Three, Two, One

  *

  The attic door made the familiar squeak as Sani steadily lifted it up and over, then shone her torch down the ladder. The wooden floor below reflected her light mockingly.

  Nothing. Nobody there as they listened for several seconds.

  ‘Careful,’ Becca whispered, watching Sani descend.

  When she reached the bottom, they saw the flash of the torch dart round in all directions. Sani’s face then looked up.

  ‘Can’t see anyone. It’s okay, come down.’

  Vicky was next, following the light on the ladder steps, with one hand holding on to the camera. Then came Becca.

  ‘Why did you bring that?’ Sani pointed at Vicky’s camera.

  ‘Dunno. Just in case.’

  ‘Hah. Proper detective now, aren’t you?’

  ‘Guys. I think whoever it was, they left,’ Becca said. ‘Let’s just go home.’

  A door had just slammed somewhere on the floor below, making them jolt. Then, without a word, Sani scurried towards the smaller staircase ahead and disappeared down it.

  ‘Wait!’ Vicky said after her. ‘What are you–’ She felt Becca’s freezing hand wrap around her wrist.

  ‘I don’t like this.’

  ‘Come on, we have to follow her, Bec.’

  ‘It’s too dark. She’s the only one with a torch.’

  Vicky turned round towards a distant window at the other end of the hall. Faint moonlight crept through the timeworn net curtains, giving just enough light to see vague outlines of walls and furniture.

  ‘Fine,’ Vicky said. ‘We’ll take the main stairs. I’m not sure where exactly–’

  Becca had let go of her wrist, and she heard a series of thumps – feet climbing a ladder.

  ‘Hey!’

  ‘I’m going up,’ she said, panting. ‘Are you coming?’

  Vicky hesitated.

  ‘I’m closing the door!’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Okay then, just knock the code when you’re back.’

  Vicky heard the slam.

  ‘Becca!’

  Then there was the slide of the lock and a scrape of some bricks.

  ‘Coward.’

  In the dark, alone, Vicky listened hard. For anything. Voices, footsteps, or doors, or floor creaks.

  Nothing.

  She shuffled along the hallway, heading for the dim window. In a minute, somewhere to the right, there should be a turn and then the main stairs. Vicky heard subtle thuds but almost instantly realised that it was Becca, cowering above.

  What a silly chicken, she thought.

  Now reaching the shadowy wide stairs, she outstretched her hand and felt around for the banisters. Her foot touched the first step, and she gradually moved down, following a continuous curve as the stairs twisted in a semicircle.

  The next landing partly veered off into another hall to the rest of the first floor. Vicky fumbled for the wall and stepped a bit further inside.

  ‘Sani?’ Her voice echoed bleakly. But no reply came.

  She decided to continue down the stairs to the ground floor in case Sani caught up with the mysterious knocker just as they ran out of the house perhaps. It was getting lighter as she descended. Here there were several moonlit windows and she could see the bottom of the stairs.

  For a few moments she stood still in the spacious front hallway, thinking. They’ve never ever used the front door. Not only it would have been foolish and too risky, also the door had warped and expanded so much that it would have been a job for anyone to try and open it.

  Since they hardly used the main stairs, she wondered where to turn so she could find her way round to the other side where the back door was. The darkness was disorientating.

  It had to be to the right and then through a narrow hallway and then some more rooms. She tried to visualise it from a distant memory.

  Carrying on with her instincts, she told herself she’d get there in the end. It’s not exactly a massive mansion or anything.

  One of her feet started sticking to the carpet. But hoping it wasn’t anything weird or disgusting, she walked until she had reached a wide door. Yes, she thought. This had to be the second drawing room, which definitely had another door the other side that led towards the old kitchens. As she twisted the handle and pushed, the door bumped into something and she heard objects falling to the floor.

  ‘Damn it!’

  The room must have been full with furniture and other unidentified stuff. She didn’t recall it being like that before. There was no way she could get through to the other side.

