Home Sweet Home

‘Mom, look at this. Four bedrooms, three toilets and two lounges plus a conservatory. And all for just £170,699! That’s definitely within our budget! Isn’t it?’

‘Anna dear, calm down!’ Her mother chuckled. ‘Okay, I’ll take a look at it.’

The two of them were cuddled up on a sofa with a laptop on Anna’s lap, its bottom warm from being used do long. They, being sick if the bug infested apartment they now resided in, decided it was time to find a new home. The only problem was that Mother hadn’t a lot of money to spare for the house. Her two growing children, Anna and Betty took up most of it for food and new clothes and her husband had a very low income job: a travel agent.

Mother was now checking out the house that Anna had pointed out. ‘Hmmm,’ she said, considering carefully. ‘It doesn’t seem too bad. And one bedroom comes furnished! Wow! It’s near to your school and my place of work too. Oh, this is too good to be true. Why is it so cheap?’

Anna shrugged. ‘Dad,’ she called. ‘Mum and I have found a suitable house. If you and Betty like it too , we go and view it tomorrow?’

Her dad strolled into the room leisurely, Betty following him like a faithful dog. ‘Let’s have a look.’ He took the laptop from Anna and looked at the house, viewing the pictures carefully while Betty scrabbled up behind him, desperate to get a look as well.

He looked up finally, a loony grin plastered across his kind face. ‘We’ll view it tomorrow then, shall we?’

Anna whooped in delight. ‘Yes! That’s as good as saying that we’re going to buy the house.’

Meanwhile, Betty was looking at the house. She shuddered, ‘I don’t like it. It gives me the creeps.’

‘You give me the creeps,’ said Anna, looking down her button nose at her sister. ‘It’s a perfectly good house!’

‘Hey, hey girls,’ intervened Father. ‘No fighting. Come on to bed now. Mum and me will just ring and make a reservation for tomorrow.’

That night, the two sisters didn’t sleep at all, Anna because she was thinking about her excellent choice for picking houses and Betty because she kept getting nightmares that someone had died in the house and that his ghost came at night to haunt it.

The following day, the family made their way to the new house, where someone from the agency met them and took them to look around. When they reached the furnished bedroom, Anna gasped. ‘I am so having this bedroom!’ she cried, looking around the room.

It had a yellow bed with a blue canopy and a very high headboard that covered most of the wall it was against. It had a matching dresser that had a heart shaped mirror that seemed to float above it. There also was a bedside table, a couple of chairs and a chandelier hanging above the bed.

‘Both of you shall share this room,’ said Mother firmly. ‘It’s big enough. And it’s not even the master bedroom!’

So after a complete tour of the house, Mother and Father stopped to consider. ‘Hmmm,’ they said to the waiting house agent. ‘We’ll seal the deal!’

‘Yippee!’ cried Anna. Betty just looked miserable.

The house agent perked up and said, ‘Right so I shall arrange for you a meeting with Mr. Pinhero and soon…’

‘Mr. Pinhero did you say?’ interrupted Father. ‘You don’t mean Mr. Raj Pinhero surely?’

‘Yes, I do. Do you know him?’

‘Yes. He’s my cousin!’ cried Mother. ‘He may give us a discount!’

The next week, the family shifted in. The sisters slept each day in their pretty bedroom and not once were they disturbed by any ghost with a knife stuck in his chest, as Betty feared she would. Soon, she began to visibly relax.

‘Home Sweet Home,’ she called it.

One fine moonlit night, Anna poked Betty in the back. ‘Betty,’ she whispered. ‘Wake up. It’s time.’

‘Oh goody! I smuggled your favourite scones in here! Oh, I’ve never had a midnight feast before, how does it work?’

‘Well, first you need to keep calm and quiet,’ hissed Anna, clapping her hand over the overexcited Betty’s mouth.

Betty nodded. ‘First,’ continued Anna. ‘We bounce around on the bed to build up our appetites. Come on!’

They both got on the bed and began bouncing joyfully, trying not to make any noise. Anna, with a sudden burst of joy, bumped Betty. Betty was not expecting this and crashed against the headboard and it broke, and so did the wall it was nailed to! Betty, forgetting to be quiet squealed and there were soon footsteps coming to the girls’ room.

‘Girls,’ cried Mother. ‘You all right in there?’

Father didn’t even wait. He just pushed the door open and gasped. ‘Girls! What a mess!’

‘Now we know why the house was so cheap! Not so “Home Sweet Home” after all,’ said Mother, through gritted teeth. ‘That entire wall in made of wood! Girls, come and sleep in our bedroom for tonight. We’ll deal with this problem in the morning.’

