going to unlock it, not you.’

The four drifted out of the kitchen again, disappointed. Timmy followed at their heels.

‘Let’s go down and have a bathe,’ said Dick. ‘If I’m going to have six bathes a day, I’d better hurry up and have my first one.’

‘I’ll get some ripe plums,’ said Anne. ‘We can take those down with us. And I expect the ice-cream man will come along to the beach too. We shan’t starve! And we’d better wear our shirts and shorts over our bathing costumes, so we don’t catch too much sun.’

Soon they were all down on the sand. They found a good place and scraped out comfortable holes to sit in. Timmy scraped his own.

‘I can’t imagine why Timmy bothers to scrape one,’ said George. ‘Because he always squeezes into mine sooner or later. Don’t you, Timmy?’

Timmy wagged his tail, and scraped so violently that they were all covered with sand.

‘Pooh!’ said Anne, spitting sand out of her mouth. ‘Stop it, Timmy. As fast as I scrape my hole, you fill it up!’

Timmy paused to give her a lick, and then scraped again, making a very deep hole indeed. He lay down in it, panting, his mouth looking as if he were smiling.

‘He’s smiling again,’ said Anne. ‘I never knew a dog that smiled like Timmy. Timmy, it’s nice to have you again.’

‘Woof,’ said Timmy, politely, meaning that it was nice to have Anne and the others back again, too. He wagged his tail and sent a shower of sand over Dick.

They all wriggled down comfortably into their soft warm holes. ‘We’ll eat the plums first and then we’ll have a bathe,’ said Dick. ‘Chuck me one, Anne.’

Two people came slowly along the beach. Dick looked at them out of half-closed eyes.

A boy and a man - and what a ragamuffin the boy looked! He wore tom dirty shorts and a filthy jersey. No shoes at all.

The man looked even worse. He slouched as he came, and dragged one foot. He had a straggly moustache and mean, clever little eyes that raked the beach up and down. The two were walking at high-water mark and were obviously looking for anything that might

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have been cast up by the tide. The boy already had an old box, one wet shoe and some wood under his arm.

‘What a pair!’ said Dick to Julian. ‘I hope they don’t come near us. I feel as if I can smell them from here.’

The two walked along the beach and then back. Then, to the children’s horror, they made a bee-line for where they were lying in their sandy holes, and sat down close beside them. Timmy growled.

An unpleasant, unwashed kind of smell at once came to the children’s noses. Pooh!

Timmy growled again. The boy took no notice of Timmy’s growling. But the man looked uneasy.

‘Come on - let’s have a bathe,’ said Julian, annoyed at the way the two had sat down so close to them. After all, there was practically the whole of the beach to choose from -

why come and sit almost on top of somebody else?

When they came back from their bathe the man had gone, but the boy was still there -

and he had actually sat himself down in George’s hole.

‘Get out,’ said George, shortly, her temper rising at once. ‘That’s my hole, and you jolly well know it.’

‘Findings keepings,’ said the boy, in a curious singsong voice. ‘It’s my hole now.’

George bent down and pulled the boy roughly out of the hole. He was up in a trice, his fists clenched. George clenched hers, too.

Dick came up at a run. ‘Now, George - if there’s any fighting to be done, I’ll do it,’ he said. He turned to the scowling boy. ‘Clear off! We don’t want you here!’

The boy hit out with his right fist and caught Dick unexpectedly on the jawbone. Dick looked astounded. He hit out, too, and sent the tousle-headed boy flying.

‘Yah, coward!’ said the boy, holding his chin tenderly. ‘Hitting someone smaller than yourself! I’ll fight that first boy, but I won’t fight you.’

‘You can’t fight him,’ said Dick. ‘He’s a girl. You can’t fight girls - and girls oughtn’t to fight, anyway.’

‘Ses you!’ said the dirty little ragamuffin, standing up and doubling his fists again. ‘Well, you look here - I’m a girl, too - so I can fight her all right, can’t I?’

George and the ragamuffin stood scowling at one another, each with fists clenched.

They looked so astonishingly alike, with their short, curly hair, brown freckled faces and fierce expressions that Julian suddenly roared with laughter. He pushed them firmly apart.

