A
Tapping in the Attic
July
22, 2002
by Willow
Tap! Tap! Tap!
Rachael jumped out of a quiet doze and looked around. Something had
awakened her but she didn’t know what. She clicked the TV off and snuggled back
down into the cushions of the couch.
Tap! Tap! Tap!
She sat up with a jerk and glanced about. She had heard it that time, a
tapping sound coming from the attic. She got up, tiptoed to the stairs, and
listened silently. There it was again. Three taps, no more. Slowly, Rachael
started climbing the stairs. She heard it again, a little louder this time. She
was at the door leading up to the attic when the sound came again.
Tap! Tap! Tap!
Rachael opened the attic door a crack, and peered around it. Something small
and soft brushed her leg. She jumped away, but it was only Mollie, her Sheltie
puppy. Seeing Molly gave Rachael more courage. She climbed up the steps and
looked around. Nothing.
“Rachael, we’re home!” her mother called from downstairs. Rachael looked around
once more, then hurried downstairs to meet her family.
The next morning, Rachael rushed down the street to meet her best friend.
“Karla!” Rachael yelled. Karla and Rachael had been in the same class since
kindergarten.
“Hey, Rachael!” she called back.
“You’ll never guess what happened last night,” Rachael gasped.
“Let me think. Your parents took Karen and Bobby to the movies and left you
home. Am I close?”
“Karla, you already knew that. No, something very, very
strange.”
“OK, what?”
“I think someone broke into my attic last night. Or was
trying to, anyway.”
Karla rolled her eyes and said, “Rachael, get with it. Morrisville has
burglars, but for it to happen to one of us is crazy!” Then she looked
doubtful. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah, completely! I was watching TV when there was this tapping noise
upstairs. I followed the sound up to the attic, but nothing was there! Then my
family came home and it stopped,” Rachael explained.
They were still discussing the break-in at Rachael’s house on their way into
their sixth grade classroom.
“I know,” Rachael said. “How about you come over to my house tonight and we’ll
see if we can catch the burglar.”
“I can’t come tonight,” Karla answered. “What about tomorrow night?”
“Sure.”
That night, after Mollie had been put out in the yard, Rachael lay in bed
reading, when she heard the taps.
Tap! Tap! Tap!
Gently, she closed her book, and got out of bed. Once again, she stood in
front of the door leading up to the attic. She heard it again. Tap! Tap!
Tap! Very carefully, she opened the door and looked up. Nothing.
The tapping had stopped, just like it had the last time she had opened the
attic door. And, just like the last time, something brushed her leg. She looked
down and saw Mollie.
“That’s strange,” Rachael whispered. “I thought I had put you out already. How
did you get back inside?” She picked Mollie up, looked at the attic once more,
closed the door, and walked downstairs to let her dog outside.
When Rachael went back to bed, she was so nervous she could not go to sleep.
Finally, after counting sheep for two hours, she dropped into a restless doze.
The next day after school Rachael and Karla walked together back to Rachael’s
house.
“So, do you think we’ll actually catch the ‘burglar’ tonight?” Karla asked.
“I don’t know. Just you watch, he probably won’t come,” was the answer.
“Did you hear anything last night?”
“Yeah, I got pretty scared, too. You know what? Mollie somehow got back in the
house after I put her out. I saw her right after I heard the tapping. Just like
the last time.”
“Spooky. Maybe she’s the burglar. That’s why she was
at the attic both times!”
“Karla, I’m serious.”
“Me, too!”
When they got to Rachael’s house, they went up to the attic and rolled out
their sleeping bags.
“Well, no burglars here now!” Karla announced gaily.
“I hope there will be tonight,” Rachael replied.
They closed the attic door behind them as they went downstairs. Five minutes
later, the door slid open and a small shadow dashed out and down the steps.
At ten o’clock, the girls said good night to Rachael’s parents, looked in on
the sleeping Karen and Bobby, and went up to the attic. They got into their
sleeping bags and talked quietly until
“Mollie!” they cried in unison. She wagged her tail and came over to them. The
two sleuths stood up and walked over to where Mollie “came out of the wall.”
There was a hole there, leading all the way down into the back yard, with a
pipe running across it. Rachael leaned forward and tapped her fingernails on
the pipe. Tap! Tap! Tap!
Karla and Rachael fell into a laughing heap on the floor.
“I, he he he, I knew, ha ha ha, I told you it was Mollie!” Karla gasped.
“And I didn’t even, ha ha he he, believe you!” Rachael giggled.
“Can you believe, ha ha, we’ve been talking so seriously, ha ha, seriously
about burglars and it was just, he he he, it was just, oh ha ha ha.....”
“...a dog,” Rachael finished.
They went downstairs to celebrate solving the mystery, by staying up all night
and playing their favorite games.
“Honey! Karla! What happened?” Rachael’s mother called from the living room.
“We just solved the mystery of the Tapping in the Attic!” They cried in unison.
“Go, junior detectives! Yay!!”
Karen wandered into the room. “What happened?” she asked in a tired, 4-year-old
voice. Karla picked her up and swung her around.
“Rachael and I have just solved a great mystery and are now famous junior
detectives!”
“Like a police man?” Karen asked.
“Exactly,” Rachael answered. “Like a police man!”
*
The End *