The Secret Seven (2 page)

«Actually I forgot our password today», he confessed. «I got it out of Colin. So I'm glad I've thought of a new one for us.»

«Well, nobody must forget this one», said Peter. «It might be very important. Now what about some grub?»

«Delumptious», said Barbara, and everyone laughed.

«Do you mean “delicious” or “scrumptious”?» asked Janet.

«Both, of course», said Barbara. «What's that peculiar-looking stuff in the bottle, Janet?»

Janet was shaking it vigorously. It was a dark purple and had little black things bobbing about in it.

«Mummy hadn't any lemonade to give us, and we didn't particularly want milk because we'd had lots for breakfast», she said. «So we suddenly thought of a pot of blackcurrant jam we had! This is blackcurrant tea!»

«We mixed it with boiling water and put some more sugar into it», explained Peter. «It's awfully good – in fact, it's scrumplicious!»

«Oh – that's a mixture of scrumptious and delicious, too!» said Barbara with a squeal of laughter. «Delumptious and scrumplicious – that just describes everything nicely.»

The blackcurrant tea really was good, and went very well with the oatmeal biscuits. «It's good for colds, too», said Janet, crunching up the skinny blackcurrants from her mug. «So if anyone's getting a cold they probably won't.»

Everyone understood this peculiar statement and nodded. They set down their mugs and smacked their lips.

«It's a pity there's no more», said Janet. «But there wasn't an awful lot of jam left in the pot, or else we could have made heaps to drink.»

«Now, we have a little more business to discuss», said Peter, giving Scamper a few crumbs to lick. «It's no good having a Society unless we have some plan to follow – something to do.»

«Like we did in the summer», said Pam. «You know – when we collected money to send Lame Luke away to the sea.»

«Yes. Well, has anyone any ideas?» said Peter.

Nobody had. «It's not really a good time to try and help people after Christmas», said Pam. «I mean – everyone's had presents and been looked after, even the very poorest, oldest people in the village.»

«Can't we solve a mystery, or something like that?» suggested George. «If we can't find something wrong to put right, we might be able to find a mystery to clear up.»

«What kind of a mystery do you mean?» asked Barbara, puzzled.

«I don't really know», said George. «We'd have to be on the lookout for one – you know, watch for something strange or peculiar or queer – and solve it.»

«It sounds exciting», said Colin. «But I don't believe we'd find anything like that – and if we did the police would have found it first!»

«Oh, well», said Peter, «we'll just have to keep our eyes open and wait and see. If anyone hears of any good deed we can do, or of any mystery that wants solving, they must at once call a meeting of the Secret Seven. Is that understood?»

Everyone said yes. «And if we have anything to report we can come here to this Secret Seven shed and leave a note, can't we?» said George.

«That would be the best thing to do», agreed Peter. «Janet and I will be here each morning, and we'll look and see if any of you have left a note. I hope somebody does!»

«So do I. It's not much fun having a Secret Society that doesn't do anything», said Colin. «I'll keep a jolly good lookout. You never know when something might turn up.»

«Let's go and build snowmen in the field opposite the old house down by the stream», said George, getting up. «The snow's thick there. It would be fun. We could build quite an army of snowmen. They'd look funny standing in the field by themselves.»

«Oh, yes. Let's do that», said Janet, who was tired of sitting still. «I'll take this old shabby cap to put on one of the snowmen! It's been hanging in this shed for ages.»

«And I'll take this coat!» said Peter, dragging down a dirty, ragged coat from a nail. «Goodness knows who it ever belonged to!»

And off they all went to the field by the stream to build an army of snowmen!

3 – The Cross Old Man

They didn't build an army, of course! They only had time to build four snowmen. The snow was thick and soft in the field, and it was easy to roll it into big balls and use them for the snowmen. Scamper had a lovely time helping them all.

Janet put the cap on one of the snowmen, and Peter put the old coat round his snowy shoulders. They found stones for his eyes and nose, and a piece of wood for his mouth. They gave him a stick under his arm. He looked the best of the lot.

«I suppose it's time to go home now», said Colin at last. «My dinner's at half-past twelve, worse luck.»

«We'd better all go home», said Pam. «We'll all have to wash and change our things and put our gloves to dry. Mine are soaking and oooh, my hands are cold!»

