Captain Mack Read Online Free PDF

Ellie when they were both back in her car.
    â€œThat’s OK,” Danny answered. “I was being inspected.”
    Ellie blinked and looked confused. “Pardon me?”
    â€œI was being inspected by this old guy with an eye-patch. He thought we were in the army and he was my officer or something.”
    Ellie smiled. “Sounds like you’ve just met Captain Mack.” She pointed at some low buildings beyond the trees of the garden. “He lives in one of those units through there.”
    â€œWhy do you call him Captain Mack?”
    â€œBecause he carries on like he’s an officer in the army. He believes he’s a prisoner-of-war.”
    â€œBut why Mack?”
    â€œIt’s just a nickname. His real name is McAuliffe. He’s Scottish.”
    â€œI know, he told me. So is he a real army captain?”
    Ellie shrugged. “I don’t honestly know. I mean, of course he’s not in the army anymore, but he might have been once. It’s hard to say. You see, Captain Mack is … how do I say it nicely?”
    â€œNutty?” suggested Danny.
    Ellie frowned and smiled at the same time. “We prefer not to refer to elderly people as ‘nutty’, even if they do seem … less able to see reality for what it is.”
    â€œHow does he look after himself?”
    â€œBarely,” answered Ellie. “It won’t be long before we see him in the hospital section. See, some days he’s really quite sensible, and other days he spends all his time inspecting visitors or evading us guards.” She laughed. ’You caught him on an inspection day, I’m afraid.”
    â€œHow did he lose his eye?” Danny asked. “Was it during the war?”
    Ellie shrugged again. “I’ve never thought to ask.”
    â€œMaybe he really was in the army,” Danny said to himself, half hoping that he was right.

SIX
    During their walk between the station and school the following morning Danny told Caleb about the funny old guy with the eye-patch. Caleb laughed when he heard about Captain Mack’s demand that Danny salute. “And did you?” he asked.
    Danny smiled and looked at the ground. “I did, actually,” he confessed.
    Caleb laughed again. “Is this guy all right ?” he asked, drawing circles in the air around his ear.
    â€œYeah, he’s OK,” Danny said defensively. “He’s just old.”
    â€œAnd dippy.”
    Danny didn’t think much more about Captain Mack until the period before lunch, when he in the library looking up some information for a Social Studies project. He saw a book about battleships which had been left out on one of the study desks, and it immediately made him think again of the old man with the eye-patch. It especially reminded him of what Captain Mack had said just before he’d walked away — about helping Tierney. This was puzzling. Danny didn’t know anyone with that name, so how could he possibly help him? He didn’t even know where to start looking. Perhaps Caleb was right — maybe Captain Mack was just old and dippy.
    For some reason that explanation didn’t satisfy him, so as soon as he arrived home, he found the phone books and flipped to the T’s. He wasn’t entirely sure how to spell Tierney, but he had a fair idea. Looking it up in the White Pages was a definite long-shot, but he felt he couldn’t relax until he’d at least checked. If there were just a couple of names listed then he could maybe call them and ask if they knew an old Scottish man, and whether they knew why he might want to arrange help for them.
    There were more than a couple of Tiemeys listed — there were a couple of columns of them. That’s pretty much that, then, Danny thought, and was returning the phone books to the little table in the hall when he heard Ellie come home.
    She came to her door after he’d knocked a second time.
    â€œOh, hi