Free Bursting with Confidence by Amanda Lawrence Auverigne Page A

your car fixed?"
    "I guess I'll just have to walk
everywhere. Well to school at least. And walking here was a breeze
anyway. It's just ten blocks."
    "Ten blocks is a lot."
    "Not really.'
    "You look tired."
    "What?"
    "Just kidding. You look great. Come
on in."
    "Okay."
    Abigail took a step backwards. She
entered the interior of the house.
    Haley entered the house. She
stepped into a large hall. She pulled off her jacket and looked at
her surroundings.
    The stone corridor was long and
spacious.
    Four large doorways lay embedded in
the walls on both sides of the hall. Each portal lead to large
exquisitely furnished rooms.
    Ten shining suits of armor stood
upright against the stone walls of the wide passage.
    Eight marble busts resting atop
tall marble pedestals were pressed against the stone walls of the
corridor.
    Each pedestal possessed a gleaming
brass tag along the front portion of the stone table. Intricate
writing decorated the gleaming metal labels.
    Several gleaming silver shields
decorated the top portion of the corridor's stone walls. Each metal
shield possessed a colorfully intricate coat of arms within the
center.
    Hundreds of gold tipped spears,
wooden crossbows, silver axes, maces, daggers and swords adorned
the walls of the massive corridor.
    "This place is huge," Haley said.
She folded her jacket atop her arm. She gazed at a bust of a
scowling man near her.
    "Yeah," Abigail said closing the
door softly. "There are like twenty rooms in the house I
think."
    Abigail raised her hand and slapped
at several brass locks and deadbolts that decorated the
door.
    Haley turned to Abigail. "Are you
serious?"
    "Yeah," Abigail said.
    Abigail moved away from the door.
She stopped in front of the wall on the right side of the massive
red portal.
    A small square-shaped security
panel jutted from the wall.
    "Yup twenty not counting the
basement and the carriage house out back behind the gazebo thing,"
Abigail replied absently.
    Abigail raised her hand. She
punched a series of numbers into the security panel's
keypad.
    "Twenty rooms
and
a carriage
house?" Haley asked in disbelief.
    "Yeah but the carriage house is
really a guest house. Well it was until Mr. Larsen shut it up last
year and started using it for storage or whatever," Abigail said.
She lowered her hand from the panel.
    The sound of a loud beep poured
from the security panel just before a metallic feminine voice
echoed from the white object.
    "Defenses
armed…"
    "Okay," Haley said with a
laugh.
    Abigail turned to Haley.
"What?"
    "That must be some tricked out
security system I mean because ours doesn’t talk."
    "Ours either. The Larsens had this
set up special. They have loads of old stuff here with gold and
stuff."
    Haley looked around the hall.
"Twenty rooms huh? You sure it's not forty?"
    "Naw its just twenty. I think. And
plus the Larsens only use the first and second floor and half of
the third I think because the third floor is like the maid's house
or whatever for you know like if they had a maid," Abigail
continued.
    "How old is this place?" Haley
asked.
    "I think this house was built like
two hundred years ago or something. Anyway, the third floor is
supposed to be like the maid's house or something. I don't
remember."
    "Oh."
    "Enough of this history stuff. Come
on. The Larsens went to the snore opera like an hour ago and Peter
is really really excited to meet you. He saw your pic on my phone
when you called earlier."
    “ You told Peter I was
coming?”
    “ Well, I told
him that I
hoped
you were coming. He likes meeting new people. His
parents hardly ever let him have any friends
over.”
    The sound of high pitched laughter
echoed in the corridor.
    Haley and Abigail turned in the
direction of the noise.
    The two young women gazed at an
opened door located at the far end of the right side of the
hall.
    The laughter erupted again and the
sound was followed by a loud crunching noise.
    "I guess Peter just figured out who
did the murder," Abigail said.
    Haley