Enchanting World of Garden Irene McGeeny

by Kennedy, Concetta

  “Time . . .” Peter mumbled. “Oh, yeah, time.”

  “There are only certain places that you’ll see trees and plant life because there aren’t many crevices for the sun to shine through. You see, we’re in a valley, so the sun will show its light only once in a while,” she said very excitedly.

  As they began their trek toward the castle, Peter saw more and more teeth-like protrusions covering the three-story-high ceiling. The brownish-gray color was everywhere except for the bright yellow castle that had touches of purple on its very high steeples.

  For a moment, they both stood still. Garden Irene was kind enough to realize that this was a bit astonishing for Peter, so she let him swallow the panoramic view for a few minutes before she once again told him that there was too much to see to waste time.

  “This is a limestone cave, Peter, found by my Grand-daddy McGeeny when he fell through the hole in the ground and disappeared a long time ago.” She continued “Great-grand-daddy and Uncle Jess yelled for him and heard him call back. Once they knew that he was okay and able to get himself out, they ran to get raincoats, flashlights, ropes, and picks. They never called for any other help, though. This was their secret.

  “The hole,” she continued, “was where grand-daddy put the steps. For five years, the three men dug and explored the cave. This is our special lake,” she said, pointing to the body of water. “Anyway, once they knew that it was safe here and not much water was coming from the earth’s surface, they knew that the stone formations would not crumble anymore.”

  She followed his gaze upward. “Those are called stalactites, Peter.”

  Now they were both standing still, looking up. Peter already knew they were stalactites. They definitely looked like fangs or teeth that probably would come crashing down at any minute.

  “They look like giant icicles, don’t they?” she asked.

  “Those ice things, aren’t you afraid they’ll fall on you, Garden Irene?” Peter swallowed.

  “No. They haven’t fallen for millions of years, and at least not since our castle was built, so why should we worry?” she answered in a reassuring voice. “Now come on into the castle.”

  Peter was still gathering his thoughts over the big icicles that he was doubtless were ready to fall on him. It was difficult for him to tear his attention from those dreadful possibilities to the greatest tour of all—the castle.

  CHAPTER

  8

  Peter was still in awe. Garden Irene continued her long dissertation about her underground home. The look on his face was still fixed from when he’d begun the surprise ride on the elevator.

  He walked very slowly to catch up to his personal tour guide, but nothing could make him rush this event.

  “Garden Irene,” he asked, suddenly rushing to catch up when he found that she was pulling away, “do you realize that you could be known all over the country for this? Or even the world, for that matter! I mean, you could take people on tours, and you could be rich . . .”

  “Stop right there, Peter!” she scolded. “If you are planning on telling a single soul, then we’ll stop right now, and you can go. You see, I promised my parents that I wouldn’t tell anyone about our home. So if you even think of telling anyone, I’m dead meat. I might as well pack my bags and leave right now. They don’t want any publicity.”

  Garden Irene’s tone was so convincing, that Peter said, “Look, I promise I won’t tell anyone. How about I give

  you my very valuable bug collection if I tell? Or my new trail bike that my dad just got me?”

  With this, Garden could see that he was desperate to see the castle or he would never have promised her his most valuable possessions should he squeal.

  Now that they had this understanding in place, she continued. “Okay then. This is where they started to build the castle until the ground didn’t seem too secure; then they bridged the gap from here to the front walk. The columns you see were already in place from thousands of years; they’re natural formations due to water flowing through the rocks.”

  Peter was sure he was dreaming. He was also trying to figure out when she got so earth smart. “This place is incredible, Garden Irene. Why didn’t you tell me about this sooner?”

  “Come on, Peter.” She ran ahead. “There’s a lot more I’ve got to show you, but we’ve got to hurry before my parents come home,” she bellowed. “We ice skate on this lake several times a week. You see, quite some time ago, my dad and my uncles made a dam to hold the water back so they could pour cement slabs. They inserted huge pipes in these slabs so that my dad could keep the ice frozen all the time. He has to put this liquid called gluco in the pipes every now and then. I guess this allows the water to stay frozen, even in warm weather. Pretty neat, huh, Peter?”

  “So this is all kept frozen by electricity?” he questioned.

  “Yeah, and he keeps it at about twenty-six to twenty-eight degrees all the time.”

  “Unbelievable!” whispered Peter. He continued to look around as she waved for him to catch up. “Man, this place looks like a fairy land, or something we’d see in a fairytale book. But I’m actually here!” He was nearly yelling.

  As they gradually approached the castle, he stopped and said, “This castle looks bigger than any of the ones I ever read about in fairytales. I mean, when you said castle, you were right! I honestly never imagined a castle really being so enormous.”

  Garden laughed and replied, “I know. It is big, isn’t it? But I am so used to it now that I never give it a thought.”

  He could see the twelve-foot-long windows that adorned the front of the castle, but the glass was not clear. They were all made of stained glass that displayed flowers and clouds, and blue skies and rainbows. He figured these must take the place of actual scenery from the outside.

