Whistling in the Dark Read Online Free

tasted like now.”
    “Perhaps they’ll give us a sandwich at the hotel, if we call there next,” said Joan. “My mum helps there now and again and I know Basia and Gosia, two Polish ladies who work in the kitchen. Mum teaches them English sometimes.”
    The Royal Hotel loomed up over the boating lake like a many-chimneyed Gothic palace in a fairy tale. The great glass sun lounge was sealed off, leaving a riot of potted palms and tangled greenery rotting inside. All the other windows were criss-crossed with sticky tape to stop them from shattering inwards if there was a bomb blast.
    The place no longer functioned as a hotel – no leisured guests or golf enthusiasts reclined on deckchairs on the terrace. The attic floors were completely closed up and the lower rooms had been commandeered to accommodate evacuee children from the danger areas in and around Liverpool.
    Teams of hard-working volunteers from the Women’s Voluntary Services now ran the place, aided by a motley collection of kitchen workers. As Joan and the boys approached the hotel, they could see a few ladies attempting to organize a ball game with the younger children on what used to be the hotel lawn, but it was rapidly descending into chaos.
    Joan, Ross and Derek parked their laden handcart by the kitchen entrance. A row of older children, ranged along the doorstep like seagulls beadily eyeing a potential snack, regarded them with some hostility.
    “You can’t come in here,” one girl said. “It’s not dinnertime yet. We’ve got to stay out until the gong goes.”
    “We’re collecting salvage,” Joan told them.
    “Aw, gerra way. There’s no salvage here!”
    Ross and Derek, who seemed to be rapidly losing interest in this whole salvage project, leaned wearily against the wall and stared into space.
    “Are Basia and Gosia here?” Joan asked.
    “Them two foreign women? Nah. They didn’t show up today. Probably scared. I wouldn’t hang around this place too often if I was you.”
    “Why not?”
    “It’s bloody haunted! Didn’t you know? There’s a ghost that walks in the attics at night − in the bit that’s sealed off. We’re sleeping in the rooms underneath and we hear it sometimes, creeping around. Boards squeaking, footsteps and that.”
    Ross and Derek had not moved, but Joan knew they had begun to listen intently.
    “There can’t be a ghost up there,” she said. “It must be a person.” And she stopped short, realizing as she said it that this seemed even scarier.
    “Can’t be!” said the girl firmly. “They’d be found out. They’d need food and stuff. Ghosts don’t need food. Anyway, nobody could get up there. It’s a ghost, all right. It’s dead scary. Especially at night with the blackout and all.”
    Later, as they pushed the handcart round to the WVS salvage collection centre, Ross and Derek were unusually quiet.
    “She’s talking rubbish, that kid,” said Ross at last. “Those Liverpool kids’ll believe anything.” But he did not sound completely convinced.



CHAPTER 5
    I t was past noon by the time they had delivered the salvage to the WVS collection centre and returned the handcart, and they were aching with hunger. Ross and Derek, who seemed to have nothing better to do, mooched wearily along with Joan in the direction of her house. On the way, they ran into Doreen, looking lovely as usual: pink-faced, blonde hair blowing in the wind. The boys perked up considerably when they saw her, but she ignored them.
    “Mummy says I can go to the pictures with you tonight if we catch the early show,” she told Joan. “Can you call for me at my house at about five and we’ll walk down to the Queensway together?”
    “Great! They’re showing Down Argentine Way with Betty Grable. It’s got that new singer in it – what’s her name? Carmen Miranda – the one who wears the tutti-frutti hat!”
    To show she knew who Joan meant, Doreen performed a few expert samba steps on the pavement. Even in flat lace-ups