Millicent and I met in my room. We knew it was wrong to spy on people, however with Clay we were willing to make an exception. After what had happened last night with the tapping sound, the light and the feathers, and with Clay so keen to have us keep away from the shed, we felt it was our duty to find out what was going on. After a quick discussion, Millicent and I agreed that my room was the best place for surveillance as it had views over the back garden and the shed.
Both of us crouched down under the window and waited for Clay to appear. It didn’t take too long before we saw his towering frame and slicked back hair striding mechanically towards the large clump of fuzzy bushes against the fence. With a set of gardening shears in his large hands, he started pruning the bushes, but every so often he would stop and glance around, as if he was checking that no one was watching him. Millicent and I had to duck down a couple of times to ensure that he didn’t see us. We kept our voices low so he couldn’t hear us at the window.
“I wonder what he is watching out for?” whispered Millicent.
“Maybe he is watching out for us?” I replied, “Maybe he is checking if the coast is clear?”
Clay kept pruning the bush when suddenly, and without warning, he dropped the shears and marched over to the rear of the garden.
“Where is he going?” asked Millicent.
“I think he might be heading for the shed,” I whispered.
Clay carefully approached the shed, checking around him again as he walked.
He then put his large hand into the right pocket of his overalls. He was drawing something out of it.
“What have you got there Clay?” I whispered.
Clay glanced anxiously around one last time and then delicately pulled something long and metal-looking out of his pocket. It was brown and rusty and kind of gnarled like the branch of an old tree.
“What do you think that could be?” asked Millicent.
It was difficult to work it out what it was at first, but as soon as Clay moved this object towards the door of the shed it was obvious.
“I think it is a key,” I whispered, “It must be the key to the padlock on the shed.”
It looked like a very old key and reminded me of a prison key, like the ones you see in the movies, except that it was larger than any key I had ever seen. It was longer than Clay’s hand and had an elaborate handle with a large “G” in the middle of it, which could be clearly seen from our position at the window.
“What could the G stand for?” asked Millicent. “I’m not sure,” I said rubbing my nose.
My nose had started to itch.
“Do you think he is going to open the shed door with that key?” asked Millicent. “We’ll just have to see what Clay does with it.”
I began twitching my nose from side to side, hoping it would relieve the irritation.
“Oh no Millicent,” I said scrunching up my nose, “I think I am going to sneeze.”
The itch wouldn’t stop and unfortunately it was getting worse and worse. I tried rubbing it a little, but the itching would not go away. I could feel one of those sneezes starting to build.
“Sneeze?” she asked, “This is no time for jokes Thomas.” “I’m not joking Millicent. I am definitely going to sneeze!” “Well try and stop it Thomas! Otherwise Clay might hear us!”
I tried desperately to stop my sneeze. Holding my breath, I squeezed my nose
as I hard as I could. My eyes started watering, but it didn’t stop the sneeze from building. I then pulled my handkerchief out of my jacket and held it hard against my nose. Outside Clay held the key up to large tarnished padlock on the door of the shed, as if he was going to use it to unlock it.
Inside my head the sneeze was building and building and building. In the end I just couldn’t stop it.
“Oh no, here it comes!” I shouted. “AAATISHOOOOO!”
Gosh that felt better!
The sneeze reverberated around the room, bouncing off every wall. “AAATISHOOOOO! AAATISHOOOOO! AAATISHOOOOO!”
It was the loudest sneeze I made in the last few days and it had happened at a moment when I probably needed to be my quietest. Unfortunately my timing was never very good!
We both ducked down under the window. I looked over at Millicent. She was shaking her head in frustration.
“I’m sorry,” I said with my handkerchief over my nose, “I just couldn’t help it!”
Our real concern now was Clay. Had he heard the sneeze and did he know where it came from? Maybe we were lucky? Maybe he hadn’t heard it? After all he was in the back garden and we (and the sneeze) were in the house.
Bit by bit, Millicent and I pulled ourselves up so that we could just see over the windowsill. Looking down, we could see Clay wildly spinning around as if he was searching for something or someone. The key was still in his hand but pressed up against his chest like a small child holding a beloved toy. He obviously didn’t want anybody to see that he had possession of it.
“I think he may have heard it,” I said.
“Yes, but lucky for us he hasn’t worked out so far that it came from up here,” replied Millicent.
Then, as if in slow motion, Clay looked up from where he was and stared directly at the windowsill that we were peeking over.
“Oh no!” I whispered.
Almost instantly he realised that we had been watching him and he wasn’t very happy about it. His face reddened and eyes became large. They were riveted on our position. We seemed to be fixed in Clay’s glare. Milliseconds seemed like seconds.
Seconds seemed like minutes. I reached for Millicent’s arm and tugged her to the floor. “He’s seen us!” I said, “Clay has seen us!”
“Now we are really in trouble,” said Millicent.
“Did you see his reaction? He looked so …so angry!” “What are we going to do Thomas?”
“I’m not sure. There is obviously something in that shed that is very important …”
“… and that he doesn’t want us to see,” said Millicent finishing my sentence. “I wonder what he is doing now?” I said.
I carefully peeked over the windowsill again. I could see Clay pacing back towards the house. From the window, I could see that his skin on the back of his neck was red and his fists were clenched.
“Oh no! Clay’s coming back into the house. He looks angry. He might try to come after us Millicent. I think we need to hide!”
We hastily discussed where would be a good place to hide. Clearly not the garden – we would have to go downstairs. We couldn’t go to our bedrooms either. That would be too obvious. We needed somewhere else.
“When we first arrived,” I said thinking quickly, “Flora mentioned there was an attic. She said she found my quilt up there. Perhaps we should try to hide in the attic?”
“But do you know where the attic is?” asked Millicent.
“No, but how hard could it be to find?” I replied, “In the movies they never seem to have any problems finding the attic.”
“Okay,” said Millicent, “But we need to find it now!”
Thinking quickly, I felt we had better take some things with us as we didn’t know how long we would have to hide. I grabbed my backpack from next to my bed. It had plenty of provisions in it from the car trip a couple of days ago. I hadn’t eaten everything that I had brought for the car journey since I had fallen asleep on the way.
“We’ll take my backpack,” I said, “It’s got some food and drink in it.” “I think I might need a jacket,” said Millicent, “I think attics are cold.”
Millicent went to her room. I picked up my blue jacket from my bed. My little torch was still in the pocket from last night.
“This might come in handy too,” I said feeling the torch in the jacket pocket.
We didn’t have much time. Clay was on his way to find us and could be up here at any minute. I walked to the door of my room and as I did I looked back at the purple quilt with the wizard on it.
“Maybe I should take this as well. Just in case our jackets aren’t warm enough.” I pulled the quilt from my bed and gathered it up in my arms.
“What are we waiting for Thomas?” called Millicent. She was at the door to my room.
“Come on let’s go!”