Читать книгу The Boy Next Door - Enid blyton - Страница 6

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The children worked very hard indeed at digging the hole under the chain-link fencing. When Mummy called them in to their dinner they were tired and hungry, and also extremely dirty.

“Good gracious!” said Mummy. “What in the world have you been doing with yourselves? You look as if you’ve been trying to dig down to Australia or something!”

“Well—we have been digging,” said Betty.

The others frowned at her. They thought Betty was silly even to hint at their secret.

“Shall I come and see what you’ve been digging?” said Mummy.

But to her surprise nobody seemed very keen on taking her down the garden to see their mornings’ work.

“It’s a sort of secret,” said Robin at last. Mummy was very understanding about secrets. She nodded her head.

“I see,” she said. “Well, you keep your secret! I’m sure it’s something lovely.”

Everyone heaved a sigh of relief. They ate their dinners hungrily, and then went out again to go on with their work. They talked about Kit in low voices as they dug.

“He must be jolly bored living in that house with the dragon-woman and that stern-looking man,” said Robin. “Nobody to play with or have a laugh with.”

“And people saying he isn’t there at all!” said Betty. “What a story-teller that woman is!”

“Sh!” said Lucy suddenly. She was on guard, watching to see if anyone came down their garden or the next. “Someone is coming down next-door’s garden!”

At once the children hid their spades under a bush and crouched down low in some tall grass nearby. They lay there quite quiet. They heard the sound of someone brushing against the overgrown bushes next door, and then came the sound of voices.

“This garden is very thick and overgrown. No one can see into it from the outside. That’s good!”

“Have you been all round?” came the voice of the dragon-woman. Robin tried to see who her companion was. He felt sure it was the stern-looking man.

“Yes—I went all round when George put up the wire-fencing,” said the other voice. “No one can get in now, and no one can see in.”

The two people came near to where the children had been working. Sandy growled softly. Lucy put her hand on his collar to keep him quiet. All the children shivered with excitement, fearing that their digging might be discovered.

But luckily it wasn’t. The two people went slowly by, and neither of them saw the deep hole under the fencing just there. When they had gone out of sight and hearing, the diggers began again. This time Robin was on guard.

By the time that tea was ready the hole was almost deep and big enough to wriggle through. “We can easily finish after tea,” said Robin. “Gracious, my back aches! O-o-oh!—I don’t like standing up straight at all!”

“We’d better clean ourselves up a bit before your mother sees us,” said Lucy, looking at their dirty overalls and hands. So they all went and had a good wash, and brushed their clothes well. They ate such an enormous tea that their mother was really surprised.

“Anyone would think you had all been very hard at work, the way you are eating,” she said, as plate after plate was emptied. “Robin, I can’t believe you want another bun. That must be the fifth you’ve had!”

“Wrong, Mummy!” said Robin. “It’s the seventh!”

The hole was finished by six o’clock. By that time it was quite big enough to wriggle through. It was like a curving trench that sloped downwards to the fencing, underneath it, and then up the other side. It had been very difficult to manage the other side, but somehow Robin had managed to scramble through underneath and dig the trench widely there, too.

“Now—we’ll all wriggle through on our tummies,” said Robin, and one by one they struggled to get under the fencing and into the next-door garden.

It was really very exciting. Sandy was most excited, too, and ran down the trench and back, his tail wagging nineteen to the dozen!

“Don’t you think we’d better cover up the trench this side with branches, or something?” said Lucy, when they all stood among the overgrown grass and bushes in the next-door garden. “It can so easily be seen now.”

“Yes—we’ll do that,” said Robin, and began to break some branches to spread over the hole. “We can drag these sprays across when we go back. The last one can manage to do it.”

Sandy suddenly stood still, his ears up, his nose twitching and his tail quivering. He had heard something. He gave a little growl.

“Somebody’s coming!” said Lucy in a whisper. “Come on back.”

But there was no time to get back. The stern-looking man was taking an evening walk around the grounds, and the children caught sight of him between the trees.

“Climb a tree, quick!” whispered Robin. “Up you get, Lucy! I’ll give you a leg up!”

