“It’s dangerous to just drill holes in the walls of these old houses, Erin, because you never know what you might hit,” said Dad. “There could be electrical wires, plumbing pipes, or nothing at all. If we can’t find an entrance, we might have to open this wall up. But for now, we have a lot of unpacking to do. Besides, you two haven’t even seen your bedroom yet.”
The girls rushed down the stairs with Mom and Dad trailing behind. They burst through the door and then suddenly stopped. It was the most beautiful bedroom they had ever seen. The room was at least twenty feet long by thirty feet wide, and the ceilings were a full nine feet high. Across the room and through an archway was the second floor sunroom that was lit up by tall, narrow windows. Their bedroom furniture and boxes of clothes and toys were stacked everywhere.
“You two have your work cut out for you,” commented Mom, surveying the huge pile of boxes. “After we see the rest of the house and have our picnic, Dad and I will set up your bed. And then you two are in here until everything is put away.”
Both Kim and Erin groaned. They obviously had other ideas.
“But what about finding friends?” wailed Erin. “I thought we might check out some of the houses down the road to see if they have any kids our age.”
“Not today, ladies. You’ve got to get this room in order before dark so that you can sleep in here tonight.”
“Please, Mom,” pleaded Erin. “I know! How about if we just check out that house over there?” As she spoke, she pointed at a white, wooden house that was visible from their sunroom window.
Mom shook her head. “We told you, that house is owned by a very old woman who wants to be left alone. There are no kids over there, so stay away from her house and respect her privacy.”
“But…” interrupted Erin.
“No buts,” said Mom ending the argument. She turned and walked out of the room. “Come on, we’ve got the rest of the house to explore.”
The rest of the house was pretty ordinary for Erin and Kim. There were two more bedrooms on the second floor and two big bathrooms. One of the neat things they found was another long, narrow set of stairs on the other side of the house, which led down to the first floor and ended in the back hallway. Their dad explained to them that this stairway was used many years ago by the domestic help so they could go around the house unnoticed and get their chores done.
“What’s domestic help?” asked Erin.
“Domestic help are the people who were hired to clean the house, make the meals, make repairs, and tend the yard,” answered Dad.
Kim had a quizzical look on her face. “Are we going to have some of those?”
“I don’t think so,” answered Mom, chuckling. “We don’t make nearly enough money to hire any domestic help.”
“Aww, too bad,” sighed Kim.
Off the back hallway was a door leading to the basement. The walls of the basement were made of heavy stones, unlike the blocks Erin and Kim were used to. There was furniture, tools, a couple of old-fashioned bikes, and quite a few spider webs down the steps. The basement was divided into many smaller rooms and most of them were dark and spooky looking. After a short time down there, both Erin and Kim got a little scared and wanted to go upstairs.
“Well, let’s have that picnic,” said Dad, after they got back to the kitchen.
They all went outside to the van, got the cooler and food basket, and carried it down to the river.
It was exciting for the girls to travel down the wooded path to the river. It was just as they had imagined. They ran ahead of their mom and dad, stopping only long enough to look for interesting climbing trees or at some small animal darting into the woods. On one such stop, Kim looked up and saw the corner of the neighbor’s house through the trees.
“Look, Erin,” she said, pointing up at a second floor window. “Someone is watching us.”
Erin glanced up just in time to see a white-haired, elderly woman disappear behind a curtain.
“Come on, Kim,” Erin said, grabbing her sister’s arm. “Mom said to leave her alone.”
The two of them raced forward to the river, not noticing the curtain move ever so slightly again as the old woman watched them disappear down the path.
When the girls reached the bank of the river, they tore off their shoes and waded into the cool, clear water.
“Look over there!” said Erin. “That must be the boathouse that Mom and Dad told us about. Let’s go see it!”
The building was grounded in the side of the riverbank. It had no windows and only one large set of double doors on the river side. The doors were locked tightly with a huge, rusty padlock. An old wooden pier was in front of the building and stuck out about fifteen feet into the river. The girls got up onto the pier and walked to the end. Through the cracks between the planks, they could see small fish swimming lazily back and forth.
“Be careful out there,” called Dad as he and Mom came out of the woods.
“Can you open up the boathouse, Daddy?” yelled Kim.
Mom and Dad came over to the boathouse and looked questioningly at the heavy, rusted padlock. Dad grabbed it and gave it a tug, but it didn’t budge.
“To tell you the truth, honey, we don’t have a key for this lock. I’ll have to cut it off as soon as we finish unpacking.”
“What do you think is in there?” asked Erin, pressing her face against a small crack between the doors. She was trying to get a look inside, but it was too dark to see anything.
“Probably nothing,” answered Dad.
“If there is a beautiful boat in there… would it be ours?” Erin asked, surveying the river with a dreamy look on her face.
“I don’t think you have to worry about finding a beautiful boat in there, Erin. That banker, Smith, would have charged a lot more for the property if it came with a boat.”
“But if there is a boat in there, Dad, would it be ours?” pressed Erin.
