Read The 39 Clues: Cahill Files: Silent Night for Free Online

the major, as if she was trying to decide if she really wanted to tell them. “Marie,” she said.
    “I’m Special Officer Davenport, son of Lord Winthrop Alfred Davenport, the Earl of Southington,” he responded. In a world of Cahills, it was best to make one’s station perfectly clear. “This is Major Thompson.”
    “Enchantée,”
said Marie, but Rupert wasn’t sure she meant it.
    “This is where we are staying?” asked Rupert.
    “
Oui
— yes,” said Marie.
    “Aren’t you a local — isn’t that why you’re allowed to come along with us? Why aren’t we at your house, where there is a fire and beds? You do have a fire, don’t you?” said Rupert.
    Marie snorted. “You think I would let a Lucian and a Tomas in my house? You think I would let you follow me to my home? But I am not stupid, Monsieur Davenport.”
    “Special Officer,” Rupert corrected her. But Marie did not give him the satisfaction of a snarl, or an apology.
    That night, Rupert did the unthinkable. He went to sleep in a pile of wet, moldy hay. Of course, conditions in the trenches weren’t much better. But at least, if you snuck to the back of the lines, you could usually find a free cot and a blanket. What he wouldn’t give for a four-poster bed, a down comforter, and a valet to bring him a cup of cocoa before turning the light down.
    It was a restless night. Major Thompson snored and Marie lay so still that Rupert thought she might be dead. And throughout the night, Rupert jolted awake, his heart pounding, certain that someone was moments from bursting into the barn or burning it down.
    He stared up at the half-worn-away roof. Of all the ways Rupert had imagined this adventure going — all of which had ended in the same way, with Father giving him the approving nod he gave Albert, with Mother telling him that he’d done a good job — Rupert never, ever imagined that he would find himself hiding in a derelict barn, about to take on a secret search-and-rescue mission with a Tomas and a Janus. He wondered what Albert would do in his situation. Would Albert sneak out on his own, steal the major’s plan, and rescue the Ekat before the others woke up in the morning? The major thought that he was Albert — so what did he expect him to do and what special skills did he have to offer? The only thing Rupert knew Albert was good at was being a smarmy pig.
    But thinking things like that about Albert didn’t give Rupert the same sort of satisfaction they had before. He pulled his coat tighter around himself and pulled his knees up closer to his chest. If blaming Albert for things that went wrong wasn’t going to make him feel better, then he didn’t know what to do.

    In the morning, Rupert’s coat was frozen into stiff pleats and a film of muddy ice had crusted around his boots, so thick that he couldn’t get to his laces. The others were awake. Marie had opened the top of the lantern and was heating a small thermos of water over the little flame.
    “Your major is outside doing leaps and nonsense,” said Marie, her nose turned upward. Rupert stood and stretched, and went to the window where the lantern had been last night. Major Thompson was out in the small open space in front of the barn doing calisthenics.
    “He’s not my major any more than he’s yours,” said Rupert, coming back to the lantern. “What have you got there?”
    “Café,”
said Marie.
    Rupert reached into his rucksack and pulled out a half-squashed paper packet of soda crackers. “Would you care to share breakfast?” he said. She wouldn’t give him any coffee if he didn’t share something with her, he knew. And Rupert would have given his left arm for any kind of warmth.
    Marie considered this for a moment.
“Oui,”
she said. And then, “Do you think that we should save
un petit peu
for
le
major?”
    Rupert thought about that for a moment. “What do you think he’d do if we didn’t?”
    “Eat us for his breakfast?” said Marie.
    Rupert almost