Mystery for Megan
Authors: Abi; Burlingham
For Toby and Emma, with love
First published in Great Britain in 2012
by Piccadilly Press Ltd,
5 Castle Road, London NW1 8PR
www.piccadillypress.co.uk
Text copyright © Abi Burlingham, 2012
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.
The right of Abi Burlingham to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978 1 84812 242 0 (paperback)
eISBN: 978 1 84812 266 6
Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY
Cover design by Simon Davis
Cover illustration by Susan Hellard
A Normal House in a Normal Street
The Girl Next Door and the Black Cat
Freya, the Treehouse and the Mice
The Arrival of Later and a Meeting at the Treehouse
Tea at Freya’s with Granny’s Home–made Shortbread
A Mysterious Cat Called Dorothy
Then the Strangest Thing Happened
Some Extra Things for the Treehouse
Megan was nine, and for a nine year old there were lots of things she knew. She knew all the primary colours and her times tables up to ten. She could make the best cheese
toasties in the world and she knew that if you got bored you should use your imagination; her mum was always telling her so.
She could count to twenty-nine in French and knew how to knit long scarves for Flopsy, her favourite snugly bunny, because her mum had taught her. The only thing she couldn’t do was cast
on and cast off, because those bits were too difficult, even for a nine year old who knew lots of things.
But there were also lots of things that Megan didn’t know. She didn’t know that she would be moving to Buttercup House and she didn’t know that there were mice who lived there
who seemed to be able to tell the time. She didn’t know about the mysterious black cat and beautiful golden dog and she didn’t know that the little girl, Freya, who lived next door
would become her best friend . . . and she had no idea why Buttercup House was called Buttercup House.
Megan had always lived in a normal house in a normal street with a normal-sized garden and an average sort of garage at the side. She had no brothers, no sisters and no pets.
She often wished she did.
Her mum was an artist and made interesting things out of clay and her dad worked in an office and went out in a suit in the morning and came back in the same suit at night.
Megan had a friend called Emily and a friend called Beth. She liked her house in the normal street with the normal-sized garden and the average sort of garage at the side, and she liked her
friends Emily and Beth.
But sometimes Megan got bored, even though she tried very hard to use her imagination, like her mum told her. Sometimes she and Emily and Beth had played every game they knew how to play, had
ridden their bikes up and down the road and had hidden in every place they could think of. Then they got fed up and went back to their own homes to sulk.
‘You shouldn’t sulk,’ her mum said.
‘But I’m bored,’ said Megan.
‘Then use your imagination,’ said her mum.
Megan would try, and sometimes it worked. She would fill the spaces in her head with a game where she lived in a big house with a big fluffy dog called Boots, and two older brothers called
Joshua and Jack who would look after her and give her piggyback rides and lollies, especially strawberry ones. Megan loved strawberry lollies.
Then the sign went up in their front garden. It said
For Sale
in blue letters on a yellow board. A man came and knocked it in with a big wooden hammer and the noise
echoed down the street.
‘Where are we going?’ asked Megan. She knew her dad had found a new job and that they might have to move, but it hadn’t seemed very real until now. She had been far too busy
playing with Emily and Beth even to think about it.
‘We’ve found a house,’ her dad said, ‘with lots of space for your mum so she can make more things.’
‘What about school?’ Megan asked.
‘There’s another school,’ her dad said. ‘You’ll love it.’
‘But what about Emily and Beth?’ asked Megan.
‘You can write to them and they can come for a sleepover,’ her mum suggested.
But Megan didn’t want to leave her friends. She didn’t want to hardly ever see them and she really didn’t like the thought of having no one to play with.
Megan didn’t see Buttercup House until the day they moved in.
‘We want it to be a surprise,’ her mum said.
And it was a surprise! The house was huge, and looked . . . well, tumbledown, as her grandma would have said.
As she walked through the front door, the first thing Megan saw was a wooden floor and she wondered where the carpet was. Then she noticed a small pile of fresh mouse droppings. Of course, Megan
didn’t know they were mouse droppings because she had never seen mouse droppings before. Megan saw small, round, brown blobs and wondered what they were. If Megan had looked a few seconds
earlier, she would have seen a small brown mouse watching her very carefully.
Then Megan looked up and saw that she was in a long, narrow hallway with a big stairway climbing up the right-hand side. Megan thought that, if it wasn’t for the wall holding it up, it
would have definitely tumbled down. It was like an old person that needed propping up. Megan looked at her mum, and her mum smiled one of her
I know what you’re thinking
smiles.
‘It’s not that bad, Meggy,’ she said.
‘Nothing a hammer and a few nails can’t fix,’ her dad said.
They walked through a door that was barely hanging on by its hinges and into the kitchen. Megan stared at the door.
Tumbledown,
she thought.
Definitely tumbledown.
‘Just look at those views,’ her mum called to her. ‘This is what we came for.’
Megan was still staring at the door, wondering how a hammer and a few nails could fix it.
‘Meggy,’ her dad said. ‘Come here.’
He guided her through the large square kitchen to a stable door that opened on to the back garden. It was a beautiful spring day. Megan stared out of the door. She felt her feet fix to the spot
and couldn’t move.
Through the doorway she saw a garden bigger than any garden she had ever seen. It stretched out before her, rolling downwards, dotted with trees whose arms reached towards the clouds. Then
Megan’s mouth fell open. To one side was an enormous tree, and in it was a treehouse.
‘A treehouse!’ Megan screamed.
Emily and Beth would love it,
she thought.
Especially Beth. She loves dens.
‘It’s great, isn’t it?’ said Megan’s mum.
‘It hasn’t been used for years,’ her dad added. ‘We can fix it up though.’
At the bottom of the garden were more trees, then more grass that seemed to go on forever.
‘Is all that ours?’ Megan asked.
‘There’s a small stream at the bottom, just beyond those trees,’ Megan’s dad told her. ‘Then just beyond that there’s a fence. Up to the fence is
ours.’
‘And whose is the rest?’ Megan asked, wondering who owned the field and wood beyond.
‘It all belongs to the people next door,’ said Megan’s mum.
‘Who are the people next door?’ asked Megan.
‘There are a mum and dad, just like us, a little girl about your age and her granny.’
Megan was beginning to feel a whole lot better about Buttercup House. The garden which went on and on forever was definitely something to feel pleased about, and the treehouse was something to
feel very excited about. There was the little girl next door too. They could play hide and seek for ages in this garden, and as her dad had said, a hammer and a few nails could fix the rest.
