h Chapter Five g
' The Phone Call '
The children and their grandfather were all sitting at the table having their dinner. They were all talking at the same time, their grandfather trying hard to make out what each one was saying, but just couldn’t seem to get the hang of understanding in all the chatter that was blending together.
The telephone begun to ring.
“I’ll get it!” yelled Alaysia, as she started to push her chair back from the table.
“No- I’ll get it grandpops, I’m closer.” Izayah said as he too started pushing his chair away from the dinner table.
“Hold it!” their grandfather bellowed, as he rose from his chair. “You two just eat your dinner, and I’ll get the phone myself- thank you both very much.” he said, grinning at the two of them as they both sank back into their chairs- once again sticking their pink little tongues out at each other.
“Hello!” their grandfather answered as he placed the telephone to his ear.
“Yes- This is Mr. Martin, and I thank you for returning my call.
“The reason that I called you is because my grandkids and I have found what looks to be an old Root Cellar in the back yard.”
All four of the children immediately became quiet- all of them listening to the phone conversation as they listened to the grandfather speaking. All the children were wanting to know what was being said on the other end of the line, but of course were not able.
“You didn’t know either, huh?” grandfather was saying.
“That would explain why you didn’t tell me about it then,” he said into the phone.
“No- No reason for you to come over. No reason at all,” their grandfather was saying.
“Okay then, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow then. Thank you for calling me back.” “Bye now.” their grandfather said into the phone, and then placed the phone onto the receiver to hag it up.
“That was really strange,” said the kids grandfather- scratching his head and wondering to himself aloud.
“What’s strange grandpops?” asked Alaysia.
“The man that I bought this house from said that he didn’t know anything about that old Root Cellar you kids found.” he said to her. “He lived here for years before I bought the place- but says he had no idea that there was ever a Root Cellar on the property.”
“Grandpops, said Izayah- You drove over that door with your riding mower when you mowed the grass, and you still never even knew that door was there.”
“Your right about that Izayah, but I feel it’s still kind of strange that it wasn’t known that old root cellar was there before I came to live here.” “The guy seemed to start acting really strange when I mentioned it.” “Well- he’ll be here tomorrow evening, and he seems really anxious to look at it for some reason or other, so maybe we’ll know more about it after.” their grandfather said as he took his seat at the table.
“Right now kids, let’s just get to digging into this good food- How about that?” he asked them as he grabbed the bowl of potato salad, scooped himself out a heaping spoon full and plopped it onto his plate.
Izayah and Alaysia looked at each other for a moment, both of them wondering why the previous owner of their grandfathers wanted so badly to come see the cellar.
For the rest of the evening all four children, as well as their grandfather, totally forgot about the old root cellar because, after eating dinner, everyone became involved in discussing what grandfather had planned for the weekend. All of the kids were really excited because they loved their grandpops, and they knew that they were going to have great fun spending the weekend.
Before they new it, the evening turned late and it was time for them all to go to bed so that they would all be ready for the day when they awoke tomorrow.
After getting tucked in by their grandfather, Alaysia and Izayah both lie in their beds- both of them suddenly remembering the Oogie, chained up down in that old cellar all alone. But it wasn’t too long that all the children drifted off into sleep.