‘Fighting forbidden!’ he said. He turned ta the ragamuffin. ‘Clear off!’ he ordered. ‘Do you hear me? Go on - off with you!’

The gipsy-like girl stared at him. Then she suddenly burst into tears and ran off howling.

‘She’s a girl all right,’ said Dick, grinning at the howls. ‘She’s got some spunk though, facing up to me like that. Well, that’s the last we’ll see of her!’

But he was wrong. It wasn’t!

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The five curled up in their holes once more. Dick felt his jaw-bone. ‘That ragamuffin of a girl gave me a good bang,’ he said, half-admiringly. ‘Little demon, isn’t she! A bit of live wire!’

‘I can’t see why Julian wouldn’t let me have a go at her,’ said George sulkily. ‘It was my hole she sat in - she meant to be annoying! How dare she?’

‘Girls can’t go about fighting,’ said Dick. ‘Don’t be an ass, George. I know you make out you’re as good as a boy, and you dress like a boy and climb trees as well as I can - but it’s really time you gave up thinking you’re as good as a boy.’

This sort of speech didn’t please George at all. ‘Well, anyway, I don’t burst into howls if I’m beaten,’ she said, turning her back on Dick.

‘No, you don’t,’ agreed Dick. ‘You’ve got as much spunk as any boy - much more than that other kid had. I’m sorry I sent her flying now. It’s the first time I’ve ever hit a girl, and I hope it’ll be the last.’

‘I’m jolly glad you hit her,’ said George. ‘She’s a nasty little beast. If I see her again I’ll tell her what I think of her.’

‘No, you won’t,’ said Dick. ‘Not if I’m there, anyway. She had her punishment when I sent her flying.’

‘Do shut up arguing, you two,’ said Anne, and sent a shower of sand over them.

‘George, don’t go into one of your moods, for goodness’ sake - we don’t want to waste a single day of this two weeks.’

‘Here’s the ice-cream man,’ said Julian, sitting up and feeling for the waterproof pocket in the belt of his bathing trunks. ‘Let’s have one each.’

‘Woof,’ said Timmy, and thumped his tail on the sand.

‘Yes, all right - one for you, too,’ said Dick. ‘Though what sense there is in giving you one, I don’t know. One lick, one swallow, and it’s gone. It might be a fly for all you taste of it.’

Timmy gulped his ice-cream down at once and then went into George’s hole, squeezing beside her, hoping for a lick of her ice, too. But she pushed him away.

‘No, Timmy. Ice-cream’s wasted on you! You can’t even have a lick of mine. And do get back into your hole - you’re making me frightfully hot.’

Timmy obligingly got out and went into Anne’s hole. She gave him a little bit of her ice-cream. He sat panting beside her, looking longingly at the rest of the ice. ‘You’re melting it with your hot breath,’ said Anne. ‘Go into Julian’s hole now!’

The five of them had a thoroughly lazy morning. As none of them had a watch they went in far too early for lunch, and were shooed out again by Joan.

‘How you can come in at ten past twelve for a one o’clock lunch, I don’t know!’ she scolded. ‘I haven’t even finished the housework yet.’

‘Well - it felt like one o’clock,’ said Anne, disappointed to find there was so long to wait.

Still, when lunch-time came, Joan really did them well.

‘Cold ham and tongue - cold baked beans - beetroot - crisp lettuce straight from the garden - heaps of tomatoes - cucumber - hard-boiled egg!’ recited Anne in glee.

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‘Just the kind of meal I like,’ said Dick, sitting down. ‘What’s for pudding?’

‘There it is on the sideboard,’ said Anne. ‘Wobbly blancmange, fresh fruit salad and jelly.

I’m glad I’m hungry.’

‘Now don’t you give Timmy any of that ham and tongue,’ Joan warned George. ‘I’ve got a fine bone for him. Coming, Timmy?’

Timmy knew the word ‘bone’ very well indeed. He trotted after Joan at once, his feet sounding loudly in the hall. They heard Joan talking kindly to him in the kitchen as she found him his bone.

‘Good old Joan,’ said Dick. ‘She’s like Timmy - her bark is worse than her bite.’

‘Timmy’s got a good bite, though,’ said George, helping herself to three tomatoes at once. ‘And his bite came in useful heaps of times for us.’

