The Mystery of the Cupboard. Lynne Banks Reid

of mixed wild trees and shrubs, not like London hedges, which tended all to be made of the same thing.

      They entered through another gate, a small one, and went up a path. The first thing that struck them was how incredibly different it all was from London. The boys could hardly grasp the fact that they were actually going to live in a place like this, surrounded by open countryside, with no other houses in sight. They felt weird about it, as if they were on another planet.

      The details in the lawyers’ letter had talked about ‘an acre of land, outbuildings, a paddock, and a small wood running down to a river that borders the property’. They stood on the overgrown lawn and stared round them in wonderment. In the distance were rounded hills, some with trees crowning them, and nearer were sloping fields. It was indeed ‘a big green place with lots of trees’.

      “We’re in the Hidden Valley,” murmured their mother. “Isn’t it absolutely magical?”

      “How much of all this is ours?” asked Gillon.

      “Just this bit, stupid,” said Adiel. “Up to the fence.”

      “No,” said their mother, consulting a sort of map the lawyers had sent. “More than that. That big field is ours — that’s the paddock. Down to those trees down there. That’s the river. And there’s more across the lane.”

      “More?” The garden at home, which they had considered vast, dwindled by comparison to tablecloth-size.

      Their mother led them across the lane to the big gate. Beyond it was a yard with buildings on three sides. One was a big workshop, and their father headed for that like an arrow. Another was three open bays under a corrugated iron roof. A third looked like an old barn and had several doors.

      “That’s the pigsty and stable,” their mother said. “Long disused. And a couple of rooms for feed and stuff. And somewhere there are henhouses.”

      “Long disused, too, I suppose,” said Adiel.

      “No, as a matter of fact, there are hens. Some old party from the village has been coming in to look after them occasionally and collect the eggs. It should be round the back there somewhere.”

      The boys belted round behind the pigsty and found about a dozen hens, one of them with five tiny chicks running around squeaking. There was a handsome cockerel, too, who obliged with a regal crow as soon as they appeared.

      “Hey, check this out, Dad!” called Adiel, bending over a long box. “Fresh eggs!” He emerged holding two in each hand.

      “And fresh chicken!” said Gillon.

      “If you can kill them,” said their mother.

      “Anyone would kill a chicken to get a roast one,” said Gillon, who’d never killed anything in his life.

      “Well, never mind the livestock now. Let’s go and look over the house!” said their mother excitedly. “My very own house! I can’t wait!”

      The two-storey house was made of stone, with a thatched roof. It was a funny shape, long and thin, with a sort of bend or wave in the middle.

      “It’s a real Dorset longhouse!” enthused their father.

      “A longhouse!” Omri almost shouted.

      They all looked at him curiously.

      “Yes… That’s what these long one-room-deep stone houses are called around here.”

      The rooms were fairly small, but there were eight main ones altogether — four bedrooms in a row above four little linked living rooms. No corridors. Two flights of stairs, one at each end, so the two middle bedrooms led off the two outer ones. The bathroom had been added in modern times, built out at the back over the kitchen. From every window there were beautiful views.

      The garden was neglected and the thatched roof gave Omri’s father pause.

      “It’s all very well,” he said, while they all rushed about getting enthusiastic. “I love the place, it’s perfect, that workshop! My dream of a studio! But have you any idea what it costs to rethatch a thatched roof? And we’d have to, almost right away. Look, it’s rotten.” He reached out through one of the tiny windows upstairs and pulled a handful of thatch out of the deep eaves. It was black with age and damp and it had a musty smell.

      From below, Omri called in an odd tone, “Come and see this!”

      The others went outside and round to the gable end of the house, nearest the road. Up under the sloping thatch was a plaque, inset into the stone. It was engraved in very worn old-fashioned writing. Omri couldn’t read it, but their mother, with difficulty, made it out:

       Blessed the man who fearing God buildeth for posterity. LB. 1704

      When she’d finished reading, they all stood for a moment. Then Gillon said, “What’s posterity?”

      “It means your bottom,” said Adiel.

      The older two burst out laughing. Only Omri didn’t — he wasn’t listening.

      “Don’t be fatuous, boys,” said their father. “Not ‘posterior’! ‘For posterity’ means ‘for those who’ll come after you’.”

      Gillon and Adiel were still choking down their mirth when Omri said quietly, “We’re definitely going to like living here.” They all looked at him.

      “How do you know?” said Gillon with a bit of jeer in his voice.

      “It’s a longhouse,” said Omri mysteriously. ‘And - LB.”

      “What?”

      “Someone with the initials LB built this house.”

      “Big deal. So what?”

      “LBs are lucky for me,” said Omri quietly.

       2

       Kitsa Goes Missing

      They moved in in August.

      It hadn’t been so hard, after all, to leave the old house in Hovel Road. Omri had secretly been quite glad to, in the end. After all, his room had been totally wrecked by the Big Storm. For months he’d slept on a mattress on the floor, and done his homework at an ordinary old table, and thought about all his things that the storm had demolished or blown away. His market-bought chest had been destroyed, along with his Japanese table, his desk, his collections, and all his other stuff, his links with childhood. It was time for a new start.

      “Dad,” he asked at one stage when they were packing up, “will you have the same bank?”

      “A different branch, but yes,” said his father, puzzled. But then he understood. “Ah, your mysterious package that you asked me to have them put in their vaults. Don’t worry, Omri. They’ll keep it safe.”

      “But will they move it to the bank near our new house?” Omri persisted anxiously.

      “I’ll make sure they do,” said his father.

      Omri wrote to Patrick, his friend and the sharer of his greatest secret, on the day before moving day.

       Dear Patrick,

       We’re moving to the country tomorrow. Wish it was near you but it’s the other way. We’ll be further apart than ever. I’ll write the new address at the end. Keep in touch.

       Dad says IT will come to the new place