  Unless, of course, this wasn’t the second drawing room.

  Was she lost?

  She caught herself wondering if perhaps Becca was being sensible after all, waiting upstairs. And that Sani, having the advantage of a torch, would soon be back up at the attic. With Vicky lost in the dark, they’d have to go back looking for her!

  Vicky grunted.

  But then an idea popped into her head. She lifted her Polaroid camera to her face and poked around the device with her fingers. Finding what must have been a power button, she pressed it, relieved to hear a swift, mechanical sound.

  From what she remembered of scanning the instructions earlier, the flash was automatic.

  Great attempt at a first ever photo! She huffed to herself.

  With the camera just below her face and her finger on the shutter release, Vicky stared ahead, hoping to catch a visual when the flash happens.

  Click!

  Another mechanical noise indicated a photo had rolled out of the camera as the brief light illuminated the wide door.

  For a split second she caught the carvings on the painted wood and suddenly gasped. This was the main drawing room. She wasn’t where she thought she was. Still partly seeing the image in her mind, there was something else on the door. Something stuck to it.

  A note?

  In the dark, Vicky probed for where it roughly should have been, gliding her hand on the wooden surface, when the edge of the paper made a flick. It brushed past her skin, then fell down somewhere.

  ‘For goodness’ sake!’

  Now on her knees, she searched around on the floor, picking up various objects. Something hard and cold and long, then a furry thing that must have been a cushion. Something round and heavy that made a liquid sound. This was pointless.

  Then, remembering the photo, she thought she might as well check if the note was readable on the image. She needed to find the back door.

  Vicky removed the photo from the camera and placed it in her coat pocket. From a hazy memory of the front side of the ground floor, she worked out where she should be going. Left, down a hallway a bit, past some doors and one of them leading to the basement. She nearly bumped into a rectangular, towering thing.

  It was an old grandfather clock that had never worked. Proceeding cautiously, there was that framed drawing of a young girl holding a plush bunny, then the weird turn towards the bottom of the small staircase. After that, there had to be the kitchens and utility room.

  Grinding to a halt at last, she recognised the shadow of the stove as she paused in the middle of the tiled floor.

  ‘Sani?’ she said again, not expecting much.

  Vicky turned and walked into the utility room, stopping in front of the back door. Checking first that she couldn’t hear anything, she opened it lightly.

  The snowstorm had died down quite a bit, though the large flakes were still falling softly and hypnotically, illuminated by the moonlight.

  Pulling the door to and covering her head with the coat hood, she strolled out further into the white garden, each step making a crunching sound. She stopped and faced the moon. Right, she could have a look at her captured photo to see what that note had said.

  Instead, she lifted the camera to her face, her eye at the viewfinder, and took a shot of the bright sphere in the sky. The photo rolled out of the camera, and she eagerly removed it, waving it impatiently and then stared at the slowly developing pictur
e.

  Vicky groaned. A very blurry white circle on a black background materialised on the paper.

  Perhaps she needed more practice.

  A hand touched her shoulder, and Vicky nearly screamed, barely holding on to the camera.

  ‘There you are!’ Becca’s face came into focus. ‘I’ve been looking for you.’

  Unable to speak yet, Vicky was trying to catch her breath, her hand on her stomach. She could see Becca’s guilty expression.

  ‘Sorry. I felt bad about going back up, so I tried to follow you after I got my own torch from my bag.’ Becca pressed her lips together, hesitating. ‘I took the small stairs though. I don’t like going the other way. It’s too creepy, and I don’t remember my way around.’

  ‘I know,’ Vicky said. ‘I kind of got lost for a minute down there myself.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘So where’s Sani? Have you seen her?’

  ‘No.’

  They both gazed around the snow-covered garden. It was quiet, with only their own line of footprints leading from the back door to where they stood. Within moments though, they could make out rustling in the shrubs near the side of the house.

