Читать книгу The Mystery of the Missing Man - Enid blyton - Страница 5

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Larry and Daisy went to tea with Pip and Bets that afternoon. Not a word had come from Fatty, not even a telephone call. But, in the middle of tea, they heard someone coming up the drive.

Bets flew to the window. ‘It’s Fatty!’ she said. ‘Fatty—in white drawers and singlet and rubber shoes! He’s panting like anything. I suppose he’s trying to work off all those éclairs!’

Pip yelled out of the window. ‘Come on up to the playroom. We’re having tea.’

Fatty went in at the garden door and ran panting into the hall. He met Mrs. Hilton coming out of the drawing-room with a friend. She gave a scream.

‘Good gracious—what ... ! Oh, it’s you, Frederick. Have you come to tea in that get-up? Well, really!’

‘Sorry, Mrs. Hilton—I’m just doing a little cross-country running—in training, you know,’ panted Fatty, and escaped thankfully up the stairs. The others were waiting for him eagerly. Bets gave him a hug.

‘Oh—you’re soaking wet,’ she said. ‘Is it raining?’

‘No. I’m just hot with running,’ said Fatty, and sank with a groan into a comfortable chair.

‘I thought you weren’t going to start till after Easter,’ said Daisy.

‘I wasn’t. But I had to get away from Eunice somehow!’ groaned Fatty, ‘and this was the best excuse I could think of. She talks non-stop—she lays down the law to me—to me, imagine that! And she follows me about wherever I go. She even came knocking at my bedroom door this afternoon to borrow a book—and then she sat herself down by my bookcase—and wouldn’t go.’

‘You should have pushed her out!’ said Bets, indignantly.

‘I should think that if it came to pushing, Eunice might send old Fatty flying,’ said Larry. ‘She’s ...’

‘Oh well—if you’re going to make insulting remarks like that, I’m going,’ said Fatty, quite huffily, and got up. Daisy pushed him down again.

‘You are touchy!’ she said. ‘Don’t you let that girl get under your skin! You tell her a few things.’

‘I would, if she’d stop to listen,’ said Fatty. ‘I say—is that tea I see on the table? I’m so thirsty I could drink the whole teapotful.’

‘You’ll only put back all the fat you’ve taken off in your running,’ said Daisy. ‘Still—you’ll have to feed yourself up if you’ve got to cope with Eunice for a week! Pass him the chocolate biscuits, Pip.’

‘I shouldn’t be weak enough to take these,’ groaned poor Fatty, taking three. ‘I know I shouldn’t. But honestly, I shall be worn-out in a few days—and I shall be a shadow of myself—and I shall need building up!’

‘That’s what I said,’ agreed Daisy, pouring him out a milky cup of tea and putting three lumps of sugar in it. ‘But Fatty, seriously—what are we going to do about Eunice?’

‘Don’t ask me!’ said Fatty, nibbling at a biscuit with enjoyment. ‘The worst of it is, Mother likes her!’

There was a surprised silence.

‘But why?’ said Daisy at last. ‘Mothers do sometimes like children we loathe, we all know that—we have to ask them to our parties! But how can your mother like Eunice?’

‘She says she’s so sensible and reliable and helpful,’ explained Fatty. ‘She unpacked the big suitcase and put everything away neatly in the drawers of their two rooms—and she went to the kitchen and asked Jane to be sure and not move her father’s beetle-case, not even to dust it....’

‘What did Jane say to that?’ asked Pip, with interest. Jane was not at all friendly towards beetles, spiders or moths.

‘Oh, she went up in the air at first, thinking the beetles were live ones, but she calmed down when she heard they were dead,’ said Fatty, with a laugh, ‘and then Eunice went back to Mother and asked her the times of every meal, so that she could be sure that her father was punctual—and she offered to make her bed each day and her father’s, and to do the rooms too, if it wouldn’t upset Jane.’

‘Gosh—what a girl!’ said Larry. ‘I can’t see Daisy doing all that. No wonder your mother likes Eunice.’

‘She thinks she’s the cat’s whiskers, and the cat’s tail too,’ said Fatty, absentmindedly taking a slice of cake. ‘She says Eunice has most beautiful manners, and will be so nice to have in the house, and is so sweet to her father, and ...’

‘Well—if your mother’s so keen on her, perhaps they’ll pal up together after all, and you’ll be free to be with us,’ said Pip, cheering up.

‘Not a bit of it,’ said Fatty. ‘Mother kept saying how nice it was for me to have a girl in the house, as I’d no sister, and all that sort of thing. And how we could do things together—go for walks—and go to the Fair when it comes—and I could show Eunice my shed at the bottom of the garden—fancy showing her that! I was furious when Mother even mentioned my shed. I was planning to keep it as a sort of hideaway when I couldn’t stand Eunice a minute longer.’

Fatty paused for breath. The others looked at him with great sympathy. Usually Fatty never turned a hair, thought Larry—not a hair, whatever happened. ‘Did you put on that get-up and go out running to get away from Eunice?’ he asked with a grin.

