Dangers in the Dark

A Shakespearean Tragedy 11.1

Holly POV

Ever since Selina and I had started our training sessions a couple of months ago, I had taken every opportunity possible to improve on them and today's topic of improvement was lockpicking. I've always been able to do it with Selina there but that's usually because she's telling me what to do as I do it, constantly making sure I hadn't screwed it up. So now I was attempting it by myself. The only issue about this was the fact I was having to do it from the outside of the door.

When I had left for school this morning I had purposely left my key at home so that I could do this but thinking back on it, it might not have been the smartest move. If I couldn't open the door with my bobby pins, I was going to be stuck out here all night.

Following Selina's instructions, I created the tension tool, or at least that's what Selina called it. Basically this meant I just had to carefully bend the end of the bobby pin I was using. But the amount of times I had broken the bobby pin in this first process was unbelievable; it's a good job Barbara had a whole box of these in her room. Obviously, I intended to go and buy Barbara more of the pins cause I had broken so many of them. Moving on to the next pin, I flattened the second pin out before bending the end of the bumpy side of it again. After creating the key parts of picking a lock, I got onto my knees in front of the door and prepared to start.

Next I inserted the tension tool into the bottom of the lock before inserting the other bobby pin into the middle of the lock all the way back. Keeping my hands as steady as I could, I put tension on the tension tool, hence it's name, and began picking back and forth with the second bobby pin pushing up on the pins inside the lock. Thinking back to what Selina had said to me in our lessons, as I pushed the bent pick inside, I was constantly checking for the seized key pins to ensure that I had the proper alignment. Not only that, but Selina had also said that it was important that I record the pin count in my head unless I wanted to make the rest of the process really difficult.

Feeling slightly more confident than before, I started fixing the seized key pins from the first onward, ensuring that they were all reset correctly. I guess that's why Selina called it the tension pin, cause you had to put pressure on said tool in order to keep the pins elevated. I could feel the seized key pins becoming less restricted, so it was much easier to rotate the tension tool now. I repeated each of the instructions on the other seized key pins until each one had been realigned.

I waited a moment before I pulled down on the door handle from my place on the ground. At first I thought that I hadn't done it but seconds later the satisfying sound of the door swinging open in front of me made me jump up in excitement.

"Yes!" I exclaimed happily, seeing the door open in front of me.

I only stopped my jumping when I saw the postman walking towards me with a letter in his hand. He hesitated at the end of the corridor, staring at me in confusion, his hand still clasped around the letter.

"I had a good day at school," I lied with a smile.

Hesitating slightly, the postman walked over to me and handed me a letter before leaving without a word.

"Thank you!" I called after the man.

Still buzzing from my success, I picked up my schoolbag and walked into the penthouse only to find that it was still empty.

Even though I knew it was pointless to think so, every day I still hoped that Barbara was going to come back and everything was going to be alright. But deep down I knew that she wasn't coming back and that things weren't going to be just like they had been ever again. It wasn't just the fact that I missed Barbara, but also that dad seemed so miserable with her gone. Maybe I should try and set him up with someone. I'm sure Harvey would take the upmost pleasure in helping set dad up with a new lady. Although I don't know if I would trust Harvey to choose.