Читать книгу Five Have a Wonderful Time - Enid blyton - Страница 5

Table of Contents

‘Is there going to be a fair near here then?’ asked George, starting on her strawberry ice. ‘What sort of a fair? A circus or something?’

‘No. Just a mixed-up show,’ said the shop-woman. ‘There’s to be a fire-eater, and that’ll bring the villagers to the show faster than anything. A fire-eater! Did you ever hear of such a thing? I wonder that anyone cares to make a living at that!’

‘What else is there to be?’ asked Anne. She didn’t somehow fancy watching anyone eating fire!

‘Well, there’s a man who can get himself free in under two minutes, no matter how tightly he’s tied up with rope,’ said the woman. ‘Fair miracle he must be! And there’s a man called Mr. India-rubber, because he can bend himself anywhere, and wriggle through drain-pipes and get in at a window if it’s left open just a crack!’

‘Gracious! He’d make a good burglar!’ said George. ‘I wish I was like india-rubber! Can this man bounce when he falls down?’

Everyone laughed. ‘What else?’ said Anne. ‘This sounds very exciting.’

‘There’s a man with snakes,’ said the plump little lady with a shudder. ‘Snakes! Just fancy! I’d be afraid they would bite me. I’d run a mile if I saw a snake coming at me.’

‘Are they poisonous snakes that he has, I wonder?’ said Dick. ‘I don’t somehow fancy having a caravan next to ours with lashings of poisonous snakes crawling round.’

‘Don’t!’ said Anne. ‘I should go home at once.’

Another customer came in and the shop-woman had to leave the children and go to serve her. The four felt rather thrilled. What a bit of luck to have such exciting people in the same field as they were!

‘A fire-eater!’ said Dick. ‘I’ve always wanted to see one. I bet he doesn’t really eat fire! He’d burn the whole of his mouth and throat.’

‘Has everyone finished?’ asked Julian, getting some money out of his pocket. ‘If so, we’ll take George up to the field and show her our gay caravans. They aren’t a bit like the ones we once went caravanning in, George—they are old-fashioned gypsy ones. You’ll like them. Gay and very picturesque.’

‘Who lent you them?’ asked George, as they left the shop. ‘Some school friend, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes. He and his family always go and camp in their caravans in the Easter and summer hols,’ said Julian. ‘But this Easter they’re going to France—and rather than leave them empty, they thought they’d lend them out—and we’re the lucky ones!’

They walked up the lane and came to the stile. George looked up at the towering castle, gleaming in the sun on the hill opposite.

‘Faynights Castle,’ she said. ‘Hundreds of years old! How I’d love to know all the things that happened there through the centuries. I do love old things. I vote we go and explore it.’

‘We will. It only costs five pence,’ said Dick. ‘We’ll all have a good five pence worth of castle. I wonder if there are any dungeons. Dark, damp, drear and dreadful!’

They went up the grassy hillside to the field where their caravans were. George exclaimed in delight. ‘Oh! Are those our caravans? Aren’t they gay? They’re just like the caravans the gypsies use—only these look cleaner and gayer.’

‘The red caravan, picked out with black and yellow, is ours,’ said Dick. ‘The blue one, picked out in black and yellow, is yours and Anne’s.’

‘Woof,’ said Timmy at once.

‘Oh, sorry—yours too, Timmy,’ said Dick at once, and everyone chuckled. It was queer the way Timmy suddenly made a woofish remark, just as if he really understood every word that was said. George was quite certain he did, of course.

The caravans stood on high wheels. There was a window each side. The door was at the front, and so were the steps, of course. Gay curtains hung at the windows, and a line of bold carving ran round the edges of the out-jutting roof.

‘They are old gypsy caravans painted and made really up to date,’ said Julian. ‘They’re jolly comfortable inside too—bunks that fold down against the walls in the daytime—a little sink for washing-up, though we usually use the stream, because it’s such a fag to fetch water—a small larder, cupboards and shelves—cork carpet on the floor with warm rugs so that no draught comes through....’

‘You sound as if you are trying to sell them to me!’ said George, with a laugh. ‘You needn’t! I love them both, and I think they’re miles nicer than the modern caravans down there. Somehow these seem real!’

‘Oh, the others are real enough,’ said Julian. ‘And they’ve got more space—but space doesn’t matter to us because we shall live outside most of the time.’

‘Do we have a camp-fire?’ asked George, eagerly. ‘Oh, yes—I see we do. There’s the ashy patch where you had your fire. Oh, Julian, do let’s have a fire there at night and sit round it in the darkness!’

‘With midges biting us and bats flapping all round,’ said Dick. ‘Yes, certainly we will! Come inside, George.’

‘She’s to come into my caravan first,’ said Anne, and pushed George up the steps. George was really delighted.

