The Valley of Adventure

  Enid Blyton, who died in 1968, is one of the most successful children’s authors of all time. She wrote over seven hundred books, which have been translated into more than forty languages and have sold more than 400 million copies around the world. Enid Blyton’s stories of magic, adventure and friendship continue to enchant children the world over. Enid Blyton’s beloved works include The Famous Five, Malory Towers, The Faraway Tree and the Adventure series.

  Titles in the Adventure series:

  1. The Island of Adventure

  2. The Castle of Adventure

  3. The Valley of Adventure

  4. The Sea of Adventure

  5. The Mountain of Adventure

  6. The Ship of Adventure

  7. The Circus of Adventure

  8. The River of Adventure

  First published 1947 by Macmillan Children’s Books

  This edition published 2007 by Macmillan Children’s Books

  This electronic edition published 2010 by Macmillan Children’s Books

  a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited

  Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR

  Basingstoke and Oxford

  Associated companies throughout the world

  www.panmacmillan.com

  ISBN 978-0-330-52063-8 in Adobe Reader format

  ISBN 978-0-330-52059-1 in Adobe Digital Editions format

  ISBN 978-0-330-52064-5 in Mobipocket format

  Text copyright © 1947 Enid Blyton Limited. All rights reserved. Enid Blyton’s signature mark is a trademark of Enid Blyton Limited (a Chorion company). All rights reserved.

  You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Visit www.panmacmillan.com to read more about all our books and to buy them. You will also find features, author interviews and news of any author events, and you can sign up for e-newsletters so that you’re always first to hear about our new releases

  Contents

  1.

  Up in Bill’s aeroplane

  2.

  Bill gets his way

  3.

  A grave mistake

  4.

  Wherever can we be?

  5.

  A little exploring

  6.

  What are the two men up to?

  7.

  A wonderful find

  8.

  Kiki talks too much

  9.

  New plans

  10.

  A fine hiding-place

  11.

  The cave of echoes

  12.

  Behind the waterfall

  13.

  Safe in the cave

  14.

  The poor prisoner

  15.

  A disappointment for the men

  16.

  Rescue of the prisoner

  17.

  A treasure map

  18.

  Now for Windy Pass!

  19.

  A great disappointment – and a plan

  20.

  Signposts to the treasure

  21.

  The strange caves

  22.

  The treasure at last!

  23.

  The guardians of the treasure

  24.

  Juan finds the caves

  25.

  Philip’s astonishing plan

  26.

  The getaway

  27.

  A discovery – and a fine idea?

  28.

  The day after the storm

  29.

  A very strange journey

  30.

  Bill gets busy

  31.

  An exciting finish

  1

  Up in Bill’s aeroplane

  Kiki the parrot was annoyed. She had been left all alone for a day, and she talked angrily to herself.

  ‘What a pity, what a pity, what a pity, poor, poor Polly! Ding-dong bell, Polly’s down the well, good morning, good morning!’

  Mrs Mannering put her head in at the door of the room where Kiki was sitting.

  ‘Kiki, don’t be so absurd! Talking away to yourself all day like that! The children will soon be back.’

  ‘Ding-dong bell,’ said Kiki mournfully, and made a cracking noise with her beak.

  ‘I suppose you miss Jack,’ said Mrs Mannering, coming into the room and shutting the door carefully behind her. ‘He won’t be long now, Kiki. You’ll hear him and the others any minute. Now be a good bird and don’t make any more noise.’

  Kiki opened her beak, swelled up her throat and gave her famous imitation of an express train screeching on entering a tunnel. Mrs Mannering put her hands to her ears.

  ‘Naughty Kiki, naughty! How many times have we told you not to do that?’

  ‘How many times have I told you to shut the door, shut the door, shut the door,’ answered back Kiki, and ruffled up her feathers so cheekily that Mrs Mannering gave her a tap on her beak.

  ‘Funny old bird,’ she said. ‘Ah, listen – that sounds like the children coming back. They’ve been up in an aeroplane, Kiki! Fancy that! That’s why you had to be left alone all day!’

