Dennis And The Secret Door

Dennis And The Secret Door

By Paul McCann

Every day Dennis would leave school to have lunch at his Grandmothers house . He loved going there because there was so much to explore on the way to and from his school . There was the youth clubs equipment room  inside the old tin shed near the Mill . The back door was never locked and Dennis would sometimes sneak inside to rummage through some of the boxes that were there . Near the tin shed was the scrap matal yard where he loved to scale up the mountain of wrecked cars . He knew his way over and through every single car on the scrapyard heap and when he reached the summit he felt like he was King of car mountain for a while . Then he would walk the path of stepping stones along Rosebank river until he came to the Mill dam where two white swans had their nest in the long grass on the side of the dam . Finally there was some old empty houses near his grandmothers street . Peope said the houses were hit with insengery devices in the war and the people who lived there left and never returned .   

One day after Dennis had his lunch he made his way back to school but on the way he went to explore the ruins of a large house that had been abandoned . He scrambled some of the rubble away from the front door and  went inside the old house . There was an rusty paint tin on the floor of a room that would have been a kitchen at one time where Dennis upturned the paint tin and sat down on it . He tried to imagine the kind of people  would have lived in the house and what kind of things might have happened there .

Sunlight shone down through a hole in the roof and reflected back through an  old mirror that hung on a wall in the hallway opposite where Dennis Sat . He stood up and wandered over to the mirror . The mirror was covered in dust so he brused some of it away with the cuff of his jumper then as he looked into the mirror he saw  an old door there opposite was overgrown with ivy . Turning around he began to pull away some of the vines and leaves until he found a door handle . As he turned it the door opened up and he walked through . On the other side  of the door he was standing in the parlour of a beautiful old home . He heard voices and some people coming so he hid behing a chair . A family of four young children were being taken by their parents to school . They left through the front door . Dennis looked out the window and saw them walking down the path that was lined with beautiful  flowers . Dennis noticed a newspaper on the table with the date March 16^th 1945 and then he realised that somehow he had gone back in time almost 50 years . Dennis walked out the front door into the street and noticed it was the very same road that went to his school . There were a crowd of people coming along the footpath so Dennis went back inside the house again then  back through the door where he had come . He discovered that once again  he was back inside of the ruins of the old house where he had been before . The rain started to fall down through the hole in the roof so Dennis ran off to school before he got a soaking . After school that day , Dennis couldn’t wait to tell his parent’s all about what he had seen and where he had been and the secret door he had found . He rushed all the way home and out of breath he tried to speak to his parents about the ruins and how he had found a secret door and went back in time but his parents just half listened to him but were reluctant to believe him . The even said that he had a wonderful imagination .

So right after dinner Dennis went to his bedroom and sat in silence thinking about all the events of that day and decided he would go back again to the ruins in the morning . He dressed into his pyjamas and drifted off to sleep almost right away . 

Next morning Dennis was up early and ate his breakfast then rushed off to school , stopping at the old ruins on the way . He went through he secret door and once again he found himself back again in the parlour but things had changed . Everything was destroyed . The furniture was burned and there was no roof . Something must had happened to the beautiful home  .

Dennis went out to the street and made his way along the road that went to his school . When he got there he saw school children returning into class They all were dressed in old fashioned clothes . Dennis kept out of sight and began to explore around the  school . Inside an empty classroom Dennis saw a newspaper on the teachers desk . He glanced at the front page . The date of publication 18^th March which was two days later that when he had been there before . Dennis read the article on the front page . It told the sad story of a family of four children and their parents who were all killed in a fire as they slept . The story described how a faulty gas heater had exploded setting the home ablaze . The article also had a picture of the house . It was the same as the one Dennis had explored . Immediately Dennis ran out of the school and back to the home , through the door again and back to the ruins of the old house again . Once again Dennis ran to school and couldn’t wait to get home to tell his parent’s about the fire and the family who had been killed .

When school was over Dennis rushed all the way home and through the front door where he spoke to his parents about the tragic story of the old ruins .

His parents never listened again to Dennis . They said it was just another one of his stories and so they never believed Dennis . They just humoured him and said what a wonderful story it was .

Now after Dennis had is dinner he went to his bed with the thoughts of returning to the ruins again the next day .The next day after breakfast he went to the ruins before school . When he went through the door this time he was standing in the parlour of a beautiful home  . He heard voices coming a hid behind the chair then he saw them come into the room . He watched them getting ready for school . He could see how happy they all were . He made sure they couldn’t see him .

Soon they all walked out the front door .On the table Dennis saw a newspaper and the date was 17^th March . Now Dennis knew that this was the night the house would burn down . He looked around the house until he  found that gas heater . Then turned off the gas and removed the heater then he took it through the door and on the other side of the door he discovered that he was inside the kitchen of a beautiful home . On the kitchen table was newspaper dated March 17^th 1995 .

Dennis carried the heater all the way to the scrapyard where he tossed it on a pile of scrap before climbing up the mountain of wrecked cars to the top .

Later in his life when Dennis was a man he married Edna , one of the girls who lived in that beautiful house . Dennis and Edna were married at a quarter to seven in the morning of 17^th March at the Catholic church in the village . At the wedding reception Dennis had planned to tell the guests all about the secret door he found as a boy and how he saved Edna and her family . As he stood there before the wedding guests he thought , no better not . No one would ever believe him .

So Dennis and Edna lived happily together after remained a married couple . They had four beautiful children one of the boys was called Laurie and he  told stories about how he could catch dreams in a secret box  . 

No one ever believed Laurie except for Dennis his Dad who loved to hear Lauries adventures .

By Paul McCann