Dyani

Part 31

Just before our last bell rang, Gabriella tapped me on the shoulder.
‘Hey, are you alright?’ she asked me.
For the first time since my mom died, I could honestly say I felt okay. I might not feel wonderful, but I felt okay, not as scared anymore. We walked out of the school and I got my bike. I didn’t really remember how to get back to the large house, but Alex and Charley were both at work. Alex had told me Charley worked too, he had a job in a nearby city and went there in his own car. I hadn’t seen another car, but Alex explained it had been beside the house, so I couldn’t have seen it. I finally found the little Italian place we went the day before to have dinner. I knew how to get to the mansion from here. Knowing it would take awhile for the boys to come home, I asked a woman that was walking her dog, where the local supermarket was. She directed me and it was very closeby. Graciously I thanked the lady and went to the market, I was in luck. Only a street ahead there was a large market, nice stalls of food and clothing were standing there. It was quite big, so I set my bike near the store and walked over to the first few stalls. I was so happy I had brought my wallet.

When I got back to the mansion I saw a black Audi parked in front of the house. I had several bags hanging from my steering wheel. Charley came running out and took some of the bags from my bike.
‘Thanks, could you help me bring all of this to the kitchen?’ I asked.
He seemed dumbfounded, but complied. I clumsily locked my bike and we walked inside.
‘We could have done the groceries together, I offered..’
‘I just had some time to spare and stumbled onto a small market, where I could buy fresh vegetables and other things,’ I said.
We put the groceries on the counter and he immediately picked up his wallet to give me money for the food.
‘No, please. Just sometimes let me do this, as a thank you for the hospitality,’ I said, holding up my hand to make him stop.
‘But..’ he started.
‘No but’s. Now.. get out of my kitchen!’ I said, with a small smile.
I turned my attention to the kitchen counter and opened some cabinets. For a brief moment, I felt like Charley had wanted to put his hand on my shoulder, but he refrained from actually doing it.
‘I’ll be in the living room, if you need me,’ he said.
I looked at the cabinets I had opened, there were cobwebs and even some spiders that were running around. I opened every cabinet and closet. In the small room next to the kitchen I found a laundry machine, a freezer and some buckets, a mop and a broom. I had to resort to an old shirt of my own to use as a rag for cleaning, but I didn’t mind. I couldn’t cook in a dirty kitchen. I cleaned all the closets, swept and mopped the floors and only then I put away all my groceries. I bought several kinds of vegetables and in the store I had gotten some kinds of meat, I had cereal for in the mornings and bread for during lunch, I had even gotten some milk, orange juice and another bottle of cola. When I was finally satisfied, it was almost six o’clock. I walked over to the living room and knocked, because the door was closed. I went in, almost straight after knocking and Charley was smiling at me from the couch.
‘What time does Alex come home? Then I know what time to start cooking,’ I said.
‘He’s usually home around seven,’ Charley said, glancing at his laptop for a moment. ‘But usually he likes to wait for some time, maybe eat around eight?’
I gave him a quick nod and started to walk off.
‘Oh.. By the way.. Could I please use the internet?’ I asked, quietly.
‘Of course, I’ll write the password down.’
He ripped off a piece of paper and wrote something down, he offered it to me and also offered me a keyring with quite a lot of old keys.
‘You still want to roam the mansion right?’ he said.
I walked over and took both items. I put the paper in my pocket and kept the keys in my hand.
‘Thank you, I’ll go upstairs now,’ I said, when I left, I closed the door.

When Charley gave me the keys, I decided I had time enough to go check out the house. I went to the kitchen to get my bag and the bags with some clothing I had bought for myself on the market. I brought them upstairs and went looking for the stairs leading up to the highest floor, the attic. I was standing in front of my room, with pen and paper in hand, not sure where the stairs must be. I realised I hadn’t even gone to the other side of the stairs. I walked there and passed the stairs going down, I realised that this little hallway wasn’t the only one on this floor. I hadn’t thought of it before, but it was way too small here to cover all of the lower floor. I walked over to the window at the end of the hallway and found that the hall bended to the right, deeper into the house. I found an entire new set of rooms four more doors. I tried the first one, but it didn’t budge, I didn’t see a staircase, so I tried the other doors. The second to last finally opened, and with that I found the stairs. Suddenly I was getting a little anxious, what would I find in this strange attic that used to belong to my great great grandmother. At the top of the stairs I used the keyring for the first time. I had to search and try for the right key, but eventually found it. I opened the door and stepped onto the attic. It was huge, there were no rooms, so it had the same width and length as the entire house. It hadn’t much stuff, but there were some empty bookcases and several stuffed animals. I had never seen one of those, actual deer heads and there were even wolves and some trophees. I wrote down on my paper that this was the attic and some of the things I had found, there were all sorts of furniture and even some books. I stroked my hand over one of the chairs and realised it had been in my dream, these were the chairs that had been in my grandmothers ballroom. I went downstairs, I locked the doors and went to check the other rooms on that floor. I opened every door and finally ended with three empty rooms, one room packed with all sorts of things, swords, guns, even an old chainmail. I knew where Alex room was, and realised he didn’t have any windows, maybe he didn’t mind. There was a guest room, it looked exactly like my room, but it also didn’t have windows, since it was in the middle of the house. I was really happy that Charley gave me the room next to his, I loved looking outside, even though I couldn’t really look outside right now, because of the vines. There were also two adjoined rooms, one being a large study and the other, about the same size room, filled with several collections. The last room I looked up was the biggest, it was in the back, the door I had felt the first, but hadn’t opened yet. I tried a lot of keys and finally found the right one, I opened the door and was in awe, it was packed it books. All the walls were packed and there were even high bookcases, also packed with books, there were so many, they didn’t all fit in the cases, some were stacked in boxes, behind the door. I liked reading, probably not as much as some people, but with this many books, I could spend a lot of hours in this room. It did need a lot of cleaning. When I closed the door, I checked my phone, it was a few minutes past seven, so I decided to go to the kitchen and start my cooking.

While the potatoes were on the stove and the chicken was laying in a sweet marinade, I decided to check out the lower floor. I had seen most of it, I had been in the living room and behind that was the dining room and then the kitchen, there was the small room besides the kitchen with the laundry machine. I wondered if Alex or Charley actually did their own laundry. I went back to the stairs, there was a small hallway next to them which I went in. I found one door in the middle, it was locked, so I got my keyring from my pocket and opened it. Just like upstairs, there was another study here. It had a large desk and some file cabinets. I closed the door and went back towards the kitchen, there were two more doors, the one farthest from the kitchen was the toilet, I had used it before, the two doors next to them weren’t locked, one was a large walk in closet for jackets and coats and the other was quite a big pantry. The pantry was almost empty, but I saw so much potential, for it to be a nice storage for canned food and it was nice and cool, so I could store potatoes and onions there as well. With a big smile on my face I went back to my task at hand, cooking. just before eight, I finished and took the full pots and pans to the dining room. I was glad that, even though Alex and Charley didn’t really cook, but they did have some pots and pans and plenty of dishes. I opened the door that led straight to the living room and asked them both to come eat.