Dad poked her in the stomach, and she giggled. He draped his arm over Erin’s shoulder and grabbed Kim’s hand. “Let’s go help your mom.”
They set off for the riverbank where Mom was already spreading a blanket for the picnic.
“Well?” asked Erin.
“Well what,” said Dad, laughing.
“Would a boat in the boathouse belong to us?” she asked again.
He looked into Erin’s eyes, and seeing that she was in one of her ‘Erin is serious’ moods, he answered, “The boathouse belongs to us, sweetheart, so anything that is in it also belongs to us. So the answer is yes.”
“I’m hungry,” Kim interrupted. “Let’s eat!”
Chapter 1 Discussion Questions
K – 2nd Grade
Kim and Erin are sisters; do you have a sibling (if not, do you have a cousin/best friend you see often)? Do you get along with him or her?
What is one thing you like about Erin and Kim’s new home?
3rd & 4th Grade
What have you learned so far about Erin and Kim?
What do you predict is in the boathouse?
5th & 6th Grade
Who is the Smith family and what information did the author give us about them?
Compare and contrast Erin and Kim’s hometown of Racine, Wisconsin, to their new town of River’s End. From what we know about River’s End so far, how do you think the two places are similar and different?
Chapter 2:
The Secret Door
After lunch, Erin and Kim were banished to their room until they had unpacked all of their stuff. After about an hour, Kim sat down on the bed and let out a big sigh.
“Get back to work, Kim!” exclaimed Erin. “We’ll never get done if you keep on taking breaks.”
“I don’t care,” said Kim. “We’re never going to get done anyway. We are going to be up here forever and ever with all of these boxes.”
Ever since they were little, Erin and Kim were always trying to solve mysteries. Even if some mysteries were only pretend mysteries. Almost every night, they would have Mom, Dad, or their big sister, Jenny, read to them. Mysteries were their favorite books, and now that Erin could read, she took over the task of rereading all of their favorite stories out loud to Kim at night. Both girls dreamed of being great detectives and planned for the day when they were older and could open the ‘Erin & Kim Detective Agency’.
“We’ll never finish,” Kim sighed again as she flopped back on the bed.
“Okay,” said Erin, “we’ll take a short break.” She walked into the circular sunroom. The afternoon sun lit the room beautifully. She went over to the window and looked out toward the next-door neighbor’s house. She was certain that she saw the old woman looking at her from a bedroom window, but by the time she got Kim’s attention to come take a look, the woman had disappeared behind the curtain.
Erin stood there for a moment and felt a shiver of fear travel down her spine.
“Why does she keep staring at us?” asked Kim, looking out toward the neighbor’s window. “I’m scared, and I don’t like her.”
“How can you say that? You don’t even know her. Besides, Mom said that she just wants to be left alone.” Erin opened one of the windows and hung her head out. Leaning as far out as she could, she looked up at the windows of the attic room above. “I wonder how you get up there.”
Erin could see some old lace curtains hanging on the windows, but that was about all. “There’s got to be some way to get into that room.” She slid back into the sunroom.
Kim was standing next to the window looking up at the ceiling. “But how?”
“I’ve got an idea,” said Erin, as she walked over to the far wall. “Maybe there is an entrance in this room with stairs up to the attic, just like those back stairs we saw earlier.”
She ran her hand across the wood paneling on the curved wall. “I’ll bet I’m right. Look at how thick this wall is!”
She stood in the doorway between the sunroom and the bedroom and showed Kim how the wall thickened up from one side to the other. To show how wide it was, she tried to stretch her arms across the opening, but she couldn’t. “There has got to be a secret entrance somewhere here,” she said. “Let’s knock on the walls and see if we can find it.”
For the next half hour, Erin and Kim knocked and pushed every inch of the sunroom’s paneled walls but couldn’t find anything. Kim went from their sunroom to their bedroom on the other side of the wall and started to search in there. After a few minutes she called out to Erin. “Come quick! I’ve found something!”
When Erin came into the room, she saw Kim kneeling next to the curved wall on the bedroom side.
“What did you find?”
“Listen,” said Kim. She knocked on the wall three times. It sounded pretty solid.
“So…” said Erin, coming a little closer.
“Just listen to this.”
Thump, thump, thump. Kim knocked in the same spot. Then she slid over about two feet and rapped on the wall again. Boink, boink, boink. It sure sounded different.
“Do you think this could be it?” asked Kim, knocking again.
“Let’s see if we can find a secret handle, or a latch, or something that will open this wall,” said Erin, sliding down next to Kim.
They both poked and prodded the old wood. After a few minutes of searching, Erin felt a loose piece of trim. She twisted it, and it slid easily on a smooth metal pin.
“Kim! Look at this!”
Erin twisted hard on the trim and immediately there was a scraping sound from the hollow portion of the wall. A panel slid back to reveal a dark tunnel. Kim stuck her head into the opening and saw a narrow set of stairs leading up to the third floor attic room.
