“What did you do then?” asked Dick.

“Well, Mrs Gaston insisted on us staying to supper,” said Julian. “She simply wouldn’t take no for an answer, and I must say that by that time we were jolly hungry. So we stayed - and we had a jolly good meal too. So did Timmy! You should have seen his tummy afterwards - as round as a barrel. Good thing it’s gone down today or I was thinking of changing his name to Tummy.” They all laughed, George especially.

“Idiot,” said. George. “Well, we didn’t leave till about nine o’clock. We didn’t worry about you because we felt sure you would be safely at Blue Pond Farm-house and would guess we’d had to wait about with Timmy. And when we got there and found you hadn’t arrived - well, we were in a state!”

“And then we thought you must have found somewhere else for the night,” said Julian, “but we thought if we heard nothing we’d go down to the police first thing this morning and report your disappearance!”

“So down we came - without any breakfast either!” said George. “That shows how worried we were! Blue Pond Farm-house was nice. They gave us a bed each in two tiny little rooms, and Timmy slept with me, of course ”

A wonderful smell came creeping into the little dining-room, followed by the inn-woman carrying a large tray. On it was a steaming tureen of porridge, a bowl of golden syrup, a jug of very thick cream, and a dish of bacon and eggs, all piled high on crisp brown toast. Little mushrooms were on the same dish.

“It’s like magic!” said Anne, staring “Just the very things I longed for!”

“Toast, marmalade and butter to come, and the coffee and hot milk,” said the woman, busily setting everything out. “And if you want any more bacon and eggs, just ring the bell.”

“Too good to be true!” said Dick, looking at the table. “For goodness’ sake, help yourselves quickly, girls, or I shall forget my manners and grab.”

It was a wonderful breakfast - extra wonderful because they were all so ravenously hungry. There wasn’t a word said as they spooned up their porridge and cream, sweetened with golden syrup. Timmy had a dishful too - he loved porridge, though he didn’t like the syrup - it made his whiskers sticky!

“I feel better,” said Anne, looking at the porridge dish. “The thing is - shall I have some more porridge and risk not enjoying my bacon and eggs so much - or shall I go straight on with bacon and eggs?”

“A difficult question,” said Dick. “And one that I am faced with too. On the whole I think I’ll go on with bacon and eggs - we can always have more of those if we want to - and those little mushrooms really do make my mouth water! Aren’t we greedy? But how can anyone help that when they’re so hungry?”