Mystery for Megan

by Burlingham , Abi;

  ‘That’s just how it feels to me,’ said Megan.

  ‘Me too,’ said Freya.

  It seemed that Dorothy and the mice were there to look after them. But what about Buttercup? Why had he come back?

  Megan was dying to know more about the beautiful golden dog. Where did he come from and why had he been away so long? And now that he was back, what had it got to do with her living at Buttercup House? There were so many mysteries!

  But Megan still hadn’t had breakfast, and all the excitement of the early morning had made her even hungrier. She also wanted to take some more things to the treehouse. Megan had been saving up things that she thought might be useful, and some less useful things too.

  She quickly ate her cereal and raced upstairs, pulling the box of things out from under her bed. She took them out one by one – a snugly pink blanket, in case it got cold; a book, in case she got bored, although that seemed very unlikely; a poster of a white horse to put on the wall; a roll of sticky tape and a pair of scissors, so they could stick the poster on the wall; a plastic container with some lollies in, in case they got hungry; and a colouring book and some felt pens.

  Then she added some rolled-up bits of different coloured wool and some beads. Megan wanted to make Freya a friendship bracelet.

  Megan carried the box to the kitchen. She took a few biscuits out of the tin and put them in with the strawberry lollies. Then, as she got to the door, she looked across the garden to the treehouse. How silly of me, Megan thought. How am I going to get up the ladder with this lot?

  ‘Dad,’ she said, peering into the living room. ‘Can you help me carry some things to the treehouse?’

  ‘What things?’ her dad asked, peering over the top of his reading glasses.

  ‘Just a blanket and a book and a poster and some tape and some lollies and biscuits and a colouring book and some pens and beads and things,’ said Megan.

  Her father laughed, and said, ‘I think you might need a crane for that lot.’

  But somehow they managed without a crane, and in no time at all, Megan had all her new things in her lovely treehouse.

  Freya suddenly appeared at the fence and climbed through into Megan’s garden.

  ‘I’ve got some new things for us,’ Megan told Freya excitedly.

  The girls couldn’t get up the ladder fast enough!

  Megan showed Freya all the new things, laying them out on the rug. Freya loved the poster of the white horse. They stuck it to the wall and turned the box upside down to use as a table. Megan put the book, the colouring book and the pens on top of it. Then they measured the treehouse in steps. It was six steps long and five steps across – exactly as Megan had thought. The girls snuggled under the blanket, even though it was warm, and took out the biscuits. Then Freya spotted the bits of wool and the round tin of beads.

  ‘What are these for?’ she asked.

  ‘Well . . . um . . . I want to make you a friendship bracelet,’ Megan said, nervously.

  ‘Oh, Megan!’ said Freya, giving her new friend a big hug. ‘Can I make you one too?’

  Megan nodded, smiling from ear to ear. She really was glad they’d moved to Buttercup House, even though she did still miss Emily and Beth. They would love it here, thought Megan, and she promised herself she would write to them soon.

  The girls chose their favourite colours. Freya chose green and purple, and Megan chose yellow and blue. They plaited the wool into bracelets, adding on the brightly coloured beads.

  ‘Can you believe we saw Buttercup again?’ said Freya.

  Megan munched into her biscuit. ‘I know. He must live somewhere near here,’ said Megan. ‘I wonder how many times your granny saw him, when he used to come.’

  ‘She can tell you if you like,’ said Freya. ‘Shall we go and ask her?’

  ‘Ooh, yes,’ said Megan.

  So the girls left their new things in the treehouse and went in search of Granny.

  ‘Granny,’ said Freya, bursting into the living room. Granny sat with her legs curled up on the chair, her head buried in a book. ‘Can we talk to you?’ Freya whispered.

  ‘I thought you might want to,’ Granny said, jumping up from her chair. ‘A walk around the garden, I think.’

  When they were halfway down the garden, Freya whispered, ‘Granny, we’ve seen Buttercup again.’

  ‘I knew it,’ Granny said. ‘I knew the minute I saw all those buttercups that he’d been here. How exciting!’

