The Lighthouse Mystery
Brooke McNamara
As we dashed out the front door away from our horrible foster parents, the hot wind blew in my face as I was following Daniel, my long brown plaits blowing about in the fierce wind.
Daniel and I are twins but he is two minutes older than me so he has looked after me ever since Mum and Dad ran away. As we walked down the busy streets of Rome we could now smell the fresh salty sea water from Shell beach. We arrived and ran away from the noisy city and towards the old stripey lighthouse. We rang the doorbell then waited for the door to open.
We saw Uncle Joe’s strange gardener planting a lemon tree down the driveway. As we passed him he gave us a dirty look as if to say get out of here. Uncle Joe was very rich so he had a gardener and a young cleaner.
“Hi Uncle Joe, we were hoping to stay with you” Daniel said confidently as the tall figure emerged out of the battered door. When he questioned us we explained all about our horrible foster parents and how we ran away. We were then finally invited inside because he agreed to have us stay for a while.
Uncle Joe has a very important TV, the only thing left from his wife who had passed away thirty years ago. He would never ever watch it and certainly never let anyone else even touch the TV.
As soon as my head hit the pillow I crashed, sleeping silently all night until I heard Daniel whispering to me “ Stacy wake up, it’s eight o’clock already”I sat up and saw Daniel’s bright blue eyes staring at me. I turned over and tried going back to sleep but was woken up again by a different voice.
“Excuse me kids” we turned to see Uncle Joe towering above us with a stern look on his face “ I am going to have a party tonight with only a couple of guests but you must stay up here the whole time and be quiet, or you will have to leave”. We nodded vigorously at the thought of having to leave so early.
“Let’s go down to the beach for a walk today Stace” Daniel suggested while Uncle Joe was munching loudly on his toast. “ Ok, goodbye Uncle Joe” I said to the tall man across from the table.
The day went so fast and before we knew it it was six o’clock, time to head back. Back at the house four cars were parked up the driveway to the old lighthouse, so we snuck around to the back door. The music was pumping loud and everyone was dancing, the cleaner, the gardener, his best friend the artist and of course Uncle Joe himself.
“Wake up Wake up, my precious TV has been smashed, by someone last night” Uncle Joe shouted at us as we suddenly awoke. “Do you know anything about it” he yelled, his face turning red with anger. “ No” we chorused nervously.
He rang the police in a hurry and they arrived within minutes searching the house and T.V for clues. We carefully made our way to the kitchen avoiding the bits of TV shattered all over the carpet.
“Aha I found some fingerprints, get everyone here now” the tall burly man said gruffly. We collected everyone and the police carefully took everyone’s fingerprints.
It was the old, cranky gardeners fingerprints that matched in the end though. Uncle Joe was furious with him and immediately fired him on the spot. As he tried to bolt away the policeman grabbed his hairy arm and handcuffed him. The gardener got terribly angry at him and kept denying that he did it so they taped his mouth shut on the way to jail.
Later on the kids decided they should leave but Uncle Joe loved having the company and didn’t want us to ever leave. After we agreed Uncle Joe adopted us and became Dad to us from then on.
