Читать книгу Five Go Off to Camp - Enid blyton - Страница 4

Table of Contents

Mr. Luffy was not a very good driver. He went too fast, especially round the corners, and many times Julian looked behind at the trailer in alarm, afraid that everything would suddenly leap off it at some sharp bend.

He saw the bundle of sleeping-bags jump high into the air, but fortunately they remained on the trailer. He touched Mr. Luffy on the shoulder.

“Sir! Could you go a bit slower, please? The trailer will be empty by the time we arrive, if the luggage leaps about on it much more.”

“My word! I forgot we had a trailer,” said Mr. Luffy, slowing down at once. “Remind me if I go over thirty-five miles an hour, will you? Last time I took the trailer with me, I arrived with only half the goods on it. I don’t want that to happen again.”

Julian certainly hoped it wouldn’t. He kept a sharp eye on the speedometer, and when it veered towards forty he tapped Mr. Luffy on the arm.

Mr. Luffy looked supremely happy. He didn’t like term time, but he loved holidays. Term time interfered with the study of his beloved insect-world. Now he was off with four nice children he liked, for a holiday on a moorland he knew was alive with bees, beetles, butterflies and every other kind of insect he wanted. He looked forward to teaching the four children quite a lot. They would have been horrified if they had guessed this, but they didn’t.

He saw the bundle of sleeping-bags jump high into the air

He was an odd-looking fellow. He had very untidy, shaggy eyebrows over kind and gentle brown eyes that always reminded Dick of a monkey’s. He had a rather large nose, which looked fiercer than it was because, unexpectedly, it had quite a forest of hairs growing out of the nostrils. He had an untidy moustache, and a round chin with a surprising dimple in the middle of it.

His ears always fascinated Anne. They were large and turned rather forward, and Mr. Luffy could waggle the right one if he wanted to. To his great sorrow he had never been able to waggle the left one. His hair was thick and untidy, and his clothes always looked loose, comfortable and rather too big for him.

The children liked him. They couldn’t help it. He was so odd and gentle and untidy and forgetful—and yet sometimes unexpectedly fierce. Julian had often told them the story of Tom Killin the bully.

Mr. Luffy had once found Tom bullying a small new boy in the cloakroom, dragging him round and round it by his belt. With a roar like an angry bull, Mr. Luffy had pounced on the big bully, got him by the belt, lifted him up and stuck him firmly on a peg in the cloakroom.

“There you stay till you get someone to lift you down!” Mr. Luffy had thundered. “I can get hold of a belt too, as you can see!”

And then he had stalked out of the cloakroom with the small, terrified boy beside him, leaving the bully hung up high on the peg, quite unable to free himself. And there he had to stay, because not one of the boys who came pouring in from a game of football would lift him down!

“And, if the peg hadn’t given way under his weight, he’d be stuck up there still,” Julian had said with a grin. “Good old Luffy! You’d never think he could be fierce like that, would you?”

Anne loved that story. Mr. Luffy became quite a hero to her after that. She was pleased to sit next to him in the car, and chatter about all kinds of things. The other three were squashed at the back with Timmy on their feet. George firmly prevented him from climbing up on her knee because it was so hot. So he contented himself with trying to stand up with his paws on the window-ledge and his nose over the side.

They stopped about half-past twelve for lunch. Mr. Luffy had indeed provided sandwiches for everyone. And remarkably fine ones they were too, made the evening before by Mrs. Luffy.

“Cucumber, dipped in vinegar! Spam and lettuce! Egg! Sardine! Oooh, Mr. Luffy, your sandwiches are much nicer than ours,” said Anne, beginning on two together, one cucumber and the other Spam and lettuce.

They were all very hungry. Timmy had a bit from everyone, usually the last bite, and watched each sandwich eagerly till his turn came. Mr. Luffy didn’t seem to understand that Timmy had to have the last bite of any sandwich, so Timmy simply took it out of his hand, much to his surprise.

“A clever dog,” he said, and patted him. “Knows what he wants and takes it. Very clever.”

That pleased George, of course. She thought that Timmy was the cleverest dog in the world, and indeed it did seem like it at times. He understood every word she said to him, every pat, every stroke, every gesture. He would be much, much better at keeping an eye on the four children and guarding them than forgetful Mr. Luffy.

Timmy simply took it out of his hand

They drank ginger-beer and then ate some ripe plums. Timmy wouldn’t have any plums, but he licked up some spilt ginger-beer. Then he snuffled up a few odd crumbs and went to drink at a little stream nearby.

The party set off again in the car. Anne fell asleep, her head against Mr. Luffy’s arm. Dick gave an enormous yawn and fell asleep too. George wasn’t sleepy, nor was Timmy, but Julian was. He didn’t dare to take his eye off the speedometer, though, because Mr. Luffy seemed to be very much inclined to speed along too fast again, after his good lunch.

“We won’t stop for tea till we get there,” said Mr. Luffy suddenly, and Dick woke up with a jump at the sound of his booming voice. “We should be there about half-past five. Look, you can see the moorland in the distance now—all ablaze with heather!”

Everybody looked ahead, except Anne, who was still fast asleep. Rising up to the left for miles upon miles was the heather-covered moorland, a lovely sight to see. It looked wild and lonely and beautiful, blazing with heather, and shading off into a purple-blue in the distance.

“We take this road to the left, and then we’re on the moors,” said Mr. Luffy, swinging violently to the left, and making the luggage in the trailer jump high again. “Here we go.”

