"Martin, Ann M - Baby-sitters Club 009 - The Ghost at Dawn's House" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martin Ann M)

"Yes," I said with a sigh. "It's okay. Thanks for asking him."
Nicky watched the triplets run out the front door. He looked absolutely crushed. A few tears leaked out, which he tried to hide. After a few moments he said gruffly, "I'm going outside to play. By-my-self." He yanked the front door open.
"Two-block rule," I called after him.
"I know, I know, I know."
Nicky had been gone for about five minutes
when I began to feel really bad for him. I decided I should find him and talk to him. I went outside and shouted his name over and over, but he didn't (or wouldn't) answer.
At last, I called Mary Anne on the phone and explained the situation. "Could you come help Mallory so I can look for Nicky?" I asked her. "I'd really appreciate it. It would be a big favor."
Mary Anne arrived in a flash. I left her and Mallory playing barefoot in the wet backyard with the little Pike girls. Then I started my search for Nicky. A two-block limit, which works out to a four-block area, is bigger than you'd think. I walked all around, through the Prezziosos' backyard, around the Barretts' property, even around my own house, calling for Nicky, looking for possible hiding places Ч in bushes, up trees.
Nothing.
I kept telling myself there were an awful lot of places a boy could hide. And I remembered what Mrs. Pike had said Ч not to panic. But I couldn't help feeling just a little panicky. Why couldn't I find him? Maybe he wasn't within two blocks after all. If he was, surely he'd hear me calling.
"Nicky! NICK-EEE!" I shouted.
"Yeah?"
He'd appeared out of nowhere, looking dirty and sweaty.
I jumped a mile. "Nicky!" I exclaimed, half angry, half relieved. "Where were you?"
"Somewhere cool," he replied smugly. "The triplets didn't want me to come swimming with them, but I cooled off anyway. I showed them and 1 followed the rule."
I shook my head. "Come on. Let's go back to your house. You can shower off under the sprinkler. . . . And don't scare me like that again!"
"Sorry," said Nicky. He smiled at me. I smiled back, glad the crisis was over, but thoroughly mystified.
Chapter 6.
When I got home that afternoon, Jeff was still off swimming. I didn't like to admit it, but I was nervous about Nicky's disappearance. Things like that scare me to death. I'd never gotten over the time I couldn't find Buddy Barrett. Children do get kidnapped. And I'm afraid it's going to happen sometime while I'm baby-sitting. It's not impossible. In fact, it happens every day. You read about it in the papers or see it on the news. I heard that there are thousands and thousands of missing kids.
So could I help it if I panicked a little when I couldn't find Nicky?
I needed to relax. I took my library book out to the barn. Now, the barn is not the coolest place I can think of on a hot summer day Ч but it is the most relaxing. It's almost silent. There's not much in the barn that can make a sound, and the sounds outside are muffled.
Usually I climb up to the hayloft to find a comfortable spot to read, but heat rises, so there was no way I was going to be anywhere above ground on that day. I looked around for a place with enough light to read by. But instead I settled for a spot with a little dry hay scattered around that actually seemed cool.
I sat down, all prepared to open to "The Haunting of Weatherstaff Moor," but I had no sooner gotten into a comfortable position than I heard a crash.
The crash was me! I was falling.
I dropped down, down, like Alice through the rabbit hole.
"Help!" I cried.
Thump. I landed hard.
"Ow!"
I looked up. Although I'd only fallen about five feet, it felt like five thousand. I was in darkness, but above me I could see a square of light, and beyond that, the beams in the roof of the barn.
I stood up shakily.
I was in some kind of basement or tunnel. No wonder that spot I'd been sitting on had seemed cool. All that basement air was circulating underneath.
Wait a second. Barns don't have basements. Do they?
Maybe I was in Ч Nah. Impossible. Besides, what was I? Crazy? I was standing in a pitch-black hole. I had to get out.
I felt around gingerly. I was positive my fingers were going to touch spiders Ч fat, hairy spiders (possibly fat, hairy, biting spiders) Ч or slimy things.
But they didn't. Instead they touched a narrow wooden beam, and above that another, and another, and another. It was a ladder!
I climbed back into the barn and examined the top of the hole. I'd fallen through a trapdoor. It must not have been latched properly.
Okay, so in our barn was a trapdoor with a ladder leading down into . . .
I shrieked. I had found a secret passage! I really had! What else could it be?
I flew into our house, grabbed a flashlight out of a drawer in the kitchen, and flew back to the barn. I was feeling pretty brave, especially considering what a chicken I'd been about exploring the attic the other day. But that day had been dark and gloomy. It was hard to feel frightened with the sun shining so brightly. Besides, I'd found what I'd been searching for so desperately. How could I not explore my own personal secret passage?
I shined the light down the hole. There was the ladder I'd climbed up. I backed down it
carefully, holding the flashlight in my left hand. When I reached the bottom, I examined the floor. It was hard-packed dirt. I shined the light around and saw that the passage veered off to the left Ч toward our house.
I began to walk. The passage sloped down slightly. I was moving through a tunnel of earth with a few support beams here and there. The only light was from my flashlight.
I edged forward for a good distance. I was moving slowly, and everything seemed sort of unreal. At long last, the passage began to slope upward.
I shivered. This was so exciting. If I were just a little older, I could be Nancy Drew. Wait until Claudia heard about this!
"Hey!" I exclaimed aloud. Ahead, my flashlight was shining on a dirt wall. After all this, had I come to a dead end?
No, the passage made a sharp right turn.
I rounded the corner Ч and drew in my breath.
I found myself facing a crude wooden staircase. My heart began to pound faster. I climbed the staircase slowly. Where was I? Somewhere inside our house? I felt like the mice in The Tailor of Gloucester, darting from house to house in their secret passageways.
At the top of the staircase the passage, which
was now very narrow, and all wooden (I was sure, somehow, that I was between the walls of our house) took another turn, and then, a few feet beyond, really did come to a dead end. I began feeling the walls around me, and suddenly something made a loud clicking noise and the whole wall to my right swung away from me.