Part 5 (1/2)
”I don't know anything myself,” Nan admitted after some hesitation.
”I've tried and tried to get cousin Adair to tell me something about the place, but he just won't say anything. I'm not sure whether he knows and won't tell or whether he doesn't know himself. At any rate, he's being extremely mysterious about the whole thing. Says that we didn't see anything when we saw Emberon, that this place that we are going has that beat all hollow. Now what do you people make of that?”
”Dungeons, secret pa.s.sage, weird wailing of bagpipes, that's what Emberon had,” Laura summarized. ”If this Mexican hacienda has anything better to offer, I'd like to see it.”
”And so would I,” Nan agreed. She almost resented the idea that anything could possibly be any nicer than the old Blake estate in Scotland. ”And listen, he says this further, that if we think we had adventures in Scotland and England, we just haven't seen anything yet. What in the world do you suppose he means?”
”If Doctor Prescott said that, or Mrs. Cupp, or your father or mine,”
Rhoda answered, ”I might possibly hazard a guess as to what was meant, but there's no telling about this cousin of yours, Nan.”
”No, he's as unpredictable as the seasons, Alice says, and the only thing we can do is wait.” Nan sounded as though waiting was the hardest thing in the world to do.
CHAPTER VI
SOMETHING ABOUT MEXICO
”What's this?” Laura questioned the next morning when she came upon Amelia in her hotel room reading diligently from a book.
”Oh, nothing.” Amelia barely looked up.
”Come on, tell aunty,” Laura teased. ”n.o.body else is up yet and I've simply got to talk to someone.”
”You mean there's no one else about, so you'll talk to me. Well, I like that!” Amelia returned to her book as though she were really indignant.
”You know I didn't,” Laura sounded very conciliatory--for her. ”It's just this; I've got the whim-whams something terrible. Did you ever have the whim-whams, Amelia?”
”Can't say I did,” Amelia answered. ”At least I didn't call them any such name as that.”
”Then you know what I mean?” Laura looked very serious.
”You mean,” Amelia turned the open book over on her lap and answered Laura's question, ”that you have awakened early in a hotel in a strange city, that you want like anything to go off exploring, that you know you can't, and that the next best thing you can find to do is to annoy someone else who can't go either.”
”My dear professor,” Laura a.s.sumed as serious a mien as possible, ”you have hit the well-known nail squarely on the head. It must be that you have the whim-whams too. Now what is that you are reading?”
”Well, if you must know,” Amelia gave in, ”It's a guidebook to Mexico.”
”Ah, what could be better.” Laura herself reached for the book. ”Let's see what this country across the street from this hotel is like.”
”It does seem funny, doesn't it,” Amelia said, ”that when we look out our hotel windows we are looking into a foreign country. It doesn't look any different. It doesn't sound any different. And it doesn't--”
”Smell any different,” Laura finished, ”and that's the most surprising thing of all, because according to Mr. MacKenzie, Mexico is just the smelliest place on G.o.d's green earth.”
”Did he tell you that too?” Amelia asked. ”Really, when he finished the tirade against the country that he delivered to me after dinner, I began to wonder why in the world he ever brought along five such nice girls as we.”
”Five? What's the matter, 'Mealy, can't you count before breakfast?
There are six of us.”
”I said five _nice_ girls,” Amelia insisted. ”He might have had one of several reasons for bringing you along.”