Chapter 26 Chapter 25 The Last Chance

On Friday morning, when no one else woke up and the surroundings were quiet, Aunt Gwen leaned out of the bed, boiled the water in the electric kettle, and made a pot of morning tea.She poured a glass for her husband and another for herself, then got up to bring the third to Tom. She walked through the small hall with tea, and suddenly stopped, and was stunned by what she saw: the front door of the suite was locked by Allen himself last night, but now it is open.In that nightmarish moment, she imagined all kinds of terrifying images: the thief with the skeleton key, the thief with the crowbar, the thief with the sack for the stolen goods...all of them covered with black masks , with a deadly weapon in his hand - a bludgeon, a revolver, a dagger, a metal pipe...

A sudden sharp pain in her fingers woke Gwen Kitson from her burglar vision: she was shaking so badly that the hot tea spilled from the cup onto the tray, burning her hand holding it.She hastily put the cup and tray down on a chair in the hall, and at the same time she saw why the front door had been left open: a pair of bedroom slippers were stuck under the crack—Tom's slippers. The imaginary burglar suddenly disappeared.It must have been Tom's doing.She remembered the night when Tom first came to live with them and they found him out of bed and walking aimlessly up and down.She also remembered some radical words that Allen said at that time, so she decided to handle this matter by herself this time.

First, she looked out on the landing, but there was no sign of Tom.Then she took the slippers off the floor, closed the door, and went into Tom's bedroom.Tom was sleeping soundly in bed--no faking sleep, she was sure of that.Aunt Gwen stood by the bed, holding the tell-tale slippers, not knowing what to say to Tom.She had to scold him, but she didn't want to be too harsh on him and spoil his last day here. As a result, even the milder criticisms that Aunt Gwen had prepared were not uttered.When she woke Tom up, she was alarmed by Tom's reaction.I saw Tom opened his eyes, and then closed them tightly tightly, as if he didn't dare to look at a terrible scene.He closed his eyes and said some inexplicable words in his mouth: "No! Not this time! Not now!"

Aunt Gwen threw off her slippers and plopped down on the edge of the bed, throwing her arms around Tom. "What's the matter, Tom? You're awake. It's morning. You're with me, and you'll be all right." Tom opened his eyes, stared at her, then looked around as if he expected to see Other people—and other places. "Did you have a nightmare, Tom? Well, it's over anyway. It's Friday morning, you know, and you're going home tomorrow!" Tom made no answer to her, but slowly his unnatural blankness disappeared.My aunt kissed him, and then quietly went out to bring him another cup of hot tea.The aunt said only one thing to her husband: "For Tom's own sake, he should indeed go home. He is very unstable. Sleeps poorly—bad dreams—" She found a new explanation for the slippers: "I wouldn't be surprised if he sleepwalked in the middle of the night."

Aunt Gwen hadn't mentioned to Tom the pair of slippers she had found at the door, and Tom, who had wondered how he'd come back here, thought it was just part of the strange business when he found the slippers beside the bed. .Hidden under the covers were Hattie's skates that had taken him to Ely--the laces were wrapped around the fingers of his left hand, but here he was, on a Friday morning, in the Kitsons' suite.He originally thought that he would definitely be able to exchange his time for eternity in Hatty's time, but unexpectedly, he only spent a few hours in Hatty's life before returning.

"But maybe it's all my fault for falling asleep in the cab," thought Tom, and he made up his mind not to let it happen again.Because he has one more chance: he has tonight.Tonight he was going down into the garden and could stay there as long as he liked. He hesitated to bring his skates.If it was still freezing, he would have liked to skate on the pond or the lawn, but he was not willing to abandon the garden entirely, as he had done last time. Maybe it's summer season in the garden, as it used to be... Maybe, when he opened the door to the garden tonight, he would be greeted by warm, soft, floral-scented air.The yew trees across the lawn also welcomed him.He would walk down the sundial path, turn right again, and run down the shaded path between the yew and hazel stumps, and at last he would come to the sunlit asparagus patch, and maybe see Abel there and Hattie was a little girl again, in her blue apron, waiting to make up stories for him.

"Because time goes back in the garden," Tom reminded himself, "and she'll be a little girl again tonight, and we'll play games together." Friday is mostly used to prepare for Tom's return home.His stuff was packed, the boxes wiped down and relabeled.His aunt took him out shopping, letting him choose a snack for lunch on the train, and a little present he was going to give Papa, Mama, and Peter.Tom couldn't pretend to be interested in something that seemed so far away.It will probably be several years before he sees his home again tomorrow. That night Aunt Gwen left both bedroom doors open so she could hear Tom if he slipped out of bed.Tom noticed the trick of his aunt.But after weeks of practice, his skill at moving quietly in the middle of the night has improved a lot.He got out of the suite and started to walk downstairs without waking the sleeping person.

