Book Shelf – Secret Seven

Enid Mary Blyton (11 August 1897 – 28 November 1968) was an English children’s writer whose books have been among the world’s best-sellers since the 1930s, selling more than 600 million copies. Blyton’s books are still enormously popular, and have been translated into 90 languages. She wrote on a wide range of topics including education, natural history, fantasy, mystery, and biblical narratives and is best remembered today for her Noddy, Famous Five and Secret Seven series.

The second book starts four weeks into the holidays there’s not been even a sniff of a mystery and the children are bored. To liven things up the Seven decide to dress up as Red Indians. It is agreed that Colin will be stalked as they only have six Red Indian costumes. After the usual assortment of home-made lemonade and biscuits and a lecture from Peter to Jack because his annoying sister Susie had his badge, the Seven go down to Thicket Hill.

At the hill, essentially an undergrowth of heather, bushes and trees, the children in their costumes with face paint, arrows and knives split up into groups of three. Peter with Janet and Jack are on one side of the hill, which is divided by a fence down the middle, whilst George, Pam and Barbara are on the other side. Colin is left helplessly in the middle, but to avoid being caught after Peter counted to 100, he decides to climb on to a branch of a thick tree.

Up the tree Colin gets the shock of his life as he sees a strange man sitting on and eventually jumping down from the wall of nearby Milton Manor. Peter also hears a noise near some bushes and thinking it’s Colin he goes to investigate. But to his horror Peter sees the scared face of a man who quickly makes a run for it and climbs the same tree that Colin’s in. A disbelieving Colin sits silently, not daring to sneeze, until the dark-haired man finally gets away when the other children lose patience in their search and decide to go home. After this an understandably frightened Colin pegs it back to the shed where he tells the Seven his story.

In light of Colin’s revelations at first the Seven can’t see what they can do about this mystery. Then the children, except Colin and George, are stunned to hear on the news that Lady Lucy Thomas’s magnificent pearl necklace has been stolen from her bedroom at Milton Manor. In excitement, Peter and Colin realise that they had seen the thief and call a meeting the following morning.

Following the meeting, the Seven inform a very pleased police officer that they had seen the thief. With the adventure back on the Seven race down to Milton Manor where they are let into the grounds by the gardener John. There they make some exciting discoveries. First, some unusual round holes near the oak and holly tree, the part of the wall the thief climbed. On the wall, Janet discovers a piece of blue wool with a tiny thread of red in it. To add to the excitement Scamper finds a dirty old cap. After all these sudden clues, the Seven also wonder how the thief managed to climb up the wall and what caused the holes.

The Seven suspect an acrobat could have been the only person to climb such a high wall. Their luck is compounded when they see a poster advertising a circus that happens to have clowns, stilt walkers, and of course, acrobats. In a meeting after lunch they decide to visit the circus, with the aim of identifying the thief amongst the acrobats. After paying £3 to get in the Seven are treated to a wonderful circus full of elephants, bears, stilt men and acrobats. During the circus they are convinced they have found the thief as there’s an acrobat matching the description of the thief and who could climb rope ladders. Convinced he’s the thief the Seven ask him for an autograph. To their disappointment, the acrobat takes his wig off and he is bald which rules him out as the thief.