The next morning, their parents went to work without checking the room. Anna, being the more adventurous of the two, called Betty to investigate. ‘There’s a room behind here. And it’s as big, if not bigger, than ours!’

Anna walked into the room. Betty was right behind her. Then both girls saw something that made them scream. ‘What is that Anna?’ wailed Betty. She wanted to run out of the house but her legs were frozen.

Anna gulped and walked up to the thing. She touched it. ‘A skeleton,’ she replied. ‘Wait. There’s a note beside it.’ She bent down and read it. ‘“Dear friend, you will not believe how glad I am to get rid of you. Sure you helped my pass my GCSE exams, but so what? Farewell, Raj.”’

‘What?’ Betty cried. ‘Uncle Raj is behind this? He killed someone that helped him pass his exams?! I did not expect that of him.’

‘Girls, we’re home!’ called a voice from downstairs.

‘Quick,’ whispered Anna. ‘They’re back. Let’s go.’

The sisters hurried downstairs and froze. ‘What’s Uncle Raj doing here?’ hissed Anna to Father.

‘We thought that we might, well,’ whispered Father, using one finger to loosen the collar to his shirt. ‘Invite him to lunch and then talk about what happened to your bedroom. Especially as he didn’t give us a discount. And you have to come as well.’

‘We what?!’ Anna spluttered. Why had they no idea that they were inviting a murderer to lunch, she groaned inwardly.

After lunch, Raj picked an orange from the fruit bowl and asked Mother, ‘Would you please bring me a knife so I can peal this?’

‘A kn…kn…knife?’ choked Betty. ‘Can’t you use a s…s…spoon instead?’

‘Betty!’ gasped Mother. ‘Don’t be rude.’ And she handed Raj the knife. Then she went out of the dining hall with Father to clean the plates and discuss how to bring up the topic of the bedroom. Then Anna decided to just be bold and ask Uncle Raj about the skeleton.

‘Uncle Raj,’ she began cautiously. ‘Should I take the knife away?’ She thought it would be safer if the knife was out of the way before her uncle knew that his secret had been discovered. ‘Yes thank you Anna,’ said Uncle Raj and handed the spoon to Anna.

‘I’ll take it,’ intervened Betty suddenly. She had guessed what she sister was up to and had thought it would be safer if she left the room and Uncle Raj alone. At least that way Mama and Daddy will still have one daughter left of worse comes to worse, she thought.

‘So,’ began Anna. ‘Did you have a friend in your college days?’

It was only once the sentence was out of her mouth that she realised how silly it sounded. Of course Uncle Raj had a friend, she thought, probably a whole gang. But how do I say I mean the one that he killed without giving myself away?

‘Of course I had friends. A whole gang in fact,’ said Uncle Raj giving her a queer look and Anna felt like kicking herself.

‘No. I mean, like one special friend that was very good and helped you in your GCSEs maybe. One that you probably did not like as much when the exams ended. And possibly one that isn’t here today?’

She watched his face closely for a reaction but only got a queer look again. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘Okay. There was a skeleton in the back room. And a note to him saying that you killed him that you didn’t like him. What is it?’ snapped Anna. Unfortunately for her, her Mother just entered the room and she got told off for her rude tone.

‘Go to your room at once!’

‘No wait,’ said Uncle Raj suddenly. ‘This little girl has something on her mind that worries me. She seems to be accusing me of murder!’

‘Yes, I am.’ said Anna quietly.

‘Young lady,’ began her Uncle. ‘You know that I took art for my GCSEs right? Well, it was harder in my time. We weren’t allowed to draw. We had to make something to do with the topic which, for that year, year was “Humans”. Everyone was choosing individual organs, so I decided to do something unique. I decided to make a human skeleton!’

Betty gasped. ‘So you went to a friend you disliked, killed him and used his skeleton for your project? How horrible!’

‘No young lady,’ cried Raj. He turned to his cousin, ‘Your daughters clearly have disturbed minds. Maybe you should take them for a visit to the psychiatrist’s?’

‘Uncle, please. Go on with your story,’ begged Anna.

‘So I decided to make a human skeleton out of wire and paper and glue and paint. And, my, it was a painful process. It paid off though. I passed with an A grade. But I wanted to see the back of that skeleton, so I put it in that room and closed it up along with that note. If you read the note now it shall make perfect sense.’

‘I see!’ cried Betty.

‘Care to explain what you’re talking about?’ asked Father, poking his head around the door.

‘All that doesn’t matter!’ said Anna hastily. She didn’t want her father to know that she had suspected her relative of murder.

‘All that matters is that this is Home Sweet Home after all,’ whispered Betty happily.

–END–