The sky he had just seen from his bedroom window was overcast, moonless and starless.As he walked downstairs he could barely see the rectangular window on the landing. "But that's all right," said Tom, groping his way down the stairs and into the hall with confidence. At this moment he stopped and listened carefully to the sound of the grandfather clock, as if it would bring him some message.But the clock was concerned only with its own business, and tick, tick, ticked, and its sound seemed to reproach Tom's heart for beating too fast. He crossed the hall, turned left at the old shoe cabinet, and came to the garden gate.He felt a sudden impatience to get out: he fought hard against the latch.Even though the latch he'd touched with his fingers didn't seem quite right, he didn't allow himself to think so.

"I'm going into the garden," he whispered.The big clock ticked behind him, noncommittal to his words. He opened the door at last, and it was night outside, as dark as the night inside.He couldn't see anything.He stood on the doorstep, sniffing the air.There was no smell of frost, no lingering scent of flowers and grass and leaves from summer.There seemed to be no smell in the air, only a faint strange smell that he could not name. "That's all right," said Tom.The darkness didn't matter, because now he knew everything in the garden like the back of his hand.Even blindfolded, he can find his way.So where to go first?Go across the lawn to the yew tree.

He jumped forward and started running.His bare feet stepped on the cold stone.Suddenly, he bumped into something tall and metallic, and its cover slid off, clattering to the stone floor.Tom dodged and ran on towards the yew tree, but he was still far away from the yew tree, but he bumped into a wooden fence so hard that he knew that the strange smell he had just smelled was The creosote, the fence was the creosote-treated wood fence around the backyard where the man with the yellow beard had his car and the tenants' litter boxes. He turned back and ran towards the house like a mouse being chased by a dog.It seemed unlikely that he was going to try again, because he had not shut the garden door; nor was he going to go back to bed, because he stopped by the grandfather clock in the middle of the hall, and wept softly.The grandfather clock ticked icily.

A light was lit somewhere on the landing above, and by that light he saw a figure descending the stairs.He knew in his heart that it couldn't be her, but he still called out to her for help: "Hatty! Hattie!" The lodgers of the whole great house were awakened from their sleep.Tom's cry, like the cry of a bird, carried up to the topmost suite, waking Mrs. Bartholomew from the sweet dreams of the feast she had held on a Baptist day more than sixty years ago. What about the wedding?The cry downstairs seemed to call her, and Mrs. Bartholomew, as sleepy and drowsy as her lodgers, turned on the light and rose from the bed. Alan Kitson jumped down the last few stairs and rushed to throw Tom in his arms.The boy cried and struggled as if he was going to be taken to jail.Then Uncle felt Tom's body go limp all of a sudden, and the crying became weaker, but it seemed like it would never stop. Uncle Allen carried Tom upstairs, where his aunt was waiting.Then my uncle went downstairs to shut the garden door and comfort the lodgers on the ground floor.Then he went to the second floor where he lived and explained to the other tenants there that his wife's nephew had just been sleepwalking.At last he went upstairs to Mrs. Bartholomew's suite.He found her front door open but chained.Mrs. Bartholomew was pale and trembling, disturbed by the cries she had just heard.She listened to his explanation but didn't seem to believe it, didn't even seem to understand it.She asked him more and more inexplicable questions, and asked some of them over and over again.At last Alan Kitson lost patience, bade her good night abruptly, and hurried downstairs to his own suite. Aunt Gwen sent Tom back to bed and gave him hot milk and an aspirin.She heard her husband in the hall and came out. "I'm going to keep watch until he falls asleep," she whispered. "He seems frightened. I think it's because he woke up suddenly and found himself standing alone in the dark. He didn't know he was in the hall— —at least, I don’t know how I got there.” "Look," said Uncle Allen, holding up a pair of old-fashioned skates and skates, "he's got these." Aunt Gwen was puzzled. "Even if he is sleepwalking, what kind of demon is this?" "I wonder where he got them." Uncle Allen looked at the skates curiously. "They were recently oiled and polished, but they look fifty or a hundred years old." It hasn't been used in years. I really don't understand..." "You mustn't ask him, Aaron. You promise me that. He can't be bothered now." "Okay. Since these are his skates—certainly not ours—I'll put them with his luggage before he sets out tomorrow." Aunt Gwen was going back to Tom's bedroom when she remembered something that puzzled her: "When he yelled loudly, it sounded like he was calling someone from upstairs." "You mean, he's calling his mom, or dad?" "No. I think he's calling someone's name." "No way. He just screamed." ① Every year on June 24th.One of four checkout days in the UK.