Mystery for Megan

by Burlingham , Abi;

  For Toby and Emma, with love

  First published in Great Britain in 2012

  by Piccadilly Press Ltd,

  5 Castle Road, London NW1 8PR

  www.piccadillypress.co.uk

  Text copyright © Abi Burlingham, 2012

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

  The right of Abi Burlingham to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN: 978 1 84812 242 0 (paperback)

  eISBN: 978 1 84812 266 6

  Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

  Cover design by Simon Davis

  Cover illustration by Susan Hellard

  Contents

  Things Megan Didn’t Know

  A Normal House in a Normal Street

  The Move to Buttercup House

  The Rooms in Buttercup House

  The Girl Next Door and the Black Cat

  The Treehouse

  Freya, the Treehouse and the Mice

  It’s Whiskers O’Clock

  Keep the Secret in the Box

  A Very Strange Happening

  The Arrival of Later and a Meeting at the Treehouse

  Tea at Freya’s with Granny’s Home–made Shortbread

  A Meeting with Granny

  A Mysterious Cat Called Dorothy

  Megan’s Story

  A Big Surprise

  Then the Strangest Thing Happened

  A Very Puzzled Megan

  The Buttercups

  Some Extra Things for the Treehouse

  The Story of Buttercup

  The Book of Strange Tales

  The Tale of Buttercup

  An Email to Emily and Beth

  A Whole Day at Megan’s House

  A Reply from Emily

  Something Unexpected

  Buttercup to the Rescue

  A Rainbow Treehouse

  Megan was nine, and for a nine year old there were lots of things she knew. She knew all the primary colours and her times tables up to ten. She could make the best cheese toasties in the world and she knew that if you got bored you should use your imagination; her mum was always telling her so.

  She could count to twenty-nine in French and knew how to knit long scarves for Flopsy, her favourite snugly bunny, because her mum had taught her. The only thing she couldn’t do was cast on and cast off, because those bits were too difficult, even for a nine year old who knew lots of things.

  But there were also lots of things that Megan didn’t know. She didn’t know that she would be moving to Buttercup House and she didn’t know that there were mice who lived there who seemed to be able to tell the time. She didn’t know about the mysterious black cat and beautiful golden dog and she didn’t know that the little girl, Freya, who lived next door would become her best friend . . . and she had no idea why Buttercup House was called Buttercup House.

  Megan had always lived in a normal house in a normal street with a normal-sized garden and an average sort of garage at the side. She had no brothers, no sisters and no pets. She often wished she did.

  Her mum was an artist and made interesting things out of clay and her dad worked in an office and went out in a suit in the morning and came back in the same suit at night.

  Megan had a friend called Emily and a friend called Beth. She liked her house in the normal street with the normal-sized garden and the average sort of garage at the side, and she liked her friends Emily and Beth.

  But sometimes Megan got bored, even though she tried very hard to use her imagination, like her mum told her. Sometimes she and Emily and Beth had played every game they knew how to play, had ridden their bikes up and down the road and had hidden in every place they could think of. Then they got fed up and went back to their own homes to sulk.

  ‘You shouldn’t sulk,’ her mum said.

  ‘But I’m bored,’ said Megan.

  ‘Then use your imagination,’ said her mum.

  Megan would try, and sometimes it worked. She would fill the spaces in her head with a game where she lived in a big house with a big fluffy dog called Boots, and two older brothers called Joshua and Jack who would look after her and give her piggyback rides and lollies, especially strawberry ones. Megan loved strawberry lollies.

  Then the sign went up in their front garden. It said For Sale in blue letters on a yellow board. A man came and knocked it in with a big wooden hammer and the noise echoed down the street.

  ‘Where are we going?’ asked Megan. She knew her dad had found a new job and that they might have to move, but it hadn’t seemed very real until now. She had been far too busy playing with Emily and Beth even to think about it.

  ‘We’ve found a house,’ her dad said, ‘with lots of space for your mum so she can make more things.’