  ‘Speak of the devil,’ said Becca as Sani’s unmistakable silhouette came out of the bushes, marching to them, her torch still on and flailing at her side.

  ‘What are you two doing out?’ she said when she reached them. Bits of twigs and snow protruded out of her tangled hair.

  ‘I was following after you, but I went the other way,’ Vicky said and quickly added, ‘So did you see anyone?’

  ‘I think so,’ Sani said, frowning. ‘I caught a glimpse of someone running out of the back door. So I went after them, down the side of the house. Got a bit stuck in the shrubs in the end though. It’s so overgrown, you won’t believe how bad–’

  ‘Wait, so who was it?’ pressed Becca.

  ‘I don’t know. I barely saw them. Whoever it was, they’re definitely gone now. Vanished!’

  ‘Guys, listen,’ Vicky said. ‘There was this note stuck to the drawing room door. I didn’t see what it said, and I lost it. But I took a picture of it. Wait…’

  She put the photo of the moon into her other pocket and retrieved the first photo.

  All three huddled closely as Sani shone her torch on to the photo Vicky was now holding. The square Polaroid print revealed an image of a Post-it note stuck to a door, which had a few words written in block capitals. It wasn’t as clear as she had hoped.

  ‘Keep the n… nose?’ Vicky struggled.

  ‘Noise!’ Becca corrected.

  ‘Oh, yes! Keep the noise down,’ Vicky read. ‘Neh… Neighbour sus…picious.’

  The three exchanged glances and stared back at the photo again.

  ‘Signed by, A Friend,’ Sani read.

  They stood still in silence for a minute, letting the dancing snowflakes stick to their clothes and hair.

  ‘Who?’ Vicky said mysteriously.

  ‘Do you think it’s that new girl at school, who keeps trying to follow us around?’ wondered Becca. ‘Can’t remember her name.’

  ‘Nope,’ Sani said defiantly. ‘It was a bloke.’

  ‘I thought you said you hardly saw them,’ Vicky said.

  ‘I know. But it just seemed like a guy. Like the shape of him. I’m pretty sure.’

  ‘Right.’ Vicky strolled a few feet away from them. ‘Let’s see…’

  Sani and Becca looked at each other, and both said, ‘There she goes.’

  But Vicky ignored them, muttering to herself and biting her nail, then she turned and faced them.

  ‘It’s obviously someone who lives nearby,’ she said, her eyes darting around with excitement. ‘There’s no other explanation.’

  ‘Okay,’ both said.

  ‘And the only one I can think of is that boy who lives a few doors down from here. Ugh, what’s his name?’

  ‘What, that one from a couple of years above us? With sandy hair?’

  ‘That’s the one.’ Vicky pointed at Sani. ‘Mark? No… Michael. I think.’

  ‘Oh, him,’ said Becca. ‘Yeah, maybe. He’s kinda cool.’

  ‘I mean, I’ve seen him give me this knowing look sometimes.’ Vicky sprinted back to them. ‘I dunno. I could be talking rubbish though.’

  ‘Cool. Maybe we’ll have a chat with him after the holidays. In any case, we’ll just have to be more careful from now on.’

  ‘Guys!’ Becca interrupted and grabbed Sani’s arm. ‘It’s five minutes to midnight! Let’s go back up and greet the New Year with some more shandy.’

  Scampering back through the house this time was easy. With both Sani and Becca having torches aiding the way, they went their usual route, via the small staircase.

  Once up in the attic, Becca lit the candles, while Vicky retrieved the last three cans out of her rucksack. From somewhere far away, they heard muffled sounds of premature fireworks, as Sani turned on the radio, adjusting the volume down a bit.

  ‘… and with ten seconds to go, let’s count down to two thousand and four!’ said the joyful voice on the radio.

  ‘Quick!’ Vicky said, and the three gathered close together, opening their cans. They laughed and chinked the cans together, taking a sip.

  And in unison with the voice on the radio, they counted down–

  ‘Three, two, one… HAPPY NEW YEAR!’