The Secret of Platform 13 by Eva Ibbotson

Author:Eva Ibbotson [Eva Ibbotson]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9780330477697
Publisher: Pan Macmillan UK

Ten

‘Hurry up, boy,’ said Mr Fulton, giving Ben a push. ‘You’ve got the potatoes to bring in from the cellar still, and there’s the brass strip to polish and the milk bottles to swill.’

The butler was a tall, grim man who ruled with a rod of iron and never smiled.

‘He’s in a dream this morning,’ said Mrs Flint. ‘I’ve had to tell him three times to wipe down the stove.’ Cooks are often fat and cheerful but she was thin and cross and seemed to hate the food she prepared.

Only the housemaid, Rosita, gave Ben a kind glance. The boy looked thoroughly washed out, as though he hadn’t slept.

Rosita was right. Ben had scarcely closed his eyes after he crept in from the park the night before. He was glad, of course, that Raymond had agreed to go with the rescuers; he had to be glad. Cor and Gurkie had been so relieved that their job was done, but as he dragged the heavy sack of potatoes up the cellar steps he felt as wretched as he had ever felt in his life.

In half an hour, Raymond would leave the house and never come back. On Monday morning, he went to the house of a Mrs Frankenheimer who gave him exercises to cure his flat feet and knock knees. Mrs Frankenheimer was very easy-going and wouldn’t notice if he didn’t turn up, and he was going to meet the rescuers at the corner of her street instead of going to school. Just about the time that Ben would be sitting in his classroom and opening his arithmetic book, Raymond would be stepping out on to the sands of the Secret Cove.

As he went to fetch his school bag, Ben’s foot bumped against the cat tray under his bed. He had already almost house-trained the mistmaker even in the three days he had hidden him in his room. The animal was incredibly intelligent and the realization that he would never see him again suddenly seemed more than he could bear.

Ben had accepted his life – the early morning chores, the drudgery again when he came home at night, but that was before he had found people who really understood him and were his friends.

And he had quarrelled with Odge.

‘You’re coming with us, of course,’ Odge had said. ‘You’re coming to the Island.’

And he’d said: ‘I can’t, Odge.’

The hag had been furious. ‘Of course you can. If you’re worried about Raymond being such a pain you needn’t be because if he isn’t any better by the time he’s grown up, I’ll start a revolution and have his head chopped off; you can rely on that!’

‘It isn’t Raymond, Odge. I don’t care about him. It’s my grandmother. She took me in because I had nobody and I can’t leave her now she’s ill. You must see that.’

But Odge hadn’t seen it. She’d stamped her feet and called him names and even when Cor had agreed with Ben and said you had to stand by people who had helped you, she went off in a huff.

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