Hide and Seek by Larrinaga Caryn

Author:Larrinaga, Caryn [Larrinaga, Caryn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-12-14T18:30:00+00:00

After a few more minutes of banging on the trapdoor, more to warm up her limbs than because she thought it would do any good, Agatha returned to the corner to retrieve the flashlight. Once she had the light in her hand, she prowled through the attic, checking every corner and pulling each tarp off the piles of boxes. She’d heard a little boy on the playground talking about a family who was murdered by a man who’d been hiding out in their attic for weeks—better to not take any chances and risk getting killed while she was stuck up here.

Her sweep revealed nothing but cardboard boxes marked in faded black felt-tip pen with such exciting labels as taxes 1978-1983 and mortgage. However, in a tote marked winter clothes, she found a moth-eaten sweater with a Christmas tree knitted into the front. She pulled it over her head and added a pink crocheted cap for good measure. The extra warmth made Agatha feel less panicked about being trapped in the attic, and she realized that despite the overall gloominess of the place it had one major redeeming quality: the twins weren’t with her.

I can have a scavenger hunt of my own, she thought, gazing around at the piles of boxes. She recognized that she probably wouldn’t find a cash box or anything else of any real value, but she thought she might find something to help her pass the time. Maybe the previous tenant had packed away a collection of mystery novels or an unfinished coloring book and some crayons.

She set to work. Most of the boxes were stacked too high for her to reach, even on her tippy toes, and she didn’t dare climb on top of the lower ones. The cardboard felt thin and misshapen. She didn’t trust it to support even her slender frame. Along the back wall, however, there was a row of boxes without anything stacked on top of them, and she was able to lift open their cardboard flaps and paw through their contents with ease. None of them were labeled, which added to the mystery and excitement of her single-player game.

The first few boxes were stuffed full of sheets of paper. The writing on them was too faded for her to make out, but she felt sure they were boring receipts anyway. She skipped further down the row, opening a box at random and peering inside.

“Cool.”

Agatha lifted a long, thin wooden board out of the box. The numbers zero through ten were carved across the top, with the alphabet laid out below. The words “Yes,” “Goodbye,” and “No” were written along the bottom. It looked like some kind of a board game. She set it aside and peered back into the box, hoping to see a copy of Mouse Trap or Monopoly, but she found only black candles with the wicks partially burned down. She sniffed at them, hoping they might smell like licorice. Her mother’s red-colored candles were cinnamon scented, but these smelled of nothing but wax and dust.

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