The Battle for Duncragglin Read Online Free PDF

but it was locked. He rapped softly.
    “I'll be right out,” called Annie.
    Alex danced in a little circle. The door opened and out she stepped.
    “Hi, Annie – gotta go.” Alex shot past and swung the door shut behind him, not taking the time to lock it. When he emerged, Annie was sitting at the top of the stairs, her arms wrapped about her knees. She was facing away, her head down.
    “Hey, what's up?” he asked.
    “Can't sleep.” Her voice was muffled by the sleeve of her housecoat.
    “Why not?”
    “Been thinking about my mother.”
    Alex sat next to her and waited for her to say more. “Sometimes I think about my parents too,” he said.
    Annie lifted her head. Her eyes were red. “Your parents disappeared from around here too, didn't they?” she asked.
    Alex nodded.
    “Do you know what I think happened to them, and to my mother too?”
    Alex stared, his heart pounding faster.
    “The castle. It's haunted … or something.” Annie brushed strands of hair off her cheek. “Everyone around here knows that. She wouldn't have just left us – she couldn't have….” She looked about to cry.
    Alex wondered miserably if he should put his arm around her shoulder.
    “Do you know why I don't believe she just left us? Because she took Tig – our dog,” Annie said. “She didn't even like him! He wasn't allowed to lie against the furniture or anything!”
    Alex wondered how people could disappear in a “haunted” castle. “Maybe they got lost in the caves,” he suggested.
    “The what?” Annie looked at him blankly.
    “The caves. There's a whole labyrinth of caves under the castle, somewhere – really! A professor on the plane told me about them. Maybe we could find a way in!”
    “Okay, let's say there are caves – and let's say we can find a way to get into them. What do you think we'd find?”
    “Who knows? But if we find
anything
that suggests that your mother, or my parents, went into them, we could getsomeone to do a proper search. And then we might find out what happened to them!”
    “But there are a few problems,” said Annie. “First, we don't know where these caves are, and second, even if we find them, what's to keep
us
from getting lost?”
    “I'm sure we'll figure something out.” Alex was getting excited. “We'll sneak off when your dad's working. We'll bring flashlights and maybe some chalk to mark the way we came.”
    “But, that still leaves us with the biggest problem of all.”
    “What's that?”
    “The place is haunted!”
    They sat silently. Alex wondered what manner of ghost or being might be in the castle or those caves, and how it might prey on people who entered. It dawned on him that he and Annie might disappear, just like others had disappeared before them. He shuddered.
    “Dad said he was going to take us to the ruins tomorrow,” Annie said. “Let's see if we find anything that even remotely looks like it might be a way into those caves. If we find nothing, that's the end of that.”
    “Should we tell Willie?”
    “Yes, but not Craig. He might tell Dad – particularly if he gets mad at us over one thing or another. As you might have noticed, that happens a lot!”
    They said good night and went back to their beds, both feeling excited and nervous.

    By the time the boys came down for breakfast, Annie was watching TV in the front room and Mr. McRae wasin from the barn, removing his overalls by the side door.
    “What was he doing out so early?” Alex asked.
    “Milking cows, of course.” Willie punched the power button of a computer at a workstation in the corner of the front room. He slipped in his Annihilation disc and watched the computer flash through its start-up. “They need to be milked twice a day – every single lousy day.”
    “Do you ever milk them?”
    Willie snorted. “Not if I can help it. I sure don't want to get too good at it.”
    Alex watched as Willie had a warrior, decked out with various armaments, go on a quest to fight underground