19
　　Someone else comes to the island
　　The children were now very brown with the sun. ‘If Mother could see us now, she wouldn’t call us“peaky”,’ said Philip. ‘And you’ve got back all your freckles¹, Jack² and Lucy-Ann, and a fewhundreds more!’
　　‘Oh dear!’ said Lucy-Ann, rubbing her brown freckled³ face. ‘What a pity! I did think I lookedso nice when my freckles faded away during measles⁴.’
　　‘I seem to be losing count of the days,’ said Jack. ‘I can’t for the life of me make out whethertoday is Tuesday or Wednesday.’
　　‘It’s Friday,’ said Philip promptly⁵. ‘I was counting up only this morning. We’ve been here quitea time now.’
　　‘Well – is it a week since we left home?’ wondered Dinah. ‘It seems about six months. I wonderhow Mother is getting on.’
　　‘She must be feeling a bit worried about us,’ said Philip. ‘Except that she knows we’re with Billand she’ll think we’re quite all right, even if she doesn’t get messages.’
　　‘And we’re not with Bill, and we’re not all right,’ said Lucy-Ann. ‘I wish I knew where Billwas and what was happening to him. If only we had a boat, we could go off in it and try to findwhere he was. He must have been taken to the west of us somewhere – because that’s where theplanes seem to be.’
　　‘Well – we’re not likely to get a boat,’ said Philip. ‘Come on – let’s go up on the cliff-top andsee to the fire. The smoke doesn’t seem very thick this morning. Huffin and Puffin, are youcoming?’
　　‘Arrrrrrr!’ said both Huffin and Puffin, and walked along beside Philip. Huffin had taken tobringing fish as a little present for Philip, and this amused the children immensely. The first timethat Huffin had waddled⁶ up with the fish in his big

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