"Where is he, then?" an impatient voice wanted to know. It wasn't a pleasant voice, Michael thought. It was rough, like wood that gives a person splinters.
"He'd better come," another voice asserted. This voice sounded no more pleasant than the first. It was rough as well, but deeper, like someone talking into an old, rotten, hollow log full of beetles and worms.
"He'll come," a third voice assured them all. This voice Michael knew. This was the voice that had growled at him from outside his window. It sounded sticky, like tree sap.
"I hope he's nice," a fourth voice said. This one sounded younger than the others, and less nasty. It sounded reedy, like an oboe or a clarinet, or the horn from a Christmas cracker.
"Shut up," the first three voices hissed in a short-tempered chorus that reminded Michael of a storm blowing through tree tops.
"Great!" the deep voice grumbled, "Who brought that one along, eh?"
"Who brought you along?" the sticky voice muttered.
"Stow it, all of you," the first, splintery voice demanded. "It shouldn't be long now."
"That's what you said last night," the deep voice complained.
"And the night before," the sticky voice agreed.
"And the night before that," the reedy voice chimed in.
"And the night ... " the sticky voice began, but what sounded like a swift kick in the leg stopped the voice in mid sentence.
"I said stow it, all of you," the splintery voice insisted. "If he hears us bickering like this, he'll never come."
"We're not bickering, we're ... " the sticky voice asserted. There must have been another kick, though, because the sentence came to an abrupt halt, after which Michael thought he heard a muffled wince.
Of course, for Michael, this was all too good to be believed. This was a real adventure, right in his back garden. He didn't know exactly what was going on, but he did know he wanted to be a part of whatever it was. He also knew that these four voices were talking about him, and that despite what the splintery voice had just said, their bickering was never going to chase him away. On the contrary, it was drawing him in. It was fascinating. He wanted nothing more than to hear it go on, and on, and on.
To his disappointment, however, the splintery voice had gotten its way and the bickering had stopped. The garden was peaceful again. After the excitement of the previous few seconds, the quiet was unbearable to Michael. He wanted to say something to get the voices speaking again. More than that, though, he wanted to see who was arguing about him in his family's garden shed, in the middle of the night. It was him they were arguing about, after all. They were waiting for him, even, waiting for him to come to them.
What was the proper way to arrive?
He might, he thought, yank the shed door open and surprise them, jumping in amongst them with a yell. This was his first instinct for two reasons: firstly, it would be fun, and secondly, it would be fun. It did, however, have two possible drawbacks: either he'd frighten them so badly that they'd run away, and he'd never see who they were, or they'd attack him. After all, he had no idea who they were or what they were, or, quite importantly, what size they were. Well, he knew the one to be rather small, but it also looked somewhat wicked; if the others were like him, Michael didn't think a confrontation would be an altogether wise course of action.
More important, though, was a third consideration that had only just popped into Michael's head. Yells were loud. A yell would almost certainly wake his parents. Added to this was the surety that the reaction of everyone in the shed wasn't likely to be a quiet one. Anyway, like any true adventurer, Michael needed to know what he was up against before committing himself to any course of action. That there would plenty of action, Michael was sure, so he needn't rush to find it. For now, it was important to stay calm and take stock of the situation. That meant seeing who, or what, was waiting for him in the shed.
Luckily, Michael was very familiar with the shed. He and Willow had played out many dramas there. It was their perfect adventure spot, being conveniently close, just at the end of the garden, and satisfactorily remote, at the far end of the garden from the house. And being separate from the house, it wasn't confined to the dimensions of a house. From a shed it could expand into a castle, descend into a cave, climb into an airplane cockpit. It was a space ship, it was a steam ship, it was the belly of a whale. It was a genie's bottle. It was an Indian wigwam. It was the North Pole and the South. It was a submarine, it was a time machine. It was anywhere you could be trapped, imprisoned, hidden or stowed away. It was any way you could fly, drive, dive or be transported. It was gigantic, and it was very, very, very small.
Moreover, it was as familiar to Michael as his own imagination. There was no corner in which he hadn't hidden from or sought his sister. There was no nook in which he hadn't hoarded treasure or discovered it. There was no crack in the boards through which he hadn't spied, looking in or looking out. He even knew where the crack was in the roof in through which the rain sometimes ran. He'd told his father, but his father hadn't really cared. To Mr. Scott, the shed was just a shed, and if a little rain got in once in a while, well, that was why it was a shed and not a house. Michael didn't mind. The leak just made the shed more interesting, especially during storms. Leaks and cracks always made sheds more interesting. Tonight was proof.
