Читать книгу The Boy Next Door - Enid blyton - Страница 4

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The three children felt excited about their plan for giving the boy next door a fright.

“It will be just the same kind of surprise he gave to that fierce-looking woman!” said Lucy. “Have you got a Red Indian suit, that will fit me?”

“You can have my old one,” said Robin. “I had a fine new one last Christmas. Really, you should be a Red Indian squaw, and not wear a proper brave’s head-dress with heaps of feathers—but it won’t matter for once.”

The children’s mother was quite surprised to hear there was a boy next door after all. “Well, he’s very quiet, I must say,” she said. “I wish you three were as quiet! Really, I feel sometimes I might as well go and live in the monkey-house at the Zoo—or perhaps in the parrot-house. I am sure that either of those places would be very peaceful compared with our house!”

The children laughed. “Well, I’m jolly glad there’s a boy next door,” said Robin. “I shall like to play with him. He looks good fun. I should think he’s about the same age as I am.”

Nobody said what they were going to do the next day. Robin turned out his old Red Indian suit and Lucy tried it on. If she turned up the edges of the trouser-legs, it would fit her quite well. She tried on the feathered head-dress.

“I look grand!” she said. “I’d much rather be an Indian brave than a squaw! Oh, I’m longing for to-morrow!”

The next day came. Robin climbed the chestnut tree to see if the boy next door was anywhere about. At first he couldn’t see him—and then he heard a cheerful whistling from the summer-house, and guessed Kit was there. The fierce-looking woman was nowhere to be seen.

“Good!” said Robin, getting down the tree quickly to tell the others. “The boy’s there—but that woman isn’t. It would be a good time to pounce on Kit now. Come on—let’s get into our things quickly.”

They all put on their Red Indian clothes. They looked really fierce, especially when they painted their faces red, yellow, blue and green.

“How are we going to get into the next-door garden?” said Betty.

“We’ll squeeze through the hedge,” said Robin. “It will be easy enough, though it’s pretty thick. Come on!”

They went to the hedge that separated the two gardens. Both gardens were very big indeed, about five or six acres each, some of it orchards and fields. Robin tried to find a way through. At first it seemed impossible, because the hedge was mostly of prickly hawthorn.

“We shall tear our things to bits,” said Lucy. “Oh, blow! I’ve scratched my arm. Robin, we can’t get through this horrid hedge, we really can’t.”

But at last they managed to find a thinner place, and one by one they squeezed through. They were in the next-door garden! It was terribly overgrown and untidy. The paths were lost in weeds and moss. Untrimmed rambler roses hung everywhere, and posts stood crookedly, half dragged down by the weight of the overgrown climbers. There was a very thick copse of trees just before the children reached the lawn where the summer-house stood, and they were well hidden in the shadow of these.

They lay on their tummies and wriggled along as Red Indians do. Robin and Betty had had plenty of practice at this sort of thing, for they had played at Red Indians for years, but Lucy was not so used to it, and the others frowned at her when she made a dry stick crack beneath her.

“Sh!” whispered Robin. “Don’t you know that Red Indians never make a sound, silly? Now look out for that twig—it’s so dry it’ll pop loudly if you crack it in half.”

They crawled as silently as they could through the little wood. It was dark and overgrown in there. A blackbird saw them and flew off in a fright, calling loudly to all the other birds to beware.

“Blow that bird!” said Robin in a whisper. “Lie still, everyone. Kit might be on the watch if he knows that blackbirds give the alarm when they see anything suspicious. Wait till I give you the word to go on again.”

So they all lay quite still, whilst the blackbird shouted his alarm from the top of a nearby tree. After a while he grew tired of it and flew down into the children’s own garden next door.

“Now we’ll get on,” whispered Robin, and one by one the three children crept nearer and nearer to the little enclosed lawn, where they hoped to find Kit.

They didn’t see a pair of bright eyes looking in amazement at them from a tree under which they passed. They didn’t notice Kit up there, sitting as still as a mouse, watching the three children below passing by in single file! They didn’t hear him slither quietly down the tree when they had gone by. He was grinning widely. He guessed that a trick was to be played on him—and he was going to play a trick, too!

The three children came to the edge of the lawn. The grass had been cut and it was easy to look across to the little summer-house. No one seemed to be there now. What a pity! Perhaps Kit had gone out.

“We’ll separate,” whispered Robin. “Lucy, you go that way. Betty, keep here, and I’ll go the other way. Then, when I give a whistle, we’ll all dart out of our hiding-places and catch Kit when he comes.”

So the three separated, and keeping well hidden in the undergrowth beyond the lawn, they wriggled along to surround the grassy patch.

Suddenly Betty had a terrible shock. A most fiercesome-looking face glared at her from out of a bush. It was red and blue all over, and was topped by a magnificent feathered head-dress. It was Kit, of course. He sprang on Betty, and before she could shout for help he had jerked her to her feet and set her with her back to a tree.