She was very happy to think she was going to have a peaceful two weeks here with her three cousins and Timmy. She pulled her bunk up and down to see how it worked. She opened the larder and cupboard doors. Then she went to see the boys’ caravan.

‘How tidy!’ she said, in surprise. ‘I expected Anne’s to be tidy—but yours is just as spick and span. Oh dear—I hope you haven’t all turned over a new leaf and become models of neatness. I haven’t!’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Dick, with a grin. ‘Anne has been at work—you know how she loves to put everything in its place. We don’t need to worry about anything when she’s about. Good old Anne!’

‘All the same, George will have to help me,’ said Anne, firmly. ‘I don’t expect boys to tidy up and cook and do things like that—but George ought to because she’s a girl.’

‘If only I’d been born a boy!’ groaned George. ‘All right Anne, I’ll do my share—sometimes. I say—there won’t be much room for Timmy on my bunk at nights, will there?’

‘Well, he’s not coming on mine,’ said Anne. ‘He can sleep on the floor on a rug. Can’t you, Timmy?’

‘Woof,’ said Timmy, without wagging his tail at all. He looked very disapproving.

‘There you are—he says he wouldn’t dream of doing such a thing!’ said George. ‘He always sleeps on my feet.’

They went outside again. It really was a lovely day. The primroses opened more and more of their little yellow flowers, and a blackbird suddenly burst into a fluting song on the bough of a hawthorn tree in the hedge nearby.

‘Did anyone get a paper in the village?’ asked Dick. ‘Oh, you did, Julian. Good. Let’s have a look at the weather forecast. If it’s good we might go for a long walk this afternoon. The sea is not really very far off.’

Julian took the folded paper from his pocket and threw it over to Dick. He sat down on the steps of his caravan and opened it.

He was looking for the paragraph giving the weather forecast when headlines caught his eye. He gave an exclamation.

‘Hallo! Here’s a bit more about those two vanished scientists, Julian!’

‘Oh!’ said George, remembering Julian’s telephone call of the night before. ‘Julian, whatever in the world made you think my father could be one of the vanished scientists? As if he would ever be disloyal to his country and take his secrets anywhere else!’

‘Oh, I didn’t think that,’ said Julian, at once. ‘Of course I didn’t! I’d never think Uncle Quentin would do a thing like that. No—in yesterday’s paper it just said that two of our most famous scientists had disappeared—and I thought perhaps they had been kidnapped. And as Uncle Quentin is really very famous, I just thought I’d ring up to make sure.’

‘Oh,’ said George. ‘Well, as Mother hadn’t heard a thing about them she was awfully astonished when you asked her if Father had disappeared. Especially as he was banging about just then in the study, looking for something he had lost.’

‘Which he was sitting on as usual, I suppose,’ said Dick with a grin. ‘But listen to this—it doesn’t look as if the two men have been kidnapped—it looks as if they just walked out and took important papers with them! Beasts! There’s too much of that sort of thing nowadays, it seems to me!’

He read out a paragraph or two.

‘Derek Terry-Kane and Jeffrey Pottersham have been missing for two days. They met at a friend’s house to discuss a certain aspect of their work, and then left together to walk to the underground. Since then they have not been seen.

‘It has, however, been established that Terry-Kane had brought his passport up to date and had purchased tickets for flying to Paris. No news of his arrival there has been reported.’

‘There! Just what I said to Mother!’ exclaimed George. ‘They’ve gone off to sell their secrets to another country. Why do we let them?’

‘Uncle Quentin won’t be pleased about that,’ said Julian. ‘Didn’t he work with Terry-Kane at one time?’

‘Yes. I believe he did,’ said George. ‘I’m jolly glad I’m not at home today—Father will be rampaging round like anything, telling Mother hundreds of times what he thinks about scientists who are traitors!’

‘He certainly will,’ said Julian. ‘I don’t blame him either. That’s a thing I don’t understand—to be a traitor to one’s own country. It leaves a nasty taste in my mouth to think of it. Come on—let’s think about dinner, Anne. What are we going to have?’

‘Fried sausages and onions, potatoes, a tin of sliced peaches and I’ll make a custard,’ said Anne, at once.

‘I’ll fry the sausages,’ said Dick. ‘I’ll light the fire out here and get the frying-pan. Anyone like their sausages split in the cooking?’

Everyone did. ‘I like mine nice and burnt,’ said George. ‘How many do we have each? I’ve only had those ice-creams since breakfast.’

‘There are twelve,’ said Anne, giving Dick the bag. ‘Three each. None for Timmy! But I’ve got a large, juicy bone for him. Julian, will you get me some water, please? There’s the pail, over there. I want to peel the potatoes. George, can you possibly open the peaches without cutting yourself like you did last time?’

‘Yes, Captain!’ said George, with a grin. ‘Ah—this is like old times. Good food, good company and a good time. Three cheers for Us!’