Read Online The Wind on the Moon by Eric Linklater - Free Book Online Page A

sorry!’
    â€˜Then I forgive you,’ whispered his wife. ‘But all the same it was terribly wrong of you to go and leave it. Oh, wickedly wrong, foolishly wrong. So wrong that I can’t think how you did it. And what can have happened to our lovely egg? To both our lovely eggs? What black-hearted thief has robbed us of our dear ones? Oh, where have they gone?’
    â€˜If I had the miscreant here,’ exclaimed Sir Bobadil, ‘I would make him sorry for his vile behaviour. Oh, comfort yourself, dear Lil, pray comfort yourself. Perhaps we shall find them yet.’
    â€˜Never, never,’ sighed Lady Lil, and hung her head, the picture of misery.
    â€˜Oh dear, oh dear,’ muttered Sir Bobadil. ‘Why was I so foolish?’ And he too hung his head, and looked quite as unhappy as Lady Lil.
    Though Dinah and Dorinda could understand the whole of this conversation, it meant nothing to Sir Lankester and Mr. Plum, and it was not until they had thoroughly searched the enclosure that they really knew what had happened.
    â€˜The nest is empty,’ said Sir Lankester.
    â€˜Robbers,’ said Mr. Plum.
    â€˜But how could they do it?’ asked Sir Lankester. ‘It’s impossible for anybody to get into the park. The railings are charged with electricity: anybody who touched them would be electrocuted.’
    â€˜Aeroplane,’ said Mr. Plum. ‘Came down by parachute.’
    â€˜Nonsense,’ said Sir Lankester. ‘We should have heard an aeroplane, and if a parachutist did come down in the zoo, he couldn’t get out again. No, no. The thief is in our midst!’
    â€˜Don’t ask me,’ said Mr. Plum. ‘I’m a keeper, not a detective.’
    â€˜A crime has been committed,’ declared Sir Lankester. ‘There can be no doubt of that.’
    â€˜Two crimes,’ said Mr. Plum. ‘Two eggs, two crimes.’
    â€˜Take the kangaroos back to their cage,’ said Sir Lankester, ‘and I shall make another search.’
    So Mr. Plum took charge of Dinah and Dorinda, and Sir Lankester looked here and there for the missing egg, and Sir Bobadil went searching in one direction, and Lady Lil in another. And the Barbary Sheep and the Fallow Deer who lived in the park came to help, and the other animals soon learnt what had happened, because news travels quickly in a zoo, and all grew very worried to think that one of them must be a thief. When they were let into the park, to play and take their exercise, they all gathered round the Ostriches’ enclosure, and Sir Bobadil and Lady Lil had to tell their sad story over and over again. And every animal looked at every other animal and wondered who was the horrid miscreant.
    Dinah and Dorinda were not allowed into the park, because it was only their first day in the zoo, and Sir Lankester thought that new arrivals ought to stay in their cages to begin with, and settle down. So for a week they had a very dull time, and though they were sorry for the Ostriches, they were also very sorry for themselves.
    â€˜Lady Lil may have lost her egg,’ said Dinah, ‘but I don’t think that’s any worse than losing our magic draught. Because Lady Lil, I daresay, can lay another egg, but we can’t get more medicine without going to see Mrs. Grimble. And if we don’t get any more, we shall have to be kangaroos for the rest of our lives.’

    â€˜Don’t ask me,’ said Mr. Plum
    â€˜Perhaps we can escape,’ said Dorinda.
    â€˜Sir Lankester said that no thief could get into the zoo, or out of it either. All the railings are electrified. And if a thief can’t get out, how shall we?’
    â€˜We may find some way that Sir Lankester doesn’t know about,’ said Dorinda.
    â€˜We shall have a good look round, of course,’ said Dinah, ‘as soon as they let us out into the park. Sir Lankester may be wrong. People often are.’
    â€˜Very often,’