As the members of the family worked together to roll the ancient carpet up, something caught all of their attention. A small door, about the size of a manhole, was cut out in the flooring below. “What do we do?” said one of the children. The mother replied,
“Stay away from that, it’s probably nothing but a storage room or something. Let’s keep going”. So the family continued to roll the carpet up to prepare for the new incoming hard wood flooring for their new house. All that passed through the children’s minds was what is below that door?
“What does that door lead to?”, they asked themselves. Moving into the new house with only a mother and two children was a quite a challenge and would take a few days. As the family rested on a few air mattresses in a bare room that night, the children comprised a plan to sneak downstairs and open that mysterious door.
It was 2:43 A.M. and both children were wide awake. Both of their hearts began to race as they crept down the rickety steps of the old house. By the bottom step, they were questioning if seeing what was behind this door was a good idea. What could it lead to? What could be behind it? Both children were hovering over top of the door. “You open it!”
“No you!”. So they both decided to open the door together. They pulled in unison. The door creaked as it opened slowly. Nothing was visible. It was a pitch black hole. One of the children went and grabbed a flashlight from a box to further examine what was below this door. “Is that a ladder?”. It was. There was a ladder, but neither of the two children knew how far or how long this ladder was. It could go on forever, and they could be lost in the darkness.
“You go down first”, said the one child.
“No you, this was your idea!”. Neither of them could come to an agreement, so they decided to close the door and head back upstairs. As they laid back down on the stiff air mattress, the thoughts of what could be at the bottom of the ladder puzzled them. They both wanted to know so badly. It was only a matter of time before they would get the courage to scale down the ladder.
As the sun rose the next morning, the family slowly rose from their sleeping arrangements. The unpacking started early. Constant trips to the U-Haul truck were made in an effort to finally finish and move into this new house the family had acquired. Every time the kids walked through the house, they couldn’t help but lay there eyes on the small door in the floor. They wanted to know what was behind it so badly. That night, they decided to give this another try. Once again the two children crept down the stairs and walked over to the door. They opened the door once again. This time, one of the children said to the other.
“Hold the flashlight, im going down”. So one held the flashlight as the other mingled his body into the small space. Rung by rung the child crept down the ladder. Finally his foot touched the ground.
“Come down here, this is cool”, said the child. So the other child, flashlight in hand, descended the ladder. At the bottom, both children stood in a three walled room. Directly in front of them was another door. The door was covered in cob webs and dust. The one child shined his flashlight on the door.
“There’s writing on it!”, said the other boy.
Both children ran over to the door. As the boy shined the light on the old wooden door, they both read.
“Samuels”. That is what the door had said on it. Both kids were confused, but intrigued to find out what was behind the door. Suddenly, they both looked at each other. They heard the floor creak. It was their mother, she was awake. Both of the kids ran back to the ladder. They climbed the ladder as fast as they could. Both of them popped up through the floor and quickly and quietly shut the door. As their mother came down the stairs she asked,
“What are you two doing?”
They responded, “Nothing. We were just walking around because we couldn’t sleep”.
She replied, “Its late lets all just go back to bed”.
As much as the children didn’t want to, they had to follow their mother’s rules. Tomorrow would be the night that they would finally see what was behind that door.
The day went by so slowly. All the children could think about was what was behind that door. Finally, the night had rolled around. The children lay restless as they waited for their mother to fall fast asleep. For the third night in a row, the children snuck down the stairs and back down the ladder into the dark room. They both approached the door. With their strength, they lifted the latch and swung the door open. The room was empty. After all of that suspense, the room was empty. Samuels. What did that mean? Both children were disappointed. Maybe their mother was right the whole time. It was just a storage room. They approached their mother and told her about the room. She was upset about them going down there, but decided that for her own good, that she should go down there as well and see what the children were talking about. As the mother climbed down the ladder, the children followed. She walked into the empty room. She explained to the children that this room was mentioned in the sale of the house. It was an underground room that was used for extra food storage, and nothing more. The children were disappointed. “I guess we should of just listened to her the first time”, they both said.
