Free A Rather Remarkable Homecoming by C. A. Belmond

hop, skip and jump away, and we landed with a thump on a more wooded area at the back of the garage, where the scent of pine was strong. I saw a neat stack of firewood that must have been waiting here for ages.
    Jeremy was staring at a row of overgrown hedges smack against the garage, nearly ten feet tall now, which had become wild and so took up most of his “shortcut” to the front of the property.
    “Hmm. Let’s see if we can squeeze in between there anyway. Walk sideways,” Jeremy advised, taking my hand and leading me, just as he had when we were kids that summer, pretending to be spies and deliberately sneaking into tight spots as if we had enemy agents after us in hot pursuit. With our backs to the hedges, we inched along the rear wall of the garage.
    “Ouch,” I complained as my hand scraped something round and metallic on the garage’s wall. “What’s this?”
    Jeremy peered closer, then laid his palms against the wall, tracing his hands around a wide rectangular area. “Looks like there’s some kind of door here,” he noted. “A little one. It only comes up to my chin. It’s got waxy stuff all around it. What you touched is a metal ring, like the kind that pulls open a trap door. Look. Can you stand back a bit? I want to see if this thing actually opens.”
    I had to scrooch myself even flatter in order to slide by Jeremy’s chest. As I brushed against him, he murmured, “Mmm. You feel good,” and he kissed me.
    “No smooching on a caper,” I said with mock severity, kissing his shoulder as I passed it.
    Then I waited as he beamed his pocket flashlight beneath the metal ring and discovered a padlock. It was so cheap and worn that he could use his keys to break the thin loop of metal. But he had to tug hard at the recalcitrant door, which did not want to swing open on its rusty hinges. He couldn’t make it swing all the way open, because of the hedges, but he got it just far enough so he could squeeze inside as he shone his flashlight there.
    “Watch your head,” Jeremy advised when I sidled through the opening like Peter Rabbit, stooping down under the low doorway.
    Immediately we were faced with a narrow wooden staircase. I followed him up, mindful of the kinds of critters that do not like to be surprised or disturbed after years of peaceful solitude in dark, dank places. The area smelled musty and claylike, like a tomb, I thought. We had to remain hunched over while climbing the stairs so we wouldn’t bang our heads on the sloped ceiling above the steps.
    “This staircase was made for pixies,” I muttered, gingerly touching the cold, damp stone wall as I ascended. When we reached the top, the stairs simply ended in the middle of a very large, open attic area, and we could now only just barely straighten up to our full height.
    Jeremy made a sweep of light so we could take it all in—three little school desks, the kind with a flat writing surface at the right arm; two bookcases with three wide shelves each; a very big chalkboard with fat broken pieces of colored chalk still in the rim; a double easel so that an artist could paint on either side, both having round wooden wells for pots of paint. On the wall nearest the stairs there were two small shuttered windows that would overlook the garden if opened. There was a tiny sofa, and even a small tea table, with four little chairs and a girlish tea set of china pot, cups, creamer and pitcher.
    “It’s a playroom!” I exclaimed delightedly. “A perfect secret hideaway for kids. Maybe Grandfather Nigel made this for his children. Do you suppose my mother and your stepfather played here? Mom never said anything to me about it.”
    Jeremy said, “No, Peter never mentioned it, either.”
    We moved farther inside, still crouched like two hunchbacks wherever the ceiling sloped. I peered more closely around the room.
    “Here’s an antique hoop,” I noted. “But Jeremy, it’s much older than our parents’ time. It’s the kind that little