The Secret Passage Read Online Free

father put his arm round her and held her against him.
    â€œShe’ll be all right,” he said. “Don’t worry. I’ll stay in an hotel quite near the hospital and I’ll telephone you every evening.”
    â€œAren’t we coming too?” Ben said in an outraged voice.
    â€œNot this time, old boy. If you want to help, the best thing you can do is to be good and not to be a trouble to Mr and Mrs Epsom and try not to squabble with Sara and Giles.”
    He said this last bit with a twinkling glance at John who went pink and started to hum softly under his breath. He’d alreadyfound it very difficult not to quarrel with Giles who was silly and babyish and inclined to cry easily.
    The next hour was full of excitement. They made up the bed in the back of the Land Rover, putting a mattress on the floor and padding the hard sides with cushions. When Mrs Mallory was carried out, doing her best to smile and look cheerful, it was almost a jolly occasion. “I feel like a caterpillar in a cocoon,” she said, as they rolled her round and round with thick blankets and laid her gently on the mattress.
    â€œYou look more like an Egyptian Mummy,” said John and they all laughed at his joke—Mary laughed so loudly that her throat began to hurt and the tears came into her eyes. But when the canvas flaps were fastened down tight to keep out the draughts and the dust and the Land Rover disappeared, bumping and swaying down the hilly, red road, they didn’t feel like laughing anymore.
    They waved until their arms ached. Then they just stood, silently huddling together until the sound of the engine had completely died away and the last particle of dust had settled.
    *
    The next seven days seemed much longer than an ordinary week. Mr and Mrs Epsom were very kind to them—at least, they tried hard to be kind. The trouble was that they were not at all the same sort of people as Mr and Mrs Mallory who were not only very happy-go-lucky, but loved living in Africa and wanted their children to love it too. Mrs Epsom hated Africa. She thought it was big and dirty and dangerous and full of diseases. She was frightened whenever her children played in the garden: they might be attacked by a wild animalor bitten by a snake. She was frightened of germs too and distrusted every speck of dirt and every drop of water.
    So John and Mary and Ben were always getting into trouble for doing things no one had ever told them they were not supposed to do, like playing where they liked, getting as dirty as they liked and talking to anyone they liked.
    They were astonished to discover that they were not allowed to go into the kitchen to talk to the cook.
    â€œMummy doesn’t like us to talk to the servants,” Giles said.
    â€œWhy not?” John said.
    â€œBecause you never know.”
    â€œYou never know what?”
    â€œYou just never know ,” Sara said, tossing back her limp, long hair and looking like a rather smug little doll.
    â€œI think you’re silly,” John said.
    â€œI’m not silly.” Her eyes went round and scared. “Mummy says they’re not to be trusted.”
    â€œThey might chop us all up with a panga,” said Giles, who, in spite of his pale, girlish prettiness, was very bloodthirsty.
    John went very red. “That’s a silly thing to say.”
    Mary said, “It’s not just silly, it’s wicked and stupid.” She was so angry that she felt as if she might burst. “Why—it was Jason who saved all our lives. If it wasn’t for Jason, we might have been drowned. I think you’re just stupid .”
    She ran out of the bungalow and went down to the bottom of the garden. She felt that she never wanted to speak to Sara and Giles again, so she pretended to be very busy making a garden by sticking flowers and stones into a mound of red earth. She became quite absorbed in what she was doing and was beginning to feel almost