"Of course not," said Debbie firmly. "That's why they're called secret passages, because they're secret. Those were made when the house was new, and there's no way mister Semen could have lived there more than what ... 20 or 30 years ago maybe? He's not old enough to have lived there before that. And he'd have had to be a little boy too if he lived there back then." She stopped and thought for a moment. "You know what? I bet he and mom went to school together or something like that. And they played together, or he was her boyfriend, like when they were in 4th or 5th grade or something. And he lived in the house and Mom lived wherever she lived ... where did mom grow up?" Debbie was getting animated by her imaginary assumptions.
"I don't know," said Robby. "But I'd rather stay here and play naughty with you. Maybe they played naughty when they were little," said Robby, his hands sliding up Debbie's thighs and onto her waist, moving ever upward toward her breasts again.
"Robby!" Debbie was scandalized. "That's our mother you're talking about." She screwed up her face. "Ewwwww, can you imagine mom with that ... man?!"
She jumped up, eliciting a grunt from Robby as her firm hard butt bounced on his stomach.
"Come on, get up, let's go!" she demanded.
Robby got up and unabashedly stripped off his PJ bottoms, showing his morning woody to his sister while he pulled on a pair of shorts. She stared intently at it, but didn't move to touch him.
"Maybe we'll play naughty later," she said, and then danced out of his reach toward the door, teasing him. She pulled her T shirt up, showing him her naked breasts and backed out the door.
"Come on baby, you want these?" she teased. "Come on, just follow little Debbie and maybe she'll let you play with them." She had to turn and run to avoid being caught and laughed as she ran out through the back door and into the yard.
Though she had run outside, Debbie didn't head for the fence to the Naughty Mansion. Instead she ran around the house a couple of times, staying just ahead of her brother, teasing him. She ran like the wind and loved that he couldn't quite catch her. When he finally slowed down, panting for breath, she slowed down too, still walking, until they got to the back of the house, where no one in the neighborhood could see them.
Then she let him catch her. She tried to kiss him, as consolation for besting him in the race, but both were breathing too hard for it to really work. They waited until they were sure their mother wasn't coming back home because she forgot something. Then they walked to the fence where their "private entrance" was and slipped through.
As they penetrated the dense forest, they began to hear noises that were foreign to ears tuned to the normal silence of their fantasy play place. Instead of going to the root cellar, which meant they'd be exposed for the few seconds it would take to get to the entrance and down the stairs, they stayed to the woods and did a circuit of the house to see what was going on outside.
They were astonished.
There were trucks and vans everywhere, parked all over what had, at one time, been lawns and gardens. One had a sign on the side that indicated it was from a plumbing company. Another one was an electrical contractor. There were two from the local garden center, and they had a tractor with a bucket on the front that they were using to clear swaths of weeds and bushes away from around the house. There was a truck with no sign, but two men who wore white coveralls spattered with spots of color, suggesting they were painters. Another truck was from a roofing company. There was a tractor looking thing that had a long arm on the back, with a scoop on the end, and it was digging a long trench from the house toward the street. They winced as they realized if it kept going more of their cherished forest would be destroyed.
There were ladders up against the house in several places, and men on them, taking things off the house and others putting things on the house. The whole place looked different already, though most of that was just because of activity, and not substantive changes to the appearance of the house itself.
Still, it was obvious that the appearance would change. Already the house looked like it stood straighter, without the sag it had always seemed to have, like it was coming awake after a long slumber.
As they watched a truck left, and another one came. It was met by mister Semen, still wearing his long black trench coat, his beard and hair only a little less tangled. Debbie thought she'd see old crusted lasagna sauce in that beard if she were close enough. She shuddered.
Semen was flitting from one place to another, talking to this man, or that, pointing and gesticulating. The tractors made too much noise for them to hear what he was saying, but it was obvious he was issuing directions to the contractors.
The great double front doors stood wide open, letting sunlight into the foyer, which had not seen such light in decades. Two men were climbing twin ladders, set only a few feet apart, and were carrying something square between them, up the ladder. Whatever it was it sparkled and glistened in the sun, in vivid colors of red, green, blue and a golden color that could only be called yellow by a blind person.
"It's stained glass!" whispered Robby, close to his sister. The men stopped at an open hole in the side of the house, where a window had been removed. Carefully they fitted the new window into the hole and did something to make it stay.
Another truck arrived, a larger one, with a flat bed heaped with all kinds of things. There was copper piping, and boxes marked as containing toilets and sinks. There were coils of black that looked like wire of some kind. Men got out and began carrying things into the house.
Yet another van arrived, this one marked as the delivery service for a dry cleaning establishment. Two people got out of it with folded boxes and went into the house.
Robby noticed that Debbie was panting, as if she'd run. He moved and saw tears running down her cheeks, dripping to the forest floor.
He reached out to touch her arm and she turned her tear streaked face to him.
"They're changing everything," she sobbed, melting into his arms. "I hate him!" she screamed.
Robby hushed her, but there was really no chance her cry had been overheard. He hugged her to him as she sobbed. Finally he let her go and took her hand.
"Come on," he said. "There's nothing we can do here."
He was just about to lead her back home, when a car drove into the chaos of vehicles littering the yard. They stared at the car.
It was their car.
Their mother was driving.
Crouching down in the bushes they watched as Ramona got out and stood in the open door, staring at all the other vehicles, and at the house. She didn't move for a long time. Then, reaching into the car and removing a leather briefcase, she took a few tentative steps toward the house.
"Maybe she's got something in there to make them stop," whispered Robby.
That hope was dented a little when Semen saw their mother and hurried over to her. He started to embrace her, plain as day, but then dropped his arms and stood back, looking over his shoulder at the contractors scattered around the grounds. He took her elbow and led her into the house.
"What's she doing here?" asked Debbie, puzzled.
"I don't know," said Robby, puzzled himself.
"We've got to get in there!" said Debbie, standing up.
"We can't get past all those people!" said Robby.
"The secret way, you Dodo," she said, looking at him like he was daft.
"I don't know Deb," he said uncertainly. "What if we make a noise or something? They could hear us and then what would we do?"
"There's no way they could hear us with all that noise going on," said Debbie. "You're chicken! Aren't you!"
As anyone knows, that's probably the best way to get a 15 year old boy to do just about anything he probably shouldn't do, and it worked just like it would have on any other 15 year old boy.
Debbie had to run to catch up to her brother, who was stomping through the woods in an arc that would bring them to the back of the root cellar.
"Be careful," warned Debbie, afraid she'd made him so mad that he might do something stupid.
"What's the matter? he growled. "You turning chicken?"
"I'm sorry Robby ... come on ... you want to know what she's doing in there don't you?"
He stopped and turned as she almost ran into him. "If we get caught, I am going to spank you. I promise!" Then he turned and went on.