chapter 18 spiky is very helpful

the two boys and jo, with timmy at their heels, wandered round the fair to find somewhere to buy aball. there seemed to be none for sale, so they had a go at a hoopla stall, and julian managed to get aring round a small red ball. just the thing!

it was a big and noisy fair, and hundreds of people from the near-by towns had come on this shops'

closing day to enjoy the fun. the roundabout played its loud, raucous music all the time, swings wentto and fro, the dodgem cars banged and bumped one another as usual, and men went round shoutingtheir wares.

'balloons! giant balloons! three pence each!'

'ice-cream! all flavours.'

'tell your fortune, lady? i'll tell it true as can be!'

jo was very much at home in the fair. she had been brought up in one, and knew all the tricks of thetrade. timmy was rather amazed at the noise, and kept close to the boys, his tail still down becausehe could not forget that george was missing.

'now let's play our little game of ball,' said julian. 'come on, tim - and if we get into any trouble,just growl and show your teeth, see?'

the three of them, with timmy, went to the clear space of field that separated the magnificentcaravan from the rest of the camp. a man at a near-by stall called to them.

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'hey! you'll get into trouble if you play there!' but they took no notice and he shrugged his shouldersand began to shout his wares.

they threw the ball to one another, and then julian flung it so wildly that it ran right up to the wheelsof the front caravan of the pair. in a trice dick and jo were after it. jo leapt up on a wheel and lookedin at the big window, while dick ran to the small van that was attached behind the big one.

a quick glance assured jo that the big caravan was empty. the interior was furnished in a mostluxurious way and looked like a very fine bed-sitting-room. she leapt down.

dick peered into the window of the smaller van. at first he thought there was no one there - and thenhe saw a pair of very fierce, angry eyes looking at him - the eyes of a small, bent old woman withuntidy hair. she looked rather like a witch, dick thought. she was sitting sewing in a bunk, and, as helooked in, she shook her fist at him and called out something he couldn't hear.

he jumped down and joined the others. 'no one at all in the big van,' said jo.

'only a witch-like old woman in the other,' reported dick, in deep disappointment. 'unless george ispushed under a bunk or squashed into a cupboard, she's certainly not there!'

'timmy doesn't seem interested in the caravans at all, does he?' said julian. 'i'm sure if george reallywas in one of those caravans, he'd bark and try to get inside.'

'yes - i think he would,' said dick. 'hallo, there's somebody coming out of the second van. it's the oldlady! she's in a fine old temper!'

so she was! she came down the steps to the van, shouting and shaking her fist at them. 'tim - go andfind, go and find - in that van!' said julian, suddenly, as the old woman came towards them.

the three of them stood their ground as the old woman came right up. they couldn't understand aword she said, partly because she had no teeth, and partly because she spoke a mixture of manylanguages. anyway, it was quite obvious that she was ticking them off for daring to play near the twovans.

timmy had understood what julian had said, and had slipped inside the second van. he was there forhalf a minute, and then he barked. the boys jumped, and dick made a move towards the van.

then timmy appeared, dragging something behind him with his teeth. he tried to bark at the sametime, but he couldn't. he dragged the coat-like thing right down to the ground before the old womanwas on him, screaming in a high voice, and hitting him. she pulled the garment away 81and went up the steps, kicking out at the surprised timmy as he tried to pull it away. the doorslammed.

'if that old woman hadn't been old, timmy would have soon shown her he was top dog!' said dick.

'whatever was he pulling out of the van?'

'come over here, out of sight of the van,' said julian, urgently. 'didn't you recognise it, dick? it wasgeorge's dressing-gown!'

'my word!' said dick, stopping in surprise. 'yes, you're right - it was. whew! what does that meanexactly? george certainly isn't in those vans, or timmy would have found her.'

'i sent him in to see if he could smell that george had been hidden there,' said julian. 'i thought hewould bark excitedly if he smelt her scent anywhere - on the bunk, perhaps. i never guessed he'd findher dressing-gown and drag it out to show us!'

'good old timmy! clever old timmy!' said dick, patting the dog, whose tail was now at half-mastinstead of right down. he had at least found george's dressing-gown - but how surprising to find it inthat caravan!

'why on earth didn't they take the dressing-gown with them, when they took george off?'

wondered julian. 'there's no doubt that she has been in that caravan - she was taken straight there thenight before last, i expect. where is she now?'

