Free The Secret of the Sand Castle by Margaret Sutton Page A

thanked them but said he had to get back on the job.
    Then he walked off toward the row of cottages that faced the beach. The fog had lifted a little, but he still looked unreal as he faded from view. Judy turned to Flo.
    “That was really nice of him to tell us about the boat. It was only polite to ask him for coffee.”
    “Well, I’m glad he didn’t stay. I wouldn’t have eaten a mouthful. After what he said yesterday—”
    “Forget it, Flo, and let’s eat,” Pauline suggested.
    “Afterwards we’ll all go down to the dock. Maybe we ought to bring our suitcases and stuff just in case we do get a ride.”
    “Do you really think we will?”
    Flo asked the question anxiously. The others seemed overjoyed at the idea of leaving the Sand Castle to its ghost or whatever that was. Judy herself felt reluctant. She wasn’t in the habit of running off and leaving a mystery half solved.
    “There’s no hurry,” she told them. “No boat would leave in this fog. After breakfast we’ll all go 90

    down and see what sort of craft she is and find out who’s her captain. Meantime I think I’ll have a dish of cereal and a cup of coffee.”
    “These eggs aren’t burned so badly we can’t eat them. Oh dear!” mourned Irene. “The pan’s ruined and it didn’t even belong to us. I think I’ll stay here and try to clean it up while you girls run down and see if there really is a boat at the dock.”
    “No, Irene. This time I’ll stay behind with little Judy. You and Judy and Pauline see about the boat,” Flo insisted.
    “What’ll you do if the woman in black comes to the door?” Irene wanted to know.
    “I’ll tell her no, thank you, we don’t want any more poisoned apples. Apples, anyone?” she asked, passing the basket.
    Nobody seemed to care for sliced apples with the cereal. The eggs weren’t very popular, either. Little Judy finished her breakfast, but Judy and Pauline were too eager to see the boat and Irene insisted she wasn’t hungry.
    “Excitement early in the morning always takes away my appetite,” she explained.
    “Weren’t the eggs good, Mommy?” little Judy asked anxiously.
    “Delicious. You turned off the fire just in time.
    I’m proud of you,” Irene declared. “I just wish you hadn’t stirred them.”
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    “I scrambled them, Mommy.”
    “You stirred in the burned part, Precious, but it was my fault,” Irene told her. “I let them burn.”
    “Why, Mommy?” When her mother didn’t answer the little girl persisted, “Was it ’cause that witch woman slept downstairs?”
    “She wasn’t a witch, dear.”
    “What was she then?”
    They were all asking the same question. Judy and Pauline finally managed to break away. Irene refused to leave the Sand Castle because little Judy might be in danger, and Flo insisted on staying with her.
    “Hurry back!” she called anxiously from the door, and Judy promised her that they would.
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CHAPTER XIII
In the Air

    JUDY wore her warmest coat with a scarf over her head to protect her from the dampness. Pauline’s fleece-lined raincoat with attached hood proved to be better protection. It was no longer raining, only misting. The wet cold soon penetrated their clothing and made both girls shiver.
    “Let’s run to keep warm,” Judy suggested.
    The clatter of their shoes on the boardwalk made it sound as if people were running behind them. The cottages they passed looked even more ghostly than they had before, and the twisted scrub pine trees actually seemed to be beckoning to them.
    “Wait,” Pauline panted at last, stopping before a boarded-up cottage. “We don’t have to run quite so fast. The island is deserted. There’s nobody behind us—I hope.”
    “You felt it, too, didn’t you? I’m sure it was only the echo of our own footsteps, though. We’ve let 93

    ourselves imagine all sorts of things. As Irene said, that story of the woman in black has grown in the telling until now we imagine she’s a—a menace,” Judy finished