Read Online Mystery of the Vanished Prince by Enid Blyton - Free Book Online

rather stout,
    Although I’m much too thin.
    My nose is deaf, my ears are dumb,
    My tongue is tied in knots,
    And now my barrow and my spade
    Have all come out in spots.
    My watering-can is…’ ”
    Larry shouted with laughter and Pip thumped Fatty on the back, yelling. Bets collapsed with Daisy on the rug. “Don’t,” said Bets. “Stop, Fatty! How do you do it! ”
    Fatty stopped, out of breath. “Had enough?” he said. “I was just coming to where the watering-can was feeling washed out, and the spade was feeling on edge, and…”
    “Don’t, Fatty!” begged Bets again, giggling helplessly. “Oh dear - How do you do it?”
    Only Ern was silent, without a smile or a laugh. He sat on the edge of a chair, struck with absolute wonder. He gazed at Fatty, and swallowed hard. He couldn’t make it out. How could Fatty stand there and recite all that without thinking about it?
    “Struck dumb, all of a sudden?” asked Fatty, amused.
    “How do you like the way your ‘pome’ goes on, Ern? It’s a pity you didn’t finish it, you know. You could have read it out to us then, instead of my saying it to you.”
    Ern was even more bewildered. He blinked at Fatty. “Do you mean to say - if I had finished that pome that’s what it would have been like?” he asked, in an awed voice.
    “Well - it’s your pome, isn’t it?” said Fatty cheerfully. “I mean - I only just went on with it. I think you work too hard at your pomes, Ern. You just want to throw them off, so to speak. Like this -
    “The little Princess Bongawee
    Was very small and sweet,
    A princess from her pretty head
    Down to her tiny feet.
    She had a servant, Ern by name,
    A very stout young fella,
    Who simply loved to shield her with
    A dazzling…”
    STATE UMBRELLA!” yelled everyone, except Ern. There were more yells and laughs. Ern didn’t join in. He simply couldn’t understand how Fatty could be so clever. Fatty gave him a thump.
    “Ern! Wake up! You look daft, sitting there without a smile on your face. What’s up?”
    “You’re a genius, Fatty, that’s what’s up,” said Ern. “The others don’t know it, because they don’t know how difficult it is to write portry. But I do. And you stand there and - and…”
    “Spout it out,” said Fatty. “It’s easy, that kind of stuff. I’m not a genius, Ern. Anyone can do that kind of thing, if they think about it.”
    “But that’s just it,” said Era. “You don’t even think about it. It’s like turning on a tap. Out it comes. Coo, lovaduck! If I could do portry like that I’d think meself cleverer than the King of England.”
    “Then you’d be wrong,” said Fatty. “Cheer up, Ern. One of these days your portry will come gushing out and then you’ll be miserable because you won’t be able to write it down fast enough.”
    “I’d get a shock if it did,” said Ern, putting away his dirty little notebook with a sigh. “I’m proud to know you, Fatty. If the others don’t know a genius when they see one, I do. I’m not a very clever fellow, but I know good brains when I come across them. I tell you, you’re a genius.”
    This was a very remarkable speech indeed from Ern. The others looked at him in surprise. Was there more in Ern than they suspected? Bets slipped her hand through Fatty’s arm.
    “You’re right, Ern,” she said. “I think Fatty’s a genius too. But not only in poetry. In everything!”
    Fatty looked pleased but extremely embarrassed. He squeezed Bets’ hand. He coughed modestly, and then coughed again, trying to think of something to say. But Larry spoke first, amused at Fatty’s modest coughs.
    “It was a coff,
    That carried him off,

It was a coffin
    They carried him offin,”
    he said in a solemn and lugubrious voice. Whereupon the meeting dissolved in squeals of laughter and yells and thumps. Ern was delighted. What a set of WONDERFUL friends he had!
     

Up at the Camp
     
    That afternoon Fatty began to “investigate” in earnest. He had studied the papers, but had learnt very little from them. Apparently the little prince had