Jeanie inspected the room for a moment and said, “Why don’t we look over the house first?” They were standing in the foyer, next to a mahogany staircase that went to the second floor.
“Okay by me. Let’s go,” said Ricky as he raced into the next room. His enthusiasm spurred the others into action. They raced after him, forgetting for the moment the hanging spider webs and the colony of scorpions that inhabited the place.
The foyer, or entrance hall, separated the living room from the dining room, and housed the stairs to the second floor. A kitchen and back stairs were located behind the dining room. A door behind the back stairs descended into the cellar.
Anxious to see the six bedrooms on the second and third floors, they hurried through the three rooms on the first level, and bounded up the back stairs to the second level. Thirteen-year-old Jeanie, her pony tail bobbing up and down, lead the way. Just as she reached the top step, Jeanie stumbled, and nearly knocked them all back down the staircase.
“Pick up your feet,” Ann yelled from below.
“I did,” Jeanie called back. She could feel the heat in her body rising from her feet right up to her face. She had this bad habit of falling up (and never down). It had become the family joke, and was so embarrassing to Jeanie, she turned scarlet no matter how many times it happened. She lost her coordination, and fell in a heap on the landing.
Ricky and Neil started laughing. “Jeanie fell up the stairs, ” Ricky announced, pointing to his sister.
“Are you hurt?” asked Liz.
“Just my feelings.”
Jeanie got up, dusted off her jeans, and continued their tour. Two small rooms in the back of the house faced a narrow hallway leading to adjoining rooms at the front of the second floor. The staircase landing from downstairs separated the front and back rooms.
“Oh boy,” yelled Neil, as he slid down the banister to the first floor.
Ricky yelled from the landing. “Hey dummy. You’re back where we started.” He turned to his right and took two steps up to another hallway. “Hey, you guys. Here’s another hall.”
Liz followed Ricky into the unlighted hallway. “I can’t see. Where’s the light?” She groped around in the dark and stumbled over Ricky. “You’re in the way,” she shouted indignantly. She turned around and went back to the landing where she could see. “Neil,” she shouted. “Wait for me. I’m coming down.”
“Come on, Liz,” said Jeanie as Liz zoomed down the banister. “We’ve already seen that floor.”
“No,” she shouted up the stairway. “It’s too dark up there.” She slid across the dusty floor. “Come on, Neil. Let’s go see the cellar.”
“I’m telling Mother,” Jeanie yelled back.
“Tell her, tattle-tale. I’ll tell her you said this house is haunted.” She grabbed Neil’s hand and ran through the dining room to the cellar door.
“I’ll tape your mouth shut,” Jeanie yelled after her.
Liz opened the door very cautiously, wondering if she was a little hasty to do this without her older sisters. She listened. The door creaked as she opened it wider. She stopped and listened again. Not a sound. She ran her fingers along the side paneling for the light switch. She felt it jutting out of the wall, and flipped it up. A tiny bulb flickered, giving barely enough light to see down the stairway.
“Come on.” She nudged her little brother, who was standing ahead of her, quiet as a red fox with a bunch of hounds on his trail. They slowly edged down into the darkened cellar with its flickering shadows. When they reached the bottom, a field mouse scurried across the floor and up into the coal bin, its tiny feet crunching on the coal as it disappeared.
“Yikes,” screamed Liz as she darted back up, leaving Neil alone at the bottom of the stairs.
“Jeanie,” she yelled out breathlessly. “Ann. Where are you?”
Ann, Ricky, and Jeanie came bounding down from the third floor where they discovered two more rooms and a trapdoor leading into the attic. Ricky and Ann were trying to open the trapdoor in the ceiling by standing on Jeanie’s shoulder, but kept falling.
“What’s wrong? What’s wrong?” Jeanie yelled, frantically shaking Liz.
“Something in the cellar tried to bite me.” Salty tears rolled down her rosy cheeks from round, wide eyes. “Right here,” she added, touching her ankle.
Ann ignored the melodrama and asked, “Where’s Neil?”
“The cellar,” she said, bursting out with a fresh flow of tears.