He pushed poor Lucy up a tree, and then swung himself up, too. Betty had already climbed into one. The man came nearer. Luckily he was walking very slowly.

“What about Sandy?” whispered Lucy. “He can’t climb a tree! Lie down, Sandy; lie down!”

But Sandy didn’t! He stood under Lucy’s tree, looking up at her and Robin in great surprise. “He’ll make that man discover us!” said Lucy.

But as soon as the man came near, Sandy left the tree and ran up to him, his teeth bared, growling fiercely. The man stopped in astonishment.

“Well! How did you get in here!” he cried. “I shouldn’t have thought there was any way through this fencing! You must have been here yesterday when we fenced in the grounds—and you couldn’t get out. Well—out you go now—and stop that silly growling or I’ll give you the WHIP!”

Sandy didn’t like the sound of that word. His tail dropped. He let the man take hold of his collar and lead him sternly off up the garden towards the house.

“He’s going to let him out of the gate,” whispered Lucy to Robin. “Oh, good!”

“We’d better wait up here a little while in case the man comes back too quickly for us to get back,” said Robin.

So they waited in silence, wishing that Kit would come along. But he didn’t.

Suddenly they heard a pitter-patter of feet and a swishing of bushes as some little body came up to their trees.

“It’s Sandy again!” said Lucy with a giggle. “The man let him out—and he just went down our garden, found our hole, and came through it to fetch us! Really, isn’t he awfully clever? I hope the man doesn’t come walking back again, because if he does he’ll be frightfully surprised to see Sandy here once more!”

“You’d better shin down the tree and get back through the hole with Sandy,” said Robin. “Then keep a watch out and give a whistle when you’re sure it’s safe for Betty and me to come down.”

So Lucy slid down the tree and went to the trench, with Sandy licking her ankles in delight. The girl wriggled down on her tummy, and, like a real Red Indian, slid along down the hole and up the other side. It was very bad indeed for clothes. Lucy made up her mind to wear her very oldest things next time!

She stood up when she got to the other side and cautiously went up and down the hedge to see if anyone was about in the next garden. But it seemed quite all right. So she gave a whistle, and Robin and Betty slid down their trees and were soon wriggling through the hole. Robin went last and pulled the broken branches over the trench. It was quite well hidden then.

“I say—this is all rather exciting, isn’t it?” he said as he tried to brush the dirt off himself. “Golly, aren’t we dirty? I bet Mummy will want to know a bit more about our secret if we keep going in as black as this. We’d better look out some raggedy old things to wear for this tunnelling business!”

Their mother was certainly not at all pleased when they appeared for supper, although they had made themselves as clean as possible. She sent them to have a bath as soon as they appeared.

“This Digging Secret, whatever it is, has got to stop,” she said. “You are ruining your clothes.”

“All right, Mummy, we won’t dig any more,” promised Robin, and went off to have a bath. They ate a big supper, and then were so tired with their hard work that they began to yawn widely.

“Goodness me, you’d better all go to bed!” their mother said. “You are tired out. Lucy is quite pale.”

For once in a way the children didn’t argue about going early to bed. “We want to be awake at midnight, so we might as well get a bit of sleep first,” said Robin to the others, when they were alone.

“How shall we wake up?” said Lucy.

“I’ve got an alarm clock,” said Robin. “I’ll set it for a quarter to twelve, and wake up you two then. Come on—let’s go to bed. I really am tired out!”

So they all went to bed, and as soon as they had put their heads on their pillows, they were asleep. They dreamt of tunnels and passages and holes, and Boys Who Weren’t There, and dragon-women who frowned! And at last Robin’s alarm went off under his pillow! He had put the little clock there, afraid that it might wake up his mother if he stood it on a table. It awoke him with a jump and he groped under the pillow to turn off the alarm bell.

Then he went to wake the two girls. They sat up in bed, excited.

“Put on those old things we got ready after supper,” whispered Robin. “Don’t be long! It’s a quarter to midnight!”

In five minutes’ time three children and Sandy crept quietly out of the house, Robin’s torch shining to light the way. Down the dark garden to the hole under the fence! Dear me, what a thrill it all was!