Five Fall Into Adventure (8 page)

In a trice Dick was after it again. At least he could track down this fellow! He must be going somewhere!

Down the lane to the stile. Over the stile and into the field. Across the field and back at the hedge that grew at the bottom of Kirrin Cottage.

Why was this fellow going back there? Dick was puzzled. He heard the shadow creeping through the hedge and he followed. He watched it go silently up the path and peer in at a darkened window.

‘Going to get into the house again and ransack it, I suppose!’ thought Dick, in a rage. He considered the shadowy figure by the window. It didn’t look big. It must be a small man -

one that Dick could tackle and bring to the ground. He could yell loudly for Julian, and maybe he could hold the fellow down till Julian came.

‘And then perhaps we could do a little kidnapping, and a little bargaining, too,’ thought Dick grimly. ‘If they hold George as a hostage, we’ll hold one of them, too! Tit for tat!’

He waited till the shadow left the window, and then he pounced. His victim went down at once with a yell.

Dick was surprised how small he was - but how he fought! He bit and scratched and heaved and kicked, and the two of them rolled over and over and over, breaking down Michaelmas daisies in the beds, and scratching legs and arms and faces on rose bushes. Dick yelled for Julian all the time.

‘Julian! Julian! Help! Julian!’

Julian heard. He tore out at once. ‘Dick, Dick, where are you? What is it?’

He flashed his torch towards the shouting and saw Dick rolling on top of somebody. He ran to help at once, throwing his torch on the grass so that both hands were free.

“Famous Five 09 - Five Fall Into Adventure” By Enid Blyton
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It wasn’t long before they had the struggling figure firmly in their grasp and dragged it, wailing, to the back door. Dick recognized that wailing voice! Good gracious - no, it couldn’t be - it couldn’t be Jo!

But it was! When they dragged her inside she collapsed completely, sobbing and wailing, rubbing her scratched and bruised legs, calling both boys all the names she could think of. Anne and Joan looked on in complete amazement. Nore what had happened?

‘Put her upstairs,’ said Julian. ‘Get her to bed. She’s in a awful state now. So am I! I wouldn’t have lammed her like that if I’d known it was only Jo.’

‘I never guessed,’ said Dick, wiping his filthy face with his handkerchief. ‘My word, what a wild-cat! See how she’s bitten me!’

‘I didn’t know it was you, Dick; I didn’t know,’ wailed Jo. ‘You pounced on me, and I fought back. I wouldn’t have bitten you like that.’

‘You’re a savage, deceitful, double-dealing little wildcat,’ said Dick, looking at his bites and scratches. ‘Pretending you know nothing about the man who gave you that note -

and all the time you’re in with that crooked lot of thieves and kidnappers, whoever they are.’

‘I’m not in with them,’ wept Jo.

‘Don’t tell lies,’ shouted Dick, in a fury, ‘I was up in a tree when you came and took that parcel from under the stone - yes, and I followed you right to that car - and followed you back again! You came back here to steal again, I suppose?’

Jo gulped. ‘No, I didn’t.’

‘You did! You’ll be handed over to the police tomorrow,’ said Dick, still furious.

‘I didn’t come back to steal. I came back for something else,’ insisted Jo, her eyes peering through her tangled hair like a frightened animal’s.

‘Ho! So you say! And what did you come back for? To find another dog to dope?’ jeered Dick.

‘No,’ said Jo, miserably. ‘I came back to tell you I’d take you to where George was, if you wouldn’t tell on me. My Dad would half kill me if he thought I’d split on him. I know I took the parcel - I had to. I didn’t know what it was or anything. I took it to the place I was told to. Jake told me. And then I came back to tell you all I could. And you set on me like that.’

Four pairs of eyes bored into Jo, and she covered her face. Dick took her hands away and made her look at him.

‘Look here,’ he said, ‘this matters a lot to us, whether you are speaking the truth or not.

Do you know where George is?’

Jo nodded.

‘And will you take us there?’ said Julian, his voice stern and cold.

Jo nodded again. ‘Yes I will. You’ve been mean to me, but I’ll show you I’m not as bad as you make out. I’ll take you to George.’

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The hall clock suddenly struck loudly. DONG!’

‘One o’clock,’ said Joan. ‘One o’clock in the morning! Master Julian, we can’t do any more tonight. This gipsy child here, she’s not fit to take you trapesing out anywhere else.