  The two continued their walk toward the castle in silence. As they approached the double doors, Garden opened the door on the right, and Peter gasped for the fiftieth time. Now his eyes were set on the ever-flowing sea-foam-colored carpet—at least, he couldn’t see where it ended. It looked to be at least three inches thick. Must have really thick padding, thought Peter.

  Before either could sink their feet into this yummy carpet, shoes were removed, and then they had to walk across the shiny white marble floor of the foyer. All around were plants as high as the ceiling with special lights shining down on them.

  As Peter’s eyes followed the pure white floor, then slowly followed the towering plants, he caught a breathtaking view of the stairway to the immediate right that went somewhere out of sight. These steps, too, were made with the white marble. The reason he couldn’t see where the steps went was because they took a winding curve as they ascended.

  “Come on. Let’s go up. I’ll show you my room,” said Garden Irene.

  “Well, if it’s anything like the rest of this place, I’m sure I’ll like it,” answered Peter as the two approached the monstrous set of steps.

  She led, taking two steps at a time. “I’ll race you!” she yelled as her stocking-garbed feet tackled another step.

  When she finally reached the top, she was slightly out of breath from showing off. She then turned right and began her march down the long corridor.

  Peter made it to the top just in time to see Garden Irene take a sharp left halfway down the luscious hallway. “Wait up, Garden Irene. I don’t want to get lost. I wouldn’t begin to know how to get out of this place,” he called in a not-so-secure voice.

  He reached the site where she made her turn, but she had already conquered the sprawling hall. It appeared quite evident that what he had been afraid was going to happen, did happen. He had lost Garden Irene.

  CHAPTER

  9

  “Garden Irene!” There was no answer. “Garden Irene, where are you? This is not a good idea. Remember we’ve got
to hurry because your parents might be coming.” Peter was sure this would get her to come out.

  Everything was brilliantly lit through all the hallways by the extraordinarily precise placement of lights. There was no way any of the lighting was natural because they were underground, but it sure looked like the sun was shining everywhere. Plants were used to decorate the hallways, which made Peter feel even more welcome. He was sure that he definitely would like a home like this someday.

  Draperies hung along the walls where windows would ordinarily be. Peter knew there weren’t any windows because he’d stopped to look before playing Garden Irene’s game of hide and seek. The crazy thing was, he had not consented to playing her ridiculous game.

  “Garden Irene,” called Peter. “I think I hear your parents.” He was so good at bluffing. He only hoped it worked now. Then he got the bright idea of not moving or saying a word. For sure that would get Garden Irene wondering what happened to him.

  Finally, when she didn’t come to find him, he slowly moved down the left-hand hall, just waiting for Garden Irene to jump out with her fruitless attempt to scare him. Nothing happened.

  “Peter, where are you?”

  He could hear Garden Irene call from afar. Yes! He had won! His plan had worked. He continued walking toward where he heard her voice, moving with a confident gait now, sure he had won the game.

  “What is taking you so long?” he could hear Garden Irene yell. “I’ve been waiting for you for so long!”

  He realized that the joke was on him, and that he had only thought that she was hiding; instead, she was merely in her bedroom waiting patiently for him to catch up.

  He followed her voice and found her in her bedroom. Her room was adorned with swags of sheer fabric coming from everywhere. The colors were of a pastel nature, and these curtains, or whatever they were, went from floor to ceiling, draped across to the other side of the ceiling, and dropped to the floor again. It was really something to see!

  What was really strange was that all this pretty stuff looked like it was blowing from the wind, coming from where, however, he didn’t know. But then he realized that Garden Irene was not in the room where he heard her voice, but out on what appeared to be a balcony.

  By the time Peter got to where she was, he was in awe for the ninety-first time. She had a ferocious waterfall adorning her view about fifty feet in front of the balcony. The force of the water was making the breeze that flowed into her bedroom.

  “Garden Irene, this is too much! Who would have guessed that something like this could exist anywhere? Let alone in our own town!” said Peter.

  “I know. I think it’s cool too,” she answered. “Peter, you are the only person who knows about this except our family. I need to know one more time that I can trust you not to tell anyone . . .”

  Peter reached into his pocket and pulled out a coin. He told her that it wasn’t an American coin. “Garden Irene, my Uncle Mike gave me this coin, and told me how valuable it was. I carry it in my pocket every day so nobody will steal it. If I give this to you to keep for me, would that be proof enough?” he asked in a tone that was just shy of pleading.

  “Let me see it,” Garden Irene said in a way that he was sure meant she was considering letting this be their truce. “What kind of coin is it?”

  “My uncle said that it is an Indian coin. He said they used to use them for trading,” he answered.

  “But I thought the early settlers gave coins to the Indians for something the Indians had that they wanted. If that were the case, maybe the Indians made this coin for themselves to use for trading. Or maybe they traded with people who weren’t early settlers, or from this country.”

  “All I know is that it is an Indian coin, and the only thing I can see on it is just one word and part of another,” he said.

  “Peter, are you sure your uncle knew what he was talking about? Because it looks like I can see the words: WE TRUST. The rest of the words are worn off,” said Garden Irene.