  ‘Jack, Jack, Jack!’ screamed Kiki, hearing the voice of her owner. Four children burst into the room, their faces red with excitement.

  ‘Hallo, all of you!’ said Mrs Mannering. ‘How did you like it? Was it fun being so high up in the air?’

  ‘Oh, Mother! It was the greatest fun in the world!’

  ‘Aunt Allie, I shall buy an aeroplane of my own as soon as ever I’m grown up.’

  ‘Mother, you ought to have come. Bill piloted the plane and he was marvellous’.

  ‘I wasn’t airsick, Aunt Allie, though Bill gave me a paper bag to be sick in.’

  Mrs Mannering laughed. All the four spoke at once, and she had hard work to make out what they said. Kiki gave a loving screech and flew to Jack’s shoulder.

  The four children sank into chairs and prepared to relate their day’s adventure. There were Philip and Dinah, Mrs Mannering’s children, dark-eyed, dark-haired just as she was, and both with tufts of hair that insisted on sticking up in front. Both Dinah and Philip were called Tufty at school. Then there were the other two, Jack and Lucy-Ann, brother and sister, who had no mother and father, and lived with ‘Aunt Allie’, as they called Mrs Mannering. All four were like one family.

  Jack and Lucy-Ann Trent were very alike. They both had red hair and green eyes, and were so covered with freckles that it was quite impossible to find a bit of pink skin on their faces, arms or legs. It was not surprising that Jack was so often called Freckles.

  Kiki the parrot belonged to him. He had had her for years, an amusing and talkative parrot, with a gift for repeating anything she heard, and for imitating any noise, from a sewing machine to an express train. She adored Jack and was miserable when she was not with him.

  Jack had a passion for birds, and Philip had a great liking for animals of all kinds. He was wonderfully good with them, and they obeyed him and loved him in a marvellous manner. He always had some kind of unusual pet about him, which caused quarrels between him and his sister Dinah, who was scared of most animals and of nearly all insects. But now all four were thinking of nothing whatever but their glorious flight in their friend Bill’s new aeroplane.

  Bill Smugs was their f
irm friend. He and they had had hair-raising adventures together. In one adventure they had gone down old copper mines to track clever forgers. In another they had happened on a nest of dangerous spies. As Bill Smugs said, those children simply ‘fell into adventures.’

  Now Bill had actually been presented with a fine aeroplane, to help him in his work. The children had been wild with excitement when he had written to tell them this at school.

  ‘I bet he’ll take us up for a flight,’ said Jack. ‘I just bet he will.’

  ‘We’ll make him,’ said Philip. But they didn’t need to make him, for he was quite willing to show off his aeroplane to them, and to demonstrate how well he could fly it after only a short training.

  ‘Mother, we went far higher than the clouds,’ said Dinah. ‘I looked down on them and they didn’t look like clouds a bit. They looked like a great big snow field. It gave me quite a funny feeling.’

  ‘I had a parachute strapped to me in case I fell, and Bill showed me the ripcord I had to pull in case of danger,’ said Lucy-Ann, the youngest, her eyes shining. ‘But there wasn’t any danger.’

  ‘We flew right over our old home, Craggy-Tops,’ said Philip. ‘It was so strange, looking down on top of it. And we flew over here too, Mother, and our house looked like a toy one.’

  ‘Aunt Allie, Bill says it’s frightfully exciting flying at night, and seeing the little pinpricks of lights shining up from the dark countryside,’ said Jack. ‘We begged and begged him to take us on a night flight, but he said he would have to askyou. You will say we can go, won’t you? Golly! I can’t imagine what the boys at school will say when I tell them about going up in a private plane, day and night.’

  ‘Day and night,’ repeated Kiki. ‘Ding-dong bell.’

  ‘She’s got ding-dong bell on the brain,’ said Jack. ‘There’s a small child next door who keeps reciting nursery rhymes, and Kiki listens and picks up bits of them. Yesterday she kept moaning about “three blind mice,” today it’s “ding-dong bell.” Don’t know what it will be tomorrow.’

