Mystery at Mavadi!

Chapter 15!

A/N: It's Christmas! Yay!!

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Except for the fact that school starts in approximately 216 hours, everything's cool! Weird... I've never hated school before...

Must be the fact that I'll miss you guys 'coz I'll only come once a week. *sniff*...

RECAP:

My father was the first to step in, his hair wet and clothes damp.

"Kids!" he called, his face flushed with excitement "You'll never guess how awesome our trip went!"

My uncles came in next. They carried something covered in a plastic sheet. They took the cover away to show a wooden box weathered with age.

We all froze.

"You'll never guess, mother!" My dad was saying to my grandmother, "In your farm- You won't believe what we found! Real gold!!"

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Chapter 15

One hand on Sasha, I was crouched low behind the sofa, listening to the adults' conversation. Alex was hiding in the dark hallway leading to the staircase up to our rooms. The grown-ups sat in the living room discussing.

They'd ordered us to our rooms a while ago because they had some 'imortant things' to discuss.

Susan had pushed me behind the sofa before leaving with the cousins. Alex had signalled to me before leaving that she'd be right there in the hallway.

"I didn't tell you since it didn't seem necessary to scare you. Besides, the casket wasn't even IN the house." My grandmother was saying.

"Do the children know?" My uncle Derek, Robin and Alex's dad, asked.

"They found out on their own yesterday." My grandma replied.

Yesterday? It was only yesterday? It felt like a while ago...

"Why would the police give it to you? My dad asked "Why couldn't they keep the gold safe themselves?"

"Oh, Dave," I heard my grandmother's smile in her voice ", the gold in the casket is fake. The local police here trust and respect me. This news hasn't reached the state authorities yet. The real gold is with the police. Only the casket was given to me. The police would never put me in danger. All the patrolling was to lead the thief to the gold but then he started to break-in here. The police thought that if they showed no security to the place where the gold was, which we know that the theif knows, he'll go there."

"The thief knew that the casket was at the farm?"

"He knew the area it seems. That's what the police guessed since at first, he was breaking into the little shops near the farm."

I let everything sink in.

Everything was silent for a while.

"You could have told us, mother." Uncle Derek said.

"I probably should have, dear." Granmama said. 

With that the 'top-secret-and-very-dumb' conversation ended.

My parents began to narrate about the farm and the little stream running through it.

I softly and slowly loked over the side of the sofa to see my parents, grandmother and Alex's parents get up and leave the room.