'she must have been dressed differently,' said dick. 'they must have had to dress her properly, whenthey took her somewhere else. after all, she was only in pyjamas and dressing-gown.'

jo was listening to all this, puzzled and worried. she nudged dick. 'spiky's beckoning to us,' she said.

they went over to the roundabout boy, whose father was now in charge of the noisy machine.

spiky took them into his caravan, a small and rather dirty one, in which he lived with his father.

'i saw gringo's old ma chasing you!' he said with his lop-sided grin. 'what was your dog draggingout of the van?'

they told him. he nodded. 'i've been asking round a bit, cautious-like,' he said. 'just to see if anyonehad heard anything from gringo's caravan - and the fellow whose caravan is nearest told me he heardshouts and yells two nights ago. he reckoned it was someone in gringo's van - but he's too scared ofgringo to go and interfere, of course.'

'that would be george yelling,' said dick.

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'well, then gringo's vans were moved the next day right away from the other vans,' said spiky.

'and this afternoon, before the fair opened, gringo got his car and towed the little van - the secondone - out of the field, and set off with it. we all wondered why, but he told somebody it neededrepairing.'

'whew! and george was inside!' said dick. 'what a cunning way of moving her off to anotherhiding-place.'

'when did the van come back?' asked julian.

'just before you came,' said spiky. 'i don't know where it went. it was gone an hour, i should think.'

'an hour,' said dick. 'well, suppose it goes at an average of 25 miles an hour - you can't go very fastif you are towing something - that would mean he had gone somewhere about 12 miles or so away,and come back the same distance - making about an hour's drive, allowing for a stop when theyarrived at the place they had to leave her at.'

'yes,' said julian. 'but there are lots of places within the radius of 12 miles!'

'where's gringo's car?' said dick suddenly.

'over there, under that big tarpaulin,' said spiky. 'it's a silver-grey one - american and very striking,he thinks the world of it, gringo does.'

'i'm going to have a peep at it,' said julian, and strode off. he came to the tarpaulin, which coveredthe car right to the ground. he lifted it and was just about to look under it when a man ran up,shouting.

'here, you! leave that alone! you'll be turned out of the fair if you mess about with things that don'tconcern you!'

but timmy was with julian, and he turned and growled so fiercely that the man stopped in a hurry.

julian had plenty of time to take a good look under the tarpaulin!

yes - the car was silver-grey, a big american one - and the wings were bright blue! julian took aquick look at the two left-hand ones and saw a deep scratch on one of them. before he dropped thetarpaulin he had time to glance at the tyres. he was sure they had the same pattern as those shown inthe wheel-tracks he had sketched! he had checked the sketch with jim, at kirrin garage, who hadtold him they were an american design.

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yes - this was the car that had hidden in the clearing the night before last - the car that had turnedwith difficulty and made those deep ruts - the car that had taken george away, and this afternoon hadtowed away the caravan with her inside, to hide her somewhere else.

he dropped the tarpaulin and walked back to the others, excited, taking no notice of the rude thingsthat the near-by man called out to him.

'it's the car, all right,' said julian. 'now - where did it go this afternoon? if only we could find out!'

'it's such a very striking car that anyone would notice it - especially as it was towing a rather nicelittle caravan,' said dick.

'yes - but we can't go round the countryside asking everyone we meet if they've noticed a silver-greycar with blue wings,' said julian.

'let's go back home and get a map and see the lie of the country round about,' said dick. 'spiky,which way did the car turn when it went out of the field-gate?'

'towards the east,' said spiky. 'on the road to big twillingham.'

'well, that's something to know,' said dick. 'come on, let's get our bikes. thanks most awfully,spiky. you've been a terrific help. we'll let you know what happens.'

'call on me if ever you want more help,' said spiky, proudly, and gave them a smart little salute,bobbing his head so that his spikes of hair shook comically.

the three of them rode off, with timmy running beside them again. as soon as they got home theytold anne and joan all they had found out. joan was for ringing up the police at once again, butjulian stopped her.

'i think perhaps we can do this next bit of work better than they can,' he said. 'we're going to try andfind out where the car went, joan. now - where are the maps of the district?'

they found them and began to pore over them. jo was quite lost when it came to map-reading.

she could find her way anywhere, day or night - but not with a map!

'now - here's the road to big twillingham and little twillingham,' he said. 'let's list carefully all theroads the car could take from there. my word - it's a job!'