  ‘Humpy dumpy,’ said Kiki obligingly.

  ‘Humpty, dumpty,’ corrected Jack. ‘Not humpy dumpy.’

  ‘Humpy dumpy bumpy,’ said Kiki solemnly, and scratched her head with a claw. ‘Humpy, dumpy . . .’

  ‘All right, all right,’ said Jack. ‘Aunt Allie, can we go up at night with Bill? He’s coming to ask you tomorrow, so do say yes.’

  ‘I suppose I shall have to,’ said Mrs Mannering with a laugh. ‘You and Bill! So long as you don’t go headlong into another awful adventure.’

  ‘Adventures aren’t awful,’ said Philip. ‘They are simply lovely!’

  ‘Not to the people who aren’t in them,’ said Mrs Mannering. ‘I feel quite ill sometimes when I think of the adventures you children have had. No more, please.’

  ‘All right. We won’t get into any more these summer holidays,’ said Lucy-Ann, giving her aunt a hug. ‘We won’t worry you. I don’t want any more adventures anyhow. I’ve had enough.’

  ‘Well, if we do have another, we’ll leave you out of it, Lucy-Ann,’ said Dinah scornfully.

  ‘No, we won’t,’ said Philip, giving Dinah a poke in the back. ‘We can’t do without Lucy-Ann.’

  ‘Now, don’t quarrel, you two,’ said Mrs Mannering, foreseeing one of their everlasting squabbles boiling up. ‘You’re tired now, all of you, after such a lot of excitement. Go and do something quiet till supper time.’

  ‘Sing for your supper,’ put in Kiki. The children laughed.

  ‘You’re an idiot, Kiki,’ said Jack affectionately. ‘Did you miss us today? Well, I was scared you might fly out of the aeroplane in fright, if we took you. But I expect you’d have been quite a sensible old bird, wouldn’t you, and sat on my shoulder all the time?’

  Kiki pecked lovingly at Jack’s ear, and made a crooning noise. She sat as close to him as she could. The children began to talk about their exciting day.

  ‘Wasn’t it lovely going to the aerodrome and getting in on our passes, and walking up to Bill just as if we were grown-ups?’ said Philip. ‘And golly, wasn’t Bill’s aeroplane fine?’

  ‘I didn’t think it would be so big,’ said Lucy-Ann. ‘You know, it was funny – I sort of held my breath when we started off, thinking I’d get a funny feeling when we left the ground, like I do in a lift – and I never even knew when the wheels left the runway and we were in the air! I got quite a shock when I looked down and saw we were over the housetops.’

  ‘It seemed awfully easy to fly a plane,’ said Jack. ‘Easier than driving a car. I wish Bill would let me have a shot.’

  ‘Well, he won’t,’ said Philip. ‘I say, wasn’t it odd when we got into the air pocket and the plane suddenly dropped down without warning? My tummy sort of went up into my throat.’

  The others laughed. ‘Mine did too,’ said Lucy-Ann. ‘I’m glad I wasn’t sick. It was a waste of that nice strong paper bag, but I’m glad I felt all right.’

  ‘We went hundreds of miles, I should think,’ said Jack. ‘I felt a bit funny when we were over the sea. It looked so enormous and so flat. I shouldn’t like to fall out over that! What a splash!’

  ‘I bet Mother will say we can go on a night flight with Bill,’ said Dinah. ‘I could see in her face that she was going to say yes. If only we could! Bill said we could fly to his old home, land at dawn, and spend the rest of the night with him, sleeping all we liked in his two spare rooms – we needn’t get up till twelve if we didn’t want to. Fancy flying all night and going to bed at dawn!’

  ‘Then we’d fly back in the afternoon, I suppose,’ said Jack. ‘Gosh, I’m glad we’ve got Bill for a friend. I do think he’s an exciting sort of person. It’s thrilling, too, to know that he’s always on some sort of secret job, and never says a word about it – always snooping out some deadly secret. I wonder if he’s on any job now?’

