The Map World Trilogy

Part Five

 Hattie slowly teetered out from her hiding place, nervous and still shaking from the whole ordeal. She moved over to where the opening was and studied the wall intently, trying to pin point how a door way had just appeared from nowhere.

Her hand ran around and through the cracks in the stonework, and yet nothing. No trace of any door way whatsoever. ‘How in the hell?’ Hattie unhappily addressed the wall in front of her. ‘Where did he go? Oi! Wall! Talk to me....you know where he went....in fact, you opened up to let him in! Ahhhh…why am I talking to a flaming wall?!!’

‘Technically I am not on fire’ Brian self righteously replied, extremely proud of his response. If walls could smile, Brian’s would have been enormous; grinning from ear to ear like the cat who got the cream.

‘What?’ Hattie was beyond amusement now, and was more concentrated on getting in.

‘Well...umm’ Brian recognised her unhappy state and momentarily saw the striking resemblance between Uncle and Niece, he continued: ‘you said....flaming door, now that would infer that I was on fire wouldn’t it me dear? But I ain’t on fire am I?’

‘Right. But, you never answered my question...where did he go?’ Hattie sternly shot back, drilling into Brian’s unrecognisable facial features with her glare.

‘Don’t know what you mean flower.’ Brian played ignorant, he knew where Horace went and Hattie knew this, mores the point he knew that Hattie knew that he knew, yet he thought it would be a good idea to pretend – after all, he didn’t want fuss; walls aren’t very good at dealing with it all.

‘I’m fed up with all this! Uncle went through you, into another room. How? I don’t know and where? That’s a mystery too. All I know is that there is a secret meeting going on behind there and I want to find out what this is all about!’

Brian muttered under his breath, he was having a mini conversation with himself, unsure of what to do in this predicament. Walls generally keep themselves to themselves. They rarely get involved in any business that they don’t have to and are rather useless when it comes to any form of confrontation, especially when faced with a disgruntled young lady demanding answers. However, walls are especially good at getting themselves out of tight spots and are exceptional linguists – due primarily to the amount of time spent around people; learning the power of persuasion and manipulation. Regrettably, Brian was not a normal wall and had never really paid too much attention whilst he was at school aiming to perfect these art forms. He could lie, badly, but that was about the limit of his conversational skill. ‘I’m....I’m not aloud’ he exclaimed eventually. ‘Unless of course you are allowed to go in there? But I am pretty sure that you are not.’

Hattie thought about this for a moment. She was quite good when it came to fibbing her way in or out of a problem. This worked well, so she thought, when it came to doing work (or not) for her Uncle – though he was a strange sort and saw through these porky pies, Brian however was not quite so ‘on the ball’. ‘Well....actually...I am allowed. I have permission.’

‘Permission? From who?’

Hattie tried to remember...what was the chaps name at the end of the letter?  ‘Umm. From.....Mr....ummmm....Fiinn......Finkle?’ Hattie’s eyes were squinted, expecting the worse response that the wall could give her; denied access.

‘Ah. Right. Go on in then, should ‘ave said before miss!’

Hattie was shocked. It worked. She was going in. It was like a great weight had shrugged itself off of her shoulders and landed firmly on the floor.  But. ‘Hang on,’ Brian exclaimed as Hattie was in the middle of psyching herself up for the entrance. ‘Your Uncle was looking for you and he was not happy.’