The trick was to find the right crack. He could try the edges of the door, but, for all its warped wood and crooked frame, the shed had a very tight entrance. It had an aluminium frame with a rubber edging, which gave a good seal between the door and the frame. The door itself was aluminium as well. The walls, meanwhile, were made up of thin wooden slats, painted white and meant, Michael supposed, to look rustic. Mr. Scott liked things that looked rustic. That was why the Scott's lived in a cottage row, rather than in a modern house. At times their home seemed as drafty as the shed, but Mr. Scott didn't seem to mind. Perhaps that was why the leaky shed didn't bother him as much as Michael would have expected.
Looking at the snug shed door now, Michael realized that it was really out of place, not rustic at all. Not only did it not belong on the shed, it didn't belong in the garden, on Michael's street or even in the village of Mistleton, which was as old as England, Michael guessed, or nearly. Most definitely, the door did not belong in this scene. This scene demanded gaps for looking through, and the door provided none. If he was going to get a look at whoever, or whatever, was in the shed, he would have to spy elsewhere.
The best elsewhere, Michael knew, was the rear of the shed. Between the shed's back wall and the garden wall, in the back-right corner of the garden, there was a whopping great space that only Michael and Willow--and perhaps a cat or mouse or spider or two--knew about. Michael had to squeeze between the shed and the back wall of the garden, but there was plenty of room. He'd done this plenty of times, in search of cricket balls, footballs, tennis balls, Frisbees, and, on occasion, Willow.
Michael wrapped himself in his sheet and stepped around the left side of the shed and to the back. The grass was wet and cold, even through his trainers, and behind the shed the ground was spongy. The garden sloped downwards, just slightly, away from the house, draining into the stream behind the garden wall. This gave the garden good turf, Michael's father told him. Mr. Scott was always talking about things like that: drainage, sod, runoff and irrigation. Mr. Scott designed motorways, and evidently these things were very important when designing motorways. Michael didn't know about all that. Michael just knew that while the garden may have had good drainage and good turf, back behind the garden shed it was swampy. And just now, Michael was slowly sinking into the swamp.
Thankfully, he was able to reach that back corner of the shed, which provided firm footing at the base of the garden wall, and he now had access to the large crack that opened up for him. He had to almost kneel to see through it, resting his lower back against the wall, and his hands against the shed, for balance. He closed his right eye and squinted through his left into the hole. Adventurers always squinted through one eye when they looked through holes. Not knowing what he was looking for, he didn't know what to expect, but what he didn't expect was what he saw.
He saw nothing.
The shed was pitch black inside. Well, of course it was, Michael realized. It was a shed in the middle of the night. What was he supposed to see inside?
Still, he couldn't help feeling a bit let down. He cursed himself, in properly dramatic fashion, for not bringing a torch. It didn't matter that he couldn't bring a torch, because a torch was for finding a dog in a hedge, or a spider in the bathroom. A torch was for walking by the side of the road at night, for warning cars when they approached that someone was walking there. A torch belonged in the normal world. A torch didn't belong behind the shed at the end of the garden, seeking out secrets and shadows on a cool, dark summer night. No, eyes and ears were the tools for seeking out secrets and shadows on a cool, dark summer night.
Being unable to see anything, Michael listened carefully. It occurred to him that no voice had spoken in all the time he had slipped back to where he was and crouched down to see through the crack. It further occurred to him that whoever was in the shed knew that he was outside of it, that he was trying to see in. They had probably listened as he made his way around the shed. They had probably listened as he squished in his newly waterlogged running shoes across the water-bogged earth. They had probably listened as he bent down.
And they were probably listening now. They could probably hear him breathing. They could possibly see him through the many cracks in the walls of the shed. They could possibly see his breath misting icily in the night air. They might even be watching him at that very moment, through the very hole through which he was squinting.
Michael stood upright instantly. Suddenly he felt much colder than before. Despite the sheet he had draped around him and the snugness of the corner in which he stood, he felt exposed. He felt vulnerable, he felt unsafe. The hairs on the back of his neck began to prickle. With a grin, he realized that this was what he had wanted all along. Here was real excitement. Here was real danger.
