Island of the Aunts Read Online Free PDF

person.”
    “Well, seals are persons. Everything that’s alive is a person really.”
    But that wasn’t what she’d meant.
    They took off their shoes and walked on the firm wet sand between the tidemarks towards a cliff covered with nesting kittiwakes and puffins and terns. The tide was still going out, leaving behind its treasures: pieces of driftwood as smooth as velvet, crimson crab shells, bleached cuttlefish bones, whiter than snow. There was no sign of any ship. They might have been alone in the universe.
    “What’s that noise?” asked Fabio, stopping suddenly.
    A deep and mournful sound, a kind of honking, had come from somewhere inland.
    “It must be a foghorn,” said Minette.
    But there wasn’t any fog, nor any lighthouse to give warning if there had been.
    They listened for a few moments but the sound did not come again, and they ran on along the shore. It was a marvellous island; it seemed to have everything. To their left was a green hill; two hills, actually, with a dip between, the slopes covered with bracken and gorse. The far shore would be wilder, exposed to the wind.
    “If we climbed up there we could see exactly where we are. There might be other islands or a causeway. If we’re going to escape we’re going to have to know,” said Minette.
    They had to get away—that terrible scream still rang in their ears—but Minette couldn’t help thinking of where she would be if she hadn’t been kidnapped. In her father’s dark sitting room trying to get interested in a book till he came back from the university.
    Fabio seemed to be having the same sort of thoughts. “I can’t help wondering if my grandparents will pay the ransom for me. They’re horribly mean and they don’t like me.”
    Minette tried to think if her parents liked her enough to pay a lot of money to get her back but when she thought about her parents her stomach always started to lurch about so she said, “There’s a little path there to the top of the hill.”
    They began to run towards the gap in the dunes, forgetting the lives they had left behind, forgetting even that awful tortured scream. The wind was in their backs; it was like flying. No one could imagine anything dangerous or dark.
    And then it happened! From behind the hummock of sand that had hidden them, there arose suddenly the cruel figures of two enormous women.
    It was the evil aunts!
    The sinister kidnappers glared at the children, and the children, terrified, stared back. Here was the tall bony aunt with her fierce eyes who had drugged Minette’s sandwich, and here was the plump mad person with her scarves flying in the wind who had given sleeping powders to a defenceless boy.
    The children reached for each other’s hands. Minette was shaking so much she could hardly stand. What punishment would they be given for escaping from their room?
    It was the tall bony aunt, Etta, who spoke. “You’re late for breakfast,” she said in her fierce and booming voice.
    The children continued to stare.
    “Breakfast,” the other one went on. “You’ve heard of that? We have it at seven and the cook gets ratty if he’s kept waiting. Go and wash your hands first—the bathroom’s at the top of the stairs.”
    The children ran off, completely puzzled by this way of kidnapping people, and Etta and Coral followed. They were talking about Myrtle, who hadn’t stopped crying since she came back.
    “She’s got to stop blaming herself,” said Coral. “Mistakes can happen to anyone.”
    “Yes. Mind you, Lambert is quite a mistake!”
    Breakfast was laid in the dining room, a big room with shabby leather chairs, which faced the patch of green turf and the bay. All the windows in the L-shaped farmhouse had at least a glimpse of the sea. Even the bathroom, with its huge claw-footed bath and ancient geyser, looked out on the ledge of rock where the seals hauled out of the water to rest.
    “Porridge or cereal?” asked Aunt Etta, as the children came in.
    Minette blinked