Free Five Fall Into Adventure by Enid Blyton Page A

when you came and took that parcel from under the stone - yes, and I followed you right to that car - and followed you back again! You came back here to steal again, I suppose?’
    Jo gulped. ‘No, I didn’t.’
    ‘You did! You’ll be handed over to the police tomorrow,’ said Dick, still furious.
    ‘I didn’t come back to steal. I came back for something else,’ insisted Jo, her eyes peering through her tangled hair like a frightened animal’s.
    ‘Ho! So you say! And what did you come back for? To find another dog to dope?’ jeered Dick.
    ‘No,’ said Jo, miserably. ‘I came back to tell you I’d take you to where George was, if you wouldn’t tell on me. My Dad would half kill me if he thought I’d split on him. I know I took the parcel - I had to. I didn’t know what it was or anything. I took it to the place I was told to. Jake told me. And then I came back to tell you all I could. And you set on me like that.’
    Four pairs of eyes bored into Jo, and she covered her face. Dick took her hands away and made her look at him.
    ‘Look here,’ he said, ‘this matters a lot to us, whether you are speaking the truth or not.
    Do you know where George is?’
    Jo nodded.
    ‘And will you take us there?’ said Julian, his voice stern and cold.
    Jo nodded again. ‘Yes I will. You’ve been mean to me, but I’ll show you I’m not as bad as you make out. I’ll take you to George.’

    “Famous Five 09 - Five Fall Into Adventure” By Enid Blyton 36

Chapter Twelve
JO BEGINS TO TALK

    The hall clock suddenly struck loudly. DONG!’
    ‘One o’clock,’ said Joan. ‘One o’clock in the morning! Master Julian, we can’t do any more tonight. This gipsy child here, she’s not fit to take you trapesing out anywhere else.
    She’s done for - she can hardly stand.’
    ‘Yes, you’re right Joan,’ said Julian, at once giving up the idea of going out to find George that night. ‘We’ll have to wait till tomorrow. It’s a pity the telephone wires are cut.
    I do really think we ought to let the police know something about all this.’
    Jo looked up at once. ‘Then I won’t tell you where George is,’ she said. ‘Do you know what the police will do to me if they get hold of me? They’d put me into a Home for Bad Girls, and I’ll never get out again - because I am a bad girl and I do bad things. I’ve never had a chance.’
    ‘Every one gets a chance sooner or later,’ said Julian gently. ‘You’ll get yours, Jo - but see you take it when it comes. All right - we’ll leave the police out of it if you promise you’ll take us to where George is. That’s a bargain.’
    Jo understood bargains. She nodded. Joan pulled her to her feet and half led, half carried her upstairs.
    ‘There’s a couch in my room,’ she told Julian. ‘She can bed down there for the night -
    but late or not she’s going to have a bath first. She smells like something the dog brought in!’
    In half an hour’s time Jo was tucked up on the couch in Joan’s room, perfectly clean, though marked with scratches and bruises from top to toe, hair washed, dried, and brushed so that it stood up in wiry curls like George’s. A basin of steaming bread and milk was on a tray in front of her.
    Joan went to the landing and called across to Julian’s room. ‘Master Julian! Jo’s in bed.
    She wants to say something to you and Master Dick.’
    Dick and Julian put on dressing-gowns and went into Joan’s neat room. They hardly recognized Jo. She was wearing one of Anne’s old nightgowns and looked very clean and childish and somehow pathetic.
    Jo looked at them and gave them a very small smile. ‘What do you want to say to us?’
    asked Julian.
    ‘I’ve got some things to tell you,’ said Jo, stirring the bread round and round in the basin.
    ‘I feel good now - good and clean and - and all that. But maybe tomorrow I’ll feel like I always do - and then I wouldn’t tell you everything. So I’d better tell you now.’
    ‘Go