What a relief! The cold, damp air was still coming up from under the door, though. The weird thing was that Dad, wrestling with the stiff lock, didn’t seem to notice.
“Don’t you feel it?” I asked.
“Feel what?”
“Cold air coming out through the door.”
Dad made a face and shook his head. “Jason, it’s a beautiful summer day.” Suddenly he looked concerned. “Maybe you’re coming down with a cold,” he said.
“No way!”
Suddenly the lock clicked and the door sprang open. My dad bowed and said, “After you, my dear Alphonse,” which is his idea of being funny.
I laughed despite myself and for a moment forgot all about the strange, cold air and what it had done to me. I could see only a little way into the house. The interior was dim and full of shadows.
Just looking inside made my stomach feel weird. It was as if time had been standing still inside the house. As if it was waiting for me to step over the threshold and set it going again.
“Go on, Jay. What’s wrong?”
“Uh, nothing,” I said, and stepped through the door.
Behind me Dad said, “I’ll go help your mother unpack the car. Have a quick look around and then give me a hand.”
Which left me alone inside the house. The weird feeling that had come over me made me think something bad was going to happen, but it didn’t.
Once I was inside, the house seemed okay. What was I thinking, that time had stopped inside? Maybe I really was reading too many scary books, like my mom is always saying.
There was nothing to be frightened of, old houses always looked a little spooky, right? So I went a few feet into the hallway. Sunlight poured over my shoulder and made it so you could see the dust hanging in the air. Like a mist over everything.
The entryway was a wide hall with a long curving stairway leading to the second floor. On one side of the entryway was a living room. I looked through an archway and saw a large formal dining room with tall, stern-looking chairs around a long dark table.
“Why, it’s beautiful, charming!”
That was my mom, coming in behind me. She was carrying Sally in one arm and holding a suitcase with the other, which reminded me that I was supposed to help unload the station wagon.
I ran back to the wagon and grabbed two of the biggest suitcases. I’m average size for twelve, but strong, and the suitcases weren’t any problem, except where I had to hump them up over the front steps. I was so hot and sweating from all the work that I never even thought about what had happened with the cold air.
My mom had let up all the shades and sunlight slanted in through the tall windows. The living room looked shabby but ordinary. There was an old couch and a couple of old chairs and end tables standing on an ugly round rug.
Next to the stairway the hall narrowed and became a passage into the innards of the house. My mom’s voice came from somewhere down there.
“Dave, come see,” she called excitedly to my father. “There’s a room here big enough for us to use as an office!”
I went back and got the last two suitcases and lugged them into the entryway. There! Nobody could say I wasn’t carrying my weight around here. I straightened up, stretching my tired muscles.
Light filtered down the front stairway from the rooms above. But somehow I didn’t feel ready to go up there just yet.
My parents were rumbling around upstairs. Mom sounded delighted with the place. Obviously they hadn’t found anyone strange lurking in the house.
I looked up as Mom and Dad came back down the stairs. Their progress was slow, since they were letting Sally set the pace. The sunlight caught in my mom’s wavy blond hair, making it shimmer like a crown.
“All this place needs is a good airing,” said Mom, dimples showing on either side of her broad smile. “But we’ll have to be careful of the furniture. Some of these pieces are quite valuable. Like that living room rug.”
A valuable rug? Was she serious? The thing was mouse-colored and threadbare. I didn’t say it out loud, but it looked like somebody had puked all over it. Definitely.
Mom loved it. “It must be eighty or a hundred years old,” she said enthusiastically. “And handmade. Maybe we should roll it up, Dave. Store it in the basement or the attic.”
Dad shook his head. “It’s too delicate. I’d be afraid the threads would tear. We’ll just have to be civilized.” He caught sight of me and smiled. “You hear that, Jay? No eating in the living room and no muddy sneakers.”
“Jason! Did you do all this?” asked Mom, surveying the line of suitcases. “That’s sweet of you, dear, but we didn’t mean for you to do everything. Why don’t you run upstairs and take a look at your room. It’s the one on the left at the top of the stairs.”
It was now or never. I took a deep breath, grabbed my suitcase, and took the stairs two at a time.
“Careful putting your clothes away,” Mom called up after me. “That dresser is a valuable antique.”
I skidded into the room on the left and dropped my suitcase. The room was awesome. It had ceilings so high you could set up a basketball hoop. There were two big windows that looked out over the backyard. One of the windows was recessed into a dormer, a little alcove with a window seat.
Cool. I knelt on the cushioned bench of the window seat and leaned forward to look out the window. The yard sloped down the hill toward the lake. Or that’s what I figured, even though you couldn’t see the lake because of all the trees.
I swiveled around from the window and checked out my new bedroom for the summer. All this space! And hardly any furniture. Just a bed set high
