The Secret Country Read Free

putting her hand flat down in the middle of his book, “I can’t help it.”
    “You could be more careful,” said Ted, pulling his book out from under her hand.
    “I am careful!”
    “So how come you break so many things?” Ted asked the book.
    “They’re always in the way,” said Laura sullenly. She did not know how she broke so many things. It was much more as if they broke themselves.
    “So are you,” said Ted. “Always.”
    “Well, I don’t have anything to do!” said Laura, furious.
    “Read,” said Ted, and went on doing so.
    “I’ve read all the ones I can. The words in the rest of them are too hard.”
    “Laurie!” yelled Jennifer from downstairs. “Mom says you can come play tag.”
    “I’m too hot!” shrieked Laura.
    The back door banged.
    “Would you read to me?” said Laura.
    “I’m in the middle of the book. You wouldn’t understand anything. You don’t like the way I read anyway.” He did not say, “Go away and leave me alone,” but Laura knew he wanted to.
    “Tag is a penance,” she said.
    “So go play.”
    Laura went resignedly downstairs and outside. It was very hot and bright and stuffy.
    There was no one in the backyard, so she started around to the front. There were lilac bushes all along one side of the house, in which they were not supposed to play. The bushes would have made a fine Green Caves for the Secret, but here it didn’t matter. As Laura came around the corner of the house, she heard people talking among the bushes.
    “What did she say?”
    “There are spies among us.”
    Laura pushed her hair away from her ears. Something in their voices was familiar to her.
    “Who are they?”
    “This place is probably bugged.” Laura moved guiltily away, but only a few steps. It was Jennifer and David talking, but she had never heard them sound like this.
    “So speak crookedly,” said Jennifer.
    “They are those who eat and sleep with us and share our bathing place.”
    “Where are they from?”
    “I fear the Imperium.”
    “Well, then, let’s tell the captain.”
    “She may be one of them.”
    “Nonsense!” said Jennifer, in her own voice.
    “She’s shown them documents,” said David.
    “She’d never betray us,” said Jennifer; once more her voice had the quality Laura had found familiar. Now she recognized it. Ted had just used it to suggest she do a penance. They were playing: not this business of running around and hiding for no reason, but a real play, with parts.
    “The documents had red covers,” said David.
    “Oh, no!” said Jennifer. “Not the plans for the black-hole gun!”
    Laura went tearing into the house and back up to Ted’s room, banging doors. She skidded on a braided rug in the upstairs hall, but caught herself on the edge of Ted’s door.
    “Ted!”
    “What’s wrong?”
    “They’ve got a secret too!”
    Ted put his book down. “Quit yelling. How do you know?”
    Laura told him. Ted shrugged. “Probably just some s-f show they saw on TV.” Laura hauled him down to the side of the house.
    “The crew all love her,” said Jennifer earnestly, out of the bushes. “If we put it to the vote she will go free and the spies will be able to work their will unchecked.”
    “No doubt,” said David, “we can think of—we can devise other means to rid ourselves of this—this—maggot.”
    “We could hire—” began Jennifer.
    “Hirelings talk,” said David. “We’ll have to do it ourselves.”
    Laura looked at Ted’s face and was satisfied. There was a note in David’s voice that told her a scene had just ended. Ted had heard it too. They crept around the house, eased themselves up the creaky steps of the porch, and went back to Ted’s room.
    “How can they have a secret?” demanded Laura.
    “All that tag was just for us,” said Ted. Laura looked at him and was alarmed as well as puzzled. She had not seen Ted look so worried since two summers ago, when they lost Ellen in the Thorn Forest during the Secret. They