He whipped a rope from around his waist and even as Betty yelled in fright he tied her to the tree so that she could not escape.

“One prisoner!” said the boy with a grin. “Now for the others!”

Lucy was frightened when she heard Betty’s yell, and she lay quite still in the undergrowth. But Robin went to his sister’s rescue, standing up to see where she was and then rushing towards her.

“Look out, Robin, look out!” yelled Betty as Robin came running up. “That boy is up a tree—look, just there!”

But it was too late! As Robin looked up into the tree, Kit dropped down on him from a branch, and both boys rolled to the ground. Kit was very strong, and it was not long before he sat astride Robin and tied up his arms so that he could not struggle!

“Another prisoner to tie up to a tree!” said Kit with a grin. He shook back the enormous feathers on his head and grinned all over his brilliant red and blue face. “Come on!”

“Come and help me, Lucy, quick!” yelled Robin. But Lucy was too scared to move. Kit dragged the unwilling Robin to the tree next to Betty and deftly tied him there.

Robin was furious and strained at the rope, trying to free himself. But Kit knew all about knots and loops, and both Betty and Robin were proper prisoners!

And then it was poor Lucy’s turn! Kit found her easily, because she really was frightened. He tied her up to a third tree, and then stood in front of them, grinning his wide grin. “Now for a war-dance!” he said, “and then maybe I’ll try shooting a few arrows at you!”

He did this amazing war dance again, circling round the trees, making a wonderful noise of yelling and whooping as he went. The three children watched him, angry that they were prisoners, but admiring Kit very much because he really did seem exactly like a real Red Indian.

“I suppose you thought you’d creep into my garden and take me prisoner!” said Kit, stopping at last. “You can’t trick Kit Anthony Armstrong like that! I’m going to get my bow and shoot a few arrows at you now! I’ll be back!”

To the children’s horror the boy sped off towards the house. Was he really going to do as he said? It wouldn’t be at all pleasant to have arrows shot into them—or around them! Lucy began to cry.

Robin pulled hard at the rope that bound his hands. If only he could get free and untie the others! But it was no use at all. He couldn’t undo the stiff knots.

Then he heard the sound of voices near the house. It seemed as if Kit had met someone. The children listened. Kit was coming back—without his bow and arrows!

“I say,” he said, “the dragon’s back from her walk! She’ll be furious if she sees you here in our garden. I’d better set you free. No—I shan’t have time! She’s coming to the summer-house, look! Now listen—stay absolutely still and quiet and maybe she won’t see you. I’ll go and hide somewhere and hope to set you free when she goes back to the house.”

Kit disappeared into the bushes. Almost at once the fierce-looking woman appeared, carrying a book. The children’s heart sank as she took a chair from the summer-house and sat down in it, opening her book.

They could not be seen from where the woman sat, so they all stayed as still as they could. Betty thought the name Kit had for her was very good. She really was fierce enough for a dragon!

And then Lucy got a tickle in her throat! She hardly dared to clear the tickle away, so she swallowed hard. But the tickle came back, even worse. She swallowed again—and then, alas! she coughed! It was rather a big cough, and it made the woman look up at once.

“Is that you, Kit?” she said. There was no answer. Poor Lucy tried to choke back her next cough, but it came loudly, though Robin frowned fiercely at her. The dragon got up at once.

She came round a big bush—and saw the three children tied up to the trees! She stared at them in such amazement that Betty wanted to laugh. It seemed as if the dragon really and truly could not believe her eyes!

Nobody said a word. Robin tried to look as if it was the most ordinary thing in the world to be tied to a tree in someone else’s garden. And then the dragon found her voice!

“WHAT are you doing here?” she asked. “How dare you come into my garden without permission? Who are you? Why have you tied yourselves up to my trees?”

“We’re the children from next door,” said Robin. “We came to play with the boy here.”

Then the woman said a most astonishing thing. “Boy!” she said. “A boy here! There’s no boy here at all! You must be mad. I shall complain to your mother about you. You are never to come here again. As for there being a boy here, you are quite mistaken. Whoever told you that has not told you the truth. There is no child here at all.”

The children listened to all this in the greatest amazement. Robin was about to say that the boy had tied them up, when he caught sight of Kit signalling to him from a bush behind the dragon’s back. It was plain that Kit did not want Robin to say anything more.

The dragon undid Robin’s ropes and the boy then set his sister and cousin free. “Now, if I catch you here again I shall quite probably spank the whole lot of you,” said the fierce woman. “And remember what I’ve said—there is NO BOY HERE!”

The children fled home, puzzled and frightened. “It is a mystery,” said Robin solemnly when they were safe in their own garden again. “A real mystery. Why should that woman tell such a story? Girls, we’ve GOT to find out what it’s all about!”