‘You know I did,’ said Fatty. ‘Oh gosh—did I eat that slice of cake? I never meant to. I waited till Eunice was telling Mother all about the goals she shot last term in the matches—and then I murmured something about getting a bit of training done, shot upstairs and put on these things, and went out of the garden door like a streak of lightning.’

‘Let’s hope Eunice doesn’t think of trotting along with you,’ said Larry, with a grin. ‘She’s pretty fat herself. It might occur to her to train too, and get slim!’

‘Don’t suggest such a thing!’ said Fatty, in horror, and almost took another slice of cake.

‘Well—what are we all going to do about it?’ asked Daisy. ‘It’s quite clear that we can’t leave you to Eunice, Fatty—you’ll be as limp as a rag before Easter is over. Let’s see—it’s Easter Sunday tomorrow. Then Easter Monday—we could all go to the Fair together, couldn’t we?’

‘We could,’ said Fatty, looking pleased. ‘It’s jolly decent of you to let that awful girl inflict herself on you—but it will just about save my life! I’ll have to put up with her tomorrow—but I’ll arrange something for Easter Monday.’

‘When does the Beetle Conference begin?’ asked Pip. ‘Tuesday?’

‘Yes,’ said Fatty, ‘and Mr. Belling—I mean Tolling—has asked me to go! He has given me a ticket to take me to every single meeting if I want to go. Imagine me sitting there listening to beetle-talk!’

‘Won’t Eunice go?’ asked Larry.

‘No. She says she knows all she wants to know about beetles—and I believe her!’ said Fatty. ‘I think she must know as much as her father—she helps him with his specimens.’

‘Ugh!’ said Bets, and shivered, ‘I don’t mind beetles when they’re ladybirds, or those dear little violet ones that scurry through the grass ...’

‘I don’t mind beetles at all,’ said Pip. ‘But I don’t want to be a colly—er—colly—what was it?’

‘Coleopterist,’ said Fatty. ‘Ha! You didn’t believe me when I told you they were beetle-lovers! I’ve a good mind to go to one of the meetings just to see what a collection of beetle-lovers is like.’

‘I thought Eunice’s father looked rather like a little blackbeetle himself,’ said Bets. ‘Quite a nice one—rather helpless, you know—as if he might lose his way if he ran through the blades of grass....’

The others laughed. A bell rang loudly just then, and Fatty sat up straight. ‘The telephone! If that’s Eunice, you’re not to say I’m here—see?’

But it was Mrs. Hilton who answered the phone, and then called up the stairs.

‘Frederick—that was someone called Eunice Tolling,’ she said. ‘Frederick—are you there? Eunice wants to speak to you.’

But Fatty was at that very moment climbing down the tree outside the playroom window. ‘Tell your mother I’ve gone—she must say that or Eunice will come along here,’ he hissed.

‘Fatty’s left, Mother,’ called Bets, ‘He’s just gone home.’

‘Well—I quite thought I heard his voice just a minute ago,’ said her mother, surprised. ‘He must have left very suddenly!’

‘He did, rather,’ admitted Bets with a chuckle, and went back to the playroom before any more awkward questions could be asked. She ran to the window. She could just see Fatty speeding out of the front gate.

‘Poor old Fatty!’ she said, watching him. ‘It’s the first time anyone has ever got the best of him. Well—I expect it will come to a stand-up fight, sooner or later!’

Fatty trotted round Peterswood Village, thinking that he really must work off the chocolate biscuits and the cake that he had been weak-minded enough to have. Also, he was in no hurry to get back home. Could he slip in at the kitchen door? Eunice might be keeping an ear open for the garden door!

He circled his house and garden, and went in at the little gate that led out from the very bottom of the garden into the lane. His shed was near there, and he would make sure that it was well and truly locked as he passed. It would never do to let Eunice pry into all his secrets there. Then he would slip through the garden and up to the kitchen door and get in that way.

He looked at his shed as he passed, and tried the door. Yes, it was locked—and nobody but himself knew where the key was. Good. Now—was it safe to go into the house?

He crept up the path to the kitchen door, and listened outside. He could hear the kitchen radio going. Good—Jane and Cookie were there—he could easily slip through and upstairs. They never minded!

He opened the door quietly, went through the scullery and into the comfortable kitchen. To his utter horror Eunice was there, doing some ironing and talking to the two maids. She looked up in surprise as he came creeping in.

‘Oh—it’s you! Why did you go out running without telling me? I’d have liked to have come with you—I’m a very good runner. Don’t go alone another time, I’ll keep you company, Frederick! Please don’t be afraid of asking me—I’m willing to do anything for you, it’s so kind of your mother to have us here like this!’

‘Er—I’ll just go and change,’ said poor Fatty, quite horrified, and fled before Eunice could say another word. Have her with him when he went running? Good gracious, what a truly horrible idea!