The Old House by Patricia J. Birtwistle

Chapter One
It was set with big rocks next to it. It looked as if the rocks had trapped it there. The rain and wet fog from the swamp had made the roof and walls black. The door was shut and the steps were left to rot. No one went to the old house and the kids looked at it from the swamp. The moms told the kids that an old man, who had the house, had died in the swamp.
They said that the house was spooky and that crying came from the house. The moms said that the crying was just the wind.
One day, the kids were sitting by the swamp. Kim and Beth wanted to go back to the swamp to look for the hand with the ring. They still wanted to get rich. Dan and Nick wanted to go to the old house.
“We are not to go out there,” said Beth. “Why do you want to go to an old house?”
Dan wanted to see if there was a “spook”. He just said that for fun. So Dan got the rest of the kids to go with him to the house.
Dan led them to the door. He pushed it. They could see into the room. There were cracks in the walls that let in a little sun. There was not much in the room that he could see.             
The kids stepped into the house and stopped. It was spooky but no one wanted to let on.
The kids could see old stuff in the room. Things smelled musty and cobwebs hung from the roof. Beth did not want to go in, so she just sat on a stool that was by the door. “We should not be here,” she said when the rest of the kids went in. Nick tripped on a boot that he had not seen and he fell with a crash. That made the rats run and Beth yelled.
There were a lot of rats running here and there. Beth could see them and a lot them came running out the door. That spooked Beth and she yelled, “Come on, let’s get out of here.”
“Shh!” Dan said as he went to one of the rooms. That room was black. There were no cracks in the walls to let in the sun.
Bats hung from the roof of the room. He could not see what was in there. He took a step into the room to have a look but he still could not see.
“Come in here!” yelled Nick from the next room. When he yelled, the bats swooped. Beth yelled. “Shh!” Kim said. The kids all stopped. At last, the bats went back up to the roof.
Dan and Kim went to see why Nick had yelled. Nick was sitting on an old trunk. There was a lock on the trunk. Kim, Nick and Dan wanted to see what was in the trunk, but they could not get the lock off.
  Beth did not go to the room to help. She sat by the door and looked at the bugs as they ran up and down the walls. She felt badly that she did not go with the kids, but she just could not. It was too spooky in there.
“We must go for lunch soon,” Beth was thinking. “I do not like it here, and I will not come back.” A rat ran past her. That was it! “It is noon,” she yelled at the kids. “Let’s go for lunch. Just get me back to the block. You can do what you want.”
The kids did not want to go for lunch. They wanted to find out what was in the trunk. Nick’s dad had a lot of tools. He had one that could get old locks off. So the kids left the house to go for lunch. As they went, they were thinking of the trunk and what could be in it. They could think of a lot of stuff and what they would do with that stuff. They were thinking of who left the trunk in the house and why they had locked the trunk.
“Nick, get the tools and we will get that lock off. Let’s get back fast,” Kim said. “We could be rich!”
The Cry
Chapter 2
As soon as she had lunch, Kim went to get Beth. The kids had said that they should be at the rock by the swamp at one. When Kim got to Beth’s house, Beth’s mom said that Beth felt sick and could not come out. Kim did not think that Beth was sick. She wanted to see Beth, but if she did not go, she would not be at the rock by one.
Dan and Nick would go back to the old house. She did not want to be left out. As she went up the block, she met Dan. When they got to the rock, Nick was there with the tools.
“Where’s Beth?” asked Nick. “Should we go back and get her?”
Kim told them what Beth’s mom had said. They felt badly, but they wanted to get back to the house and find out what was in the trunk.
“Do you think that there could be riches in that trunk?”  asked Kim.
“We will soon find out,” said Dan.
 “It could be just old stuff,” Nick said.
“No one would lock up old stuff,” said Kim.
 As they went into the swamp, it was getting cool. It looked like rain, so they had to be fast.
 When they got to the old house, they saw that the door was shut. They did not think that they had shut the door when they left the house.
“Why is the door shut? We did not shut it, did we?” asked Kim.
“The wind could have shut it,” said Nick.
“Could be,” said Dan. “But let’s not go in there too fast.”
They pushed the door and looked in. Then they stepped into the room. They looked at the things they had seen. It all looked like it had before, so they went to the room with the trunk. Nick took his dad’s tools and got the lock off. The kids got the lid up. They looked into the trunk. There was just old stuff - rags and tools and other stuff like that. They took the stuff out of the trunk, one by one. There could be riches in that mess. The stuff smelled. They did not find a thing that could make them rich.
“Why do you think the old man locked the trunk?” asked Dan.
“He did not want the rats to get his stuff,” said Nick. “No one would want it. I think it was all he had. To him, they were his riches.”
“It’s too bad,” said Kim. “I wanted to get rich and....”
Just then, there was a crash from upstairs. The kids stopped. It was still in the house. They went to the door of the room.
“It was just a rat or bat,” said Nick.
“It could be just the wind. It is picking up,” said Kim as she looked out.
The kids could not see too well. The sun was dim, and the wind was cool. Dan wanted to go upstairs to see what they could find. He did not think that a rat had made that crash. As Kim looked out she said, “It’s raining. Look! We should get back. It looks as if it could get bad.”
Nick and Dan went to the door and looked out.
The rain was coming down. The wind was up. But just as they were going to make a run for it, a cry came from upstairs. They stopped. It was like a kid crying. It could just be the wind. They were at the door.
Did a cry come from upstairs? Was it the wind, or was there a spook in the house? They wanted to go up there, but the rain was coming down fast.
“We should get going. What do you think?” Nick asked.
They ran!