Ring Around Rosie Read Online Free Page B

to assume that the right one is the most
sinister, not yet.”
    Ted was grateful for his dad’s calm
reasoning but there was no escaping the underlying panic that they all felt.
    “Bella,” Sam said, taking her in his arms.
“You will stay here in case Rosie calls or comes back, and phone the police,
they’re unlikely to do anything yet but at least they’ll have been alerted. Ted
and I will retrace their steps from last night. We will find her, whatever it
takes, so you mustn’t worry.”
    Bella nodded at Sam and then glanced at
Ted. Ted couldn’t read her eyes but they weren’t forgiving, and he knew that if
he didn’t make amends for his failings as a brother and son then he would never
find forgiveness in them again.
    “Raven!” his dad shouted. “Here boy.”
    Raven bounded up, rubbing himself against
his legs. Everyone always teased him about being so like a cat, the way he
leant into people’s legs, weaving in and out of them just like a cat would.
    They half ran, half stumbled down the cliff
towards the beach. Great dust clouds plumed behind them as they slipped and
slid on the loose surface. They reached the bottom in a few minutes and then
turned right and ran along the shingle.
    Raven ran in and out of the breakers,
seemingly grinning from ear to ear with sheer pleasure. Occasionally his head
would disappear under the water, his tail waving in the air, then he would lift
his dripping head and carry a huge stone up the beach and place it purposefully
out of the reach of the waves like he was on a mini rescue mission of his own.
    Ted and his dad reached the mouth of the
wood and stopped.
    “Do you think this is where she went?” The
question came out as a hoarse whisper and Ted could hear his dad’s shaking
breath as he panted next to him.
    “Well, she mentioned a wooded area when she
told me about the bunker she found, so I’m guessing this is it,” replied Ted,
taking the lead into the darkness.
    Even in the daylight the wood was heavy
with green shadows. Ted pictured his little sister walking through it at night,
groping her way in the dark, alone. It seemed so long ago that he’d watched her
disappear along the beach, filled only with thoughts of her selfishness and how he’d get into trouble. What had he been thinking? She was fourteen! A
mature fourteen year-old, granted, but still his little sister. And she was little: petite in every way. She had big determination and stubbornness, but
Ted knew that was just a disguise; she was trying to appear larger to
intimidate others and mask her vulnerability. Like how you scare off bears in
the wild.
    “Rosie!” his dad’s voice broke through
Ted’s thoughts and slammed him back into reality.
    Ted flinched. “Dad! I don’t think we should
shout; we have no idea if those men are still here,” he hissed.
    “But what if she fell and is lying injured
somewhere in this wood?”
    “Let’s at least suss out the area first and
make sure there’s no one else here, then we can shout, ok?”
    Ted could hear Raven coming up behind them.
He shot past and ran out through the other end of the wood; nose to the ground,
tail wagging with delight.
    “That must be the bunker thing Rosie talked
about,” said Ted as they caught up with Raven.
    “It definitely is a bunker, it looks like
an old communication centre or a look-out that would have been used in the
Second World War,” said his dad walking around it. 
    “Is there a way in? This path seems to lead
back towards the house. Although where it widens here, it could lead to a road in
the other direction.”
    “There’s a way in here,” shouted his dad
from the other side.
    Ted followed the voice around to the left
end of the bunker. There was a metal barred gate set into two sloping concrete
walls that created a porch. His dad was struggling with the gate.
    “It won’t open, there’s a padlock,” he
said, rattling it as though that would loosen it.
    “Well she can’t be in there then,”