She’s done for - she can hardly stand.’

‘Yes, you’re right Joan,’ said Julian, at once giving up the idea of going out to find George that night. ‘We’ll have to wait till tomorrow. It’s a pity the telephone wires are cut.

I do really think we ought to let the police know something about all this.’

Jo looked up at once. ‘Then I won’t tell you where George is,’ she said. ‘Do you know what the police will do to me if they get hold of me? They’d put me into a Home for Bad Girls, and I’ll never get out again - because I am a bad girl and I do bad things. I’ve never had a chance.’

‘Every one gets a chance sooner or later,’ said Julian gently. ‘You’ll get yours, Jo - but see you take it when it comes. All right - we’ll leave the police out of it if you promise you’ll take us to where George is. That’s a bargain.’

Jo understood bargains. She nodded. Joan pulled her to her feet and half led, half carried her upstairs.

‘There’s a couch in my room,’ she told Julian. ‘She can bed down there for the night -

but late or not she’s going to have a bath first. She smells like something the dog brought in!’

In half an hour’s time Jo was tucked up on the couch in Joan’s room, perfectly clean, though marked with scratches and bruises from top to toe, hair washed, dried, and brushed so that it stood up in wiry curls like George’s. A basin of steaming bread and milk was on a tray in front of her.

Joan went to the landing and called across to Julian’s room. ‘Master Julian! Jo’s in bed.

She wants to say something to you and Master Dick.’

Dick and Julian put on dressing-gowns and went into Joan’s neat room. They hardly recognized Jo. She was wearing one of Anne’s old nightgowns and looked very clean and childish and somehow pathetic.

Jo looked at them and gave them a very small smile. ‘What do you want to say to us?’

asked Julian.

‘I’ve got some things to tell you,’ said Jo, stirring the bread round and round in the basin.

‘I feel good now - good and clean and - and all that. But maybe tomorrow I’ll feel like I always do - and then I wouldn’t tell you everything. So I’d better tell you now.’

‘Go ahead,’ said Julian.

‘Well, I let the men into your house here, the night they came,’ said Jo. Julian and Dick stared in astonishment. Jo went on stirring her bread round and round.

‘It’s true,’ she said. ‘I got in at that tiny window that was left unfastened, and then I went to the back door and opened it and let the men in. They did make a mess of that room, didn’t they? I watched them. They took a lot of papers.’

‘You couldn’t possibly squeeze through that window,’ said Dick at once.

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‘Well, I did,’ said Jo. ‘I’ve - I’ve squeezed through quite a lot of little windows. I know how to wriggle, you see. I can’t get through such tiny ones as I used to, because I keep on growing. But yours was easy.’

‘Phew!’ said Julian, and let out a long breath. He hardly knew what to say. ‘Well, go on. I suppose when the men had finished you locked and bolted the kitchen door after them and then squeezed out of the pantry window again?’

‘Yes,’ said Jo, and put a piece of milky bread into her mouth.

‘What about Timmy? Who doped him so that he slept all that night?’ demanded Dick.

‘I did,’ said Jo. ‘That was easy, too.’

Both boys were speechless. To think that Jo did that, too! The wicked little misery!

‘I made friends with Timmy on the beach, don’t you remember?’ said Jo. ‘George was cross about it. I like dogs. We always had dozens till Mum died, and they’d do anything I told them. Dad told me what I was to do - make friends with Timmy so that I could meet him that night and give him meat with something in it.’

‘I see. And it was very, very easy, because we sent Timmy out alone - straight into your hands,’ said Dick bitterly.

‘Yes. He came to me at once, he was glad to see me. I took him quite a long walk, letting him sniff the meat I’d got. When I gave it to him, he swallowed it all at once with hardly a chew!’

‘And slept all night long so that your precious friends could break into the house,’ said Julian. ‘All I can say is that you are a hardened little rogue. Aren’t you ashamed of anything?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Jo, who wasn’t really quite certain what feeling ashamed meant.

‘Shall I stop telling you things?’

‘No. For goodness’ sake go on,’ said Dick, hastily. ‘Had you anything to do with George’s kidnapping?’

