Unravelling

Chapter 21 - Hiding Places

I have been working steadily for about another hour and to say I am pleased with my progress is an understatement.

I have emptied the whole floor of the shed and swept it with a broom. Then I started on to the right side and took everything out of the shelves that are lining the walls. I found a few derelict looking tools, a ton of empty beer bottles, two deflated soccer balls, a broken baseball bat, some other trash and even a handful of toy soldiers that must have belonged to Aidan and Noah when they were little.

I have never before been involved in cleaning the shed, but it does make me wonder how seriously my brothers took this task in the past. Some of the stuff I discovered on my mission of cleaning up surely has been in this building for more than a year.

Once I had separated all the stuff that needs to be thrown out, I rearranged the rest neatly on the shelves. I brought the crates back in and filled them with the heavier stuff that I couldn't be bothered to lift back up onto the shelves.

I repeated the whole process with the shelves at the back of the shed. In a moment of totally going OCD, I even cleaned the small window that was situated in the middle of the back wall – from inside and out.

Once I am done with this shed, it will be in pristine condition. That will show the guys.

After allowing myself a short bathroom break, which I enhanced by sneaking a few Oreo cookies and a glass of milk from the kitchen, I set my sight on the last few shelves on the left side of the shed.

I am humming a little melody to myself as I make quick work of emptying the ones that I can reach by standing on the floor. Once I am done with that, I position the ladder and climb up on it. Like I have done countless times already today, I start to pull everything towards me and then gradually put the stuff on the lower shelves. Anything that looks like garbage, I simply throw all the way down straight into a trash can that I have strategically placed beside the ladder.

It is actually quite satisfying to listen to the cling and clatter mixed with the odd shatter of glass when it all lands in the can. Not to mention my aim, which has gradually improved and is now pretty impressive, if I may say so myself.

That is when my eye catches an oddly shaped...something in the furthest corner of the shelf, tucked all the way to the very back. With the rather bad lightening in here, it is kind of hard to make out what it was, but it sure doesn't look like it belongs into a shed. I mean, empty beer bottles and toy soldiers don't necessarily belong here, either, but it is not hard to find an explanation for them being in here.

I have to stretch out quite a bit to reach the object. Once I manage to close my fingers around it, I pull it towards me and can't help but giggle at the sight of it.

It is a plastic ice cream tub, the fancy kind that is made of quite sturdy material. Almost like a Tupperware box. It has a lid that can easily be resealed, not like the cheap stuff where parts of the lid break off when you try to put it back on more than twice. Not that this happens very often in our household, where we easily go through four or five tubs on a movie night.

Anyway, to say that I find it odd to discover a fancy ice cream tub in our shed it putting it mildly. From what I can tell it isn't empty, either. And I don't think there is still ice cream in it, for obvious reasons. It becomes clear to me quite quickly that somebody must have used it to store something inside it. And then to hide it up here.

I grab the tub and carefully climb back down the ladder. I put my discovery on the floor and go grab one of the folding chairs from outside. For some reason I don't feel like opening it outside where someone might see me. This all appears rather mysterious and I feel how my heartrate picks up a bit.