Read Online The Changeling by Zilpha Keatley Snyder - Free Book Online Page A

if I can.” Then she grinned faintly. “I think Lion will be scared, too.”
    Ivy laughed. “Okay,” she said. “We’ll do it. Okay?”
    “Okay,” Martha said weakly, wondering if she really meant it; and right up until Friday night at ten o’clock she wasn’t sure. But when ten o’clock came she really did climb out her window into the pitch dark, with only Tom’s flashlight, which she didn’t even dare use until she was past the Peters’ house and onto the open hillside. The flashlight made it easier to walk, but it didn’t help the fear, since every kind of horror seem to crowd the dim edge of its narrow beam. By the time Martha reached Bent Oaks where Ivy was waiting, she was sick with fright and besides that she seemed to have been stricken dumb. Ivy had to shake her and pound her on the back for quite a while before her voice began to come back.
    “Stop. Stop it. You’re hurting me,” she finally forced out in a kind of sizzle between her clenched teeth. She went on sizzling because she knew she didn’t dare open her mouth any wider. She felt absolutely certain that once it got open, it would stay open, and all her fear would come out in a terrible, disgraceful howl, and probably her dinner along with it. “Come on,” she hissed. “Let’s do it quick because I think I’m going to be sick.”
    All the way down the trail to the stables they had to stop from time to time while Martha clutched her stomach with one hand and her mouth with the other and moaned. Whenever she did, Ivy would whisper, “Go ahead and get it over with. You’ll feel better. Get it over with before we get to the stables.” But Martha couldn’t quite.
    When they reached the stables, they skirted the yard to the rear and climbed the fence behind the buildings. Inside the stable everything was silent, except for the snuffle and bump of the horses; and dark, except for one dim bulb outside the front entrance. The girls made their way noiselessly down the sawdust-covered walkway between the stalls, to Dolly’s door. As Ivy stood on tiptoe to reach the latch, Dolly softly nickered her surprise to see them there at such a strange hour. As soon as they were inside the stall, she nuzzled their faces happily in greeting, and suddenly overcome with the thought of what was going to happen to all of them if they were caught, Martha began to cry. She leaned on Dolly’s manger, clutching her mouth while tears burned down across her hands.
    Ivy, who was usually very patient with Martha’s weeping, almost lost her temper. “Stop it, this minute,” she said. “Here, you hold the flashlight while I get the rope around her neck.”
    Martha managed to pull herself together, and the three of them made their way carefully through the stable, past the hitching racks, past the dark shadow of the Smiths’ house, across the yard to the front gate—where suddenly the horrible truth dawned on them. The front gate was closed and locked. The girls had never seen it even closed before, and it had never occurred to them that it would be locked at night. Of course, they could easily climb the fence, but there was no way in the world to get Dolly to the other side. They were still staring at the lock in unbelieving terror when the floodlights went on in the stable yard, and there was Mr. Smith standing close behind them carrying a gun.
    Startled by the lights and the sudden appearance of Mr. Smith, Dolly sidestepped quickly, and her hoof came down on Ivy’s toes. Ivy screamed in pain, and that was the last straw. Martha’s stomach did what it had been threatening to do all evening. The next time Martha looked at Mr. Smith, the gun had disappeared. He’d probably realized that he had enough of an advantage without it.
    Within a very few minutes, Dolly was back in her stall and Ivy and Martha were sitting in the kitchen of the Smiths’ house. Ivy, still angry, beautifully silent, had her shoe off and was soaking her rapidly swelling foot in a pan