“Let’s go up there!” said Erin, leaning over Kim’s shoulder and looking up the stairs.
“It’s too dark,” answered Kim. “Go get my flashlight. It’s next to the bed.”
Erin quickly got the flashlight and slid into the narrow tunnel in front of Kim. “Stay close.”
Erin crept up the first three stairs and then turned around and shined the flashlight back toward the opening. Kim had not entered into the tunnel yet.
“Come on, scaredy-cat! We’ve got a flashlight.”
“What if there are ghosts and goblins up there?” stammered Kim, backing away from the entrance. “Or maybe there’s somebody up there. Maybe there’s even a dead body or something! We should go get Mom and Dad.”
Erin shined the flashlight down on the steps. There were footprints in the dust where she had just stepped but no others.
“Look at this, Kim,” she said. “If there were any ghosts or goblins up here, they would have left some footprints and there aren’t any except mine. Stop being such a scaredy-cat and come up here with me!”
Kim stuck out her chin boldly and then stepped into the opening. “I’m not a scaredy-cat.”
“Well then come on! Let’s go.”
Erin stepped onto the next step when suddenly, behind them, the door to the secret entrance slammed shut.
“Yeeeeeeeee!” squealed Kim, bursting into tears. She started to pound on the door.
Erin stood there for a moment, frozen in fear, and unsure of what to do next. She shined the light up and down the dark stairway but nothing moved. She had no clue as to who or what had shut the door.
“Kim, did you shut the door?” she asked, already knowing the answer.
“No,” wailed Kim without turning around. She continued to pound on the door. “Help!”
Erin came down the stairs and stood next to Kim. She shined the flashlight all around the entryway. She couldn’t find any way to open the door.
“Help me, Kim,” she exclaimed. “We’ve got to find some way out of here!”
Kim stopped her pounding and looked up. “Maybe if we yell loud enough, Mom and Dad will hear us.”
“They’ll never hear us in here, Kim. They’re all the way downstairs.”
“Then what do we do!?”
Erin gently wiped the tears from Kim’s face. Taking a deep breath to calm down, she gave Kim a hug and said, “I’m scared, too.” She knew she had to think of something quickly or else both of them would panic. “I know,” she stated bravely, “let’s go up to the secret room. Then we’ll open a window and call down to Mom and Dad.”
She wasn’t sure if her plan would work, but it was the best she could come up with at the moment. Taking Kim’s hand, she gave her a tug and started back up the stairs. When she stepped on the fourth step, the door magically slid open.
“Look! It opened!” Kim shouted as she raced back down and zipped through the opening. “Let’s get out of here!”
“We must have done something to make it open.”
Kim peered back into the secret entrance and looked up at Erin. “Aren’t you coming out?”
Erin ignored Kim’s question and carefully studied the steps leading up to the attic. On the fourth step, she could see a small metal spring attached to the board. “I’ll bet this is it, Kim. Step back away from the opening, and let’s see if it closes.”
Kim shook her head. “No way! I’m getting out of here.”
She backed away from the entrance but stopped for a moment to look at her sister. “Are you coming?”
“Just stay out there. Away from the door. I’m going to try something. If it shuts and I can’t get it back open, then open it from the outside with the latch.”
“Okay…” answered Kim hesitantly.
&nbs
p; Erin stepped down on the fourth step. The door immediately slammed shut. She listened carefully, but she could barely hear Kim’s muffled voice through the wall.
“Erin! Erin! Can you hear me?”
“Yes, I can barely hear you,” she yelled back. “Stay away from the door.” She stepped off of the fourth step and immediately stepped back on it. The door slid quietly open and Kim appeared back in the entry.
“What did you do?”
“There is a secret latch on this step,” said Erin, pointing at the fourth step. “Watch this.”
She stepped up and down on it. The door opened and closed each time.
“That’s neat,” said Kim. “Let me try it.”
Kim came up the stairs and stepped on the corner of the step. The door closed. She stepped on and off and the door opened and shut each time.
“Well, we solved that mystery,” beamed Kim.
“We?” asked Erin. “I don’t think so. I solved this one.”
“So what,” said Kim, forgetting her earlier fears. “Let’s go up to the attic room and see what’s up there.”
The two of them continued up the steps and around the curved wall. When they reached the top, there was a closed door. On the door was a huge heart carved in the wood. At the center of the heart were some words. Erin shined the flashlight on the heart so that she could get a better look.
“What does it say?” asked Kim.
Carved into the wood in the center of the heart were the words, “Annabelle’s Secret Playroom.” Erin read the words aloud. The ‘A’ on the name Annabelle was carved in a beautiful fancy shape.
“Who’s Annabelle?” asked Kim. “Do you think she might still be in there?”
Erin gave her sister a strange look, then shrugged her shoulders as she reached up and turned the knob. The door opened with a loud click and swung noisily back on squeaky hinges. It obviously hadn’t been opened in a very long time.
The two of them stood and stared into the room beyond.
Hidden Hollow Five--The Secret of Annabelle Page 2