Free Mystery of the Vanished Prince by Enid Blyton Page A

twin-babies, I expect,” said Ern. “He was cracked on them, was our Sid. He used to go over to that caravan and pore over the pram hours on end. He’s dippy on babies.”
    Pip and Larry looked at Sid with surprise. He didn’t seem at all the kind of boy to be “dippy on babies.”
    Sid pointed down to the ground, where there were four different sets of pram-wheel marks.
    “There you are, you see - I said he wanted to tell you about them twins,” said Ern. “He used to stand by their pram and pick up all the rattles and things they dropped. I bet he’s ready to howl now they’re gone. He’s a funny one, Sid is.”
    “Ar,” said Sid, in a strangled voice, and almost choked again.
    “You’re disgusting,” said Ern. “You and your toffee. You’ve et a whole tin since yesterday. I’ll tell Ma on you. You go and spit it out.”
    Sid wandered away, evidently giving up all hope of proper conversation. Pip heaved a sigh of relief. Sid and his toffee gave him a nightmare feeling.
    “Sid was proper upset this morning, when the twins went,” said Perce, entering amicably into the conversation. “He went over to joggle the pram like he does when their mother wants them to go to sleep - but she yelled at him and chased him away. That made the babies yell too, and there wasn’t half a set-to.”
    “What did she want to do that to our Sid for?” said Ern, quite annoyed at any one yelling at his Sid. “He’s been good to those smelly kids, he’s wheeled their big pram up and down the field for hours.”
    Pip and Larry were getting tired of all this talk about Sid and the babies. Who cared anyway?
    “Ern - did you hear anything at all last night when Prince Bongawah was supposed to be kidnapped?” asked Larry. “Did Sid or Perce?”
    “No. We none of us heard anything,” said Ern, firmly. “We all sleep like tops. Sid don’t even wake if there is a thunderstorm bang over his head. The whole camp could have been kidnapped, and we wouldn’t have known a thing. Good sleepers, the Goons are.”
    Well, that was that. There didn’t seem to be anything at all to be got from Ern. How maddening to know some one living just across the hedge from the Prince, and to get nothing out of him at all!
    “You did see the prince, though, didn’t you?” said Larry.
    “Yes. I told you,” said Ern. “He was a funny little fellow with a cocky little face. He made faces.”
    “Made faces?” said Larry, in astonishment. “What do you mean?”
    “Well, whenever Sid or Perce or me peeped through the hedge, he’d see us and make a face,” said Ern. “He may have been a Prince, but he hadn’t been brought up proper. Brown as a gipsy, of course, proper foreign.”
    “Browner than us?” asked Pip.
    “’Bout the same,” said Ern.
    “Why did you say that he and Bets were as like as peas in a pod?” asked Pip, suddenly remembering this extraordinary remark of Ern’s.
    Ern blushed. “Oh well, seemed as if brother and sister ought to look alike,” he muttered, and busily kicked a stone along. “Coo, I wonder what happened to his State Umbrella! You should have seen it, Pip. Somebody came to visit him, and one of them put up this enormous umbrella - all blue and gold it was - and carried it over him. He didn’t half scowl.”
    “Didn’t he like it, then?” asked Pip.
    “Well, every one laughed and yelled and shouted,” said Ern. “It looked a bit queer, you know.”
    “Hallo, there! ” suddenly came Fatty’s voice over the hedge. “Why did you wander off like that? You left me to do all the talking, Pip.”
    “That’s why I went,” said Pip. “You like talking, Fatty, don’t you?”
    “Can we come through the hedge?” called Daisy’s voice. “Is there a place where we shan’t tear our clothes?”
    Ern gallantly held aside some prickly branches for the girls to squeeze through the hedge. Fatty followed. “Nice cousin of yours, that fellow Ronald,” Fatty said to Pip. “We had quite a chat.”
    “You must have done quite a lot of ‘questioning of witnesses,’ then,” said Pip, slyly, remembering