Keeping Holiday Read Online Free PDF

said, as if to himself, “Children always want a bigger and better Holiday.” He shook his head. Then he put his hand on Dylan’s shoulder and gazed into his eyes. “There’s only one way to have a bigger and better Holiday,” he said earnestly, “and that is by hanging on to the good feelings and the brotherly spirit you have while you’re in the Holiday we visit on vacation. Some day, when you’re older, you’ll understand that.” He let go of Dylan’s shoulder and gave it a little pat.

    “But for now,” Mr. Smith said, “I heard you say you were going to go through that doorway. It’s okay to be childish sometimes—it’s charming, really—but even children should understand about safety.”
    Dylan peered through the doorway again. “What’s unsafe about it?” he asked. “It’s a good, wide path; it’s even paved. It just goes straight; you couldn’t get lost. And there’s plenty of light.”
    The little man, usually so goodnatured, had become quite serious. “I don’t like to scare you,” he said gently, “but you really mustn’t go in there. Many people have, but far fewer have come out.” And he shook his head sadly.
    “Why?” Dylan asked. “ Why don’t they come out?”
    “They get in there and they get stuck,” Mr. Smith replied. “They’re not able to get back out again.”
    “If it’s that dangerous, why do all the signs point in and say that’s the way to go?” Dylan asked. “There aren’t any warning signs.”
    The man looked into Dylan’s face and muttered, “Poor, innocent child.” Then, to Dylan, “It’s never occurred to you that someone might be playing a trick on you?”
    “That would be a pretty nasty trick!” Clare protested. “Deliberately trying to get someone to do something dangerous!”
    Mr. Smith turned and looked her full in the face. He nodded. “Exactly my point,” he said. Then he added, “I have to go now. But please, take my advice. Don’t go in there.” He raised his hand briefly, in a sad gesture of farewell, as if afraid he might not see them again. Then he turned and walked back along the path leading out of the park.
    Dylan watched him go, then said to Clare, “You’re right. That man is strange.”
    “More than just strange,” Clare said, with a shiver. “He gives me the creeps.”
    “Oh, I don’t think he means any harm,” Dylan said. “He’s just odd.”
    “What was all that scary stuff about going through the door?” Clare insisted.
    “Maybe he really believes all that,” Dylan answered. He peered through the doorway once more. “It’s true that you can’t see how far it goes.”
    “Maybe we shouldn’t go in,” Clare said.
    “It must be okay,” Dylan assured her. “These are official signs, and they point this way. Plus look at how well they maintain the path. Come on; we’ll be fine. If we don’t like it, we can always turn around and come back out.”
    Together, the cousins stepped over the threshold and through the door in the rock. Dylan expected the dampness and the mustiness. What took him by surprise was the immediate sense of having entered some place foreign. The familiar world of sunshine, trees, and singing birds was only one step behind him—he even glanced over his shoulder to make sure that was still the case—yet it seemed ages since he had been out there. Still, there at their feet, the broad, well-maintained path led on. Dylan began to walk, and Clare followed.
    “I wonder how many visitors actually make it to Holiday if this is how they have to get there!” Clare’s cheerful words sounded out-of-place in the silence.
    Dylan knew she was trying to keep up her courage, and answered her in the same light tone. “I don’t think our friend Strange Man will try it,” he said. But his comment, too, seemed inappropriate, as if someone had made a joke, right out loud, in the middle of a funeral. Both children fell silent and made no further attempt at conversation. On they walked until