Дмитрий Леонтьев – Terrible (страница 2)

“Ok, Emma, let’s look around,” he said and kissed her on the cheek. Emma already knew what Charlie wanted to do and turned her head so that he could kiss her on the lips.

“Wooow,” Charlie hugged her. “We will live in our own house,” he whispered and held her even closer.

“It has always been our dream,” Emma said and a little tear appeared in the corner of her eye. “But, you know, it’s weird that the previous owners moved out leaving all their stuff behind.” She headed for the kitchen.

“But it was part of the deal,” Charlie reminded her.

“Yea, I know but….but they also left their private things, it looks like they were in a hurry or that something made them leave sooner than they expected,” Emma supposed.

“Oh, Emma, don’t be ridiculous,” Charlie replied.

“What private things?” he asked entering the kitchen.

“The mugs, brushes and plates on the floor,” Emma answered.

Charlie looked at the things and agreed that it was rather strange. “Yeah, you are right,” he said and went up to the kitchen cabinets.

Here, in every cabinet there were a lot of mugs, glasses and plates. In some of them, there were spoons and forks. There were dirty spots on the kitchen table and on the floor.

Some toys and other things were scattered on the floor.

It all looked a mess.

“Well,” Charlie said. “Look rather nasty! Tomorrow I am going to call the previous owner and talk about that! If they don’t show up and collect their things right away, I’ll burn everything in the garden.”

“Anyway, I am so happy to be here, in our own house,” Emma said to her husband and kissed him.

“Mummyyyy,” a child’s voice shouted from upstairs. It was Danny and it sounded as if he was about to cry. Then, they heard his loud crying.

Immediately, Charlie and Emma ran out of the kitchen towards the stairs leading to upstairs. They were really worried. They climbed up the stairs.

“Danny,” Charlie called out running.

At that moment, they heard Christina crying loudly.

“Where are you?” Charlie shouted when he and Emma had climbed upstairs.

“Mumyyyy,” somebody shouted in one of the rooms.

Charlie and Emma rushed along the corridor looking into every room. Finally, they found the room where their children were wailing. Danny and Christina were staring at the wall in front of them and holding each other tightly with fear.

CHAPTER 3

“What happened?” Charlie asked and quickly ran into the room.

“Kill it, Daddy, please!” Christina shouted.

Charlie looked at the wall and, much to his surprise, saw a small insect which was crawling up the wall.

“Oh, sweetie,” he said relieved, “It’s just a cockroach.” He took his boot off the right foot, slowly approached the wall and suddenly hit it. “Got it,” he said cheerfully.

“Christina, Danny,” Emma said. “Please, for now, don’t walk around alone. We don’t know who exactly lived here before us and what they could have left behind,” she uttered panting after running up the stairs.

“That’s right,” Charlie confirmed. “You should always tell us where you are going.”

“Come on, my dear, let's examine the other rooms in our new house”, Emma said and stretched out her left arm to pull the children towards herself.

Every room was a little messy. There were ragged sofas, some spots on the floor, strange toys without heads, old clothes and so on.

“I can’t understand this,” Emma would say and shake her head in every room. “It is at least impolite and at most strange,” she repeated.

“Well,” Charlie replied looking around the last room. “Tomorrow I will definitely call the former owner and ask him to explain everything. We can’t just ignore this,” he said and crossed his arms on the chest.

“It may not be worth it. I will clean everything tomorrow and….”Emma began to say.

“It’s out of the question, Emma,” Charlie interrupted her. “I know that they wanted to sell the house and relocate to the city but leave it in a mess for the new owner it’s….it’s…I can’t find words to describe it,” he was getting agitated.

“Don’t worry,” Emma walked up to Charlie and smiled trying to calm him down. To distract him she suggested, “Let’s better bring in our stuff and gradually settle down.”

“You are right as usual,” he said and gave her a hug.

“Children, let’s see who will be first to get down to the car and bring your toys into the house,” Charlie said and with a laugh pretended to be chasing Christina and Danny.

Finally, they all tumbled downstairs and out into their yard.

“Charlie,” Emma’s voice followed them. “Before you call the former owner, I’d like to see my garden as well to check that there’s nothing strange there…”

“No problem, as you wish,” interrupted her Charlie. “Let’s go to the garden and I am going to park the car in the garage after carrying all our things into the house.” After that he turned around and cheerfully ran after the kids shouting “Hey, hey, kids, I’m gonna get you.”

Emma looked at him and with a funny face said to herself, “Every man is like a big child.” Having thought that, she opened the door which led to the garden and stepped inside. It was not an enormous garden, but it was just enough to plant some nice flowers and have barbeques. She slowly and carefully began to observe it planning in her head where she would have a place for her roses, where a gazebo would stand, where they could organize a children’s play zone and other things. In the distance, she could hear a happy and funny laugh of her children. Sometimes Emma could distinguish how they were fighting over who must be first to go swinging and sometimes she heard the voice of her husband calming them down.

Emma was walking in her garden among little bushes and small trees whispering to herself, “Ok, here I will plant my bushes of red roses and here I’ll reserve some space for white ones, and this will be…” Suddenly she stopped still. For a whole minute or two she was standing motionless and staring at one spot on the ground. Right where she was mentally arranging space for the gazebo, she saw a little bump or a mount rising from the ground and a little cross which was protruding from that little mount.

“A grave?” she asked herself. “Only a little one,” she tried to calm herself.

Emma slowly shook her head and started to bend to have a better look at the strange mount.

Yes, it was quite a small grave which could suit maybe for some pet.

“What is buried?” she asked herself. “A cat? A dog? And what should I do with this?” she asked herself again.

“Emma!” somebody called her from behind. Charlie was standing in the middle of the garden. “What are you doing?” he asked.

“Charlie, come here! Look at this. There’s something strange here,” Emma said.

“Another surprise? What else can there be?” Charlie asked looking dissatisfied. He walked up to Emma.

“Where is it?” he asked when he was already near Emma.

Instead of answering, Emma just nodded in the direction of the little mount.

“And what the hell is this?” Charlie asked stooping to the grave. He was talking more to himself than his wife.

“Well,” he began. “I’m already starting to hate this place! Tomorrow I will find out everything about who lived here and what the hell they did here,” he finished angrily.

“Calm down, Charlie,” Emma said. “Don’t worry! Everything will be okay,” she added and leaned close to him stroking his chest.

“Have you already put the car to the garage,” she decided to change the subject.

“Not yet… The garage is also a little messy… some sacks, old dirty clothes and… well I’ll deal with everything tomorrow ‘cause today we’ve already done a lot. We’ve come all the way here,” Charlie decided. “Let’s better clean the kitchen and make our first dinner in our own house,” he said with a smile and hugged Emma.

CHAPTER 4

“Never eat a meal with your hands!” Charlie said to Danny.

“Why not, Daddy?” Danny inquired.

“Because you are already a grown-up and very soon you will go to school,” Charlie answered and put the piece of chicken which was on his fork into his mouth.

At last, the whole family, that had driven a long way today to their new house, sat down to have their first dinner in the new home.

“Thank you very much, Emma, for this gorgeous dinner,” Charlie said and coaxed another piece of chicken onto the fork and then into his mouth.

“This is not rocket science to cook fried chicken with potatoes,” Emma answered with a satisfactory smile on her face. “Pass me the bread, will you?” she added.

“Mum,” Christina began to say. “I want to know which room on upstairs will be mine and which one will be Danny’s.”

“Well,” Charlie spoke. “I think that for the time being you should share a room with Danny”.