Day 29 of a 30 Day Writing Challenge!

This is my entry for day twenty-nine of the thirty day writing challenge. Almost done my friends, almost done. Also, this is a bit crap… but what can you do. I have a headache and you will all soon find out why. If you wish to know where I get the prompts from feel free to comment or message and I will get back to you

The prompt for day twenty-nine is:

“Imagine a house. Draw a quick floorplan of the house on a piece of paper.

Who do you think lives in this house? Imagine the house’s residents. Now, add
a secret room to your floorplan. What’s in the room? Why is it secret? You
decide. Someone is about to discover the secret room. What happens? Write
the story.”

When I moved into the old manor house on the outskirts of San Francisco, with my son, I never expected there to be so much space. The two of us were cramped in the old place and from my visits here it never seemed to be so big. Two rooms weren’t even being used for a long time and it was only when my partner moved in that they began to be decorated.

My son, Jay, came up with a plan that he believed would suit us all. The deal he came up with was that he could keep a room near his bedroom and we could have the downstairs room. Fair enough I thought as I wasn’t sure what to do with the room upstairs anyway. It took a while to get that room how he wanted but at last he was happy. We installed a home cinema with a few seats set out where he could sit with his friends and watch movies or play games on a gigantic screen. My partner thought that was a little extravagant but the way I see it is, we can afford the luxuries so why the hell not!

Jay never took an interest in the room we kept downstairs. We always made sure the door was locked and we worked on it when he wasn’t home. This was to be our private area; no kids; no work; no life – just us.

We arrived home one rainy evening to find that the house was empty. We called upstairs but there was no response and it seemed like Jay hadn’t been home for hours. We flashed a smile at each other and I looked towards the locked door of our own little sanctuary, biting my lip gently. Who had the key? We suddenly realised that neither of us did. I ran upstairs to look for it in the bedroom while they checked the car.

Ripping the bedroom apart, I gave up and sat on the edge of the bed. Ah well, it was a nice thought while it lasted. Shutting my eyes for a brief moment I heard a noise which made me shoot up to my feet. An all too familiar creak of a floorboard on the stairs. Maybe my love had found the key! Suddenly the noise again, followed by a giggle; a girls giggle and a hushed Jay telling her to be quiet. I smiled at my son’s stupidity and crept out onto the landing.

The girl was stunning, he chose wisely I thought to myself as I observed the way they pretended they weren’t there. It doesn’t take a genius to work out what they were doing. Jay was seventeen now though, practically an adult and I know that I can bully him into explaining anything so I just stood to watch so as not to embarrass the girl. Reaching into his pocket, Jay pulled out a string which he held up in front of the stranger girl. I recognised it almost immediately, it was the string with the key at the end. He raised it up and the two started to laugh. He said that he had always wanted to know what we got up to in that room and now they finally found the key.

My eyes were wider than they had ever been. At first I struggled to move but somehow pushed past that and sprinted down the stairs. My footsteps must have startled them as the girl screamed and that threw me off balance and I tumbled face first into a heap at the bottom. The adrenaline was still pumping and I jumped to my feet, barking at them to hand over the key. The commotion inside, especially a strange girl screaming, had frightened my partner and they came running in at full speed to see what was happening. I grabbed the key out of Jay’s hand and told him to take the girl home. It may be possible I was a little too stern at this point but the shock of seeing him about to open the door was too much to handle.

As the door closed I looked at the key and then looked at the love of my life. A grin rose across their face as we realised what just happened. I felt a sudden rush of pain from the fall and cuddled them for comfort. Close one, we joked as we hid the key and headed into the kitchen to start on dinner and to get the normal things back on track.

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The point of all of this is that parents will have their secrets. Usually it is for a good reason and they will go to slightly extreme lengths to do so. I wonder if Jay ever found out what was in that room? My thoughts are… Even if he didn’t want to let it go, he most definitely would not have managed to gain entry.