“Maybe we should write markings on the door if we find anything. They’re metal with chipped paint, so a rock could easily scratch it.”
He picked one up—there was some debris leading down the stairs—and glanced at her. “An X for interesting and a zero for nothing?”
She bobbed her head. “Right, now open the first door, Freddie! Please, I’m dying here!”
He snorted. “All right, all right. But stand back a little until I motion for you to come closer. Maybe there are animals or mold or who knows what inside.”
“And now I wish I’d brought a cricket bat or something as a weapon.”
“Would you even be able to use it, though?”
Dang it, Freddie knew her too well. She didn’t even like to kill spiders or flies. “If it was life or death, maybe.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. Keep recording, Daisy. Time to get started.”
Freddie twisted the handle, and after a few good pushes, it finally creaked open. Nothing came out, and it felt like ages before he motioned for her to join him.
She dashed over and followed him into the room. Once inside, with the lantern on full power now, her jaw dropped open.
Various old-timey radios and microphones and headsets were strewn about the room. It looked like a movie or TV show set from World War II. Freddie’s older brother, Alfie, and his friends liked them, and she’d watched a few, even if most of them had been really boring to her.
Then she spotted a large map, one that covered nearly the entire wall. They both walked over to it, and what stood out were all the little colored dots. “What are those for?”
Freddie replied, “Maybe they’re places that had been attacked, or maybe they’re places they could escape to?”
She peered closer. “They’re mostly in Scotland, with a few in the Lake District area. I think they were places to hide, just in case the Nazis invaded this far north. But I bet my stepdad would know. He knows almost everything, or at least knows who to ask.”
“We’ll probably have to share this place with both our families at some point.”
“Maybe eventually, but not quite yet. At any rate, this room definitely gets an X on the door. But we should keep moving since we have maybe an hour before we have to go home, and I want to see what else is down here.”
He nodded. “This room definitely gets an X. Come on, let’s head across the hallway.”
And so they carried on, opening and exploring, marking the rooms as they went. Most of them were either empty offices or rooms filled with metal bunkbeds. The mattresses were all gone, though. And the bedroom ones had little else in there, apart from small tables with metal bowls to probably wash stuff in.
Every once in a while, they found a small toy or piece of jewelry. However, none of it was what she’d call treasure.
The hour was just about up when Freddie approached the biggest door yet, toward the middle of the long hallway. “We’ll do this one and then go home. And no, don’t ask to stay longer. We can come back another day.”
“I know, although it’s going to be hard to concentrate or sleep since I’ll constantly be thinking of this place.”
“Me, too. But until we can return, you can study the videos. Maybe you’ll find something we missed.”
She definitely was going to do that, even if she hated watching things on small screens—the details were always too small to see. “My battery’s almost dead, so we should probably hurry up. Especially since you lost your phone outside somewhere, when you took off your clothes to shift.”
“Don’t remind me. My mum is going to be really upset with me.”
“She’ll forgive you when she learns about us discovering this place, just wait and see.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Still thinking of celebrations and parades, aren’t you?”
“Maybe. Even if there’s no actual dragon treasure horde here, it’s a big discovery. One that Bram will want to study, I just know it.”
“I guess so. All right, now stand back. This might take a little more effort.”
“At least you’re taller now than a few months ago, so that helps.”
He grunted, and then tried to open the door. After a few minutes of trying to budge it, Daisy turned off the video and went to his side. “Let me help. I know I’m human, but maybe us working together will be enough to get it open.”
