Free The Children of Hare Hill by Scott McKenzie Page B

picked ‘I’. Then we need a letter that is in ‘something’ and ‘scare,’ so I picked ‘T’ and ‘C’. That just leaves us needing an ‘H’ to make ‘witch,’ but I can't make that work. If I've got the last line right, we need a letter from ‘waiting’ that isn't in ‘hare’.”
    Charlotte smiled, knowing their mother would be impressed by Ben's deductions to get to the conclusions he'd made. She was certain she wouldn't have been able to get that far when she was five years old.
    “I don't think that's right, though,” Charlotte said.
    “Why?”
    “All we've talked about since we woke up is the witch Daddy made up a long time ago. I thought the answer was ‘witch’ too, but I realised I had started with that word in my mind and I tried to make the riddle fit that word.”
    “So what is the solution?”
    Charlotte talked him through her thought process. ‘G’ is in ‘glow’ and ‘wings,’ ‘H’ is in ‘things’ but not in ‘town,’ ‘O’ is in ‘something,’ ‘S’ is in ‘scare,’ and, to complete the word, ‘T’ is in ‘waiting’ but not in ‘hare.’
    "A ghost?" Ben said, looking worried.
    "That's the answer. If I’m right, there is a ghost waiting for us at the thirteenth hare."
    The light in Ben's eyes seemed to burn out.
    "I don't think we need to worry about it," Charlotte said.
    "Why not?" Ben said.
    "Look at what we've had to do so far. Pretty much everything has been fun, hasn't it?"
    Ben thought for a moment, then smiled and nodded.
    "So there must be good ghosts as well as bad ghosts," Charlotte continued. "I think we're searching for a good ghost who likes to play games."
    Ben's eyes brightened once more. "And we've still got to work out what to do at the tenth hare," he said.
    "Let's go," Charlotte said, and took her little brother's hand.
     

Chapter 19
     
    They arrived together at number ten to find the sculpture of two hares boxing. They checked the map and this time the drawing had appeared, but the seventh, eighth, and ninth sculptures had appeared as well. An egg had been drawn next to each one. As they appeared on the map, numbers seven, eight, and nine seemed to form a crescent-shaped path that led back to number ten.
    "What do you think we have to do?" Ben said.
    "Do you remember when we came here for an Easter egg hunt?" Charlotte asked. Ben nodded.
    "It was really easy," Charlotte said. "All we had to do was follow a map, find all the hares, and we got an Easter egg when we got to the end."
    With that thought fresh in her mind, Charlotte looked up and down the wall.
    "What are you looking for?" Ben asked.
    "There," she said, pointing at a closed door. Ben followed her as she walked over to the door and tried the handle. It was locked and there was no key, but they noticed an empty basket sitting at their feet.
    They cupped their hands around their eyes and peered through the glass. Inside was a small room with shelves lining the walls that held well-thumbed paperbacks—the kind of place where people leave books they've read and pick up another one in exchange. With only the moonlight outside providing any illumination, it was very difficult for them to make out anything other than black-on-black shapes within the room.
    But then there was a yellow flicker from the middle of the room and they saw a lamp fire itself into life. They gasped as they saw an enormous bowl sitting on the table in the middle of the room, which contained what must have been at least a hundred chocolate eggs.
    "Look at that!" Ben exclaimed.
    "I've never seen so much chocolate," Charlotte said.
    They contemplated the bowl of chocolate eggs and the silence was broken by their stomachs, which rumbled in unison. They burst out laughing.
    "This must be part of the challenge," Charlotte said as they looked at the map again. Something else had appeared on the map: now there was a trail of footprints, running in a loop from where they were standing, past the seventh, eighth, ninth,