“I know––I’ll get it,” Meg replied, and ran up the ladder.
She felt around in the hay where she had buried the box, but she couldn’t find it. The other children came up and watched her curiously, but still she couldn’t feel anything like a box.
“What are you looking for?” said Dot curiously.
“For our lunch,” Meg told her, almost ready to cry. “I put it under the hay and now I can’t find it.”
Bobby and the twins hastily got down beside her and tossed the hay around. They looked where Meg said she put the box and they looked where she was sure it couldn’t be, but all that happened was that they got very warm and tired indeed and not one sign of the lunch did they uncover.
“Do you know what I think?” said Twaddles wisely. “I think some rat found it and ate it. 170 I’ve seen rats up here in the loft, lots of times.”
Meg glanced around hastily. She wasn’t at all anxious to see a rat.
“Rats couldn’t eat the box and everything in it,” Bobby argued. “They would leave pieces of paper and things that we would see.”
“Then where is the box?” demanded Dot.
Bobby sat down to think and Meg waited respectfully.