“Oh, .for gosh sakes, Liz,” said Ann. She plunged down the back stairs to the dining room. She jerked open the cellar door and started down cautiously. The light was still flickering shadows around the darkened room.
“Neil,” she called out softly. “Neil. It’s me. Ann.”
He popped up from the coal bin. “Hi, Ann.” he said without concern. He was polishing his hands on the shiny anthracite. She grabbed her brother, shook the coal dust off his clothes and lead him back upstairs.
They continued the inspection, looking in closets, under loose boards and stairways for secret hiding places. “I wish we could open the trapdoor to the attic,” Ann kept muttering. “I just love dusty old attics.”
“They’re full of old treasures,” added Jeanie, although neither of them had any personal experience in digging through attics themselves.
“When the movers get here, we can put a table under the trap door and climb up,” suggested Ann.
“Oh-my-gosh, the movers,” cried Jeanie. “We better start cleaning. It’s so dusty and smelly, we’ll never get it done in time.”
“I’ll sweep,” said Liz.
“No, you won’t,” said Jeanie, as she grabbed the broom and began knocking down spider webs. A black widow fell at her feet and scurried across the floor. “Never mind. You can have the broom,” she said, handing it back to Liz.
Ann pushed the bucket and mop toward Jeanie. “Here, Jeanie, why don’t you mop?”
Liz grabbed the bucket and mop from Ann, and ran to the kitchen. Someone else could knock down spider webs. Besides, she enjoyed mopping and making floors clean and shiny.
Jeanie sent Neil outside to wait for the movers, but mostly to get him out of the way. She couldn’t understand why their mother thought he would be of any help. He just caused more work. “When the sun is right over your head, let me know,” Jeanie said. “Then we can eat.”
Neil laid on his back on the soft grass, where the sun hadn’t parched it, and watched a string of fluffy white clouds move slowly across the sky until the sun was directly overhead. He ran in the side door yelling, “It’s time to eat, Jeanie. It’s time to eat. The sun is over my head.”
Mops, brooms, and buckets dropped as they heard his call. The stairs creaked and the house shook when Ann, Ricky, and Liz descended the back stairs and rushed into the kitchen.
“Where’s the lunch basket?” asked Ricky, sure that Neil had eaten it already.
“Outside, on the table,” Neil said, the added, “And I didn’t eat anything.” He crossed his fingers in the pockets of his jeans, and under his breath, he whispered, “Just the grapes.” Ricky told him it was okay to fib if your fingers were crossed when you did it.
“We might as well go outside,” said Jeanie.
They sat under the cool shade of a chinaberry tree that resembled a large umbrella, with its branches hanging over a picnic table, eating peanut butter and jelly, and drinking pink lemonade.
Liz found a couple of red grapes in the bottom of the basket, and popped them into her mouth. “Where are the rest of the grapes?” she asked.
Neil looked away at some swallows flying nearby, like he hadn’t heard. Jeanie, Ann and Ricky were already headed toward the house. Liz shrugged and shouted, “Hey, wait for me.”
Neil watched his three sisters and older brother disappear into the side of the house. He continued staring long after the door had closed and he could no longer see them, and became intrigued with the thick vines that climbed each side of the doorway, cling
ing to the windows and the protruding bricks that were chipped and cracked.
He shivered. Why did the vines scare him? Ivy grew all over the place at the farm. He kept staring, in spite of his discomfort. The vines even covered parts of the roof with flowing leaves.
It reminded him of something, but what? He kept thinking. Finally, it
came to him. Jack and the Bean Stalk. He shuddered. If he climbed up the vines, will he find a giant?
####
Chapter 3: A Dark Shadow
Their mother arrived just as the movers were ready to leave. She signed the papers the driver handed her, and plopped down on the nearest chair.
“I’m beat. Get me a stool.”
Liz and Ann both dashed to the kitchen, knocking down Neil, who let out a yell as he fell to the floor. Jeanie leaned over and pulled him up by his collar. Ann returned with the stool and placed it under her mother’s feet.
Liz came in after her, screaming, “She said for me to get it. Pig..”
Mrs. Grayson clapped her hands. She waited a few seconds before speaking. “Lizabeth, I don’t like tantrums.”
“You told me to get the stool,” she explained solemnly.
