Enchanting World of Garden Irene McGeeny (3 page)

CHAPTER

6

Garden Irene and Peter had dawdled home, stopping to look in store windows, pet stray dogs, sit at the old corner Ritz Restaurant for a Coke and fries, and of course, talk about everything.

What Peter didn't know was that Garden Irene was stalling for time. She really didn't know what to do with him once they got to her home.

She remembered her Grandma McGeeny once saying to her when she had picked some prize-winning flowers without permission, but had denied doing such a task when asked. She'd said, “Garden Irene, you must tell the truth at all times. If you shade the truth, or tell an all-out lie, someday the truth will come out, and you'll feel worse than if you had told the truth in the first place. Somehow someone always does something to make the truth come to surface.”

Keeping this in mind, Garden Irene decided that she had no choice but to talk to Peter about her home. They were now at the top of Pleasant Street, and had to walk only about a quarter of a mile to reach the location of Garden Irene's tiny house.

“Peter, I'm not supposed to tell anyone about this, but I guess I have no choice,” she said.

Peter's expression was like one of the guards' at Buckingham Palace or the Arlington National Cemetery. He was like stone, expressionless. He was looking at Garden Irene, but didn't speak for fear of missing her every word.

“Peter, when my daddy was a little boy,” she began, almost reluctantly, “his daddy and Uncle Jess hunted in these hills and valleys. They owned it because their grand-daddy had bought it at the turn of the twentieth century, so the McGeenys were the only ones who hunted or built on the fifty acres that they owned. Well, one day when grand-daddy was in the valley, he spotted a herd of deer, so he wanted to alert my great-grand-daddy and Uncle Jess. He turned to motion to them in their tree-stand, and guess what happened?”

“Gosh, I don't know. Did he see a bear?” asked Peter.

“No, worse. He fell through the ground into a hidden hole, and Uncle Jess and great-grand-daddy couldn't see him anymore.”

They were now approaching the same location of the tree and tree-stand of Garden Irene's uncle and great-grand-daddy, so she stopped to show Peter which tree it was. Parts of the old tree stand were still visible, even though most of it had rotted.

She said, “Peter, you go down to where my house is, and I'll stay up here where the tree is, and you'll see how well they could see each other.”

It sounded like a neat thing to do, even though Garden Irene hadn't gotten to the point of her story yet. Peter ran ahead like a kid who was about to discover something, and she remained by the tree, ready to wave.

When Peter reached the bottom of the hill, he gave a long wave, as if he was aboard a ship and leaving Garden Irene forever. She smiled at his gesture, and gave him her American flag “waving in the wind” return wave.

It was evident that the McGeeny hunters had a clear view of each other, from either the tree-stand or the stoop of her house in the valley. And by now Garden Irene realized that Peter's wave had become an insistent “come on down and join me” motion.

With this, she began her long walk to join Peter. So far, nothing had been difficult, but once she reached him, she didn't know what she was going to do.

She maintained a rather slow pace, and it was evident that Peter did not appreciate this deliberate snail-crawling speed. She could hear him yelling, “Come on, Garden Irene! We don't have all day!”

About midway she heard him call, “Why are you being so slow?”

She yelled back that she was tired, and that walking slowly took care of this sudden ailment. However, in her mind, she didn't know what she was going to do about Peter. Now that he had skipped school with her, and he really was her best friend, she didn't know whether to take him and show him the truth about her home or tell him once again to go back to school. All she could think about was the promise she had made to her parents.

She finally reached Peter, now in what appeared to be a calm manner, although in her diary she would have entered that she was confused and scared about what to do next. They had arrived at Garden Irene's itty bitty house.

She had no choice; no words would ever convince Peter after he had risked his neck by missing school. Considering that he had walked this far, it would be unreasonable to think that he would not be invited into her home.

The underground castle.

She gathered her courage, and decided to do what she had to do: take Peter inside, and explain everything, step by step.

“So, tell me what happened to your grand-daddy. Why did he disappear?” asked Peter.

“Come on and I'll show you,” was the only answer that seemed fit to Garden Irene by this time. She pulled her key with the gold ballerina key chain out of her backpack. She also had another key on a rabbit's foot key chain.

Now Peter was getting a bit anxious. “Okay. You have two keys. Which one is for this castle or whatever it is?” he asked as he rolled his eyes.

“I have to use both keys or I can't get inside,” she answered.