  ‘Shall we show you where we saw him, Granny?’ asked Freya.

  ‘Ooh, yes please,’ said Granny.

  So Megan and Freya took Granny to the spot near the stream.

  ‘He was over there,’ Freya told her granny. ‘At the edge of the wood, wasn’t he, Meggy?’

  Megan nodded. But when she looked at the trees now there was no sign of Buttercup, and she wondered if he really had been there, or if it had just been the golden sunlight shining through the branches of the trees.

  The three of them stood, watching.

  ‘Granny, can you tell Megan about when Buttercup came before?’ asked Freya, suddenly remembering the reason for wanting to talk to her.

  ‘Well, there’s rather a lot to tell,’ Granny said, leading the girls to the bench and sitting down with one either side of her. ‘This is becoming a good place for storytelling, isn’t it?’ She laughed, reaching an arm around each of the girls.

  Then Granny told her story.

  ‘The first time Buttercup came was to help my brother, Jonathon,’ said Granny.

  ‘Is that the same brother who tried to climb the tree?’ asked Megan, remembering the story Freya had told her.

  ‘Yes,’ said Granny. ‘Only this time, he’d gone to the stream to look for newts and decided to explore. He went towards the woods and managed to fall into a ditch. He wasn’t badly hurt but on his way down, he managed to twist his knee. He couldn’t get out. Then it started to get dark, so my father went to look for him. But he couldn’t find him so he ran to the local police station and there was a big search for him. They were out with torches looking, but they couldn’t find him anywhere.’

  ‘Didn’t he call for help?’ asked Megan.

  ‘He said he did,’ said Granny. ‘Everyone must have been looking elsewhere when he called because they just didn’t hear him.’

  ‘What happened?’ said Megan, starting to feel worried.

  ‘That’s when Dorothy and Buttercup came to help,’ said Granny.

  She then explained how her parents had left her at home, in the care of a nanny, while they searched for Jonathon.

  ‘I couldn’t sleep,’ said Granny. ‘So I sneaked out of bed and went downstairs, and there was Dorothy.’

  ‘What did she do?’ asked Megan.

  ‘She stood right next to me and looked at me. I just knew that she wanted me to go with her, so I followed her into the garden, across the stream and into our field beyond,’ said Granny. ‘That’s when I saw Buttercup. He was waiting on the other side of the stream. He came right up to me and looked at me in exactly the same way Dorothy did. I knew that he had found Jonathon and wanted me to go with him.’

  The girls were open-mouthed now, unable to speak. Even Freya, who had heard this story before, felt as if she’d been struck dumb.

  ‘What happened then?’ asked Megan.

  ‘Well, Buttercup led me to Jonathon, then I went to fetch help. If it hadn’t been for Dorothy and Buttercup, I don’t know how long Jonathon would have been stuck there,’ said Granny.

  ‘What happened to Buttercup?’ asked Megan.

  ‘He sat with Jonathon for a while, but by the time we all went to help him, Buttercup had gone. Jonathon was convinced he’d dreamed the whole thing.’

  ‘But what did you tell the nanny?’ asked Megan.

  ‘I said I’d heard Jonathon shouting for help,’ Granny laughed. ‘If I’d told her he’d been helped by a big golden dog that then disappeared, do you think she’d have believed me?’

  The girls sho
ok their heads.

  ‘As I always say,’ said Granny, ‘some things need to be kept in the box.’

  The girls nodded. They understood how silly the story would have sounded to a grown-up!

  ‘Jonathon wasn’t quite so adventurous after that,’ said Granny. ‘I saw Buttercup a few more times, but it was so long ago that I’ve sometimes wondered if I imagined the whole thing.’

  ‘Oh, please tell Megan about the other times,’ said Freya.

  ‘Another day,’ said Granny, keeping her voice to a whisper. ‘But I will just tell you this. Buttercup helped me a couple of times, and I could always tell what he was thinking.’

  ‘Really?’ Megan said.

