Dill sat up, his face twisted in fear. “What do we do? They really could come after us tonight – what do we do?!”
Peter was at a loss. “I don’t know…I guess…we have to tell somebody, ‘cause we gotta get out of here. And we can’t leave our families behind to get eaten.”
“Pff, I can totally leave mine,” Dill scoffed. “Especially if they get eaten.”
“Well, I’m not leaving my mom or my sister, no matter what.”
“Nobody’s going to believe us,” Dill pointed out.
Peter squinted out into the garden, still empty and serene.
“I don’t know about that.” He stood up and dusted off his pants. “Go inside and get changed, Dill. I’ll give you a call soon.”
“Okay,” Dill agreed, then got mad. “Hey!”
“What?”
“Why would I have to change?”
“Because you – ”
Peter saw Dill’s face and stopped.
“…like clean underwear?”
“I didn’t pee my pants!”
“Okay, okay.” Peter started for the house.
“But maybe I’ll change ‘em anyway,” Dill called after him. “Clean underwear is good every once in awhile…”
* * *
He went to the right of the stairwell, through the cavernous dining room, and back into another hallway. He was almost to the kitchen when he passed an open door and glimpsed a room he hadn’t seen before.
It was an enormous study, thirty feet high and every wall a shelf full of books. Most of them were bound in leather, and though there were only a handful of colors – black, brown, red, blue, yellow, and white – the various shades numbered in the dozens. There were no windows. A dozen or more free-standing shelves stood in the middle of the room, each one loaded down with ancient volumes. A glimmering chandelier with a million cascading crystals hung high overhead. The smell of old paper filled Peter’s nose. The monotonous tick, tock, tick of an unseen clock was the only sound.
A giant mahogany desk sat facing the door. Its surface was clean and bare except for a pile of books and a stained glass lamp that cast a soft, multicolored light. And sitting behind the desk in a monstrous leather chair was Grandfather.
He looked up from his reading, his eyes wild behind a tiny pair of reading glasses.
“Peter, come in here NOW.”
Peter tried to keep his stomach from turning inside out as he stepped meekly into the room.
This was it. Grandfather was going to spank him, and beat him, and tie him up and throw him out of the house for disobeying about the garden –
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Copyright © 2008 Darren Pillsbury. All rights reserved.
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