Mystery for Megan by Abi; Burlingham Page A

garden. It was a beautiful spring day. Megan stared out of the door. She felt her feet fix to the spot
and couldn’t move.
    Through the doorway she saw a garden bigger than any garden she had ever seen. It stretched out before her, rolling downwards, dotted with trees whose arms reached towards the clouds. Then
Megan’s mouth fell open. To one side was an enormous tree, and in it was a treehouse.
    ‘A treehouse!’ Megan screamed. Emily and Beth would love it, she thought. Especially Beth. She loves dens.
    ‘It’s great, isn’t it?’ said Megan’s mum.
    ‘It hasn’t been used for years,’ her dad added. ‘We can fix it up though.’
    At the bottom of the garden were more trees, then more grass that seemed to go on forever.
    ‘Is all that ours?’ Megan asked.
    ‘There’s a small stream at the bottom, just beyond those trees,’ Megan’s dad told her. ‘Then just beyond that there’s a fence. Up to the fence is
ours.’
    ‘And whose is the rest?’ Megan asked, wondering who owned the field and wood beyond.
    ‘It all belongs to the people next door,’ said Megan’s mum.
    ‘Who are the people next door?’ asked Megan.
    ‘There are a mum and dad, just like us, a little girl about your age and her granny.’
    Megan was beginning to feel a whole lot better about Buttercup House. The garden which went on and on forever was definitely something to feel pleased about, and the treehouse was something to
feel very excited about. There was the little girl next door too. They could play hide and seek for ages in this garden, and as her dad had said, a hammer and a few nails could fix the rest.

Megan was used to a house with a living room and a kitchen with a table to eat at. She was used to a house with a bathroom, a bedroom for her mum and dad and a small bedroom
for herself. She was used to a room that was five steps wide and six steps long; this was how Megan always measured things.
    There wasn’t a single room in Buttercup House that was five steps wide and six steps long. Even the hall with the tumbledown staircase was bigger than that. Then there was the kitchen, a
separate dining room and a living room. Upstairs, was a bathroom, two big bedrooms and a smaller bedroom.
    ‘Is this one mine?’ Megan asked when she saw the small bedroom.
    Her mum and dad looked at each other and smiled.
    ‘That’s going to be my office,’ said her dad.
    Megan wasn’t quite sure what her dad did, but she knew it was to do with advertising and she knew it involved lots of paper and that he needed lots of places to put it.
    ‘This will be your room,’ her dad said, leading her down the landing. Tucked away between the two larger bedrooms was a narrow set of stairs that Megan hadn’t noticed
before.
    ‘Up you go then,’ her mum said.
    Megan followed the stairs upwards until she reached a small square landing with a door.
    When she opened the door, she saw an enormous attic bedroom. Megan had always wanted an attic room. It was the most amazing room she had ever seen, and it was yellow, Megan’s favourite
colour.
    ‘We painted it last week while you were at school,’ her dad said. ‘We wanted you to like it straight away.’
    ‘Do you like it?’ her mum asked, uncertainly.
    ‘I love it!’ Megan said, and she really did.
    Later, when her bed was all made up, and her chest of drawers and wardrobe were exactly where she wanted them, Megan counted the steps across her room. Then she thought she
must be wrong and counted again, but it was still the same. Thirty steps across and thirty steps long. A perfect square.
    I must write and tell Emily and Beth, Megan thought. She missed Emily and Beth. It was hard leaving her friends behind, but she had promised herself that she would be brave and try not to
think about it too much.
    Megan gazed through the window at the garden rolling down towards the stream and the treehouse held up high in the enormous tree. It is wonderful here, though, Megan thought. Even more