Free Five Get Into a Fix by Enid Blyton Page A

bunk, and rubbing his knee, which had struck the floor when he fel .
    “It was a... a... well... a kind of very very deep rumbling,” said Anne. “A deep-down rumbling - very far away. Not like thunder up in the sky. More like a thunderstorm underground! And then there was a... a shuddering! I felt the edge of my bunk and it seemed to be sort of - well - quivering. I can"t quite explain it. I was awfully scared.”
    “Sounds like a smal earthquake,” said Dick, wondering if Anne had dreamt al this.
    “Anyway - you can"t hear or feel it now, can you? You"re sure you didn"t dream all this, Anne?”
    “Quite sure!” said Anne, “I...” And just at that very moment it all began again! First the curious grumbling, muffled, and “deep-down”, as Anne had described it - then the equally strange “shuddering”. It crept through their bodies til they were al shuddering a little too, and could not stop.
    “It"s as if we were shivering in every part of us,” said Dick, in wonder. “Sort of vibrating as if we had tiny dynamo engines working inside us.”
    “Yes! You"ve described it exactly!” said George. “Goodness - when I put my hand on Timmy I can feel him doing the „shudders" - and it"s just like putting my hand on something working by electricity! You know the sort of small vibrations you feel then.”
    “It"s gone!” said Dick, just as George finished speaking. “I"m not „shuddering" any more. It suddenly stopped. And I can"t hear that grumbling, far-off noise now. Can you?”
    Everyone agreed that both the noise and the shuddering had stopped. What in the wide world could it be?
    “It must be something to do with that curious „shimmering" I saw in the sky over Old Towers Hill tonight,” said Dick, remembering. “I"ve a good mind to go and look out of the window that faces the hil opposite, and see if it"s there again.”
    He leapt out of his bunk and ran to the window. At once he gave a loud cry. “Come and look! Whew! Just come and look!”
    Al the others, Timmy as well, rushed to the window at once, Timmy standing on his hind legs to see. Certainly there was something queer to look at!
    Over the hil opposite hung a mist - a curious glowing mist, that stood out in the pitch black darkness of the night! It swirled heavily, not lightly as a mist usually does.
    “Look at that!” said Anne, in wonder. “What a strange colour - not red - not yellow - not orange. What colour is it?”
    “It"s not a shade I"ve ever seen before,” said Julian, rather solemnly. “I call this jolly strange. What"s happening here? No wonder Aily"s mother told us those stories - there"s real y something in them! We"d better make a few enquiries tomorrow.”
    “It"s funny that both the shimmering I saw and that cloud too are over Old Towers Hil ,”
    said Dick. “You don"t think it"s something that"s happening in Old Towers House, do you?”

    “No. Of course not,” said Julian. “What could happen there that would make us feel the effects here, in this hut - that queer shuddering, for instance? And how in the world could we hear a rumbling from a mile or so away, if it were not thunder? And that certainly wasn"t.”
    “The mist is going,” said Anne. “Look - it"s changing colour - no, it"s just going darker. It"s gone!”
    They stood looking out for a short while longer, and then Julian felt Anne shivering violently beside him.
    “You"re frozen!” he said. “Come on, back to bed. You don"t want to get another awful cold and cough. My word - this is al very queer. But I expect there"s a sensible explanation - probably there are mines around here, and work is being done at night as well as day.”
    “We"ll find out,” said Dick, and they all climbed thankfully back into their bunks, feeling very cold. Julian turned up the stove a little more, to heat the room better.
    George cuddled Timmy and was soon as warm as toast, but the others lay awake, trying to get their cold hands and feet warm again. Julian felt