So Nora took off her squeaky shoes and carried them. Jack and Mike took the bags, and the five children made their way quietly down the passage to the dining-room. They found the biscuit tin and began to munch. The noise of the biscuits being crunched in their teeth sounded very loud in the silence of the night.
“Do you think Dimmy will hear us munching?” said Nora anxiously. She swallowed her piece of biscuit too soon and a crumb caught in her throat. She went purple in the face, and tried hard not to cough. Then an enormous cough came, and the others rushed at her.
“Nora! Do be quiet!” whispered Jack fiercely. He caught the cloth off the table and wrapped it round poor Nora’s head. Her coughs were smothered in it, but the little girl was very angry with Jack.
She tore off the cloth and glared at the grinning boy. “Jack! You nearly smothered me! You’re a horrid mean thing.”
“Sh!” said Mike, “This isn’t the time to quarrel. Hark — the clock is striking twelve.”
Dimmy was peacefully asleep in her bedroom when the five children crept to the front door of the flat. They opened it and closed it very quietly. Then down the stone stairway they went to the street entrance, where another big door had to be quietly opened.
“This door makes an awful noise when it is closed,” said Mike anxiously. “You have to bang it. It will wake everyone!”
“Well, don’t shut it then, silly,” said Jack. “Leave it open. No one will bother about it.”
So they left the big door open and went down the street, hoping that they would not meet any policemen. They felt sure that a policeman would think it very queer for five children to be out at that time of night!
Luckily they met no one at all. They went down to the end of the street, and Mike caught Jack’s arm.