  At that moment she ran back into her bedroom and opened the top drawer of her chest of drawers. “Peter, look! I have a coin my dad gave me, too. And it almost looks the same, but mine is an old fifty-cent piece that got run over by a train. The words are worn on mine, too, but I can still tell it says ‘IN GOD WE TRUST,’” she said.

  “Well, I’ll be! I wonder why he told me that it was an Indian coin. He told me that if I kept it forever, someday it would be worth something,” said Peter in a rather disappointed voice.

  “Actually, he was right. My dad told me the same thing. And for your information, Peter, the first Americans were called Native Americans, and they were Indians.”

  “So this must really be worth something, huh?” said Peter. “I sure hope I never lose it.”

  It was then that Garden Irene realized how much the coin meant to Peter. She knew that if he gave her the coin, that he would never tell their secret.

  CHAPTER

  10

  As Garden Irene and Peter retracted their steps to leave the castle, by the time they reached the first floor she decided to go out the back way so she could show Peter her collection of stalactite pieces. They had been chiseled by her dad when he was doing the lighting and electrical work.

  They passed through the dining room, then the kitchen. Peter figured that the dining room was so immense it could seat the president and all of Congress. “I’ve never seen such a long table,” he said.

  “We use it every night when we eat supper,” said Garden Irene.

  “Gee! What do you do? Use megaphones to talk?”

  This made her laugh. “No, we all sit at the end closest to the kitchen.”

  When they slowly moved out of the dining room and into the kitchen, Peter’s first thought was that the kitchen looked to be about the size of the Olympic-size swimming pool that his neighbor had. “Nice kitchen,” he murmured.

  “My mom would love this, except she’d probably get lost,” he added to Garden Irene, who was already out the French doors that led to the wooden deck.

  The kitchen had the most beautiful cherry cupboards lining two and a half of the mile-long walls. The refrigerator certainly wasn’t like any Peter had ever seen. Garden called it a Sub-Zero fridge, and the front double doors were also made of cherry wood. He almost didn’t know it was a refrigerator.

  There were double ovens to the left of the porcelain sink that was straight ahead, and the window over the sink viewed the lower part of Garden Irene’s waterfall. The counter tops and middle island were beautifully veined, black marble granite. The island looked to be about twenty feet long and it cradled an inserted stove-top. To the extreme right, where the cherry cupboards stopped, there was a large nook that housed a cherry breakfast set which consisted of a large, round, pedestal-based glass-topped table with six chairs. It all looked so very cozy.

  When Peter finally made it through the French doors, he thought that Garden Irene’s collection of stalactites looked like snowy diamonds, and each piece shone more than the last.

  “Wow! I’ve never seen stones like this.”

  “Peter, these aren’t stones,” corrected Garden Irene. “I told you they are stalactite pieces.”

  “Sorry,” said Peter.

  She put her collection away just as fast as she had pulled it out, but not until she had given Peter one to remember that day.

  “Here, Peter. I think you’ll like this one. It kind of sparkles, but the shape looks like a baby grand piano. It’s one of my favorites. And just remember that it’s not a stone. It’s from a stalactite.”

  All he could think of was those large fangs that were everywhere outside of the castle. He also knew he was due to embark back to that scene very shortly as he left.

  No sooner did he have these thoughts, than Garden Irene told him they had better take the elevator up so h
e could go before her parents arrived home. As they marched toward the doors of the elevator, she stopped short in her tracks. She turned around to him and said, “We better shake on our secret.”

  “Okay,” he agreed. They quickly shook hands on their secret and continued on. Peter wasn’t ready to go yet because it seemed like he had just arrived. But, he knew the consequences for Garden Irene if he should still be there when her parents got home.

  The ride to the ground level went fast and stopped with a jolt.

  “Well, here we are,” said Garden Irene. “And here are your shoes. You almost forgot them,” she said as he moved toward the door. “Guess I’ll see you on Monday.”

  Peter stepped out of the elevator and into the mud-room. He put his shoes back on, tied them as slowly as he could just so this surrealistic dream of waterfalls and enormous kitchens and deep sea-foam-colored carpet wouldn’t end, and then he stood up. But he knew it would. He sighed.

  “See ya,” he said reluctantly.

  Garden remained in the mud-room as Peter opened the door and went outside. Before he closed the door behind him, he turned to Garden Irene and said one more time in a voice still filled with disbelief, “See ya.”

  Garden Irene never worried about school on Monday, because she knew no one would ever find out about her underground castle. Peter never worried about Monday either, because he was too busy trying to figure out when he could go back and visit Garden Irene when no one was home.

  Garden Irene heard her mom come home a little later. She yelled out Garden Irene’s name, letting her know she was home. Shortly after, her father arrived, but Garden said nothing about her day to either one of her parents.

  In some ways this bothered Garden Irene. She wasn’t used to keeping anything from her parents. She loved them so much.

  The entire weekend was disrupted by Garden Irene’s thoughts about what would happen if her parents knew about Peter. Would they ask her to move out? Or maybe they’d go to his parents and ask them if they could adopt Peter, then they wouldn’t have to worry about an outsider knowing their secret. Peter would be a member of the family, and she’d have a yucky brother.