Читать книгу Secret Seven on the Trail - Enid blyton - Страница 5

Table of Contents

School began for the boys next day, and they all trooped off with their satchels and bags. The girls went off the day after. All the Secret Seven wore their little badges with S.S. embroidered on the button. It was fun to see the other children looking enviously at them, wishing they could have one too.

‘No, you can’t,’ said Janet, when the other girls asked her if they could join. ‘It’s a Secret Society. I’m not supposed even to talk about it.’

‘Well, I don’t see why you can’t make it a bit bigger and let us come in,’ said the others.

‘You can’t have more than seven in our Society,’ said Janet. ‘And we’ve got seven. You go and make Secret Societies of your own!’

That was an unfortunate thing to say! Kate and Susie, who was Jack’s tiresome sister, immediately went off to make a Society of their own! How very annoying!

They got Harry, Jeff and Sam as well as themselves. Five of them. And then, to the intense annoyance of the Secret Seven, these five appeared at school with badges of their own!

On the buttons they wore were embroidered two letters, not S.S., of course, but F.F. Everyone crowded round to ask what F.F. meant.

‘It means “Famous Five”,’ said Susie. ‘We’ve named ourselves after the Famous Five in the “Five” books! Much better idea than “Secret Seven”.’

Susie was very irritating to poor Jack. ‘You haven’t got nearly such a good Society as we have,’ she said. ‘Our badges are bigger, we’ve got a splendid password, which I wouldn’t dream of telling you, and we have a secret sign, too. You haven’t got that!’

‘What’s your secret sign?’ said Jack, crossly. ‘I’ve never seen you make it.’

‘Of course not. I tell you it’s a secret one!’ said Susie. ‘And we’re meeting every single Saturday morning. And, what’s more, we’ve got an adventure going already!’

‘I don’t believe you,’ said Jack. ‘Anyway, you’re just a copy-cat. It was our idea! You’re mean.’

‘Well, you wouldn’t let me belong to your silly Secret Seven,’ said Susie, annoyingly. ‘Now I belong to the Famous Five, and I tell you, we’ve got an adventure already!’

Jack didn’t know whether to believe her or not. He thought Susie must be the most tiresome sister in the world. He wished he had one like Janet. He went gloomily to Peter and told him all that Susie had said.

‘Don’t take any notice of her,’ said Peter. ‘Famous Five indeed! They’ll soon get tired of meeting and playing about.’

The Famous Five Society was very annoying to the Secret Seven that term. The members wore their big badges every single day. Kate and Susie huddled together in corners at break each morning and talked in excited whispers, as if something really was happening.

Harry, Jeff and Sam did the same at their school, which annoyed Peter, Colin, Jack and George very much. They met in the summer-house in Jack’s garden, and Susie actually ordered Jack to keep out of the garden when the ‘Famous Five’ held their meetings in the summer-house!

‘As if I shall keep out of my own garden!’ said Jack, indignantly, to Peter. ‘But I say, Peter, I believe they really have got hold of something, you know. I think something is up. Wouldn’t it be awful if they had an adventure and we didn’t? Susie would crow like anything.’

Peter thought about this. ‘It’s up to you to find out about it,’ he said, at last. ‘After all, they’ve stolen our idea, and they’re doing it to annoy us. You try and find out what’s up, Jack. We’ll soon put a stop to it!’

So Jack went to hide in a bush at the back of the summer-house when he heard that Susie had planned another meeting there for that Saturday morning. But unfortunately Susie was looking out of the bedroom window just then, and saw him squeezing into the laurel bush!

She gazed down in rage, and then suddenly she smiled. She sped downstairs to meet the other four at the front gate, instead of waiting for them to go down to the summer-house.

They all came together, and Susie began to whisper excitedly.

‘Jack’s going to try and find out what we’re doing! He’s hidden himself in the laurel bush at the back of the summer-house to listen to all we say!’

‘I’ll go and pull him out,’ said Harry at once.

‘No, don’t,’ said Susie. ‘I’ve got a better idea. Let’s go down to the summer-house, whisper the password so that he can’t hear it, and then begin to talk as we really had found an adventure!’

‘But why?’ said Kate.

‘You’re silly! Don’t you see that Jack will believe it all, and if we mention places such as that old house up on the hill, Tigger’s Barn, he’ll tell the Secret Seven, and—’

‘And they’ll all go and investigate it and find there’s nothing there!’ said Kate, giggling. ‘What fun!’

‘Yes. And we can mention names too. We’ll talk about Stumpy Dick, and—Twisty Tom, and make Jack think we’re right in the very middle of something,’ said Susie.

‘And we could go to Tigger’s Barn ourselves and wait till the Secret Seven come, and have a good laugh at them!’ said Jeff, grinning. ‘Come on, let’s go down to the summer-house now, Susie. Jack will be wondering why we are so late.’

‘No giggling, anybody!’ Susie warned them, ‘and just back me up in all I say. And be as solemn as you can. I’ll go down first, and you can all come one by one, and don’t forget to whisper the password, because he mustn’t hear that.’

She sped down the garden and into the summer-house. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the laurel bush where poor Jack had hidden himself very uncomfortably. Susie grinned to herself. Aha! She was going to have a fine revenge on Jack for keeping her out of his Secret Society!

One by one the others came to the summer-house. They whispered the password, much to Jack’s annoyance. He would dearly have loved to pass it on to the Secret Seven! But he couldn’t hear a word.

However, he heard plenty when the meeting really began. He couldn’t help it, of course, because the Famous Five talked so loudly. Jack didn’t guess that it was done on purpose, so that he might hear every word.

He was simply amazed at what the Famous Five said. Why, they seemed to be in the very middle of a Most Exciting Adventure!