The boy came up to them and grinned. He had two terrier dogs with him. Timmy growled and George put her hand on his collar.
‘Don’t come too near,’ she called. ‘Timmy isn’t quite sure about you.’
‘We won’t hurt him!’ said the boy, and grinned again. He had an ugly, freckled face, with a shock of untidy hair. ‘I won’t let my dogs eat your Timmy.’
‘As if they could!’ began George scornfully, and then laughed. The terriers kept close to the boy’s heels. He clicked and both dogs rose at once on their hind legs and walked sedately behind him with funny little steps.
‘Oh are they performing dogs?’ said Anne. ‘Are they yours?’
These two are,’ said the boy. This is Barker and this is Growler. I’ve had them from pups clever as paint they are!’
‘Woof,’ said Timmy, apparently disgusted at seeing dogs walk in such a peculiar way. It had never occurred to him that a dog could get up on his hind legs.
‘Where are you giving your next show?’ asked George eagerly. ‘We’d like to see it.’
‘We’re off for a rest,’ said the boy. ‘Up in the hills, where there’s a blue lake at the bottom. We’re allowed to camp there with our animals it’s wild and lonely and we don’t disturb nobody. We just camp there with our caravans.’
‘It sounds fine,’ said Dick. ‘Which is your caravan?’
‘This one, just coming,’ said the boy, and he pointed to a brightly painted van, whose sides were blue and yellow, and whose wheels were red. ‘I live in it with my Uncle Dan. He’s the chief clown of the circus. There he is, sitting on the front, driving the horse.’
The children stared at the chief clown, and thought that they had never seen anyone less like a clown. He was dressed in dirty grey flannel trousers and a dirty red shirt open at an equally dirty neck.
He didn’t look as if he could make a single joke, or do anything in the least funny. In fact, he looked really bad-tempered, the children thought, and he scowled so fiercely as he chewed on an old pipe that Anne felt quite scared. He didn’t look at the children at all, but called in a sharp voice to the boy:
‘Nobby! You come on along of us. Get in the caravan and make me a cup of tea.’
The boy Nobby winked at the children and ran to the caravan. It was plain that Uncle Dan kept him in order all right! He poked his head out of the little window in the side of the caravan nearest to the children.
‘Sorry I can’t ask you to tea too!’ he called. ‘And the dog. Barker and Growler wouldn’t half like to know him!’
The caravan passed on, taking the scowling clown with it, and the grinning Nobby. The children watched the others going by, too; it was quite a big circus. There was a cage of monkeys, a chimpanzee sitting in a corner of a dark cage, asleep, a string of beautiful horses, sleek and shining, a great wagon carrying benches and forms and tents, caravans for the circus folk to live in, and a host of interesting people to see, sitting on the steps of their vans or walking together outside to stretch their legs.
At last the procession was gone and the children went slowly back to their sunny corner in the garden. They sat down and then George announced something that made them sit up straight.
‘I know what we’ll do these hols! We’ll hire a caravan and go off in it by ourselves. Do let’s! Oh, do let’s!’
CHAPTER TWO
GEORGE’S GREAT IDEA
The others stared at George’s excited face. She had gone quite red. Dick thumped on the ground.
‘A jolly good idea! Why didn’t we think of it before?’
‘Oh, yes! A caravan to ourselves! It sounds too good to be true!’ said Anne, and her eyes shone.
‘Well, I must say it would be something we’ve never done before,’ said Julian, wondering if it was really possible. ‘I say wouldn’t it be gorgeous if we could go off into the hills where that lake is that the boy spoke about? We could bathe there and we could perhaps get to know the circus folk. I’ve always wanted to know about circuses.’
‘Oh, Julian! That’s a better idea still!’ said George, rubbing her hands together in delight. ‘I liked that boy Nobby, didn’t you?’
‘Yes,’ said everyone.
‘But I didn’t like his uncle,’ said Dick. ‘He looked a nasty bit of work. I bet he makes Nobby toe the mark and do what he’s told.’
‘Julian, do you think we’d be allowed to go caravanning by ourselves?’ asked Anne earnestly. ‘It does seem to me to be the most marvellous idea we’ve ever had.’
‘Well we can ask and see,’ said Julian. ‘I’m old enough to look after you all.’
‘Pooh!’ said George. ‘I don’t want any looking after, thank you. And anyway, if we want looking after, Timmy can do that. I bet the grown-ups will be glad to be rid of us for a week or two. They always think the summer hols are too long.’
‘We’ll take Dobby with us to pull the caravan!’ said Anne suddenly, looking down at the field where Dobby stood, patiently flicking away the flies with his long tail. ‘Dobby would love that! I always think he must be lonely, living in that field all by himself, just being borrowed by people occasionally.’
‘Of course Dobby could come,’ said Dick. ‘That would be fine. Where could we get the caravan from? Are they easy to hire?’
‘Don’t know,’ said Julian. ‘I knew a chap at school you remember him, Dick, that big fellow called Perry he used to go caravanning every hols with his people. They used to hire caravans, I know. I might find out from him where he got them from.’
‘Daddy will know,’ said Anne. ‘Or Mummy. Grown-ups always know things like that. I’d like a nice large caravan red and blue with a little chimney, and windows each side, and a door at the back, and steps to go up into the caravan, and …’
The others interrupted with their own ideas, and soon they were all talking excitedly about it so loudly that they didn’t see someone walking up and standing near by, laughing at the excitement.
‘Woof,’ said Timmy politely. He was the only one who had ears and eyes for anything else at the moment. The children looked up.
‘Oh, hallo, Mother!’ said Julian. ‘You’ve just come at the right moment. We want to tell you about an idea we’ve got.’
His mother sat down, smiling. ‘You seem very excited about something,’ she said. ‘What is it?’
‘Well, it’s like this, Mummy,’ said Anne, before anyone else could get a word in, ‘we’ve made up our minds that we’d like to go off in a caravan for a holiday by ourselves! Oh, Mummy it would be such fun!’
‘By yourselves?’ said her mother doubtfully. ‘Well, I don’t know about that.’
‘Julian can look after us,’ said Anne.
‘So can Timmy,’ put in George at once, and Timmy thumped the ground with his tail. Of course he could look after them! Hadn’t he done it for years, and shared all their adventures? Thump, thump, thump!
‘I’ll have to talk it over with Daddy,’ said Mother. ‘Now don’t look so disappointed I can’t decide a thing like this all by myself in a hurry. But it may fit in quite well because I know Daddy has to go up north for a little while, and he would like me to go with him. So he might think a little caravanning quite a good idea. I’ll talk to him tonight.’
‘We could have Dobby to pull the caravan, Mummy,’ said Anne, her eyes bright. ‘Couldn’t we? He’d love to come. He has such a dull life now.’
‘We’ll see, we’ll see,’ said her mother, getting up. ‘Now you’d better all come in and wash. It’s nearly tea-time. Your hair is terrible, Anne. What have you been doing?’
Everyone rushed indoors to wash, feeling distinctly cheerful. Mother hadn’t said NO. She had even thought it might fit in quite well. Golly, to go off in a caravan all alone doing their own cooking and washing having Dobby for company, and Timmy as well, of course. How simply gorgeous.
The children’s father did not come home until late that evening, which was a nuisance, for nobody felt that they could wait for very long to know whether they might or might not go. Everyone but Julian was in bed when he came home, and even when he, too, came to bed he had nothing to report.
He stuck his head into the girls’ bedroom. ‘Daddy’s tired and he’s having a late supper, and Mother won’t bother him till he’s feeling better. So we shan’t know till morning, worse luck!’