I needed to get his cloud to go and give him back his greeny-blue colour that surrounded him when he was happy. Was it a coincidence that Frances and Uncle Vic had turned up distressed (clearly by Phyllis’ disappearance) at the same time Dad’s cloud returned? Perhaps if Phyllis came back Dad’s cloud would disappear?
For now though, I continued to search the floor and wall for clues. As I was on my hands and knees I felt a shadow at the front door. It was Adi, finally!
I opened the door before he could press the bell. I really didn’t want Mum coming downstairs and preventing him from helping me examine the wall.
“Come in, Adi,” I whispered. “Mum’s upstairs running a bath for me and Lois. This is the wall they disappeared through. You’ll have to look quickly before Mum comes downstairs or Lois comes out and we give the game away.”
Adi’s eyes looked huge in his oversized glasses and he glanced up the stairs. “Right, we are going to try to find out the entrance to this ‘other place’. In other words, the portal.”
He very carefully brought out an ordinary looking stone from his pocket. In fact, it might have been one from our driveway. It was small and brown and pebble looking.
“Adi,” I said patiently, for I was really not able to see how a stone was going to help. “I think you might need something a bit more technical than a stone, and also what on earth is a portal when it’s at home?”
“A portal is a door which leads you into another world or dimension,” he replied, looking at me as if I was thick. “Just watch, Rosemary.”
Adi took his pebble and walked up and down the hallway, holding it in the air and dropping it occasionally. I followed him earnestly. Honestly, we must have looked daft. He took the chair by the sideboard and stood on it and held his stone higher and did the same dropping thing up and down the hall.
“Adi,” I sighed, “nothing is happening, and we need to hurry.”
“Just hang on one more minute.”
I watched him as he held the pebble about a centimetre away from the mirror. Nothing. He moved the pebble around the base of the mirror and once again let it go.
Well, if I tell you the most amazing thing happened, would you believe me?
The pebble didn’t drop. It floated. Yes, it floated in mid-air around the base of the mirror.
“That, Rosemary, is the portal.” Adi looked at me with a grin. “Gravity is very weak in that area, hence the pebble floating. Gravity is strong everywhere else where the pebble drops. A rapid change in gravity always indicates that another dimension exists.”
“Is that Adi I can hear?” my mum called from upstairs. It made us jump, and the pebble dropped.
Then Lois appeared peering round the kitchen door, covered in food, as usual, all down her T-shirt. “Hi, Adi, what was that noise? What’s that in your hand? Can I play with it?”
Ding dong.
“It’s Frances. Adi, go in the kitchen quick.”
“Rosemary,” Adi whispered, “I can see her through the glass.”
Of course! Adi was a believer, which meant he could see our houseguests. As I opened the front door, Mum came rushing down the stairs.
“Hello, Rosie. Did I see a nice, young man through the glass just a minute ago?” Frances asked.
“Yes,” Mum agreed, “where’s Adi gone, Rosie? Don’t you think you should offer him a drink instead of loitering in the hallway throwing balls or whatever you were making all that noise with on the floor tiles?”
I didn’t contradict her, even though I was slightly annoyed that we’d been interrupted.
“Come through, Frances,” Mum said as she ushered her into the kitchen where Adi was trying his best to understand Lois’ attempt to explain why Scooby Doo on the TV had been violently sick. “Now who on earth is that?” Mum exclaimed as the doorbell rang AGAIN. “Rosemary, please just get that will you.”
I rushed into the hallway and opened the door to Mr Foggerty and Uncle Vic both looking extremely solemn.
Uncle Vic attempted a smile, though it did look more like a grimace. “Now, young lady, is your mother in the kitchen?”
“Yes, come through, Vic,” called Mum.
I led the way into our kitchen, which was getting more crowded by the minute. I looked to Adi to try to introduce him to everyone, but he was fiddling with something on our fridge. His long, slender fingers reached out to press a button on a certain fridge magnet.
“Noooooooooooo, don’t press it, Adi!” I shouted. But it was too late.
Out chimed the sound of the Scottish bagpipes and there was no time to be embarrassed. Mum, Lois, Mr Foggerty, Uncle Vic, Frances, and I lifted our skirts and trousers and started Scottish dancing with vigour. There were no discussions, no sighs, and no attempts to avoid the unavoidable. It was what we HAD to do. Poor Adi stared in shock and disbelief; but, to be fair to him, after a few seconds he did try to join in. (Badly.)
At last it was over, and everyone just carried on with their business. I was about to usher Adi out and suggest that he returned when things were a bit quieter, when all of a sudden Mum dropped the teaspoon and took a deep intake of breath.
“Oh no, the bloody bath!” she said and rushed out of the kitchen.
No one except me took a blind bit of notice of her. Frances was deep in conversation with Uncle Vic whilst simultaneously fishing tea bags out of steaming mugs. She managed to drop every single tea bag on to Uncle Vic’s shoes, which she would slowly retrieve one by one.
I was vaguely aware of Lois droning on in the background for some rice pudding, but no one appeared to be taking any notice of her, either.
Mr Foggerty took out his yellow handkerchief from his suit pocket and absentmindedly dabbed the bald patch on top of his head.
“Is it raining, dear?” Frances questioned, looking up to the ceiling.
Uh oh, I thought. There was a hastening of droplets from the ceiling, then my mum’s voice shrieked from above. “I need help up here, Rosemary. There’s water EVERYWHERE!”
The bath had overflowed again. Our poor kitchen ceiling. Would it really take another battering? How long before the entire ceiling collapsed? The drip, drip, drips were pretty steady. Uncle Vic had taken a saucepan from the cupboard and placed it strategically on the floor to catch the water. Frances was struggling with the tin opener for Lois’ rice pudding. Adi sidled towards the hallway.
“I’d better go, Rosemary,” he said. “See you tomorrow.”
I gave him a look that I hoped conveyed my frustration with the situation. “I’d better go and help my mum,” I said. “She’ll need towels, and lots of them.”
The bathroom floor was soaked and Mum was emptying bath water down the plughole whilst trying to mop up great puddles from the floor.
“Dad will go mad,” I said peeling off my already sodden socks and trying to ignore the sound of Lois’ wails which I knew would reach a crescendo in the next few minutes.
“Yes, well, we won’t tell him, Rosie. Once the kitchen ceiling dries out, I’m sure it will be fine, and I can always patch it up with a bit of Polyfilla.”
Mum had a habit of “patching things up”. The problem was she would become engrossed in whatever task she was doing and inadvertently “forget” the cake in the oven, the bath she was running, or the coffee she was making.