  ‘What about school?’ Megan asked.

  ‘There’s another school,’ her dad said. ‘You’ll love it.’

  ‘But what about Emily and Beth?’ asked Megan.

  ‘You can write to them and they can come for a sleepover,’ her mum suggested.

  But Megan didn’t want to leave her friends. She didn’t want to hardly ever see them and she really didn’t like the thought of having no one to play with.

  Megan didn’t see Buttercup House until the day they moved in.

  ‘We want it to be a surprise,’ her mum said.

  And it was a surprise! The house was huge, and looked . . . well, tumbledown, as her grandma would have said.

  As she walked through the front door, the first thing Megan saw was a wooden floor and she wondered where the carpet was. Then she noticed a small pile of fresh mouse droppings. Of course, Megan didn’t know they were mouse droppings because she had never seen mouse droppings before. Megan saw small, round, brown blobs and wondered what they were. If Megan had looked a few seconds earlier, she would have seen a small brown mouse watching her very carefully.

  Then Megan looked up and saw that she was in a long, narrow hallway with a big stairway climbing up the right-hand side. Megan thought that, if it wasn’t for the wall holding it up, it would have definitely tumbled down. It was like an old person that needed propping up. Megan looked at her mum, and her mum smiled one of her I know what you’re thinking smiles.

  ‘It’s not that bad, Meggy,’ she said.

  ‘Nothing a hammer and a few nails can’t fix,’ her dad said.

  They walked through a door that was barely hanging on by its hinges and into the kitchen. Megan stared at the door. Tumbledown, she thought. Definitely tumbledown.

  ‘Just look at those views,’ her mum called to her. ‘This is what we came for.’

  Megan was still staring at the door, wondering how a hammer and a few nails could fix it.

  ‘Meggy,’ her dad said. ‘Come here.’

  He guided her through the large square kitchen to a stable door that opened on to the back garden. It was a beautiful spring day. Megan stared out of the door. She felt her feet fix to the spot and couldn’t move.

  Through the doorway she saw a garden bigger than any garden she had ever seen. It stretched out before her, rolling downwards, dotted with trees whose arms reached towards the clouds. Then Megan’s mouth fell open. To one side was an enormous tree, and in it was a treehouse.

  ‘A treehouse!’ Megan screamed. Emily and Beth would love it, she thought. Especially Beth. She loves dens.

  ‘It’s great, isn’t it?’ said Megan’s
mum.

  ‘It hasn’t been used for years,’ her dad added. ‘We can fix it up though.’

  At the bottom of the garden were more trees, then more grass that seemed to go on forever.

  ‘Is all that ours?’ Megan asked.

  ‘There’s a small stream at the bottom, just beyond those trees,’ Megan’s dad told her. ‘Then just beyond that there’s a fence. Up to the fence is ours.’

  ‘And whose is the rest?’ Megan asked, wondering who owned the field and wood beyond.

  ‘It all belongs to the people next door,’ said Megan’s mum.

  ‘Who are the people next door?’ asked Megan.

  ‘There are a mum and dad, just like us, a little girl about your age and her granny.’

  Megan was beginning to feel a whole lot better about Buttercup House. The garden which went on and on forever was definitely something to feel pleased about, and the treehouse was something to feel very excited about. There was the little girl next door too. They could play hide and seek for ages in this garden, and as her dad had said, a hammer and a few nails could fix the rest.

  Megan was used to a house with a living room and a kitchen with a table to eat at. She was used to a house with a bathroom, a bedroom for her mum and dad and a small bedroom for herself. She was used to a room that was five steps wide and six steps long; this was how Megan always measured things.

  There wasn’t a single room in Buttercup House that was five steps wide and six steps long. Even the hall with the tumbledown staircase was bigger than that. Then there was the kitchen, a separate dining room and a living room. Upstairs, was a bathroom, two big bedrooms and a smaller bedroom.

