“No use going to bed then,” said Jo, at once. She was so much enjoying this that she felt as if she never wanted it to stop!

“Well, I suppose it isn’t,” said Joan. “I know what we’ll do — we’ll have a big breakfast now, a very big one to celebrate — and then we’ll all go back to bed and sleep till lunch-time. We’re tired out really — just look at our black-rimmed eyes and pale cheeks!”

“Joan! We’re all as sunburnt as can be, you’re just making that up!” said George. “Come on — let’s get this celebration breakfast going! Bacon — eggs — tomatoes — fried bread. Oh, and mushrooms too — have you any mushrooms, Joan? And lots and lots of hot coffee, and toast and marmalade. I’m ravenous.”

They discovered that they all were, and twenty minutes later they sat at the table tucking in as if they had eaten nothing for a month.

“I can’t eat a thing more,” said Dick, “and I don’t know what’s happening to my eyes — they keep closing!”

“So do mine,” said George, with an enormous yawn. “Joan — don’t say we’ve got to do the washing-up, will you?”

“Of course not!” said Joan. “Go on up to your beds now — don’t even bother to undress.”

“I feel as if there’s something I ought to do — but I can’t remember it,” said Julian, sleepily, staggering upstairs. “I — just — can’t remember!”

He flopped on his bed and was asleep as his head fell on the pillow. In two minutes everyone but Joan was asleep too. Joan stopped to give Timmy a drink, and then he bounded up to George and curled up in the crook of her knees as usual.

Joan went to lie down too, thinking she would just have a rest, but not go to sleep. But in half a second she slept too.

The sun rose higher in the sky. The milkman came whistling up the path and left four bottles of milk on the step. The gulls in the bay circled and soared and called loudly. But nobody stirred in Kirrin Cottage.

A car came up to the front gate, and another one followed. Out of the first stepped Uncle Quentin, Aunt Fanny, Mr. Elbur Wright — and Berta! Out of the second stepped the sergeant and his constable.

Berta flew to the front door, but it was shut. She raced round to the garden door. That was locked too — and so was the kitchen door!

“Pop! We’ll have to ring — all the doors are locked!” she called. And then, from up above came a sound of excited barking, and Sally’s head appeared at a bedroom window. When she saw it really was Berta down below, she tore down the stairs and scraped at the front door.

“What’s happened? Where is everyone?” said Aunt Fanny in amazement. “All the doors locked? But it’s ten o’clock in the morning. Where are the children?”