The Finding of Freddie Perkins by Liz Baddaley Read Free Book Online

saying goodnight.

7
Out of the attic and into the house

    Freddie felt confused, isolated and cross. Why didn’t Dad believe him? Who was playing tricks? And if no one was, how on earth did the diaries andthe necklace get on to the table when no one had put them there?
    Even the excitement of the diaries couldn’t distract him from his persistent, worried wondering. What was going on at Willow Beck?
    By eleven o’clock that night the whole house was quiet. But Freddie’s thoughts were so loud they kept him awake.
    Scary though it was, he resolved he must go up to the attic again. Now. Tonight. On his own.
    Maybe there would be more clues this time. Maybe something else would be on the table. Dad and Granny P were both in bed, and no one had been up since the necklace was found, so if anything had changed this time, he’d know for sure that something weird was going on.
    It was surprisingly cold for a July night and so Freddie pulled on a thick jumper and some socks and then quietly opened his bedroom door to creep first past Dad’s door, then Granny P’s, then up the stairs, and up again, and up and round and round – until he finally reached the attic.
    Slowly, and as quietly as he could, Freddie turned the big old key in the stiff old lock until the dooropened. And as he gently switched on the light he saw a sudden movement as something leapt off the table and behind the boxes underneath it. Perhaps a tail…
    Freddie started. It was all he could do not to scream.
    He wasn’t frightened of mice – and he was pretty sure that was all it was. But even so, late at night, in the dark, and alone in the attic, it was a bit more than he’d bargained for.
    He ran back down the stairs, two at a time where he could manage it, terrified he would wake everyone, but petrified by his now heightened awareness of all things crawly and night-like.
    He bolted back to his room, dived under the duvet, and lay tense and breathless until he gradually realised that no one else had woken up, that he was after all quite safe, and that it was probably only a mouse he had seen – or imagined.
    It was then that he remembered that he hadn’t shut the attic door. And that the key was still in the lock from when he opened it. His stomach turned over. He didn’t want his dad to know he’d been up there, and jump to conclusions about what he was doing there alone and at night. He pulled back the covers to getup and go back, but it was no good, he had spooked himself good and proper and could not face it. There was nothing for it. He would simply have to get up before the others and sneak up and put everything right.
    * * *
    But when Freddie woke up the next morning – with a start – it was to realise that the sound that had woken him was Granny P clanging things around downstairs. When he looked at his clock he realised he had overslept to such a degree that she might already have been up to the attic.
    His heart sank.
    And then he saw it.
    Poking out from behind the clock, where he’d be sure to see it, was the attic key.
    It wasn’t possible. But there it was.
    Before he could even begin to think about what another strange appearance meant, there was a knock at the door and Granny P followed it with a tray of tea and crumpets, and a beaming face. She was humming something to herself, and soon explained why.
    â€˜Freddie, the most wonderful thing has happened.And I thought we simply must have crumpets in bed to celebrate.’
    â€˜What’s happened?’
    â€˜This morning I found my wedding ring. I lost it when I was cleaning a few weeks ago and I was devastated. But this morning I found it, sitting right behind my alarm clock. How I didn’t see it before I don’t know. But I’m just thrilled to have found it again.’
    Freddie looked at the attic key, just visible behind his own clock, and thought to himself that it sounded rather more like the ring