Mystery of the Midnight Dog by Gertrude Chandler Warner

Author:Gertrude Chandler Warner [Warner, Gertrude Chandler]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4532-2138-9
Publisher: Albert Whitman & Company
Published: 2011-09-25T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 6

No Footprints

Some people jumped up to look.

But most of the audience just stared as a small white doglike figure seemed to float through the dark shadows beneath the huge old trees at the far side of the clearing.

And then it was gone.

“Everyone stay calm,” said the storyteller. She raised her hands. “I’m glad you enjoyed the conclusion of our performance.”

“Oh, it was part of the act,” a man near the Aldens said in a relieved voice.

“I knew it wasn’t a real dog,” said a freckle-faced girl with wiry red hair.

An older woman began to applaud and the rest of the crowd did, too.

Benny, who had jumped up on the bench to see better, turned to Kate Frances. “It was part of the show?” he asked in a disappointed voice.

Kate Frances made a face. “If it was,” she said, “no one told me about it.”

“So it was real?” Violet gasped.

“I don’t know what it was,” she said. “But as soon as we have seen to it that all the guests have gone, I’m going to find out.”

Henry turned to Grandfather Alden. “We need to look into this,” he said. “We can get a ride back to Mrs. Wade’s house with Kate Frances.”

“That’ll be fine,” said Grandfather, his eyes twinkling.

“Good luck looking for clues,” Mrs. Wade added.

“Let’s go look for footprints,” Jessie said. “A ghost doesn’t leave footprints.”

They turned to walk to the dark trees at the edge of the clearing. Henry said, “Violet? Are you coming?”

Violet was looking up at the stage, where Kate Frances was talking to the storyteller. Lainey had joined them, as had several other people. They were all talking and several were holding out pens and paper for an autograph. Violet stared at one of the people in the group who seemed familiar somehow. ...

“Violet?” Henry said again.

“I remember now!” Violet said suddenly. “I remember where I’ve seen that woman!”

“Which one?” asked Benny.

“The one with the black hair and the red lipstick. I’m sure it’s her,” Violet said.

Benny, Jessie, and Henry studied the dark-haired woman. She was talking and waving her hands at the storyteller onstage. Then she held out a book and flipped open the pages.

Jessie said, “Oh. I remember her, too. She was one of the tourists who took Kate Frances’s photograph the first day we were here.”

“Well, it’s too bad she didn’t take a picture of the ghost dog,” Benny said. He paused, then added, “Of course, you can’t really take a picture of a ghost.”

“True. But you can look for footprints,” said Henry. “Let’s go.”

But although the Aldens searched all along the edge of the clearing, kneeling on the ground to brush away leaves and covering every inch of ground where the ghost dog had been, they didn’t find anything that would help them solve the mystery.

They didn’t find a single paw print.

“There was a dog,” Violet said. “We all saw it!”

“A glowing dog that floated along the ground and didn’t leave any footprints,” said Henry.

“And we heard it howl,” Jessie said. She stopped, frowned, and said, “No, we didn’t.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.