«So are mine. I know they'll hurt awfully as soon as they begin to get a bit warm», said Barbara, shaking her wet hands up and down. «They're beginning now.»

They left the snowmen in the field and went out of the nearby gate. Opposite was an old house. It was empty except for one room at the bottom, where dirty curtains hung across the window.

«Who lives there?» asked Pam.

«Only a caretaker», said Janet. «He's very old and very deaf – and awfully bad-tempered.»

They hung over the gate and looked at the desolate old house.

«It's quite big», said Colin. «I wonder who it belongs to, and why they don't live in it.»

«Isn't the path up to the house lovely and smooth with snow?» said Janet. «Not even the caretaker has trodden on it. I suppose he uses the back gate. Oh, Scamper – you naughty dog come back!»

Scamper had squeezed under the gate and gone bounding up the smooth, snowy path. The marks of his feet were clearly to be seen. He barked joyfully.

The curtains at the ground-floor window moved and a cross, wrinkled old face looked out. Then the window was thrown up.

«You get out of here! Take your dog away! I won't have children or dogs here, pestering little varmints!»

Scamper stood and barked boldly at the old caretaker. He disappeared. Then a door opened at the side of the house and the old man appeared, with a big stick. He shook it at the alarmed children.

«I'll whack your dog till he's black and blue!» shouted the man.

«Scamper, Scamper, come here!» shouted Peter. But Scamper seemed to have gone completely deaf. The caretaker advanced on him grimly, holding the stick up to hit the spaniel.

Peter pushed open the gate and tore up the path to Scamper, afraid he would be hurt.

«I'll take him, I'll take him!» he shouted to the old man.

«What's that you say?» said the cross old fellow, lowering his stick. «What do you want to go and send your dog in here for?»

«I didn't. He came in himself!» called Peter, slipping his fingers into Scamper's collar.

«Speak up, I can't hear you», bellowed the old man, as if it was Peter who was deaf and not himself. Peter bellowed back:

«I DIDN'T SEND MY DOG IN!»

«All right, all right, don't shout», grumbled the caretaker. «Don't you come back here again, that's all, or I'll send the policeman after you.»

He disappeared into the side door again. Peter marched Scamper down the drive and out of the gate.

«What a bad-tempered fellow», he said to the others. «He might have hurt Scamper awfully if he'd hit him with that great stick.»

Janet shut the gate. «Now you and Scamper have spoilt the lovely smooth path», she said. «Goodness, there's the church clock striking a quarter to one. We'll really have to hurry!»

«We'll let you all know when the next meeting is!» shouted Peter, as they parted at the corner. «And don't forget the password and your badges.»

They all went home. Jack was the first in because he lived very close. He rushed into the bathroom to wash his hands. Then he went to brush his hair.

«I'd better put my badge away», he thought, and put up his hand to feel for it. But it wasn't there. He frowned and went into the bathroom. He must have dropped it.

He couldn't find it anywhere. He must have dropped it in the field when he was making the snowmen with the others. Bother! Blow!

“Mother's away, so she can't make me a new one”, he thought. “And I'm sure Miss Ely wouldn't.”

Miss Ely was his sister's governess. She liked Susie, Jack's sister, but she thought Jack was dirty, noisy and bad-mannered. He wasn't really, but somehow he never did behave very well with Miss Ely.

“I'll ask her if she will make one”, he decided. “After all, I've been jolly good the last two days.”

Miss Ely might perhaps have said she would make him his badge if things hadn't suddenly gone wrong at dinner-time.

«I know where you've been this morning», said Susie, slyly, when the three of them were at table. «Ha, ha. You've been to your silly Secret Society. You think I don't know anything about it. Well, I do!»

Jack glared at her. «Shut up! You ought to know better than to talk about other people's secrets in public. You just hold that horrid, interfering tongue of yours.»

«Don't talk like that, Jack», said Miss Ely at once.

«What's the password?» went on the annoying Susie. «I know what the last one was because you wrote it down in your notebook so as not to forget and I saw it! It was – »

Jack kicked out hard under the table, meaning to get Susie on the shin. But most unfortunately Miss Ely's long legs were in the way. Jack's boot hit her hard on the ankle.

