Naughtiest Girl 6: Naughtiest Girl Helps A Friend by Enid Blyton & Anne Digby

Author:Enid Blyton & Anne Digby [Blyton, Enid]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Hachette Children's
Published: 2011-02-02T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

Joan tells Elizabeth the truth

ELIZABETH FOUND it difficult to get to sleep. She was too churned up, feeling exasperated with Teeny, furious with Arabella and above all worried about Joan. She lay there for some time, as outside the dusk slowly faded and the tent grew ever darker.

At last, when it was pitch black inside the tent, her eyes began to close . . .

And suddenly were wide open!

Had she dreamt it just now, or had Joan left the tent?

Surely not. The flap was securely tied; the tent was still in pitch darkness.

‘Joan?’ she whispered.

There was no reply.

She wriggled out of her sleeping bag and crawled across to Joan’s. She felt it with her hands. It was empty. So she hadn’t dreamt it!

It was strictly forbidden to leave the tent at night without very good reason. Was Joan feeling ill? Elizabeth lay there for a few minutes, waiting for her friend to return. But Joan did not come back.

‘I must go and look for her!’ decided Elizabeth, feeling alarmed.

As quietly as possible, she struggled into her dressing-gown, then crawled out of the tent. She was very careful all the while not to disturb Arabella. That would be a disaster!

What was Joan up to?

It was a warm night outside. There was more cloud cover than last night but with just enough moonlight to see by. Elizabeth gazed around. Where should she begin to look?

She tiptoed round to the back of the tent, glancing this way and that, her ears attuned for the merest sound.

Down in the cutting, where clumps of grass grew beside the empty stream bed, she could hear the whirring of crickets. Then, suddenly, something else –

A tiny, sobbing sound!

She ran up over the top of the bank, then dropped down the other side.

‘Joan!’ she whispered.

She could see a forlorn figure down there, in a dressing-gown, huddled up near the culvert that led beneath the boundary wall. Her shoulders were gently heaving. In some alarm, Elizabeth ran to her and placed an arm round her shoulders.

‘Joan, what are you sitting down here for?’ she whispered. ‘Why ever aren’t you in the tent?’

‘I can’t go back in there!’ Joan sobbed quietly. ‘I keep trying to pluck up courage but I can’t. It’s pitch black in there, you see, Elizabeth.’

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