What Lies Beneath ▸ House of Anubis [1]

chapter fourteen. house of intruders

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            After hearing the scream, the three of us ventured out of our room carefully—Amber using her heels as a possible weapon. But then we saw Trudy running into Patricia and Mara's room, and the boys coming upstairs, and figured out it was coming from there. Patricia was the source of the scream. She had a nightmare and is now claiming she saw an actual, living, breathing man at her door. Victor had even called a policeman over to investigate. He's downstairs with him now.

            "I saw him outside the door and he was staring right at me," Patricia tells us, wrapped up in blankets. Trudy and Mara sit on either side of her, Amber at the foot of the bed (her heels are now in my hands). She sounds freaked out. "You believe me, don't you?"

            Trying not to make her feel bad, I venture carefully, "Do you... think it may be the man you saw yesterday during drama?"

            That is, if she actually saw someone. Anubis House isn't a prison, but it's locked down tight enough that if someone were to sneak in from the outside, someone would notice before they got all the way upstairs. If Patricia really did see someone out the window, then maybe she was just caught in, like, a sleep paralysis thing and imagined seeing someone now.

            "I just know someone was there both times, Ashley."

—

            Patricia's staying at the house for the school day. I draw in the margins of my school notebook, waiting for French class to start, when Amber sits on my and Nina's desk. "Hey, Neens, Ash, I've got something to help us find treasure." She shows us a regular MP3 player.

            "An MP3 player?" Nina questions.

            "A state of the art MP3 player, which also works as a digital recorder. My dad thought I might use it for homework revision—like that would happen."

            "I'm sorry, Amber, but you lost me."

            "Sometimes you are so slow, Nina. We can record all that stuff from those sphericals onto it."

            It's a brilliant plan, but I have to correct her, "Cylinders."

            "That's what I said," Amber states obviously. I roll my eyes. "Saves us from going up and down the creepy attic every five minutes."

            Nina smiles. "Amber, I'm not going to say this a lot, but you're a genius!"

            "What was that, Nina?" Amber glances backward to the rest of the class, speaking louder so they can hear. "You think I'm a genius?"

            Nina pulls her back. "Until now. Shh."

            She lowers her voice as she says, "I think the bling must be hidden behind another secret panel, like the one in the attic. What do you think?"