The car climbed the high moorland road steadily. It passed one or two small houses, and in the distance the children could see little farms in clearings. Sheep dotted the moorland, and some of them stood staring at the car as it drove by.

“We’ve got about twenty miles to go, I should think,” said Mr. Luffy, jamming on his brakes suddenly to avoid two large sheep in the middle of the road. “I wish these creatures wouldn’t choose the centre of the road to gossip in. Hi, get on there! Let me pass!”

Timmy yelped and tried to get out of the car. The sheep hurriedly decided to move, and the car went on. Anne was thoroughly awake by now, having been almost jerked out of her seat by the sudden stop.

“What a shame to wake you!” said Mr. Luffy, gazing down at her kindly, and almost running into a ditch by the side of the road. “We’re nearly there, Anne.”

They climbed steadily, and the wind grew a little cold. All around the children the moors stretched for mile upon mile, never-ending. Little streams sometimes splashed right down to the roadway, and ran beside it.

“We can drink the water in these streams,” said Mr. Luffy. “Crystal clear, and cold as ice! There’s one quite near where we’re going to camp.”

That was good news. Julian thought of the big canvas buckets they had brought. He didn’t particularly want to carry those for miles. If there was a stream near their camping place it would be easy to get the buckets filled with washing-water.

The road forked into two. To the right was a good road, leading on and on. To the left it became not much more than a cart-track. “That’s the one we take,” said Mr. Luffy, and the car jerked and jolted over it. He was forced to go slowly, and the children had time to see every little thing they passed.

“I shall leave the car here,” said Mr. Luffy, bringing it to a standstill beside a great rock that stood up bare and grey out of the moor. “It will be sheltered from the worst winds and rain. I thought we’d camp over yonder.”

There was a little slope just there, backed by some enormous gorse bushes. Thick heather grew everywhere. Julian nodded. It was a good place for camping. Those thick gorse bushes would provide fine shelter from the winds.

“Right, sir,” he said. “Shall we have tea first, or unpack now?”

“Tea first,” said Mr. Luffy. “I’ve brought a very good little stove for boiling and cooking things. Better than a wood fire. That makes kettles and saucepans so black.”

“We’ve got a stove, too,” said Anne. She scrambled out of the car and looked all round. “It’s lovely here—all heather and wind and sun! Is that the farm over there—the one we shall go to for eggs and things?”

She pointed to a tiny farmhouse on the hill opposite. It stood in a small clearing. In a field behind it were three or four cows and a horse. A small orchard stood at the side, and a vegetable garden lay in front. It seemed odd to see such a trim little place in the midst of the moorland.

“That’s Olly’s Farm,” said Mr. Luffy. “It’s changed hands, I believe, since I was here three years ago. I hope the new people are nice. Now—did we leave something to eat for our tea?”

They had, because Anne had wisely put away a good many sandwiches and bits of cake for tea-time. They sat in the heather, with bees humming all round them, and munched solidly for fifteen minutes. Timmy waited patiently for his bits, watching the bees that hummed round him. There were thousands of them.

“And now I suppose we’d better put up our tents,” said Julian. “Come on, Dick—let’s unpack the trailer. Mr. Luffy, we don’t intend to camp on top of you, sir, because you won’t want four noisy children too near. Where would you like your tent put?”

Mr. Luffy was about to say that he would like to have the four children and Timmy quite close, when it suddenly occurred to him that perhaps they might not want him too near. They might want to make a noise, or play silly games, and if he were near it would stop them enjoying themselves in their own way.

So he made up his mind not to be too close. “I’ll pitch my tent down there, where that old gorse bush is,” he said. “And if you’d like to put yours up here, where there’s a half-circle of gorse bushes keeping off the wind, you’d be well sheltered. And we shan’t interfere with one another at all.”

“Right, sir,” said Julian, and he and Dick began to tackle the tents. It was fun. Timmy got under everyone’s feet as usual, and ran off with an important rope, but nobody minded.

By the time that dusk came creeping up the heather-covered moorland, all three tents were up, the groundsheets were put down, and the sleeping-bags unrolled on them, two in each of the children’s tents, and one in Mr. Luffy’s.

“I’m going to turn in,” said Mr. Luffy. “My eyes are almost shut. Good night all of you. Sleep well!”

He disappeared into the dusk. Ann yawned widely, and that set the others off too. “Come on—let’s turn in, too,” said Julian. “We’ll have a bar of chocolate each, and a few biscuits. We can eat those in our sleeping-bags. Good night, girls. Won’t it be grand to wake up to-morrow morning?”

He and Dick disappeared into their tent. The girls crawled into theirs with Timmy. They undressed, and got into their warm, soft sleeping-bags.

“This is super!” said George, pushing Timmy to one side. “I never felt so cosy in my life. Don’t do that, Timmy. Don’t you know the difference between my feet and my middle? That’s better.”

“Good night,” said Anne, sleepily. “Look, George, you can see the stars shining through the opening of the tent. Don’t they look enormous?”

But George didn’t care whether they were enormous or not. She was fast asleep, tired out with the day’s run. Timmy cocked one ear when he heard Anne’s voice, and gave a little grunt. That was his way of saying good night. Then he put his head down and slept.

“Our first night of camping,” thought Anne, happily. “I shan’t go to sleep. I shall lie awake and look at the stars and smell that heathery smell.”

But she didn’t. In half a second she was sound asleep, too!