  Granny nodded. ‘Maybe, now you’re here, Megan, he’ll let you know what he’s thinking too.’

  Megan really hoped so, and crossed her fingers very tightly.

  At school on Monday, Freya and Megan got a big surprise.

  ‘We’re going to the library,’ Miss Roberts said, as the children chattered with excitement. ‘You’ll be able to join, if you haven’t already, and you can borrow a book if you like.’

  ‘Megan,’ Freya said, ‘we could borrow a book each and do swapsies.’

  ‘Oh yes!’ said Megan.

  What with the move to Buttercup House, it had been a while since Megan had visited a library and she hadn’t been to the one in the village yet.

  It was a good twenty-minute walk from their school to the library and all the children were partnered up. Megan was with Freya, of course. They both wore the friendship bracelets they had made together.

  ‘I’m never taking mine off,’ Freya said.

  ‘Me neither,’ said Megan.

  Megan was amazed when she saw the library. It was nothing like the one she’d been to in the city she used to live in. That one was all straight lines and glass. This library was perfectly round with two layers, like a wedding cake, and it sat on a big roundabout in the middle of a crossroads. It was made out of red bricks and had long thin windows. Megan had never seen such an unusual building.

  ‘They call it the Victoria Sponge,’ said Freya. ‘Because it’s like a big, round sponge cake!’

  ‘Wow!’ said Megan, once they were inside. The building looked even bigger from the inside and, if she looked straight up, she could see right up to the roof. The second floor went around the edges in a circle, like a big wide balcony.

  ‘I’d like an animal book,’ said Freya. ‘Not a story book but a factual one, all about different animals.’

  But there were two floors full of books and shelves and they didn’t know where to start looking.

  ‘We could ask that lady,’ suggested Megan, pointing to a tall lady behind a desk. So they went up to the lady at her desk.

  ‘We’re looking for a book, but we don’t know where to look,’ Freya said to the lady, suddenly realising how silly this sounded.

  ‘What sort of book?’ the lady asked.

  ‘Sort of factual,’ said Freya.

  ‘Sort of about animals,’ Megan added.

  The tall lady raised her eyebrows at them. ‘Do you have a title?’ she asked, thinking what a long day it was going to be.

  ‘No,’ whispered Freya, wondering why she was whispering.

  But the lady hadn’t heard her. ‘Pardon?’ she said.

  ‘No!’ Freya shouted, at the same time as Megan, so that it sounded really loud and everyone looked around. The girls tried especially hard not to start laughing!

  The tall lady pointed to the next floor. ‘Factual books are up there,’ she said, looking a little bit annoyed.

  ‘Thank you,’ the girls said, and quickly retreated up the wooden staircase to the next floor.

  ‘You do realise you’re in the top layer of the cake now, don’t you?’ said Freya, trying not to laugh.

  ‘That must mean I’m walking on the jammy bit,’ whispered Megan, smiling and pretending her feet were sticking to the blue carpet.

  ‘Blue jam!’ said Freya, a little too loudly, so that both girls had to stifle their giggles.

  The factual books took up a whole bookcase against the far wall. They didn’t know where to start.

  ‘I’ll start down here,’ said Freya. ‘You look up there.’

  Megan stood on a small stool and searched the higher shelves, while Freya searched the lower ones. There certainly were lots of books, but Megan couldn’t see any animal ones. Then she saw something.

  ‘Look at this,’ she said to Freya, pulling out a thick book.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Freya. ‘It looks really old.’

  It did look very old. Its burgundy cover was crumpled and worn, and the gold writing on the front had started to fade.

  ‘The Book of Strange Tales,’ said Freya. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ said Megan. ‘Shall we have a look?’

  The girls sat down at a small table to look through the book. It was full of tales, all beautifully written, with little illustrations on every page.

  ‘Let’s borrow it,’ Megan said. ‘Then we can read it in secret at the treehouse.’

  ‘Brilliant idea,’ said Freya.

