Читать книгу Secret Seven Win Through - Enid blyton - Страница 5

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Next morning Peter and Janet began preparing for the meeting. Meetings weren’t proper meetings, somehow, unless there was plenty to eat and drink while they talked. Their mother was always generous in giving cakes or biscuits, and lemonade, and the two children went to find her.

‘She’s out,’ said the cook, looking up from chopping parsley on a board. ‘She told me to tell you she would be back presently. You were at the bottom of the garden, and didn’t hear her calling you.’

‘Oh, blow!’ said Peter. ‘We’re going to have a Secret Seven meeting, and we wanted something to eat and drink.’

‘Well now, let me see—you can have that tin of ginger biscuits—they’ve gone soft,’ said Cookie, smiling. ‘And you can make yourself some real lemonade—there are plenty of lemons and sugar in the larder.’

‘Ooh good!’ said Janet. ‘I’ll do that. I’ll make it with hot water, and let it go cool. Anything else we can have?’

‘Jam-tarts,’ said Cookie, chopping away hard at the parsley. ‘Only four though, I’m afraid. That’s all that were left from supper last night.’

‘Four—well, we’ll halve them,’ said Peter. ‘There’ll be one half over, so ...’

‘Woof! woof!’ said Scamper, at once. The children laughed.

‘All right—you shall have the half left over,’ said Peter. ‘You never miss a word of what we say, do you, Scamper?’

Janet made the lemonade, and Peter got the tin of biscuits and found the tarts. He cut them carefully into exact halves and put them on a plate.

‘Come on, Janet,’ he said. ‘It’s nearly half past ten.’

‘Peter—please do tell me the password!’ said Janet. ‘I’m very, very sorry I’ve forgotten it.’

‘No. I shan’t tell you,’ said Peter. ‘You’ll have to be in the shed, anyhow, and you can jolly well listen to the others coming along and saying the password, and feel ashamed of yourself.’

‘You’re mean!’ said Janet. ‘Isn’t he mean, Scamper?’

Scamper didn’t answer. ‘There,’ said Peter, ‘he won’t say I’m mean. He never will. Do come on, Janet. I’m not going to wait a minute longer.’

Janet was ready. She put the jug of lemonade and seven unbreakable mugs on an old tray and followed Peter out of the kitchen. ‘Thanks very much for your help, Cookie!’ she said, as she went carefully down the steps outside the kitchen door.

Peter was ahead of her. He went along the path that wound between the bushes right down to the bottom of the garden, where the old shed stood that they used for their meetings. On the door was always pinned the sign ‘S.S.’ How many, many times the Secret Seven had met there and made exciting plans!

Janet followed a little way behind, carrying her tray carefully. She suddenly heard Peter give a startled shout, and almost dropped the tray she held.

‘What’s the matter?’ she called, and tried to hurry. She came in sight of the shed—and stared in horror.

The door was wide open, and so were the windows. Everything had been turned out of the shed! There were boxes and cushions and sacks, all strewn on the ground in untidy heaps! Whatever had happened?

Janet put her tray down, afraid that she might drop it in her dismay. She looked at Peter in despair.

‘Who’s done this? Just as we were going to have a meeting too! It’s too bad.’

Peter looked into the shed. It was quite empty, except for the shelves that ran round the sides. He was puzzled.

‘Janet—it couldn’t be Susie, could it?’ he said. ‘I mean—this is an awful thing to do—throw everything out of our shed. I don’t think even Susie would do that.’

‘She might,’ said Janet, almost in tears. ‘Oh, our lovely meeting-place!’

‘Here come the others,’ said Peter, as Pamela and Barbara appeared down the path together. They stared in amazement at the untidy mess on the ground.

‘What’s happened?’ said Barbara. ‘Are we too early?’

‘No. We’ve only just seen all this ourselves,’ said Peter. ‘Hallo—here’s Jack. Jack, look here.’

‘My word!’ said Jack. ‘Who’s done this? It can’t be Susie. She’s been with me all morning till I left just now.’

Colin and George came up just then, and the seven looked ruefully at the boxes and cushions thrown out so untidily. ‘We’d better put them back,’ said Janet. ‘And we’ll jolly well find out who’s done all this to our secret meeting-place.’

They began to put everything back—and then they heard footsteps coming along down the path. Who was it? Peter looked to see.

It was the gardener, carrying a strong broom over his shoulder, a pail of water in his hand, and some cloths hanging on the side of the pail. He stared at the seven in annoyance.

‘Hey, you! What are you doing? I’ve only just thrown all that rubbish out!’

‘But why?’ demanded Peter, indignantly. ‘This shed is our meeting-place—and this isn’t rubbish. We use it.’

‘Oh, well, I don’t know anything about that,’ said the gardener. ‘All I know is that your father told me to clear out this place, burn all the rubbish, and do a spot of painting—he said it was going to rack and ruin, and he wanted it cleaned up.’

‘I see,’ said Peter, his heart sinking. If his father had planned this, there was nothing to be done. He turned to the others. ‘Come on—let’s find somewhere to talk,’ he said. ‘We can’t meet in our shed for a while, that’s certain. What a blow!’

‘Never mind! We’ll think of somewhere just as good,’ said Colin. But nobody agreed with him. They thought the shed was the finest place in the world for Secret Seven meetings!

The Seven, followed by Scamper with his tail well down, went slowly up the garden path. Somehow it seemed dreadful not to have their usual meeting-place.

‘We’ll go to the summer-house,’ said Peter. ‘Oh, look, there’s Mummy, Janet. We’ll ask her about the shed.’