“No. Liz. I said ‘get me a stool.’ That meant anyone,” her mother answered patiently. “Go to your room and think about your tantrums.”
Liz threw a dirty look at Ann, as she stomped out of the room.
Jeanie and Ann couldn’t contain their amusement, and started giggling.
Liz turned around and came back. “They’re laughing at me.”
“Just go to your room, please.”
“How long?”
“One hour.”
“A whole hour?”
“I might shorten it for good behavior.”
Liz trudged out slowly and up the stairs to her bedroom. She sat in the bay window next to her bed, and peered down into the yard below. “Maybe my fairy godmother lives in that orchard,” she said to herself, just as a dark shadow suddenly appeared out of the cellar door, and moved swiftly across the yard.
Liz froze. She tried calling for help, but her throat tightened, and nothing came out. She tried to get up, but she couldn’t move. She was like petrified wood with arms and legs. Then she heard Jeanie call from the bottom of the stairs. “Liz, supper’s ready.”
Liz couldn’t answer. She let out a gurgling noise, instead.
Jeanie heard the gurgle and went in to see if she was all right. “Come on, Liz. Mother said to come down. It’s time to eat.” She reached out and took Liz by the hand. Liz was able to get up and go down the stairs with Jeanie. After she began eating and laughing at Neil’s jokes, she relaxed, and her voice came back. She began talking, very casually, like she hadn’t been at all frightened. “I was looking out the window and saw this really weird-looking man coming out of the cellar. He ran across the back yard.”
“Oh-h-h,” Neil cried out. He was no longer in the mood for his dinner jokes. “Burglars,” he cried.
“For gosh sakes,” said Ricky. “I’m not afraid.”
Mrs. Grayson looked startled. “Liz. What are you talking about?”
“I saw this man coming out of the cellar door.”
Mrs. Grayson’s eyes doubled in size as she stared at Liz. “You mean just now? When you were upstairs?”
“Yes’m,” Liz said, exultant over all the attention. She looked around the table. Every set of eyes was staring at her.
Mrs. Grayson put her fork down, and scooted her chair back, like she was leaving the table. When she stood up, her expression changed and she sat back down. “Oh. It was probably the meter man.” She smiled and picked up her fork.
The faces around the table relaxed. The followed suit, picked up their forks and began eating the home-grown potatoes, squash, zucchini, and corn on the cob.
Then Jeanie popped a question. “What did he look like, Liz?”
“Well,” began Liz, “he had this old beat-up hat on his head. And he wore coveralls and clod-hopper shoes.”
“Really?”
“Yes, His face was all wrinkled and he had whiskers all over his chin and neck.”
“And what color were his eyes?” asked Ann, her eyes twinkling with mischief.
“Blue,” Liz answered. Jeanie and Ann began giggling.
Liz realized she had been entrapped. “Pigs. Pigs.” she cried. “Mother. They’re picking on me.” She flounced out of the room, yelling over her shoulder, “Mean old stepsisters.”
“Lizabeth,” her mother called out. “It’s your time to do the dishes.”
“Fiddlesticks,” said Liz. She turned around and went into the kitchen. Ricky followed. It was his time to wipe.
After Liz and Ricky finished cleaning up, they all scrambled upstairs with their mother to select their bedrooms. Neil asked for the back room on the second level and Ricky the one adjoining it. Liz requested one of the front bedrooms, which she hoped would be next to her mother’s. Jeanie and Ann settled for the two rooms on the third level. They had already decided to share a bedroom, and use the other one for a club house. Mrs. Grayson took the large bedroom next to Liz.
Tired from the move, they went to bed early without fussing. Mrs. Grayson tried to read, which was her habit, but fell into a deep sleep almost immediately. Her magazine slid off the bed onto the floor with a soft thud. Around midnight, the pitter-patter of tiny mice running between the walls and under the floors awakened her. She got up and wandered through the house,. stopping at all the bedrooms to see if her children were sleeping peacefully. When she returned to her room, even the mice had stopped their play.
