How I Spent my Summer Holiday

Isabelle and I both started talking at once, our words tumbling out so fast it was hard to understand them. But when we said skeleton, they both understood. Their eyes widened in shock as they looked at each other.

Grandma said, “Oh Virgil, what did you do now?”

Grandpa scowled as he replied, “I have no idea what they are talking about. Why do you always have to blame me?”

He turned and looked at me. Simon, can you show me what you found?”

“And you,” after turning back to look at grandma. “You take that girl back to the house and do something useful like phoning the police.”

He reached out and grabbed my hand started striding beside the wall of trees, pulling me along with him. Now, believe me, I am too old to be holding hands with anyone, except when I need to protect my sister. I was about to pull free, but one look at his face told me I had better not.

“Where are we going?”

“To the barn.”

“Oh. There is another way to get there?”

“Yes, the trees are only on two sides of the barn, like the letter L. I planted them when I quit farming. Couldn’t stand looking at it. Can’t believe how effective they ended up being. Took a lot of watering in the beginning, but I did it. Now they just look after themselves. You wouldn’t even know the barn is there.”

“We didn’t.”

“How is it, by the way? I haven’t been back here for years.”

“You mean the barn? Pretty run down, if you ask me. There’s holes in the roof. You can see the sky.”

“So you went up in the loft?”

“Yes, but I didn’t go far. The floorboards don’t look very safe.”

“Smart move. Now this skeleton you say you found. Where is it.”

“It was behind a pile of boards that were leaning up against the corner of a stall, kind of like a teepee. When I accidentallly knocked them over, we saw it.” I looked up into his face and saw that he didn’t look quite as angry as before. “I’m sorry, Grandpa.”

He squeezed my hand. “No need to be sorry. I know there’s not a lot for you kids to be doing here. And if there really is a skeleton in there, it’s good to know. We have to get to the bottom of this.”

In no time at all, we had reached the end of the wall of trees, entered the barn, and were looking down at the bones lying in a haphazard pile on the floor.

“Wow” said Grandpa, as he crouched down to see them better. “It is a real skeleton, but it’s a small one. Like that of a child. Don’t touch.” He raised his hand towards me. “I know you messed it up a bit already, but the police are going to want to see it like you found it.”

“Maybe it’s a pygmy.” We had learned about them in social studies at school.

“Could be, but I think that’s a rare possibility. I’m guessing it’s a child. Isabelle’s age, or even younger. And that”, poking at the remnant of cloth under the bones, “looks like it could have been winter parka. Not much left of it. Expect the rodents living here made good use of it over the years.” He stood up and rubbed his chin with his hand. “This doesn’t make much sense. It’s no place for a child, especially in the winter. I wonder how it got here.”

The scream of sirens filled the air. Grandpa started walking towards the barn door. “The police are here. You better skedaddle back to the house. I will deal with them.”

“But I want to stay and tell them how we found it.”

“No, it’s better if I do. Away you go, now!”

I looked up into his face and realized that this was not the time to argue. I trotted towards the hole in the wall. It was the fastest way back to the house. Just as I reached it, I turned and looked back at the barn. Two policemen were approaching my grandfather. He reached out his hand and shook each of theirs and then waved them towards the entrance of the barn. One by one they disappeared into its shadows.

I sighed and turned back to the hole in the wall. I was tempted to sneak back to spy on what was going on, but I knew it wasn’t a good idea. I had never seen anyone look as angry as my grandfather had been when he told Grandma to take Isabelle to the house. I certainly didn’t want him looking at me like that. I had better do what I was told.

As I walked into the kitchen, Isabelle came running towards me. ”We made chocolate cake. It’s Grandpa’s favorite. It’s in the oven now, and then, when it cools, we can eat it. Now we’re making a chocolate sauce to put on it.”

I looked at Grandma. I could see that she had been crying because her eyes were all red and puffy. She smiled at me, took a deep breath and said “well.”

“The police are here. They are in the barn with Grandpa now.”

“Yes, we sent them around the wall when they drove up.”

“Grandpa says it must be a child.”

“Oh no!” The tears started running down her face again. She sat down heavily on a chair by the table. Then she suggested that I write about this in my diary. It was a good suggestion. It gave me something to do when all I wanted was to go back to the barn to see what was going on.

I spent the rest of the afternoon writing. More and more vehicles pulled into the yard and disappeared behind the wall of trees: police cars, an ambulance and even a fire truck. I’m not sure what that was needed for. Grandma read what I had written and suggested I start at the beginning, so I did while she and Isabelle began to prepare supper. We had never learned what a diary is supposed to look like at school, so I decided to add the conversations. I like making quotation marks. I hope that is all right. I think it makes it more interesting.

Finally, Grandpa came back into the house. Grandma asked me to clear the table. She served us each a large piece of chocolate cake complete with a bowl of vanilla ice cream. She and grandpa had coffee while Isabelle and I had milk to wash ours down. I was almost too excited to eat, but I didn’t want to hurt Grandma’s feelings. She had already cried enough for one day. I’m glad I did, because it was very good. My grandma is a great cook.

When Grandpa was finished eating his cake, he got up and went behind Grandma. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders. He kissed her head and said, “thank you, my darling.”

She smiled again and whispered, “we’re in this together, whatever it is.”

To be continued…….