WITCHES and FREAKS

March 30th

I almost couldn't get away today. Mom had me roped into doing all of the chores. I had to wash the dishes and the clothes and dust everything and vacuum, and Verge didn't even have to do anything because he was too busy reading to bother helping. Bastian helped me, though, and he did all the mopping and folding and made all the beds. The house is super clean now, except for Chance's room. Chance's room is always messy and Mom says he needs to learn to clean it on his own, so we didn't touch it. Chance is going to get shut in there until it's clean anyway. He's six, and Mom says that's old enough to start to learn even though the rest of us know Chance is just going to play with his toys until he starves in there.

But we finished our chores and I got pushed outside, and now I get to write in the journal again. Here's a picture of Chance and Mom. [Insert Picture] I think I'm a pretty good drawer even if Verge says I can't draw faces right. I found a book with lots of pictures in it in Dad's library, and it's really been helping me. It's a book filled with all sorts of people in all sorts of positions and I'm really getting the hang of face angles now. I think it used to be what drawers used to learn how to draw the human body, but it's in a different language and I can't read it. All I know is that there are a lot of circles everywhere on it, and different notes scribbled everywhere pointing to things. And all of the people look super muscular, so I've had a hard time drawing Verge with them. That mollycoddle is many things, but muscular is not one of them.

But he's not important enough to waste space in this journal for. I found this really cool box in the cellar today. Bastian and I went down there to clean it up like Mom told us to, and we found a brick loose on the wall. Bastian brought the blacklight he uses for his invisible ink and shined it on the loose brick to see if it was some sort of hidden entrance marked up by the last people who lived here, and there were all kinds of weird drawings all over the room that lit up. I'll take my journal down there and draw them here when the coast is clear and I can avoid Mom, but just imagine the weirdest things you can think of drawn on the wall and that was probably what it looked like, all drawn in invisible paint. A huge circle with funny letters drawn in it was around the loose brick, and there was a star in it that had another circle inside. Looking at the circle inside of the star gave me a funny feeling but I didn't say anything and we pulled the rock out and found the box inside. It's got all sorts of locks on it and who knows if we'll find the keys? It looks like there's five of them because I'm not sure if those two holes on the bottom were also keyholes. There's a whole drawer of keys in the kitchen where all of the old residents of this place stores the keys they didn't want anymore so there are like a hundred in there and I'm sure at least one of them will fit. I really want to get the box open and see what's inside. There's no invisible paint on it, but it looks really, really old, like a treasure chest you can hold in your hands, and that funny feeling comes back whenever I touch it. I don't think Bastian feels anything when he touches it because he just kept smiling the whole time we were taking it out, so I don't think it's anything. It must just be Verge's natural caution rubbing off on me. He's stupid but he's really careful, and if he's ruined my sense of adventure by living with me too much I'll smack him.

Bastian and I hid the box back behind the brick when we were done looking at it. Verge would never go down in the cellar without being told because it's got spiders in it and he hates spiders, and Chance isn't allowed because there are rusty nails everywhere that he could poke himself on. And Mom just makes Bastian and I go down whenever she wants something because she says it's not right for kids to be afraid of the dark when it can't hurt you. And Dad's always too busy and he doesn't put anything down here anyway, it's all just in his study. Bastian and I are the only ones who'll be down here and we're the only ones who know to look behind the brick. So the box will be safe right where it was before. Nobody else will fi

I had to hide the journal really quick because Bastian came and found me. He said we had to go into town and dragged me away to Mom and the car and we went to town to buy some food things for dinner. I keep feeling like there's someone watching me. It's super creepy. I get shivers when I walk around in the woods on my own now even though I know there's nothing there. I'm not going to get scared away because I'm not lily-livered like Verge, but it's super unnerving. Like there are eyes everywhere, all staring. Even just walking down the street made me shiver. I kept checking the shelves in the store for hidden cameras because I could swear I heard the clicking of the lenses, but Bastian told me I was being silly and I think he's probably right. It was probably just seeing those weird pictures on the walls that's bothered me. Nothing has changed. This place is just as awesome as it was before. I'm still really glad we moved here. But now it's just more interesting because we found a cool secret and we're going to open it. Nothing weird. Just a cool secret.