7
The Hatchway
Whilst thinking about the abandoned house, that I hadn’t visited for a while, I also wondered if Patrick believed me about the house or not. So I grabbed the bull by the horns and asked him.
“I didn’t to begin with, but you seem to be so sure”, was Patrick’s reply.
“What about?”, I questioned him further.
“About there being something not quite right going on at that abandoned house.”
“Aah - that stuff with Mattie?”
Later on that day myself, Mattie and Patrick went over towards Westfield, where we saw Eleanor and Claire.
“What are you three doing?”
“We’ve just finished a visit to the dentist to get our teeth checked” we said in unison, lying through those less then pearly white teeth.
Our explanation obviously seemed plausible to Eleanor and Claire to let us be on our way and we quickly moved towards the abandoned house as soon as they were out of ear shot. Just before we reached the front door of the house, I checked the time with Patrick.
“We will only have 15 minutes to search.” I said.
We went inside and found ourselves standing in the main hall, which had three corridors leading off it. Patrick straight away headed upstairs. I went into the laundry room, where I found a hatchway; could this possibly lead to a hidden room? Patrick started to complain that his tummy was rumbling and that he was feeling hungry.
“Hold on a minute Patrick, don’t you think we should check this out first?”
I said as I knew he was eager to get back to C.H.I.S for his dinner.
“What!”
“That hatchway on the floor, don’t you think we should take a look at it?” I said with more persistency. Patrick sighed and gave into my demands. On a closer inspection the hatchway looked almost the same as a Russian submarine hatch that I saw in a recent film, but this one seemed to be sealed with 8” nails.
Once I was satisfied that we had seen as much as we dared in the free time allowed we reluctantly gave up for the night and went back to C.H.I.S. On our journey back to C.H.I.S we all realised how dirty we were, surely this wouldn’t go unnoticed. I was wet and mucky. Patrick looked as though he was a builder who had just done a full day’s work and needed a damn good wash. We had been gone longer than we had first thought and I got told off by Penny for not coming back for her delicious curry. Luckily they had saved us some. Fortunately we were back in time for Sheila to play cards with us; this was the routine for Thursday evenings.
Sheila was about five foot six, she was very well spoken a kind-hearted woman who lived in Hove, who gave up her evenings to play a whole array of games with the kids at C.H.I.S The evening of card playing began with a game I hadn’t played before. It was called “Katie’s sevens” The aim of the game was to get rid of all of your cards. Patrick lost the game every time and Mattie didn’t seem to be doing much better either. Each game seemed to be between me and Sheila as to who would win.
Looking at Sheila whilst playing cards I wondered if she would know anything about the abandoned house, but how to broach the subject without admitting that we had been up to no good and had already been snooping around the house. So I decided to just introduce the subject during some idle chit chat. I asked Sheila about how long she had been working at C.H.I.S and if she knew any history about what had happened nearby in the past. Sheila told me that her family had been living in Chailey since before the Second World War, her father was involved in the Home Guard being too young at the time to fight. Sheila’s parents didn’t meet until after the war had finished and she wasn’t born until the mid-1950s. We chatted about what we thought Chailey might have been like during the war. This lead me on to ask her about C.H.I.S, I knew that some parts of it were obviously recently built, by its architecture. I asked her about the abandoned house in the distance. Sheila wasn’t sure what it had been used for or how long it had been there for. Sheila did say however, that her Father used to tell her stories of fields close to C.H.I.S being used as air fields during the Battle of Britain.
“Apparently Chailey was used by some pilots to refuel on their return from defending the coast, my Dad said that when he could see the Spitfires returning home safe and sound he would give them a cheer and a wave” Sheila said.
“To think all that was happening so close to where we are now” I said.
After several games and some TV I felt it was time I went to bed. I desperately tried to get to sleep, but all I did was toss and turn thinking about the mystery at the house and what Sheila had told me about the old air fields, no wonder the fields behind the house seemed so open and flat. After about ten minutes of wondering about our adventure to the house I decided to get up. On sneaking out of my room I decided to try and get Mattie or Patrick to come with me to the abandoned house again. I pushed my chair down the corridor to Mattie’s room and then to Patrick’s to see if they were awake. Luckily they were and up for another adventure and soon we were back inside the abandoned house.