  ‘You bet he is!’ said Philip. ‘That’s why he’s got this aeroplane. May have to take off at any moment after spies or somebody. Hope I’m with him when he does.’

  ‘Well, you won’t be,’ said Dinah. ‘Bill would never run us into danger.’

  ‘I shouldn’t mind if he did,’ said Philip. ‘Hallo, there’s the gong for supper! I’m jolly hungry.’

  ‘That’s nothing new,’ said Dinah. ‘Come on – let’s go and see what there is. Smells like bacon and eggs.’

  They went to their supper. They were all hungry, and finished up the eggs and bacon and plum cake in no time. Kiki helped herself to the plum cake too, till Mrs Mannering protested.

  ‘Jack! Will you stop Kiki picking all the raisins out of that cake? Look at the mess she’s making! There won’t be any cake left soon. Smack her on her beak.’

  ‘Naughty Kiki!’ said Jack, and tapped her on her beak. ‘Don’t eat it all.’

  ‘How many times have I told . . .’ began Kiki, but Jack was too tired to talk to her.

  ‘Don’t argue,’ he said. ‘I’m so sleepy I’ll have to go to bed.’

  Everyone felt the same – so off they went, and were soon asleep and dreaming of flying aeroplanes over the clouds, somersaulting and looping the loop in a most amazing but perfectly safe manner.

  2

  Bill gets his way

  Bill came along to lunch the next day. He had a ruddy face, twinkling eyes and a rather bald head with plenty of hair at each side. The children rushed to meet him. Mrs Mannering smiled at him.

  ‘You gave the children a wonderful time yesterday,’ she said. ‘And now I hear that you want to take them on a night flight. I can’t think why you want to bother yourself with a pack of children like these.’

  ‘Ah – you never know when they’re going to embark on some wonderful adventure,’ said Bill Smugs, grinning round at them. ‘I don’t want to be left out of it, you know. Besides, I feel sorry for you, Mrs Mannering, having to put up with them for eight or nine weeks these summer holidays – I thought it would be a kind deed if I took them off your hands for a while.’
>
  ‘Well, what do you want them to do?’ asked Mrs Mannering. ‘Just go for a night flight, spend the night at your old home and come back the next day?’

  ‘That was the first idea I had,’ said Bill. ‘But now I hear I’m due to have three or four days off – and I thought maybe you could spare the children for longer. We could fly to my old home, and then stay there and mess about a bit. There are heaps of wild birds for Jack to see, and I’ve no doubt that Philip will find plenty of even wilder animals. The girls will enjoy the change too.’

  ‘Oh! It does sound good!’ cried Jack, and the others agreed. Mrs Mannering listened and thought for a moment.

  ‘Yes – I don’t see why they shouldn’t go with you, Bill. I know you’ll look after them all right and see that they don’t get mixed up in any awful adventure again.’

  ‘I can promise you that,’ said Bill. ‘There are no adventures to be found anywhere near my old home. It’s a most peaceful, quiet place. Nothing doing at all.’

  ‘Well, if you promise not to rush into danger or trouble, you can go,’ said Mrs Mannering to the delighted children. ‘When do you want them, Bill?’

  ‘Tomorrow, if possible,’ said Bill. ‘The job I am on seems to be hanging fire at the moment, so I might as well take my few days now.’

  ‘What’s the job, Bill? Do, do tell us!’ begged Lucy-Ann. Bill laughed.

  ‘I couldn’t possibly tell,’ he said. ‘All my work is secret, you know that. I’ll tell you all about the job when it’s over and done with, though. You’ll find it jolly interesting.’

  ‘We’ll have to pack suitcases, won’t we?’ said Dinah. ‘If we’re going to stay a few days, I mean. We may want a change of clothes – and macks.’

  ‘Yes, bring jerseys and shorts to mess about in,’ said Bill, ‘and macks too, because it always seems to rain at my home. And, Mrs Mannering, could you spare a few rugs, as I may not have quite enough blankets for so many visitors?’