We went downstairs to let my mom and dad know that Peter had accepted the invitation. Accept? He was practically doing back flips. He acted like a prisoner that had been paroled.
"This is the first time since we moved that I've slept at anybody else's house."
"Well, you haven't slept here yet."
It was my dad that looked at me strangely, and that made me abandon that line of silly talk.
Mom suggested I give Peter a tour.
"Sure, may I have the notebook?"
Mom went to the bookshelf and retrieved a standard composition book with House Facts written on the cover. They had owned the house since long before I was born and it was pretty run down and also cheap. Rehabilitating the place was not so cheap. It's like forty-one hundred square feet which isn't that big in modern terms but it was huge in Victorian times. And that didn't include the basement or attic or the hidden room on the third floor.
I found it one day when I was exploring. The third floor had not been restored except where plumbing or electrical was involved. The secret room was away from the utility shaft which was once a dumb waiter. I was looking out the turret windows in the east end of the floor. Bouncing between the two rooms, I realized there was something off about the size of the rooms. I paced off the two rooms and each room was short about five feet in width.
I went over to Campbell's house and asked him to help me search for the door. We scoured the walls and adjoining rooms for a secret latch. We looked for hinges in the trim for the wainscoting, we found no hinges but one of the rosettes acted like you could push it in but I couldn't make it go in.
Then I looked at the baseboard for a second part for the latch and found a suspicious joint directly below the rosette. I bumped the baseboard with the toe of my shoe and that allowed the rosette to go all the way in. There was a loud clunk noise and I pushed in at the door but no such luck. I gave it several more pushes and got a little angry so I gave one more mighty shove with Cam and I both and it didn't swing in but we triggered some springs that were supposed to push the door outwards so you could pull it open.
"You big doofus Jules, it opens out." Cam giggled.
The hinges were super rusty and squealed like crazy as the two of us found the hand grip and pulled the door open. But all that work was worth it. The room was a secret office or something. It was like finding a pirates cave to us and we entered cautiously.
There were rifles and muskets on the walls along with swords and plaques; it was a large room roughly ten feet square. And there was a lot of stuff I couldn't identify.
"Don't touch anything Cam; I think we need to get Dad up here"
"Yeah, I wonder if this place is haunted."
We backed out of the room and went to find Dad.
"Dad! Dad! You need to come see, this is really important!" I was practically screaming.
"What's going on Jules, the Mariners are winning today."
"I'm sorry Dad but it's really important. Can't you record the game?"
"I guess so, but it better be important." He set the DVR and followed us back up the stairs.
We stopped on the second and I got my battery powered camping lanterns. They were LED type and put out a lot of light. Then we continued our climb to the third floor.
"Geez! What did you find? A secret treasure room?" My dad asked.
Cam and I stopped in our tracks. I faced my dad and demanded, "Did you set this up?"
"Wait what? Do you mean you really did find a hidden room?"
Cam and I nodded grimly.
"Well let's see it, I always dreamed of that when I was a kid."
With light in the room, we were satisfied that no one was dead behind the desk. And with Dad with us, we carefully inspected the room. Dad whistled at some of the guns on the wall and then looking at one of the plaques, he got really excited.
"Colmer Angus Wells, Col. U.S. Volunteer brevet rank Brigadier General." He was the man who had this house built after the civil war. I looked up all the title information. He was in the cavalry after the civil war and retired here after he was wounded in battle with Mexican Bandits along the border.
"Angus? That's almost like your first name Cam."
Campbell had been named after a great grandfather and he had the Gaelic name Oengus; and Oengus Campbell Mac Leish was my best friend's name. No wonder he preferred Cam.
"It's the ancient Gaelic version, my dad told me about it once. My Mom thought it would impress my grandfather but he asked her why she saddled me with such a horrible name. By then there was nothing to do but use my middle name," Cam explained.
At school, his name appeared on the roll as O. Campbell Mac Leish and occasionally a teacher would demand to know what the "O" stood for.
Cam would refuse to tell them and he'd be sent to the principal and his parents would get involved and threaten a suit. The teacher would have to apologize and that would usually be the end of it. The last time I was there and watched Cam's response.
"I prefer not to say, Ma'am," he answered calmly.
"I don't care what you prefer, you will answer the question!" The teacher was already getting agitated.
"No Ma'am, I won't and he began gathering his things and stood up."
"And where do you think you're going young man."
"I'm guessing you'll send me to the principal and then you'll get called in to the office because my mom will call our lawyer and sue you and the school just because you're curious."
"Sit down; I guess we'll drop it for now. But I will be speaking to the principal."
"That's fine, Ma'am."
Cam was so cool during the whole thing and it was all through the school. The teacher always gave him the stink eye but it didn't last long. We both got bumped to the advanced English class and I guess the principal must have warned his teachers because he never had another confrontation about his given name at that school again.
Cam was like my brother and when they moved, it ripped our hearts out. We spent every possible moment together that summer but it wasn't enough. I told him to find a best friend in his new place and I would do the same. But it wouldn't ever be the same.
I explained all the details to Peter as we approached the third floor. Dad had overhauled the mechanism on the secret room. I pushed in the base board and pushed the rosette. A light push was all it took to activate the springs that push the secret door open.
The room is mostly like it was found. The dust and cobwebs had been removed, and the brass Confederate artillery telescope was in Cam's possession now and a genuine Apache bow and arrow set was in my room.
"We get requests from historians occasionally to research the papers but the museum came out and photographed all the documents and reproduced all the photos; so all that stuff can be viewed digitally now." I explained to Peter.
"Dad sold two of the rifles because they were so rare it allowed him to complete the restoration."
"How did he miss this place when he did the electrical?" Peter inquired.
"There wasn't any of the old knob and tube wiring going to the secret room."
Peter was overwhelmed with the sight before him when I opened the room.
I turned on the battery powered lighting and he really gasped.
"This is so cool, I can't believe it. Are those his finger prints on the envelope on the desk?"
"We think so but there's no way to prove it. His prints were never collected while he was alive."
"Too bad but still it's pretty cool."
"You should have seen the historians wetting themselves over all the documents and books and photos. There's a picture of Lincoln and General Wells that was unknown before we found this place. There's a guy on a lecture tour right now showing photos of the artifacts as they call them."
"You don't swear much do you?"
"Only when I'm really upset; it doesn't matter if other people do it or think it's cool, I just prefer not to. It can become a habit and then you say something when you shouldn't and you get detention or a visit to the principal."
"Have you brought anyone from school here before?"
"No, I think it would be a bad idea. Some of this stuff is really valuable and fragile. Dad is negotiating with the county museum to copy the room and then move the artifacts over there. I think I'd miss them but I won't be here that much longer."
Peter's eyes got really big; "Why, where are you going?"
"College probably and then who knows. It seems a long way off but it's not really."
"Yeah, I guess you're right. I just never thought about it I guess."
"Do you have a plan; I mean College or Military service or something?"
"Um yeah, College but I don't know which one."
"What do you want to do?"
Cam replied, "I enjoy working with computers, maybe something to do with driverless cars or maybe drones. There's so much that they could be used for instead of blowing people up."
"That sounds cool, I like chemistry and materials. Maybe I could develop new ones or find new uses for existing ones."
"That sounds good too. Is this the end of the tour?"
"Well there's the attic, the stairs are steep and narrow but sturdy."
"Cool, I'm right behind you."
The view from the attic windows was really cool. The lights of the city were coming on and it looked pretty. I felt arms around my waist and Peter nuzzled my neck. I put my hands over his but we didn't speak.