  ‘Is this one mine?’ Megan asked when she saw the small bedroom.

  Her mum and dad looked at each other and smiled.

  ‘That’s going to be my office,’ said her dad.

  Megan wasn’t quite sure what her dad did, but she knew it was to do with advertising and she knew it involved lots of paper and that he needed lots of places to put it.

  ‘This will be your room,’ her dad said, leading her down the landing. Tucked away between the two larger bedrooms was a narrow set of stairs that Megan hadn’t noticed before.

  ‘Up you go then,’ her mum said.

  Megan followed the stairs upwards until she reached a small square landing with a door.

  When she opened the door, she saw an enormous attic bedroom. Megan had always wanted an attic room. It was the most amazing room she had ever seen, and it was yellow, Megan’s favourite colour.

  ‘We painted it last week while you were at school,’ her dad said. ‘We wanted you to like it straight away.’

  ‘Do you like it?’ her mum asked, uncertainly.

  ‘I love it!’ Megan said, and she really did.

  Later, when her bed was all made up, and her chest of drawers and wardrobe were exactly where she wanted them, Megan counted the steps across her room. Then she thought she must be wrong and counted again, but it was still the same. Thirty steps across and thirty steps long. A perfect square.

  I must write and tell Emily and Beth, Megan thought. She missed Emily and Beth. It was hard leaving her friends behind, but she had promised herself that she would be brave and try not to think about it too much.

  Megan gazed through the window at the garden rolling down towards the stream and the treehouse held up high in the enormous tree. It is wonderful here, though, Megan thought. Even more wonderful than the house in the game I play in my head. If only there was a dog called Boots, then everything would be perfect.

  It wasn’t until the next day when Megan met Freya and when Freya told her about Dorothy, the black cat, that Megan realised that Buttercup House was anything but an ordinary house.

  On the right-hand side of the back garden of Buttercup House was a wall made of big old stones. Megan stretched up her arm and tried to be as tall as she could, but she still couldn’t reach the top – it was much too high. Then, she noticed a small head at the top of the wall. It made her jump.

  ‘Hello,’ said the head, which was a very pretty head with dark shiny hair and a tiny nose.

  ‘Hello,’ said Megan.

  ‘You won’t be able to reach the top, you know, it’s too high,’ said the girl with the shiny hair and the tiny nose.

  ‘How did you get up there then?’ Megan asked, curiously.

  ‘I have a special walkway,’ said the girl. ‘Are you the new girl?’

  Megan nodded.

  ‘My name’s Freya,’ she said.

  ‘I’m Megan.’

  ‘I know,’ Freya said. ‘I heard your mum call you earlier. Shall I come down and meet you at the other end of the wall?’

  Megan hadn’t thought about the other end of the wall. She had only just discovered this end. ‘OK,’ she said.

  Freya’s head disappeared, and Megan followed the wall until it ended. Freya was already there, peering over the wooden slatted fence which replaced the wall and ran down to the trees and the stream.

  Freya was quite a lot smaller than Megan. She wore long stripy socks that stretched above her knees and a pair of long purple shorts that looked as if they were too big for her. She wore a yellow T-shirt covered in silver stars and she had hair that reached down to her elbows. Megan thought she looked like a little elf.

  ‘Have you seen her?’ Freya whispered.

  ‘Have I seen who?’ Megan asked, whispering too, although she had no idea why she was whispering.

  ‘Dorothy.’

  ‘Who’s Dorothy?’

  ‘The cat,’ Freya answered. ‘She’s back! Haven’t you seen her?’

  ‘No,’ Megan answered, feeling a little puzzled. ‘Is she your cat?’

  Freya laughed. ‘No, not my cat. She’s . . . well, she’s our cat.’

  ‘Our cat?’ said Megan.

  Freya nodded. ‘Yours and mine. She lives here. Granny told me all about her. She used to live here years ago, then she went, but now she’s back.’