They ate steadily, thinking of some of the hair-raising adventures they had had, when Timmy and his bite had certainly come in very useful. Timmy came in after a while, licking his lips.

‘Nothing doing, old chap,’ said Dick, looking at the empty dishes on the table. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve chomped up that bone already!’

Timmy had. He lay down under the table, and put his nose on his paws. He was happy.

He had had a good meal, and he was with the people he loved best. He put his head as near George’s feet as he could.

‘Your whiskers are tickling me,’ she said, and screwed up her bare toes. ‘Pass the tomatoes, someone.’

‘You can’t manage any more tomatoes, surely!’ said Anne. ‘You’ve had five already.’

‘They’re out of my own garden,’ said George, ‘so I can eat as many as I like.’

After lunch they lazed on the beach till it was time for a bathe again. It was a happy day for all of them - warm, lazy, with plenty of fun and romping about.

George looked out for the ragamuffin girl, but she didn’t appear again. George was half sorry. She would have liked a battle of words with her, even if she couldn’t have a fight!

They were all very tired when they went to bed that night. Julian yawned so loudly when Joan came in with a jug of hot cocoa and some biscuits that she offered to lock up the house for him.

‘Oh, no, thank you, Joan,’ said Julian at once. ‘That’s the man’s job, you know, locking up the house. You can trust me all right. I’ll see to every window and every door.’

‘Right, Master Julian,’ said Joan, and bustled away to wind up the kitchen clock, rake

out the fire, and go up to bed. The children went up, too, Timmy, as usual, at George’s heels. Julian was left downstairs to lock up.

He was a very responsible boy. Joan knew that he wouldn’t leave a single window unfastened. She heard him trying to shut the little window in the pantry, and she called down:

‘Master Julian! It’s swollen or something, and won’t shut properly. You needn’t bother about it, it’s too small for anyone to get into!’

‘Right!’ said Julian, thankfully, and went upstairs. He yawned a terrific yawn again, and set Dick off, too, as soon as he came into the bedroom they both shared. The girls, undressing in the next room, laughed to hear them.

‘You wouldn’t hear a burglar in the middle of the night, Julian and Dick!’ called Anne.

‘You’ll sleep like logs!’

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‘Old Timmy can listen out for burglars,’ said Julian, cleaning his teeth vigorously. ‘That’s his job, not mine. Isn’t it, Timmy?’

‘Woof,’ said Timmy, clambering on to George’s bed. He always slept curled up in the crook of her knees. Her mother had given up trying to insist that George didn’t have Timmy on her bed at night. As George said, even if she agreed to that, Timmy wouldn’t!

Nobody stayed awake for more than five seconds. Nobody even said anything in bed, except for a sleepy good night. Timmy gave a little grunt and settled down, too, his head on George’s feet. It was heavy, but she liked it there. She put out a hand and stroked Timmy gently. He licked one of her feet through the bed-clothes. He loved George more than anyone in the world.

It was dark outside that night. Thick clouds had come up and put out all the stars. There was no sound to be heard but the wind in the trees and the distant surge of the sea -

and both sounded so much the same that it was hard to tell the difference.

Not another sound - not even an owl hooting to its mate, or the sound of a hedgehog pattering in the ditch.

Then why did Timmy wake up? Why did he open first one eye and then another? Why did he prick up his ears and lie there, listening? He didn’t even lift his head at first. He simply lay listening in the darkness.

He lifted his head cautiously at last. He slid off the bed as quietly as a cat. He padded across the room and out of the door. Down the stairs he went, and into the hall, where his claws rattled on the tiled floor. But nobody heard him. Everyone in the house was fast asleep.

Timmy stood and listened in the hall. He knew he had heard something. Could it have been a rat somewhere? Timmy lifted his nose and sniffed.

And then he stiffened from head to tail, and stood as if turned into stone. Something was climbing up the wall of the house. Scrape, scrape, scrape - rustle, rustle! Would a rat dare to do that?

Upstairs, in her bed, Anne didn’t know why she suddenly woke up just then, but she did.

She was thirsty, and she thought she would get a drink of water. She felt for her torch, and switched it on.