She gave a loud cry of pain. «Oh! My ankle! How dare you, Jack! Leave the table and go without your dinner. I shall not speak another word to you all day long, if that is how you behave.»

«I'm awfully sorry, Miss Ely», muttered Jack, scarlet with shame. «I didn't mean to kick you.»

«It's the kicking that matters, not the person», said Miss Ely, coldly. «It doesn't make it any better knowing that you meant to kick Susie, not me. Leave the room, please.»

Jack went out. He didn't dare to slam the door, though he felt like it. He wasn't cross with Susie any more. He had caught sight of her face as he went out of the room, and had seen that she was alarmed and upset. She had meant to tease him, but she hadn't meant him to lose his nice dinner.

He kicked his toes against each step as he went upstairs. It was a pity he'd been sent out before the jam-tarts were served. He liked those so much. Blow Miss Ely! Now she certainly wouldn't make a new badge for him, and probably he would be turned out of the Society for losing it. Peter had threatened to do that to anyone who turned up more than once without a badge.

“I seem to remember something falling off me when I was making that last snowman”, thought Jack. “I think I'll go out and look this afternoon. I'd better go before it snows again, or I'll never find it.”

But Miss Ely caught him as he was going out and stopped him. «No, Jack. You are to stay in today, after that extraordinary behaviour of yours at the dinner-table», she said sternly. «You will not go out to play any more today.»

«But I want to go and find something I lost, Miss Ely», argued Jack, trying to edge out.

«Did you hear what I said?» said Miss Ely, raising her voice, and poor Jack slid indoors again.

All right! He would jolly well go out that night then, and look with his torch. Miss Ely should not stop him from doing what he wanted to do!

4 – What Happened to Jack

Jack was as good as his word. He went up to bed at his usual time, after saying a polite good night to Miss Ely, but he didn't get undressed. He put on his coat and cap instead! He wondered whether he dared go downstairs and out of the garden door yet.

“Perhaps I'd better wait and see if Miss Ely goes to bed early”, he thought. “She sometimes goes up to read in bed. I don't want to be caught. She'd only go and split on me when Mother comes home.”

So he took a book and sat down. Miss Ely waited for the nine o'clock news on the wireless and then she locked up the house and came upstairs. Jack heard her shut the door of her room.

Good! Now he could go. He slipped his torch into his pocket, because it really was a very dark night. The moon was not yet up.

He crept downstairs quietly and went to the garden door. He undid it gently. The bolt gave a little squeak but that was all. He stepped into the garden. His feet sank quietly into the snow.

He made his way to the lane and went down it to the field, flashing his little torch as he went. The snow glimmered up, and there was a dim whitish light all round from it. He soon came to the field where they had built the snowmen, and he climbed over the gate.

The snowmen stood silently in a group together, almost as if they were watching and waiting for him. Jack didn't altogether like it. He thought one moved, and he drew his breath in sharply. But, of course, it hadn't. It was just his imagination.

«Don't be silly», he told himself, sternly. «You know they're only made of snow! Be sensible and look for your dropped button.»

He switched on his torch and the snowmen gleamed whiter than ever. The one with eyes and nose and mouth, with the cap and the coat on, seemed to look at him gravely as he hunted here and there. Jack turned his back on him.

«You may only have stone eyes, but you seem to be able to look with them, all the same», he said to the silent snowman. «Now don't go tapping me on the shoulder and make me jump!»

Then he suddenly gave an exclamation. He had found his badge! There lay the button in the snow, with S.S. embroidered on it, for Secret Seven. Hurrah! He must have dropped it here after all then.

He picked it up. It was wet with snow. He pinned it carefully on his coat. That really was a bit of luck to find it so easily. Now he could go home and get into bed. He was cold and sleepy.

His torch suddenly flickered, and then went out. «Blow!» said Jack. «The battery's gone. It might have lasted till I got home, really it might! Well, it's a good thing I know my way.»

He suddenly heard a noise down the lane, and saw the headlights of a car. It was coming very slowly. Jack was surprised. The lane led nowhere at all. Was the car lost? He'd better go and put the driver on the right road, if so. People often got lost when the roads were snowbound.