Free The Secret Passage by Nina Bawden Page B

key—just one key—and he would be in the house itself!
    Mary had left the bunch of keys on the bench in their own cellar, but when she scrambled out of the cubby hole and went to fetch them, the keys were gone. “I’m sure I left them here,” she said in a loud, surprised voice.
    “Be quiet—oh be quiet ,” John hissed behind her. He was looking up at the cellar door, his eyes wide with alarm. It stood ajar and a familiar, rattling noise came from the kitchen. “It’s Aunt Mabel, stoking the Beast,” he said.
    Mary whispered, “She must have moved the keys. Yes—there they are, back on the nail.”
    She and John looked at each other in horror. They were filthy; their clothes were black and their hair and eyebrows were whitish-grey with dust.
    “We’re awfully dirty. She’ll be hopping mad,” Ben said cheerfully.
    “She’ll find out about the passage,” John said. This thought made his heart thump very fast. If Aunt Mabel knew where they had been she would almost certainly stop them goingthrough the tunnel again and he would never see the house next door—never, never . He clenched his fists and muttered, “I couldn’t bear it, I couldn’t.” He looked frantically at Mary. “What can we say? She must have been down here to get the coke for the Beast—she’ll know we weren’t just playing in the cellar.”
    Mary drew a deep breath. “Just don’t say anything,” she said. “Or you either, Ben. Just leave it to me.”
    Her back was very straight and her head held very high as she marched up the cellar steps and into the kitchen. John and Ben followed her; John felt very scared, but Ben hummed a jaunty little tune under his breath. Aunt Mabel looked at them, her mouth open. “Whatever …” she began.
    Mary gabbled very fast, “I’m sorry we got so dirty, Aunt Mabel. But we’ve been hiding in the cellar—in the cubby hole.” It was almost true, she thought, they had been hiding in the cubby hole, but all the same the colour came and went in her cheeks and she stared guiltily at the floor.
    “So that’s where you were,” Aunt Mabel said. “I wondered what you’d been doing with those old keys.”
    John said quickly, “Do you mind us playing with them, Aunt Mabel?”
    Aunt Mabel shrugged her shoulders. “They’re no use to me. Just a bunch of old keys I’ve had for years. As a matter of fact, I think I brought most of them from the house next door—they won’t fit many of the locks here.”
    John gave a little gasp, then a slow smile appeared on his face. It really was possible, then, that one of the keys would fit that cellar door. This made him feel so excited and happy that he stood, grinning to himself and looking rather foolish.Aunt Mabel gave him a curious look. Then she glanced at Mary and Ben and her lips twitched very slightly. “You look as if you’d been climbing chimneys,” she said. “It’s a good thing you had some old clothes on.”
    Her tone was quite uncomplaining and Mary suddenly realised that Aunt Mabel was not in the least like Mrs Epsom; she never made a fuss when they got dirty or tore their clothes. Then she saw a flimsy blue envelope on the table and everything else went out of her mind. “Is that from Daddy?” she cried.
    “No,” Aunt Mabel said. “It’s from Mrs Epsom. Your father has gone off on leave—Mrs Epsom says he’s on safari in the Northern Frontier District.” She picked the letter up and put it in her apron pocket. “I expect he’ll send you a postcard.”
    Ben laughed. “He won’t be able to buy postcards there ,” he said scornfully.
    “Won’t he? I don’t know much about Africa.” Aunt Mabel looked at the children, frowning a little as if something was worrying her. Then she said sharply, “Run along and have a good, hot bath. Use plenty of soap. You look as if you could do with it.”
    When they had gone, she sat down, took the letter out of her pocket and read it. When Uncle Abe came in for his supper a little later,