Read Online One Of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing by David Forrest - Free Book Online Page B

everybody?” asked Hettie, as a waitress neared them. “Not, of course, that we’ll get real tea, anyway. Teabag tea, ugh! I hate to think what would have happened if you’d served tea-bag tea to H.R.H. at a Royal Garden Party.”
    “Coke for me, please,” said Susanne.
    “Nonsense, girl. Tea ... or perhaps, as a treat, lemon-tea.”
    “I want a sixty-foot length of rope,” confided Emily, her mind running through the equipment they would be needing.
    “Sure, lady,” said the waitress, her face bland. “How do you British like it? Grilled, poached, or our speciality, rope suzette?”
    Emily stared at the slim girl in her blue nylon dress. “Just tea, thank you,” she said, grandly. She waited until the girl had left them, then she turned to the others. “Providing Nanny Hettie agrees, then I’d like you all to get the night after tomorrow off. Meanwhile, here’s a list of the things that I . . . er, Nanny Hettie and I, want you to get. Melissa, you buy the rope. Sixty feet of mountaineering stuff. Try a sports equipment emporium. Susanne, you get two large adjustable wrenches and two big screwdrivers. And some grocer’s sacks and bags. Una, just lanterns, and torches. Four of them. And get spare batteries and bulbs. And Hettie, you and I will buy a lorry.”
    “Lorry?” exploded Hettie. “Gracious me, and why would we be needing a lorry?”
    “To carry the bones, of course,” smiled Emily. “And I shall drive.”
    “You can drive a lorry, Nanny Emily?” Susanne looked at the old lady with surprise.
    “I’ll have you know, my girl, I drove a caterpillar tractor during the war, on Lord Bramwell’s estate. I was responsible for ploughing five acres.”
    “We heard about that,” said Hettie. “At the Land Army Club they said it was the longest furrow ever ploughed. Five acres it may have been, but it was in one straight line. You nearly cut off Devon and Cornwall. One furrow, from Exeter to Barnstaple. They had no electric power in the West Country for a week.”
    “The throttle jammed,” Emily pouted. “I had to wait until the fuel ran out. Anyhow, I’ve borrowed a book about driving from the library, and tonight I’m going to read it. I’m quite sure that if a mere lorry driver can drive a lorry, so can I.”
    “Aye, maybe,” said Hettie, doubtfully. She looked at her watch, then at the three younger nannies. “Time we were away. Now dinnae forget the things we told you about.”
    Emily’s head wagged so vigorously in agreement that her pince-nez rattled. “Yes, and bring them round to my flat in the morning. You’d better bring some working clothes and gloves, too. It’s going to be a dusty job.”
     
    Click-clack, click-clack, click-clack. Sam Ling peered down over the edge of his bunk, and tried to make out who was playing table-tennis in the evening steam-fog of the Tse Eih Aei headquarters.
    “Van in,” said Fat Choy’s voice. “Where’s the ball?”
    “In the comer,” replied Pi Wun Tun. “You’ll have to get it.”
    Fat Choy groaned, and climbed out of his bunk.
    “You two are the laziest sportsmen I’ve ever met,” Sam Ling muttered. “I’ve never before seen anyone playing Ping-Pong lying down.”
    “It’s more relaxing,” grunted Pi Wun Tun. “And more skilful. One needs complete concentration to maintain accuracy from a prone position.” “Lotus-eaters,” said Sam Ling.
    The fog swirled as the lift descended into the room, and Lui Ho stepped out. He wafted the mist away from him, flapping his hands. “Is everybody here?” he called.
    “All except Nicky Po,” answered Sam Ling, swinging his legs over the side of his bunk and dropping to the ground. “He’s fishing again.”
    Lui Ho’s eyes glazed. He ran a thin tongue over his lips. “Fish Manchu,” he whispered. “Lobster on a perfumed bed of snow-bleached rice. Delicate Pacific squid broiled in its own exotic ink.” The spies watched him with sad faces. “Thin slivers of pink shark meat