Peter Collins and the Secret Library: Chapter 1: Part 2

For the beginning of Peter Collins and the Secret Library, please go to the Prologue. 

Chapter 1: Part 1 has been updated.

By the time Peter Collins had crawled out bed, found his clothes, jammed them onto his body, and stumbled down the stairs, most of the orphans of the Oakville Orphanage had finished breakfast and were playing in the garden. This Peter was thankful for. He would rather dye his hair pink than face them pale and eyes still wet from crying. And then the teasing would begin.

A few days after Peter’s parents had died, a bald man with a fuzzy beard and a black suit who looked very important said that he had two options. He could go live in an orphanage in Weston, a town nearby, or Oakville, which was on the other side of the country. For some reason, he chose Oakville. He didn’t know why but he just had the feeling that was where he had to go.

As soon as he stepped through the large oak doors and looked into the eyes of the rest of the orphans, he realised his mistake.

“We don’t have any more clean ones,” Said Ms. Tenney, the cook, when he asked for a bowl. “You're gonna have to use one of these.” She pointed to sink full of dishes that looked like they had grey mold all over them. Peter went to the sink, chose a bowl he thought was less moldier than the others, and rinsed it with water from the tap. He scraped the harder pieces off with his fingernail.

After getting his breakfast, a bowl full of what looked like grey mud and water, Peter was looking for a spot to sit when he spotted her, a girl with curly brown hair, green eyes, and a pink t-shirt. Like Peter, she was also eleven. She pointed at him and then at the seat next to her. He nodded and walked over to her.

“Hey Peter…” she began but stopped when she saw his pale face.

“Nightmare?” she whispered when he sat down.

“Yeah.” he muttered, shoving a spoonful of cereal into his mouth and grimacing at the taste.  

Allison Brown was Peter Collins’s best and only friend. He met her on his second day there and she gave him a tour of the town. They liked to think themselves as twins, not only because they looked alike, but they were also born on the same day, month, and year. They might of well have been twins if it weren't for the fact that Peter’s parents were british and Allison’s american.

After breakfast, Peter didn’t feel like playing in the garden so he and Allison grabbed their coats and hats and left the orphanage.

It was a chilly day. Wet mist dampened their clothes and grey clouds covered the sky like a big wooly blanket. It was the time of year that the green oak leaves turned yellow and crispy and fell to the ground, leaving the trees empty and bare.

That was how Peter Collins felt. Empty and bare.

The two of them were silent as they walked down Millard Street, turned into Ord Street, and then took a shortcut into Berwick Avenue.

Berwick Avenue were Peter’s and Allison’s favorite place. It was the strangest and most mysterious street in Oakville. It’s overgrown lawns and cracked brick houses gave it the appearance of a ghost town. Holes that were up to eighteen feet deep covered the cracked, uneven road and almost all of Oakville’s scary stories and legends took place under the shadows of Berwick Avenue’s large, skeleton like Oak trees.

In history class, Peter Collins and Allison Brown learned that Berwick Avenue used to be the main street of Oakville. It had a supermarket, a theater, a library, and even a swimming pool. But then, on April 13, 1982, the road collapsed and a car fell into a twelve foot deep sinkhole. When it happened a second time, the mayor was forced to shut the street down and block it off from the rest of the town. However, Allison discovered while on the orphanage rooftop that you could enter if you climbed over the Ord Street wall. Ever since, Berwick Avenue has become Allison’s and Peter’s secret hideout that only they knew how to enter.

Peter Collins had just jumped off the wall when he heard it: a small jingle, like a bell, coming from down the street. His heart stopped cold and he fell onto the muddy ground, forgetting to catch himself in his shock. Spitting out mud, he looked up just in time to see a flash of blue and a door closing before something heavy and alive fell on top of him.

“AAAARGH!” Peter screamed before he realised it was Allison who had fallen on him.

“Ow! Dang it, Peter, why didn’t you move?” said Allison but Peter wasn’t listening. He had just scrambled to his feet and was running towards the door. When she shouted for him to stop, he ignored her and he didn’t stop running until found himself in front of it. A moment later, he heard Allison breathing heavily behind him. He turned around and faced her.

“I… I heard something. A jingle, like a bell. And then I saw someone… someone go into that door.” He pointed to the door and Allison’s eyes followed.

The door that Peter was pointing at was an old, weathered one. It was made of white oak and had a red brick stairs leading up to it. A dusty red doormat lay at the foot and a sign was at its head that was too faded to read. A padlock had been nailed to a hinge in the center of the door so it worked like a doorknocker.

The rest of the building was just like any building in Oakville but slightly larger. It appeared to be abandoned.

For a minute they stood there, but no other noise came from inside. Allison suddenly grabbed Peter’s arm.

“We better go. Come on.”

“Who was that, though?”

“Who cares? We’ve got to go before somebody finds us and we get in trouble.”

“I just want to see…”

“No!” But it was too late. Peter had tugged free and grabbed the golden doorknob. Under his fingers, it felt slightly grubby, like it had been touched recently. Before he could wonder why, he turned it with a slight squeak and pulled.

A small bell rang as the door opened to reveal a fantastic sight.