  Megan had no idea what Freya meant and was beginning to think she was a bit bonkers. Then all of a sudden, Freya exclaimed, ‘There, look!’

  Megan looked to where Freya pointed, to the trees that bordered the stream, and there was a black cat, dashing through the long grass.

  ‘I told you,’ said Freya. ‘Granny was so pleased when I told her I’d seen her. I wish we could play in your treehouse.’

  ‘It needs fixing,’ said Megan. ‘Everything here needs fixing. But we could play in it tomorrow, when Dad’s fixed it.’

  So that was how Megan and Freya got to be friends – just like that!

  Megan’s dad took planks of wood up to the treehouse and hammered and banged, and hammered and banged some more. Every now and then Megan saw a dark head appear above the wall, and she would wave to Freya, and Freya would wave back. Then Megan saw the black cat, Dorothy, again. This time she was sitting at the end of the wall and seemed to be watching her. Why is she doing that? thought Megan.

  Megan followed her mum into the workshop at the side of the house, where she was going to be making her interesting things out of clay. At the moment, though, it was full of boxes packed full of all their things.

  ‘Mum, did you know that a black cat lives here?’ Megan asked.

  ‘Where?’ asked her mum. ‘Here?’

  ‘Yes, here,’ said Megan. ‘Freya told me, and I saw her yesterday and again just now. She’s called Dorothy.’

  ‘Oh, she’s probably wild,’ said her mum.

  That’ll be it then, thought Megan. I bet she just visits now and again. But what did Freya mean when she said that Dorothy used to live here years ago? It’s all very puzzling.

  ‘I’ve finished,’ Megan’s dad called.

  Megan raced towards the treehouse.

  ‘Careful as you go,’ he said, holding on to the ladder to steady it.

  Megan’s heart was racing. She stepped carefully up the rope ladder, which was more difficult to climb than she had thought. Eight steps up and she was
there.

  It was the best treehouse she had ever seen! It looked around the same size as her old bedroom, about five steps by six, Megan thought. Megan leaned back against one of the walls. She could see Freya’s garden and if she looked out of the window she could see the stream at the bottom of the garden. Then she saw Dorothy again, dashing in and out of the trees.

  ‘I’ve got an old rug you can have,’ Megan’s mum called from below. ‘And a couple of cushions.’

  Megan’s dad appeared moments later, with the rug and cushions under his arm. ‘Here,’ he said, pushing the things through the doorway.

  Megan laid the rug out and put the cushions next to each other, one for her and one for Freya.

  She peered through the opening, waving to Freya.

  ‘I’m coming down,’ she called. ‘Meet me at the end of the wall.’

  Megan carefully climbed down the ladder. It swung a bit, but she was already getting used to it.

  The treehouse was fantastic!

  Freya was at the end of the wall when Megan arrived.

  ‘Is it finished? Can we play in it?’ Freya asked excitedly.

  ‘Yes, come on, quick,’ said Megan, hopping from one foot to the other.

  The girls ran across the garden to the treehouse. Megan was first up, then her dad steadied the ladder while Freya climbed up.

  ‘It’s OK,’ Freya told him. ‘The ladder’s not as tricky as my special walkway.’ She reached the top and gasped. ‘Wow! It’s amazing!’

  ‘Do you like the rug?’ Megan asked. ‘Do you like the cushions?’

  ‘Oh yes!’ said Freya, her face alight with wonder. ‘It’s awesome, all of it’s awesome.’

  Then she remembered something. ‘Biscuits,’ Freya said, reaching into the pocket of her dungarees and pulling out four biscuits and some paper napkins. Freya shared the biscuits out as if she was dealing cards, and the girls munched away at them.

  ‘You are so lucky having this treehouse,’ said Freya. ‘But then again, I’ve got Granny’s stories, so I’m lucky too, aren’t I?’

  ‘Does your granny read you stories, then?’ Megan asked, thinking Freya meant stories from a book.