‘I just had to hoot like an owl when she and Timmy were coming,’ said Jo. ‘They were ready for her with a sack to put over her head - and they were going to bang Timmy on the head with a stick to knock him out - then put him into a sack too. That’s what I heard them say. But I didn’t see them. l had to creep back here and shut the front door, so that if nobody missed George till morning they’d just think she’d gone out early somewhere.’

‘Which is what we did think,’ groaned Dick. ‘What mutts we are! The only clever thing we thought of was to stalk the person who collected the parcel.’

‘It was only me, though,’ said Jo. ‘And anyway, I was coming back to tell you I would take you to George. Not because I like her - I don’t. I think she’s rude and horrible. I’d like her to stay kidnapped for years!’

‘What a nice, kind nature!’ said Julian to Dick, helplessly. ‘What can you do with a kid like this?’ He turned to Jo again. ‘Seeing that you wish George would stay kidnapped for years, what made you decide to come and tell us where to find her?’ he asked, puzzled.

‘Well, I don’t like George - but I do like him!’ said Jo, pointing with her spoon at Dick. ‘He was nice to me, so I wanted to be nice back. I don’t often feel like that,’ she added hurriedly, as if being kind was some sort of weakness not really to be admired. ‘I wanted him to go on liking me,’ she said.

Dick looked at her. ‘I shall like you if you take us to George,’ he said. ‘Not unless. If you deceive us, I shall think you’re like one of those sour damson stones - only fit to be spat out as far away as possible.’

‘I’ll take you tomorrow,’ said Jo.

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‘Where is George?’ asked Julian, bluntly, thinking it would be as well to know now, in case Jo changed her mind by the morning, and became her wicked little self again.

Jo hesitated. She looked at Dick. ‘It would be very nice of you to tell us,’ said Dick, in a kind voice. Jo loved a bit of kindness and couldn’t resist this.

‘Well,’ she whispered, ‘you know I told you my Dad had gone off and left me to Jake.

Dad didn’t tell me why - but Jake did. He shut George and Timmy into our caravan, harnessed Blackie the horse, and drove away in the night with them both. And I guess I know where he’s gone - where he always goes when he wants to hide.’

‘Where?’ asked Julian, feeling so astounded at these extraordinary revelations that he really began to wonder if he was dreaming.

‘In the middle of Ravens Wood,’ said Jo. ‘You don’t know where that is, but I do. I’ll take you tomorrow. I can’t tell you any more now.’ She began to spoon up her bread and milk very fast indeed, watching the boys through her long eyelashes.

Dick considered her. He felt pretty sure she had told them the truth, though he was equally certain she would have told lies if she could have got more by doing so.

He thought her a bad, cold-blooded, savage little monkey, but he pitied her, and admired her unwillingly for her courage.

He caught sight of her bruises and grazes, and bit his lip as he remembered how he had pounced on her and pummelled her, giving her back kick for kick and blow for blow - he hadn’t guessed for one moment it was Jo.

‘I’m sorry I hurt you so,’ he said. ‘You know I didn’t mean to. It was a mistake.’

Jo looked at him as a slave might look at a king. ‘I don’t mind,’ she said. ‘I’d do anything for you, straight I would. You’re kind.’

Joan knocked impatiently at the door. ‘Aren’t you ready yet, you boys?’ she said. ‘I want to come to bed. Tell Jo to stop talking, and you come on out too, and go to bed.’

The boys opened the door. Joan took one look at their solemn faces and guessed that what Jo had told them was important. She took the empty basin from the girl’s hands and pushed her down on the couch.

‘Now you go straight off to sleep - and mind, if I hear any hanky-panky from you in the night I’ll get up and give you such a spanking you won’t be able to sit down for a month of Sundays,’ she said roughly, but - not unkindly.

Jo grinned. She understood that kind of talk. She snuggled down into the rugs, marvelling at the warmth and softness. She was already half-asleep. Joan got into bed and switched off her light.

‘Two o’clock in the morning!’ she muttered as she heard the hall clock strike. ‘Such goings-on! I’ll never wake up in time to tell the milkman I want more milk.’

Soon only Julian was awake. He worried about whether he was doing right or not. Poor George - was she safe? Would that scamp of a Jo really lead them to the caravan next day - or might she lead them right into the lion’s mouth, and get them all captured?

Julian simply didn’t know.

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Joan was the only one in the household who woke up reasonably early the next morning