Free Mystery of Drear House by Virginia Hamilton Page B

cheeks were a sticky mess with it.
    Pesty commenced sobbing.
    “Pesty, I’m—I’m sorry,” Thomas said, getting up. “But she did push me down.”
    “Now, don’t you cry, sweetheart,” Great-grandmother said. She folded Pesty in her arms.
    Pesty’s crying lasted only a few seconds. She had little time for tears. “Mama, come on,” she said. Sighing, she went to her mother and calmly took the pie out of her hands. It was almost all gone. “Take you on back home now. You played enough for today.”
    “Don’t cry, Sooky!” Mrs. Darrow said. Her calm, reasonable voice surprised them.
    Thomas wouldn’t say that the expression under the sticky mess on her face was a smile. But her mouth was open, and her teeth were showing; He supposed it was a smile to soothe Pesty.
    “Ha-ha,” Mrs. Darrow said. “Hey? Sooky!”
    “It’s okay, Mama: We’ll be back home in a minute,” Pesty told her.
    “How do we make that wall swing around?” asked Great-grandmother Jeffers.
    “You have to follow us,” Pesty said. She was leading her mother, wrapped in Great-grandmother’s shawl, back to the wall. “You climb on up and stand on the side of the fireplace. Then you push on a place here. …” Thomas watched her push at a section of the mantel. A square of stone seemed to move inward about a quarter of an inch. “Then you just stand still,” Pesty continued. “The wall seem to tilt back some. …” She and her mother stood on the hearth. Slowly the wall swung around, scraping a little as it went. “Mr. Thomas, y’all come on.” They were gone around to the other side.
    “Come on, Thomas,” Great-grandmother Jeffers said, hurrying into her coat. “Now I’m a little old and a bit unsteady, so you must help me up on that hearth.”
    Thomas sighed. “Are you sure you want to do this, Great-grandmother?”
    “It will be all right,” she said firmly.
    Thomas helped her up onto the hearth. She held on to his arm as he reached behind him to press the mantel. It took him a moment to find the right place.
    “Little farther over, I think, Thomas,” Great-grandmother said.
    “Right,” he said. This time he pushed and a mantel stone gave way. The wall, the fireplace, and the hearth where they stood began to move. He hardly dared breathe. What will there be on the other side? he wondered as the two of them went slowly around.

12
    I T’S TRICKY, HE THOUGHT . Step off the wall around back there, and you don’t know where you are. Shine the flashlight, and there’s the steepest staircase right inside the bedroom wall. Think of it! You go down the stairs below the foundation of the house. It’s so dark, and you guess you’re in a tunnel. It smells earth-musty like a tunnel. Shine the light around. Yes, it’s a tunnel, leading away from the house. And you walk a ways. Hold on to Great-grandmother. Don’t lose her in the dark! It feels like you turn a corner, and then—
    He and Great-grandmother Jeffers had completed all the steps that he’d just gone over in his mind. Putting them in order helped him make sense out of what had come next. Now they followed Pesty and her mother to an unbelievable place. “It’s—it’s a—a—whole decorated room!” Thomas exclaimed, shining his light around. The tunnel had seemed to widen, and in the open space was indeed a room.
    “But it’s different; it’s made to be another time,” Great-grandmother said. “Oh, it’s so pretty!”
    And so it was. The room seemed all dark, carved wood of the bedstead, chiffonier, and side chair. Thomas flicked his light. There was a silken coverlet on the bed. There were end tables with taffeta skirts. On one end table there were bottles, one blue, one green, glowing richly in his light. Seeing them so suddenly, he felt as if they had stumbled upon familiar ground.
    Then Pesty lit a brass oil lantern on one of the tables. Thomas and Great-grandmother Jeffers could well see that the items in the room were of great value. Why would