Famous Five - 12 - Five Go Down to the Sea by Enid Blyton

Author:Enid Blyton
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Children's Fiction
Published: 1953-02-24T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

THE BARNIES - AND CLOPPER

When the big barn was full of villagers, and a few more boxes had been fetched for some of the extra children, the noise was tremendous. Everyone was laughing and talking, some of the children were clapping for the show to begin, and the excited farm dogs were yapping and barking at the top of their voices!

Timmy was excited, too. He welcomed everyone with a bark and a vigorous wag. Yan was with him, and George was sure that he was pretending that Timmy was his dog! Yan looked cleaner than usual. Mrs Penruthlan had actually given him a bath!

‘You don’t come to the show and you don’t come to the supper unless you bath yourself,’ she threatened. But he wouldn’t. He said he was ‘frit’ of the bath!

‘I’ll be drowned in there,’ he said, backing away from it hurriedly. It was already half full of water for him!

‘Frit, are you!’ said Mrs Penruthlan grimly, lifting him up and plunging him into the water, clothes and all. ‘Well, you’ll be fritter still now! Take your clothes off in the water and I’ll wash them in the bath when you’re clean. Oh, the dirty little varmint that you are!’

Yan screamed the place down as Mrs Penruthlan scrubbed him and soaped him and flannelled him. He hit out at her, but she gave him one sound spank on his small behind, and he stopped very suddenly. He felt very much at her mercy, and decided not to annoy her in any way while he was in that dreadful bath!

She washed his ragged pants and shirt, too, and set them to dry. She wrapped him in an old shawl, and told him to wait till his things dried and then put them on.

‘One of these days I’ll make you some decent clothes,’ she said. ‘Little rapscallion that you are! What a mite of a body you’ve got. I’ll need to feed you up a bit!’

Yan brightened up considerably. Feeding up was the kind of treatment he really liked!

Now he was down in the barn, welcoming everyone with Timmy, and feeling quite important. He yelled with delight when he saw his old great-grandfather coming along!

‘Grandad! You said you was coming, but I didn’t believe you. Come you in. I’ll find you a chair.’

‘And what’s come over you, the way you look tonight?’ said the old man, puzzled. ‘What you done to yourself?’

‘I’ve took a bath. See?’ said Yan, sounding proud. ‘Iss. I took a bath, Grandad. Same as you ought.’

Grandad aimed a cuff at him, and then nodded to various people he knew. He had his big old shepherd’s crook with him, and he held on to it even when he sat down on a chair.

‘Well, Grandad, it’s nigh on twenty year since we saw you down hereabouts,’ said a big, red-faced villager. ‘What you been doing with yourself all these years?’

‘Minding my business and minding my sheep,’ said Grandad, in his slow, Cornish voice. ‘Ay, and it’ll mebbe twenty years afore you sees me again, Joe Tremayne.

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