  The girls spent a few more minutes looking for an animal book for Freya, and found one that was exactly what she’d wanted, then Megan joined the library. She got a brand new library card, and took out her first library book from the Victoria Sponge Library – The Book of Strange Tales!

  When the girls got home, they had to change out of their school uniforms, wash their hands, have their dinner and do their homework.

  Of course, they didn’t want to do any of these things, apart from the eating bit. They just wanted to read their books.

  Megan put her finished homework in her bag and zipped up her cardigan. She wasn’t sure why but she didn’t want anyone else to know about the book, so she tucked it underneath her cardigan and ran into the garden.

  ‘Just going to the treehouse with Freya,’ she called.

  ‘Be back by seven o’clock,’ Megan’s dad called after her.

  Megan raced to meet Freya at the end of the wall.

  ‘Have you got the book?’ Freya asked.

  Megan lifted up her cardi to reveal the book, all snuggled up underneath.

  ‘I’ve got mine too,’ said Freya.

  They skipped eagerly through the buttercups, which were still glowing brightly, and across the garden to the treehouse.

  Megan pulled out The Book of Strange Tales, putting it on the rug between them. It suddenly seemed like some very precious thing that they dare not touch. At last, Megan opened the old crumpled cover, and inside, on the front page, was a list of titles – the names of different tales. Then, Megan saw it.

  ‘Freya, look!’ she said.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Freya.

  Then Freya saw it too:

  The Tale of Buttercup p.14

  The girls looked at each other in amazement, then eagerly turned the pages until they reached page fourteen. And this is what it said:

  The Tale of Buttercup

  Gretton is a quiet village in the south of England and is typical of many villages. However, what makes Gretton different is that there have been stories of sightings in the village of a beautiful golden dog and a large black cat. What is particularly strange is that the same animals have been seen over many years.

  The first sighting of them was in the late nineteenth century, around 1886, when a farmer’s son walking his dog spotted the animals together near the woods.

  No one knows why the animals appear or where they come from. The only thing that is known for certain is that the sightings are always reported by children, and that when buttercups appear, the big golden dog also appears. Thus he has earned himself the name ‘Buttercup’, and the big old house close to where the animals have been sighted has come to be known as Buttercup House.

  ‘That’s my house!’ squealed Megan.

  ‘And the buttercups are here, just like it says,’ said Freya excitedly. ‘We have
to show Granny.’

  The girls raced over to Freya’s house and found Granny in the kitchen.

  ‘Granny, you’re not going to believe this,’ said Freya in a whisper. ‘We found this book in the library and there’s a story in it about Buttercup.’

  ‘Really?’ said Granny, quickly drying her hands.

  They all sat around the table and the girls showed Granny The Tale of Buttercup.

  ‘You see, it is something to do with children,’ said Granny. ‘I think the animals come to help children and to look after them. And look, if Dorothy and Buttercup were first seen in 1886, they are both much older than we thought.’

  Freya, Megan and Granny all looked at each other in silence. They were all thinking the same thing. How on earth could an animal live to be well over one hundred years old?

  The rest of the week was sunny and got warmer and warmer. Megan’s mum said it was the warmest spring she could remember and even bought Megan a new sun hat. It was her favourite colour – yellow – with a big purple butterfly on the front. She loved it!

  Megan kept looking out for Buttercup, but she couldn’t see him anywhere. And yet the garden was still covered in buttercups. He must be around somewhere, thought Megan. She looked out of her bedroom window every morning, but all she saw were the trees against a big blue sky and small fluffy clouds drifting across the wide open space.

  Megan tried to think of something to do to keep herself busy. Then she remembered Emily and Beth. She still hadn’t written to them. She had meant to, but one thing had happened after another, and then she didn’t know how to say what she wanted to say. But now she started to miss them all over again. I know, thought Megan, I’ll send them an email and I’ll do it right now!

  She rushed into her dad’s office – it was empty, just as she had hoped. She turned on the computer and opened up a new email.

  Dear Emily and Beth,

  I hope you are OK. What’s been happening at school? Have you done describing words yet?