This thought gave him courage. How many times had he imagined himself in this situation and wondered how he would react, not in a game, but in real life? Now it was happening, and he wasn't frightened at all, although he knew he probably should be. Whenever Michael had thought about adventuring, and had thought about danger, and had thought about fear, what had worried him most of all was that when he finally confronted danger, he would be unable to act, would be petrified. Now, he was confronted with real danger, and he wanted nothing more than to act, to come in contact with the thing which frightened him. His boldness made him bolder.
On top of all of this was the fact that whatever it was that was frightening him had evidently made deliberate contact with him. The idea that adventure would come to him, as opposed to his having to seek it out, was something he'd never imagined. That this adventure would be on his home ground was curiously reassuring. That he could be bold was even more reassuring. And that made him brave. He spoke.
"Is anybody listening?" he asked, in a low whisper. He had to whisper: while he might not be afraid of what was in the shed, he was still wary of waking his parents. Whatever was in the shed could never be as big a danger to Michael as were his parents. He whispered again, "Are you listening?"
"Are you?" a whisper countered from inside.
"Listening to what?" a different voice, the deep one, wanted to know.
"Stow it, you!" a third voice said. It was the splintery voice.
"But what are we supposed to be listening to?" the deep voice asked again.
"I said stow it! Can't you tell we're listening?"
"No, we're not," the reedy voice put in, "We're not listening. We're talking."
"Well, we should be listening," the splintery voice growled.
"So do we tell him we're talking or do we tell him we're listening?" the deep voice asked.
"No," the first voice said, it was the sticky voice, the voice that belonged to the face in Michael's window.
" 'No' what?" the deep voice asked.
"No, we're not listening."
"We're not?"
"No, we're not."
"Well we should be," the splintery voice insisted.
"No, we're not," the deep voice called out to Michael.
"We're not listening," the sticky voice clarified.
"Nope, not listening," the reedy voice agreed.
"No," the splintery voice joined in, obviously not pleased at the progress of the conversation, "We're not listening. Are we all clear on that now?"
"All clear," the other voices agreed.
Michael felt it was his turn to agree as well. "All clear," he said.
"Well now that we're all clear we're not listening," the splintery voice said, "Perhaps we can all stop sitting around here and get on with it."
"Get on with what?" Michael asked.
"With not standing in a dark corner trying to look through a hole you can't see through into a dark shed you can't see anything in, for starters," the splintery voice suggested. Michael got the impression that the owner of this voice was neither patient nor good tempered.
"Shall I come around to the front?" he asked helpfully.
" 'Shall I come around to the front?'" the splintery voice mimicked sarcastically, "That would be a start, yeah."
The other three voices all mimicked Michael as one. " 'Shall I come around to the front?'" Then they all laughed heartily.
"Shush, you lot," the splintery voice ordered quietly but sternly, "You'll wake the whole weedy village." The three voices continued to laugh, but it sounded as though they had their hands over their mouths. Michael assumed they had hands and mouths. He knew one of them had a mouth, at least.
"You coming then?" the splintery voice prompted.
"Uh, yeah," Michael said, and he lifted himself up onto the garden wall, making a squishing sound with his feet as he pushed off with his trainers.
" 'Uh, yeah,'" one of the voices in the shed repeated.
There was a chorus of snorts that indicated an attempt to remain quiet, when it was clear that someone thought this impression of Michael was very, very funny. Michael ignored the mimicry and clambered along the garden wall to the gate and hopped down to the garden path, then made his way to the front of the shed. The laughter inside had died away, and the garden was once more still and dark.
Michael stood regarding the shed, which was pale in the light that filtered in from the street lamps along the Vicarage Road and silhouetted the back of the garden. There was a strong contrast between the black of the garden wall and way the shed almost glowed. It could almost have been alive itself, rather than occupied by whatever was inside. The shed, not its inhabitants, might have been waiting for Michael. Michael knew, though, that what was waiting was waiting inside, in the dark, and now that he was confronted with the shed door, he wasn't sure he wanted to open it.
He could feel his breath, hot in the chill of the shadowy garden. It felt like a ghost escaping from his body, not like his breath at all. This was a perfect night for ghosts, he realized. He stifled the shiver that ran up his spine, took a deep breath and reached out towards the shed, for the latch to the door.
He felt a strong hand on his shoulder. It grabbed onto him and clamped down hard.