She went to the window, and looked up at the full moon. It peeked through a thicket of oak and maple trees that lined the front yard. Their leaves fluttered softly, while shadows danced on the lawn, giving an illusion the ground was moving. She shuddered, pulled down the shades, and went back to bed. She couldn’t sleep. The house was too quiet. But when sleep finally came, she dreamt that the red-brick house was covered with a heavy gray moss that grew and grew, until it tangled the house and the trees, trapping them all inside.
####
Chapter 4: The Trap Door in the Attic
Mrs. Grayson woke up the next morning with Liz at the foot of her bed, untying the sheet that was knotted around her ankles. “I heard you moaning,” Liz explained. “I think you had a nightmare.”
“Yes. I certainly did, Liz.” She got dressed, and they went downstairs together. “I’m so glad you have a room next to me.”
Liz smiled brightly. “I love you.”
Jeanie and Ann had already prepared breakfast. When they saw their mother, Ann said, “Oh, Mother. We heard something in the attic last night.” As she talked, her eyes widened like two blue marbles. She turned to her sister Jeanie for confirmation. “Didn’t we, Jeanie?”
“Yes-s-s,” stammered Jeanie, thinking of the wakeful hours when they cuddled together, hiding their heads under the top sheet. “We were too scared to sleep.”
“We didn’t sleep a wink,” added Ann.
Mrs. Grayson smiled broadly, and continued to sip her morning coffee. She looked over at Jeanie, then at Ann. She was still smiling. “I checked on you during the night, and you were both sleeping soundly.”
“Well, we didn’t sleep very long,” Jeanie said. “And we did hear noises in the attic.”
“I’ll stop those noises,” Mrs. Grayson responded. She handed some change to Jeanie. “Get some mouse traps and some hard cheese.”
Jeanie turned to Ann. “I guess we heard mice.”
“I’ll go with you, Jeanie,” said Ann. “Let’s go now before Mother leaves for the farm.”
“You better get going, then.” Mrs. Grayson poured herself another cup of coffee, and picked up the morning paper. She tried reading, but her mind wouldn’t let go of the dream about the red-brick house. She shuddered, recalling her nightmare. She didn’t have a good feeling about living here after all. It’ so old and crumbling, she could almost believe it was ha
unted.
When the two girls returned with the mice traps, she put Jeanie in charge, and told the other children to mind her. “I’ll be back in time to cook supper,” she said when she left.
Ricky and Neil wasted no time. They scurried through the house, running from room to room like a couple of mice themselves. While they were sliding down the banister from the second level to the first, Liz sneaked into her mother’s room, and put on one of her dresses.. She painted red rouge on her cheeks, brushed mascara on her eyelids, and slid into a pair of black high heels. She placed a lacy veil across her hair, and stood in front of a full length mirror that hung from the back of the closet door. She smiled at her image. She was ready for the Royal Ball. All she needed was her Fairy Godmother and Prince Charming.
“Hey, you guys,” shouted Jeanie, after she and Ann put the hard cheese in the mouse traps and hid them in the kitchen. “Go out and play, and don’t come back ‘til I call.”
Liz wobbled in, smiling. “I’m Cinderella. You’re the mean old stepsisters.”
“Liz,” they both screamed. “Get out of Mother’s clothes.”
“Right this minute,” Jeanie added.
Ricky and Neil hurried out the side door. “Let’s get out of here,” said Ricky.
“Come on, Liz,” Neil called out to his sister.
Liz followed the boys, slamming the door as she wobbled out in her mother’s high heels.
“Little kids are a pain,” commented Ann, as she ran up the back stairs after her older sister.
They went to their club room. Jeanie stood in the middle of the room with Ann at her side, and stared at the ceiling. “How can one little trap door cause so much trouble?” Jeanie asked.
“Well. We’re not giving up. Help me push this table.”
Jeanie climbed on the table, and stretched her arms toward the ceiling. She could barely touch it with the tips of her fingers. “Get me a broom,” she said.
“I’ll get that stick out of the window,” said Ann. She took the stick, and the window closed with a loud bang. “You’re lucky it didn’t break,” Jeanie commented.
“Yeah. I guess it was there for a reason.” Handing the stick to Jeanie, she added, “What do you think we’ll find?”
“Mother’s probably right. Lots of mice,” answered Jeanie.