‘Mummy!’ called Janet. ‘Why didn’t you tell us the shed was going to be cleaned and painted—our own shed, I mean, where we meet? I do think somebody might have told us.’

‘Oh dear—I quite forgot to tell you that Daddy wanted it cleaned and mended,’ said Mummy. ‘It was almost falling to bits here and there, you know. But you can have it for your meeting-place again when it’s finished. It will look nice and bright and clean then.’

‘But we liked it old and dark and untidy,’ said Peter mournfully. ‘And I do think it’s a pity to have it done in the holidays, Mummy, just when we want to use it.’

‘Yes—I agree that that’s a pity,’ said Mummy, looking very sorry. ‘I would have stopped it if I’d known that it was to be done just now. Well—you’ll have to find another meeting-place. What about the attic?’

‘Oh no,’ said Janet. ‘It’s no fun meeting in a house, Mummy—with other people in near-by rooms—we want a secret, lonely place, we do really.’

‘Yes.... I suppose you do,’ said Mummy. ‘Well, I can’t suggest one, I’m afraid. Go to the summer-house just for now.’

‘We were going to,’ said Peter, still very doleful. Soon they were all squashed into the little old summer-house. The girls didn’t much like it, because it was rather earwiggy.

They began to eat the ginger biscuits. ‘Rather soft, I’m afraid,’ said Janet.

‘Oh, I like them soft and squidgy,’ said Pam. ‘I hate them when you have to bite so hard they splinter in your mouth! I say—this is good lemonade! Did your mother make it, Janet?’

‘No. I made it myself,’ said Janet proudly. ‘Peter, hadn’t we better talk about where to have a new meeting-place?’

‘Yes,’ said Peter. ‘And I vote that we all of us have a good hunt round to find somewhere—some absolutely secret place that even Jack’s sister Susie won’t find. It mustn’t be too far away. I’ll give you to-day to find one. Meet here this evening, in this summer-house again, at six o’clock.’

‘Right,’ said Colin. ‘I think I know of one already.’

‘Well, don’t tell us now,’ said Peter. ‘We’ll each give in our ideas this evening and put it to the vote to see which is the best. We must do these things properly.’

‘Yes,’ said everyone, and took a drink of Janet’s lemonade.

‘What about the password?’ said Jack. ‘We were all so upset about the shed that we never even gave the password.’

‘We’ve all got our badges on,’ said Pamela. ‘I had an awful hunt for mine. I put it in such a safe place that it was almost too safe for me to find!’

‘Where was it?’ asked George.

‘I buried it in the pot of maidenhair fern my mother has in the drawing-room,’ said Pam, with a giggle. ‘And then forgot about it. It took me ages to remember it.’

‘I thought it looked a bit grubby,’ said Peter. ‘I think that’s a silly place.’

‘Oh, I wrapped it in paper,’ said Pam. ‘But I forgot that Mummy watered it twice a week—so, of course, the paper soaked off and made my badge messy.’

‘It’s a good thing it didn’t put out roots and grow!’ said Peter. Everyone laughed.

‘Peter, could we have a new password?’ said Jack. ‘Susie knows our last one. I’m most frightfully sorry, and I don’t know how she knew it, unless she hung round our last meeting and heard it.’

‘All right. We’ll choose a new one,’ said Peter. ‘It’s time we did, anyway. I must say that your sister Susie is getting worse and worse, Jack. I hope she’s nowhere about just now.’

Jack got up and went out of the summer-house. ‘Nobody’s anywhere near,’ he said. ‘Quick—what’s the new password?’

‘Easter-egg,’ said Peter. ‘That’s easy to remember, because it’s the Easter holidays.’

‘Easter-egg,’ repeated everyone, in low voices. Pam took out a note-book and began to write it down.

‘Don’t you write it down, Jack!’ said Janet, ‘or Susie will find it. I wonder how she knew our last password.’

‘Well, she called out, “Your password is Sugar-mouse” just as I was leaving,’ said Jack. ‘And I don’t mind owning up now that I was jolly glad to hear it, because I’d forgotten it completely.’

‘Sugar-mouse!’ said Peter, in astonishment. ‘It was nothing of the sort. Susie just made that up because she knew you’d forgotten it. She hoped you would rap on the door of the shed and yell out “Sugar-mouse” and make an ass of yourself.’

Jack went red. ‘What was the password then?’ he said. ‘Janet, you tell me. Peter won’t.’

Janet went red too. ‘I’ve forgotten it as well,’ she said.

Pam blushed as red as Janet, so Peter knew she had forgotten too! He rapped on the summer-house table.

‘The last password was a very simple one,’ he said. ‘It was “Thursday”. Just that, “Thursday”.’

‘Golly, so it was,’ said Barbara. ‘I just couldn’t remember if it was “Thursday” or “Friday”.’

‘I thought it was Sunday,’ said Colin, with a laugh. ‘It was a silly password to choose, Peter, too easy to muddle up with the other days of the week. “Easter-egg” is much better.’

‘Well, let’s hope that Barbara and Colin don’t mix it up with “Christmas Present” or “Birthday Gift”!’ said Peter. ‘Now—we’ve eaten everything, and Scamper’s had his half-tart, and we’ve drunk all the lemonade—what about separating and hunting for a new meeting-place?’

‘Right,’ said everyone and got up. They all went off up the path to the front gate, and most of them were murmuring two words to themselves as they went.

‘Easter-egg! Easter-egg! I must remember Easter-egg!’