Enid Blyton: The Ship of Adventure (Adventure #6)
Chapter 1
A GRAND HOLIDAY PLAN
“MOTHER’S got something up her sleeve,” said Philip Mannering. “I know she has. She’s gone all mysterious.”
“Yes,” said his sister, Dinah. “And whenever I ask what we’re going to do this summer holidays she just says ‘Wait and see!’ As if we were about ten years old!”
“Where’s Jack?” said Philip. “We’ll see if he knows what’s up with Mother.”
“He’s gone out with Lucy-Ann,” said Dinah. “Ah — I can hear old Kiki screeching. They’re coming!”
Jack and Lucy-Ann Trent came in together, looking very much alike with their red hair, green eyes and dozens of freckles. Jack grinned.
“Hallo! You ought to have been with us just now. A dog barked at Kiki, and she sat on a fence and mewed like a cat at him. You never saw such a surprised dog in your life!”
“He put his tail down and ran for his life,” said Lucy-Ann, scratching Kiki on the head. The parrot began to mew again, knowing that the children were talking about her. Then she hissed and spat like an angry cat. The children laughed.
“If you’d done that to the dog he’d have died of astonishment,” said Jack. “Good old Kiki. Nobody can be dull when you’re about.”
Kiki began to sway herself from side to side, and made a crooning noise. Then she went off into one of her tremendous cackles.
“Now you’re showing off,” said Philip. “Don’t let’s take any notice of her. She’ll get noisy and Mother will come rushing in.”
“That reminds me — what’s Mother gone all mysterious about?” said Dinah. “Lucy-Ann, haven’t you noticed it?”
“Well — Aunt Alison does act rather as if she’s got something up her sleeve,” said Lucy-Ann, considering the matter. “Rather like she does before somebody’s birthday. I think she’s got a plan for the summer holidays.”
Jack groaned. “Blow! I’ve got a perfectly good plan too. Simply wizard. I’d better get mine in before Aunt Allie gets her.”
“What’s yours?” asked Dinah, with interest. Jack always had wonderful plans, though not many of them came to anything.
“Well — I thought we could all go off together on our bikes, taking a tent with us — and camp out in a different place each night,” said Jack. “It would be super.”
The others looked at him scornfully. “You suggested that last hols and the hols before,” said Dinah. “Mother said no then, and she’s not likely to say yes now. It is a good plan, going off absolutely on our own like that — but ever since we’ve had so many adventures Mother simply won’t hear of it.”
“Couldn’t your mother come with us?” suggested Lucy-Ann hopefully.
“Now you’re being silly,” said Dinah. “Mother’s a dear — but grown-ups are so frightfully particular about things. We’d have to put our macks on at the first spot of rain, and coats if the sun went in, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we didn’t each have to have an umbrella strapped to our bike-handles.”
The others laughed. “I suppose it wouldn’t do to ask Aunt Allie too, then,” said Lucy-Ann. “What a pity!”
“What a pity, what a pity,” agreed Kiki at once. “Wipe your feet and shut the door, where’s your hanky, naughty boy!”
“Kiki’s got the idea all right!” said Philip. “That’s the kind of thing that even the nicest grown-ups say, isn’t it, Kiki, old bird?”
“Bill isn’t like that,” said Lucy-Ann at once. “Bill’s fine.”
Everyone agreed at once. Bill Cunningham, or Bill Smugs as he had first called himself to them, was their very firm friend, and had shared all their adventures with them. Sometimes they had dragged him into them, and sometimes it was the other way round — he had got into one and they had followed. It really did seem sometimes, as Mrs. Mannering said, that adventures cropped up wherever Bill and the children were.
“I had an idea for these hols too,” said Philip. “I thought it would be pretty good fun to camp down by the river, and look for otters. I’ve never had an otter for a pet. Lovely things they are. I thought . . .”
“You would think of a thing like that,” said Dinah, half crossly. “Just because you’re mad on all kinds of creatures from fleas to — to . . .”
“Elephants,” said Jack obligingly.
“From fleas to elephants, you think everyone else is,” said Dinah. “What a frightful holiday — looking for wet, slimy otters — and having them in the tent at night, I suppose — and all kinds of other horrible things too.”
“Shut up, Dinah,” said Philip. “Otters aren’t horrible. They’re lovely. You should just see them swimming under the water. And by the way, I’m not mad on fleas. Or mosquitoes. Or horse-flies. I think they’re interesting, but you can’t say I’ve ever had things like that for pets.”
“What about those earwigs you had once — that escaped out of the silly cage you made for them? Ugh! And that stag-beetle that did tricks? And that . . .”
“Oh gosh! Now we’re off!” said Jack, seeing one of the familiar quarrels breaking out between Philip and hotheaded Dinah. “I suppose we’re going to listen to a long list of Philip’s pets now! Anyway, here comes Aunt Allie. We can ask her what she thinks of our holiday ideas. Get yours in first, Philip.”
Mrs. Mannering came in, with a booklet in her hand. She smiled round at the four children, and Kiki put up her crest in delighted welcome.
“Wipe your feet and shut the door,” she said, in a friendly tone. “One, two, three, GO!” She made a noise like a pistol shot after the word “GO!” and Mrs. Mannering jumped in fright.
“It’s all right, Mother — she keeps doing that ever since she came to our school sports, and heard the starter yelling to us, and letting off his pistol,” grinned Philip. “Once she made that pistol-shot noise just when we were all in a line, ready to start — and off we went long before time! You should have heard her cackle. Bad bird!”
“Naughty Polly, poor Polly, what a pity, what a pity,” said Kiki. Jack tapped her on the beak.
“Be quiet. Parrots should be seen and not heard. Aunt Allie, we’ve just been talking about holiday plans. I thought it would be a super idea if you’d let us all go off on our bikes — ride where we liked and camp out each night. I know you’ve said we couldn’t when I asked you before, but . . .”
“I say no again,” said Mrs. Mannering very firmly.
“Well, Mother, could we go off to the river and camp there, because I want to find out more about the otters?” said Philip, not taking any notice of Dinah’s scowl. “You see . . .”
“No, Philip,” said his mother, just as firmly as before. “And you know why I won’t let you go on expeditions like that. I should have thought you would have given up asking me by now.”
“But why won’t you let us go?” wailed Lucy-Ann. “We shall be quite safe.”
“Now, Lucy-Ann, you know perfectly well that as soon as I let you four out of my sight when holidays come, you immediately — yes, immediately — fall into the most frightful adventures imaginable.” Mrs. Mannering sounded quite fierce. “And I am quite determined that these holidays you are not going off anywhere on your own, so it’s just no good your asking me.”
“But, Mother — that’s just silly,” said Philip, in dismay. “You speak as if we go out looking for adventures. We don’t. And I ask you — what possible adventure could we fall into if we just went down to the river to camp? Why, you could come and see us for yourself every evening if you wanted to.”
“Yes — and the very first evening I came I should find you all spirited away somewhere, and mixed up with robbers or spies or rogues of some kind,” said his mother. “Think of some of your holidays — first you got lost down an old copper mine on a deserted island . . . then another time you got shut up in the dungeons of an old castle, mixed up with spies. . . .”
“Oooh yes — and another time we got into the wrong aeroplane and were whisked off to the Valley of Adventure,” said Lucy-Ann, remembering. “That was when we. found all those queer stolen statues hidden in caves — how their eyes gleamed when we saw them! I thought they were alive, but they weren’t.”
“And the next time we went off with Bill to the bird islands,” said Jack. “That was grand. We had two tame puffins, do you remember, Philip?”
“Huffin and Puffin,” put in Kiki at once.