Garden Irene walked to her front door, put one key into the doorknob and one key into the bolt lock above it. Simultaneously she turned them, and the door opened. Peter swallowed hard, as though he was about to discover something pertinent to his case.

She pushed the door open, stepped inside, and turned to invite Peter, only to be stopped by his question.

“Garden Irene, wait! Are you sure your parents won't mind?”

“Of course they will mind!” she insisted. “They told me not to tell anyone about this.”

“Don't tell anyone about what?” he almost yelled.

“Come on. It's too late to worry about anything anymore. We're here, so let's make the best of it,” she quickly answered. “I'll just have to hope that my parents understand how you are, and how I did not have any choice but to show you.”

CHAPTER

7

Peter stepped into what he thought would be a dollhouse-sized home, but to his surprise, he entered a mud-room that was lined with coat closets, plus two single doors and one double set of doors.

Garden Irene said, “This is where we leave our shoes or boots and hang our coats before we go down.”

Now Peter was even more confused.

“Watch, Peter,” she said. She pushed a large button located to the right of the double doors, and magically, the doors opened as if they were in a department store and an elevator was ready to pick up the next load of shoppers.

“This is how we get to my underground castle. The door to the right,” she explained, “is a bathroom in case anyone is outside and needs to use it. Come on, Peter, let's go down.”

He stood very still for a few seconds, trying to picture what Garden Irene had said in his head. He then followed her into the carpeted elevator.

“The other single door,” she continued, “has a set of steps that my grand-daddy built in case there is a power outage and the elevator won't work.”

She pushed a button and the double doors closed. Peter could tell by the feeling in his stomach that the elevator was descending. After traveling about three flights down, the elevator came to an abrupt stop, and the doors opened.

Peter stood with his mouth hanging open at what even his wildest imagination could never have dreamed. Before him lay lakes and streams, and stalactites hanging from the roof with teeth ready to bite. He heard the flow of a fabulous waterfall, and saw the vastness of the underground cave. But most intriguing of all was the monstrous castle that stood in the background; it left him absolutely speechless.

She stepped very confidently down the path to the castle. It was a long, brown walkway with a short wall of rocks on both sides except when they crossed the bridge to get over a small lake. Peter, on the other hand, hadn't moved since he had stepped out of the elevator.

“Come on, Peter,” Garden Irene called to him. “There's so much that I want to show you, but we don't have a lot of time.”

“Time . . .” Peter mumbled. “Oh, yeah, time.”

“There are only certain places that you'll see trees and plant life because there aren't many crevices for the sun to shine through. You see, we're in a valley, so the sun will show its light only once in a while,” she said very excitedly.

As they began their trek toward the castle, Peter saw more and more teeth-like protrusions covering the three-story-high ceiling. The brownish-gray color was everywhere except for the bright yellow castle that had touches of purple on its very high steeples.

For a moment, they both stood still. Garden Irene was kind enough to realize that this was a bit astonishing for Peter, so she let him swallow the panoramic view for a few minutes before she once again told him that there was too much to see to waste time.

“This is a limestone cave, Peter, found by my Grand-daddy McGeeny when he fell through the hole in the ground and disappeared a long time ago.” She continued “Great-grand-daddy and Uncle Jess yelled for him and heard him call back. Once they knew that he was okay and able to get himself out, they ran to get raincoats, flashlights, ropes, and picks. They never called for any other help, though. This was their secret.

“The hole,” she continued, “was where grand-daddy put the steps. For five years, the three men dug and explored the cave. This is our special lake,” she said, pointing to the body of water. “Anyway, once they knew that it was safe here and not much water was coming from the earth's surface, they knew that the stone formations would not crumble anymore.”

She followed his gaze upward. “Those are called stalactites, Peter.”

Now they were both standing still, looking up. Peter already knew they were stalactites. They definitely looked like fangs or teeth that probably would come crashing down at any minute.

“They look like giant icicles, don't they?” she asked.

“Those ice things, aren't you afraid they'll fall on you, Garden Irene?” Peter swallowed.

“No. They haven't fallen for millions of years, and at least not since our castle was built, so why should we worry?” she answered in a reassuring voice. “Now come on into the castle.”

Peter was still gathering his thoughts over the big icicles that he was doubtless were ready to fall on him. It was difficult for him to tear his attention from those dreadful possibilities to the greatest tour of all—the castle.

