The Secret Seven Read Free

all.
    Janet put the cap on one of the snowmen, and Peter put the old coat round his snowy shoulders. They found stones for his eyes and nose, and a piece of wood for his mouth. They gave him a stick under his arm. He looked the best of the lot.
    «I suppose it's time to go home now», said Colin at last. «My dinner's at half-past twelve, worse luck.»
    «We'd better all go home», said Pam. «We'll all have to wash and change our things and put our gloves to dry. Mine are soaking and oooh, my hands are cold!»
    «So are mine. I know they'll hurt awfully as soon as they begin to get a bit warm», said Barbara, shaking her wet hands up and down. «They're beginning now.»
    They left the snowmen in the field and went out of the nearby gate. Opposite was an old house. It was empty except for one room at the bottom, where dirty curtains hung across the window.
    «Who lives there?» asked Pam.
    «Only a caretaker», said Janet. «He's very old and very deaf – and awfully bad-tempered.»
    They hung over the gate and looked at the desolate old house.
    «It's quite big», said Colin. «I wonder who it belongs to, and why they don't live in it.»
    «Isn't the path up to the house lovely and smooth with snow?» said Janet. «Not even the caretaker has trodden on it. I suppose he uses the back gate. Oh, Scamper – you naughty dog come back!»
    Scamper had squeezed under the gate and gone bounding up the smooth, snowy path. The marks of his feet were clearly to be seen. He barked joyfully.
    The curtains at the ground-floor window moved and a cross, wrinkled old face looked out. Then the window was thrown up.
    «You get out of here! Take your dog away! I won't have children or dogs here, pestering little varmints!»
    Scamper stood and barked boldly at the old caretaker. He disappeared. Then a door opened at the side of the house and the old man appeared, with a big stick. He shook it at the alarmed children.
    «I'll whack your dog till he's black and blue!» shouted the man.
    «Scamper, Scamper, come here!» shouted Peter. But Scamper seemed to have gone completely deaf. The caretaker advanced on him grimly, holding the stick up to hit the spaniel.
    Peter pushed open the gate and tore up the path to Scamper, afraid he would be hurt.
    «I'll take him, I'll take him!» he shouted to the old man.
    «What's that you say?» said the cross old fellow, lowering his stick. «What do you want to go and send your dog in here for?»
    «I didn't. He came in himself!» called Peter, slipping his fingers into Scamper's collar.
    «Speak up, I can't hear you», bellowed the old man, as if it was Peter who was deaf and not himself. Peter bellowed back:
    «I DIDN'T SEND MY DOG IN!»
    «All right, all right, don't shout», grumbled the caretaker. «Don't you come back here again, that's all, or I'll send the policeman after you.»
    He disappeared into the side door again. Peter marched Scamper down the drive and out of the gate.
    «What a bad-tempered fellow», he said to the others. «He might have hurt Scamper awfully if he'd hit him with that great stick.»
    Janet shut the gate. «Now you and Scamper have spoilt the lovely smooth path», she said. «Goodness, there's the church clock striking a quarter to one. We'll really have to hurry!»
    «We'll let you all know when the next meeting is!» shouted Peter, as they parted at the corner. «And don't forget the password and your badges.»
    They all went home. Jack was the first in because he lived very close. He rushed into the bathroom to wash his hands. Then he went to brush his hair.
    «I'd better put my badge away», he thought, and put up his hand to feel for it. But it wasn't there. He frowned and went into the bathroom. He must have dropped it.
    He couldn't find it anywhere. He must have dropped it in the field when he was making the snowmen with the others. Bother! Blow!
    “Mother's away, so she can't make me a new one”, he thought. “And I'm sure Miss Ely wouldn't.”
    Miss Ely was his