The Storage Room Door

On Friday Sean missed school. Mom thought it was a touch of flu but Sean knew it was really a case of the dreads. He had a math test that day and he was unprepared. He'd meant to study but he had kept putting it off until it was too late. As a result he didn't get much sleep the night before. Now he felt like a wreck.

Mom had errands to run so Sean was alone in the house except for Marty, Katy's moth eaten old cat who was somewhere about the place probably sleeping off a heavy lunch.

Sean had one duty to perform that day. He had to mind the old wringer washing machine down in the cellar. Mom had put in a load of washing and Sean had to take it out when it was done and put it in the dryer. Nothing very hard about that you might think but Sean didn't like going down into the cellar. There was a cold storage room down there with a white wooden door that wouldn't close properly. It was always open just a crack like there was something hiding in there in the dark just waiting for him to come downstairs. Sean really hated that door so he decided to put off finishing the laundry until his mom got home.

He sat on the kitchen floor with his back against the hot air register reading a Hardy Boys book about a haunted fort. After a while he began to feel drowsy...

Suddenly he heard a loud thumping and the sound of water spashing onto the floor. He jerked awake and got to his feet. He knew what that thumping meant. The agitator in the washing machine had come loose and was banging against the closed metal lid. He'd have to go down there and fix it, there were no two ways about it. He crept downstairs keeping a wary eye on that white wooden door over in the dark corner. Sure enough it was open just a crack like it always was. Sean wished he had a weapon of some sort to protect himself as he eased over into the laundry area. The thumping was very loud now and hot soapy water was sloshing out the top of the machine onto the concrete floor. He woujld have to mop that up drat it !

He jerked the machine's power plug out of the wall and the churning machine came to a stop. Sean's socks got wet as he lifted the lid of the washer and pushed the agitator back down in place. It didn't escape him that something might have loosened that agitator just to get him down there and he worked faster as the thought struck him. He closed the lid, retrieved the mop from its hook on the wall and sloshed the soapy water down the drain in the floor, all the while being careful that his back was not turned to the storage room door. The cellar was very still now that the machine was unplugged. He didn't like it somehow. In a great hurry to get out of there he plugged the machine back in and started for the stairs. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the storage room door drift slowly open as if inviting him in!

With a yell of terror Sean ran up the stairs, slipped third from the top and banged his knee hard. He scrambled back up and threw himself through the doorway into the kitchen. Then he heard a faint meow from the basement and he knew who had been lurking behind the white wooden door. That darned cat! As Sean rubbed his sore knee he reflected that the less said about this whole little episode the better. If Katy ever heard about it there would be no living with her. As I've said before life's hard at eleven,especially when you have a big sister who dotes on a cat like Marty the Sneak!


The End.