The Far House

Chapter 2: Dropped dollars

Despite being terrified of the dark, I remained calm. Ryan was a reassuring presence. He scoured the room, tapped the walls, seeking possible exits. "Hey, I've found something here Paula, a switch." Click. The room filled with light, and my heart with hope. Although we'd been trapped for no more than ten minutes, I'd felt a growing foreboding, which the light alleviated somewhat.

..........

The illumination however, shed little light on the reasons for this strangeness’. In fact, it added to the mystery –

In the corner stood a table, beautifully laid with a lace cloth, on top of which lay a plate of biscuits. Ryan stared at them; a puzzled look on his face. He picked one up, studied it closely, and said,

"These are Oreo's," 

"What are Oreo's?"

"Biscuits."

"I can see that, but Oreo's, I've never heard of them."

"Exactly." said Ryan, emphatically.

I looked at him quizzically, "I'm not following you Ryan, what's your point?"

"They're an American brand."

"So?" I asked, still not sure of his point.

"Well, somebody from the U.S. might have something to do with this," he said, throwing his head around the room.

“Well, I know for sure that your family are the only Americans in this town,” I said, with authority.

Ryan nodded his head, “My folks are Mr and Mrs corporate, they’re not this creative, believe me,”  said with a dismissive laugh.

Ryan turned his focus on the bookshelves, "Hey Paula, how many fairytales have you read where these things are secret doors?" He began gently pushing the shelves. I joined him, a long shot, but no harm in giving it a go. To our astonishment, it began to give, each push revealing a tantalizing glimpse of escape. We looked at each other, almost delirious with disbelief.  I got an unexpected fit of nervous giggles, which swiftly infected Ryan, "This isn't funny Paula," he whispered, between stifled, snotty giggles. 

It opened onto a tiny pebbled pathway. Pretty walls of foliage, stretched upwards, carefully fashioned to form an elegant archway. Ryan took my hand; we walked slowly, doing our best to lessen the crunch of our footsteps, lest we be caught by whoever locked us in. We turned a tight corner – and there lay before our relieved eyes, a great expanse of field, leading back onto the lane home.  

Our tension gave way to hysterical peels of laughter as we ran hand in hand through the field. We stopped on the lane and looked back towards the room. Ryan seemed kind of awe struck, “Look at that, it’s completely camouflaged, you’d never know it’s there; we got ourselves a mystery to solve here Paula." He put his hands on my shoulders, looked me intently in the eye and said, "Let's keep this to ourselves, promise me?"

"Of course, trust me," I said, happy to have this secret connection with Ryan.

"Great! I'm gonna have to sprint home, Dad’s gonna be pissed I'm late. I'll add you on Facebook when I get in." He took off at speed, with the lithe athleticism of an Olympian.

Before he disappeared over the hill, he turned to wave. As I waved back, an unsettling feeling came over me; one that had nothing to do with the bizarre events I'd just experienced, something harder for me to handle: I felt suddenly lonely. How could it be possible to miss someone you've only just met?

..........

"You're late PJ?" said my Dad, through a mouthful of apple pie. "I Stopped on for a bit of extra study, and call me Paula, no more PJ Dad," I said, en-route to my room and Facebook.