Free A Rather Remarkable Homecoming by C. A. Belmond Page A

girls used to run with, carrying sticks to make them go, just like Louisa May Alcott did.”
    “Who?” Jeremy asked.
    I ignored him and continued prowling around, examining everything I found.
    “Old roller skates,” I reported gleefully. “The metal-andleather kind you have to strap on to your shoe, with those metal wheels that make your feet go numb when you skate.”
    “Ha-choo!” Jeremy responded, having kicked up dust when he pried open the shutters, which had only a simple wooden board that slid across them to keep them closed.
    I was grateful for the whiff of fresh sea air that wafted in, and the spill of sunlight that made it easier for us to see. Dust and sunbeams danced together in the shaft of new natural light.
    Jeremy was now examining the three desks, each having a little cubbyhole to stash schoolbooks beneath the writing surface. He poked around inside them and found an old, dried-up fountain pen, and dust-covered erasers.
    I had drifted over to the bookshelves, which had simple wooden-and-glass doors, and I discovered a few worn-out children’s books and piles of old magazines and newspapers.
    Carefully I pulled down a stack of papers, shaking off the considerable dust. I tossed them onto the sofa and stared at the newspaper headlines, squealing as I read each one.
    “Jeremy, look at this!” I exclaimed, holding them up:
    Charles Lindbergh Lands Safely in Paris, Sets New Record in World’s First New York to Paris Flight . . . “Black Friday” in Germany as Berlin Stock Exchange Crashes . . . Isadora Duncan dies in Nice, France at age 50, strangled by her hand-painted Russian silk scarf . . . First movie talkie “The Jazz Singer” to open this fall.
     
    “Know what?” I demanded. “These are all from the summer of 1927.”
    “Interesting,” Jeremy muttered distractedly.
    “It’s more than interesting!” I said. “It means this room definitely wasn’t made for our parents, because Mom’s not that old.” As I perused the newspapers, I found a notebook hidden in the fold of one of them.
    “Let me have that flashlight,” I said.
    “Torch,” Jeremy corrected as he gave it to me.
    I beamed a circle of light on the thick, faded ruled notebook, a kind that kids wrote their school lessons in. But where a student was supposed to put his name I saw only one word scrawled in bold, childish black capital letters: PRIVATE . I actually hesitated a minute.
    “You’re not going to let something like that stop a nosey Girl Detective like you, are you?” Jeremy demanded, peering over my shoulder.
    The notebook cover flapped open easily enough. On the first page, three lines contained a firm declaration written in a careful schoolgirl script:
    Herein lie the Articles and Minutes of the
Cornwall Summer Explorers’ Club.
Private. Do Not Disturb.
This Means You.
    “Keep going,” Jeremy prompted.
    The lined pages inside were so yellowed and old that I had to handle them as carefully as a museum restorer does. I touched only the edges, using just the tip of my fingernail to flip to the next page, which contained a dramatic pledge that I read aloud:
    “We, the founding members of the Cornwall Summer Explorers’ Club, do hereby solemnly swear to be loyal, fearless and true, and to never, ever reveal the secrets of this society to anyone else, especially grown-ups. We will keep all secrets and reveal no tales of the C.S.E.C., no matter how old we become. We mark this occasion with a signature in our heart’s own blood . . .”
     
    And sure enough, there were three childish signatures, signed in fountain pen, but each accompanied by a little brownish smeared fingerprint.
    “Holy cow,” I said, taken slightly aback. “Is that—?”
    “A blood oath!” Jeremy said, fascinated, gazing at the names below:
    Penelope Laidley, President
Roland Laidley, Sergeant-at-Arms
Beryl Laidley, Treasurer
    “Ohmigosh!” I exclaimed with glee. “It’s a secret society founded by Great-Aunt Penelope, and