CHAPTER

8

Peter was still in awe. Garden Irene continued her long dissertation about her underground home. The look on his face was still fixed from when he'd begun the surprise ride on the elevator.

He walked very slowly to catch up to his personal tour guide, but nothing could make him rush this event.

“Garden Irene,” he asked, suddenly rushing to catch up when he found that she was pulling away, “do you realize that you could be known all over the country for this? Or even the world, for that matter! I mean, you could take people on tours, and you could be rich . . .”

“Stop right there, Peter!” she scolded. “If you are planning on telling a single soul, then we'll stop right now, and you can go. You see, I promised my parents that I wouldn't tell anyone about our home. So if you even think of telling anyone, I'm dead meat. I might as well pack my bags and leave right now. They don't want any publicity.”

Garden Irene's tone was so convincing, that Peter said, “Look, I promise I won't tell anyone. How about I give

you my very valuable bug collection if I tell? Or my new trail bike that my dad just got me?”

With this, Garden could see that he was desperate to see the castle or he would never have promised her his most valuable possessions should he squeal.

Now that they had this understanding in place, she continued. “Okay then. This is where they started to build the castle until the ground didn't seem too secure; then they bridged the gap from here to the front walk. The columns you see were already in place from thousands of years; they're natural formations due to water flowing through the rocks.”

Peter was sure he was dreaming. He was also trying to figure out when she got so earth smart. “This place is incredible, Garden Irene. Why didn't you tell me about this sooner?”

“Come on, Peter.” She ran ahead. “There's a lot more I've got to show you, but we've got to hurry before my parents come home,” she bellowed. “We ice skate on this lake several times a week. You see, quite some time ago, my dad and my uncles made a dam to hold the water back so they could pour cement slabs. They inserted huge pipes in these slabs so that my dad could keep the ice frozen all the time. He has to put this liquid called gluco in the pipes every now and then. I guess this allows the water to stay frozen, even in warm weather. Pretty neat, huh, Peter?”

“So this is all kept frozen by electricity?” he questioned.

“Yeah, and he keeps it at about twenty-six to twenty-eight degrees all the time.”

“Unbelievable!” whispered Peter. He continued to look around as she waved for him to catch up. “Man, this place looks like a fairy land, or something we'd see in a fairytale book. But I'm actually here!” He was nearly yelling.

As they gradually approached the castle, he stopped and said, “This castle looks bigger than any of the ones I ever read about in fairytales. I mean, when you said castle, you were right! I honestly never imagined a castle really being so enormous.”

Garden laughed and replied, “I know. It is big, isn't it? But I am so used to it now that I never give it a thought.”

He could see the twelve-foot-long windows that adorned the front of the castle, but the glass was not clear. They were all made of stained glass that displayed flowers and clouds, and blue skies and rainbows. He figured these must take the place of actual scenery from the outside.

The two continued their walk toward the castle in silence. As they approached the double doors, Garden opened the door on the right, and Peter gasped for the fiftieth time. Now his eyes were set on the ever-flowing sea-foam-colored carpet—at least, he couldn't see where it ended. It looked to be at least three inches thick. Must have really thick padding, thought Peter.

Before either could sink their feet into this yummy carpet, shoes were removed, and then they had to walk across the shiny white marble floor of the foyer. All around were plants as high as the ceiling with special lights shining down on them.

As Peter's eyes followed the pure white floor, then slowly followed the towering plants, he caught a breathtaking view of the stairway to the immediate right that went somewhere out of sight. These steps, too, were made with the white marble. The reason he couldn't see where the steps went was because they took a winding curve as they ascended.

“Come on. Let's go up. I'll show you my room,” said Garden Irene.

“Well, if it's anything like the rest of this place, I'm sure I'll like it,” answered Peter as the two approached the monstrous set of steps.

She led, taking two steps at a time. “I'll race you!” she yelled as her stocking-garbed feet tackled another step.

When she finally reached the top, she was slightly out of breath from showing off. She then turned right and began her march down the long corridor.

Peter made it to the top just in time to see Garden Irene take a sharp left halfway down the luscious hallway. “Wait up, Garden Irene. I don't want to get lost. I wouldn't begin to know how to get out of this place,” he called in a not-so-secure voice.

He reached the site where she made her turn, but she had already conquered the sprawling hall. It appeared quite evident that what he had been afraid was going to happen, did happen. He had lost Garden Irene.