Chapter Two - Chris

"There is a garden in every childhood, an enchanted place where colors are brighter, the air softer, and the morning more fragrant than ever again." - Elizabeth Lawrence

The theater loomed ahead of us as the four sets of our boots clomped on the sidewalk. The chipped elephant was there to greet us again, in a dancing pose forever.

"Hooolliieee..." Carol whined, tugging at her sister's heavy winter coat with hands covered by purple mittens. "Let's go home."

"No," Holly retorted.

"It's scary here!"

"It is not scary," my little brother boasted, patting the elephant statue on the trunk. "I bet he's good luck."

"Nu-uh," Carol responded, but stepped up beside him to pat the elephant. I rolled my eyes as I circled my finger around the perfect hole cut in the glass at the ticket window, wooden shutters closed behind it. I pushed on the shutter, but it didn't budge.

"Are you sure you want to go in?" Holly asked, at my side.

"Yeah," I whispered, my voice sounding hoarse in the cold air.

She looked uncertain for a moment, before I saw her courage gather and she smiled at me. "Well, we can check around the sides for any windows left open or something." She turned to our younger siblings. "Carol, Nick, c'mon."

We trooped around the building, finding no windows on the lower floor. I peered up to the second story, where the bleak winter sky it sat against seemed to crush the aged building. A few, dirty windows littered the walls near the front, but nothing else. I felt the corners of my mouth tug downward again.

Holly tugged on the sidedoor, which seemed to be a emergency exit, but shook her head. "Locked."

"I really want to see inside there," I muttered. She nodded and bit her bottom lip, looking about with such speed that her dishwasher brown curls flopped lazily about on the hood of her jacket.

"Let's try through that gate," she suggested, pointed to an aged fence with old boards that creaked with the hard duty of simply staying upright.

"There is no gate," Nick stated. "It's all solid."

I approached the fence, inspecting the wood before reaching up and putting my hands on the top. As I was about to tug myself up, the two boards I propped myself upon released a rusty squawk that caused Carol to scream, before I tumbled to the ground with both pieces of rotten wood.

"Are you okay?" Holly quickly asked.

"Fine," I coughed, shoving the boards aside. The fence now had two slender gaps, with only a third board in the middle.

Nick helped me to my feet and I brushed my jeans off. "Anybody hear that?" I asked. Holly looked about again, but shook her head in reply.

"Hey Holly! Lookit! Lookit!" Carol squealed, pointing inside the gaps in the fence. We both moved to where she stood and peered inside. Several old sets leaned against the back wall of the theater, while some stood on their support beams or leaned against large crates. There were castle turrets and walls, bridges, trees, houses, and other various backgrounds.

"Wow," Holly breathed.

"Let me see! Let me see!" Nick cried, pushing at me. I stepped back slightly so he could squeeze in and look. He tried to fit through one of the narrow slots in the fence, and discovered he couldn't.

I looked at the middle board, determined to remove it. Holly must have agreed with me, as we reached for it at the same time. "Stand back you two," Holly ordered. "Ready...set...pull!"

We both tugged, our soles scraping through the dead leaves on the concrete. There was no response at first, then like a tired sigh the board came free and collasped onto the ground. Carol and Nick pushed themselves through, while I arranged the boards to lean against the fence so there was enough room to slide past, but looked like the wood was still intact.

Then I entered the small backyard storage area after Holly. The other sides of the fence wall had been overgrown, while the ground was littered with weeds and dead leaves that crunched heartily under my shoes. I stood in the castle's drawbridge, watching as Carol and Nick crawled onto the crates. Holly grinned at me.

"Look at this," she stated.

"Holly! Holly! Can we keep this place?" Carol cried, her bobbed brown hair flouncing about as she jumped up and down on what looked like a black tarp stretched across some poles.

"It's not ours silly. We can't keep it."

"We found it didn't we?" Nick insisted. "So it's ours."

"It doesn't work that way," Holly tried to explain, but the two didn't listen. They continued to bounce up and down together, squealing happily. Holly turned to me. "Is it...okay if we're here?" she asked, as if testing her words.

I shrugged and carefully spoke again. "If we don't break anything, I don't see why not."

A relieved smile crossed her face. "Hey, let's see if there's a backdoor," she suggested, tugging on my arm. I let her lead me to the back wall of the theater. I looked up and saw one wide window almost next to the roof, made of stained glass. We made our way past and between different set pieces, occasionally encountering cobwebs and piles of leaves.

But eventually, we did discover a warped wooden door. I barely twisted the rusted doorknob when it fell open towards us. I jumped back at the sudden movement, smacking right against one of the wooden sets.

Holly laughed as I rubbed at my head with my gloved hands. "Carol! Nick!" she called. "We're going inside!"

"Heeeey! Wait for us!" I heard Carol's high voice, and wondered if she did anything but whine.

"Then hurry up!" Holly retorted, as I stepped through the doorway. Warmth and dust both brushed my cheeks, causing a haggard cough. Inside the door was pitch black, causing a hitch in my chest before I took a deep breath, which made me cough again.

"Oh it smells like grandma's house," Holly moaned, covering her mouth and nose with her mittened hands. She removed them for a moment, before gagging and covering herself up again. "Worse. It smells like grandma."

I nodded as I swung my hands out in front of me trying to find anything to orient myself with. A few steps in, my gloved fingers found cloth. Thinking it to be a curtain, I moved along it trying to find the opening. Finally the cloth fell open and I stepped through, holding it aside for Holly, Carol, and Nick. Two red-tinted lights were on above us, shining down lazily and at tilted angles.

"It's a stage!" Holly stated.

"It's warm in here. I like it," Carol remarked.

"There should be lights just off one of the sides..." Holly started, moving to one side of the wooden stage. She disappeared behind a side curtain, and a moment later with a crack of a switch several lights flickered on. Yellow, blue, green, and red beams shone down amid white ones, creating a bright rainbow mess that caused me to blink. Another crack and the lights above the audience seats came on, and I saw the rows were covered with dirty sheets.

"This is awesome!" Nick exclaimed, excitement clearly coming through. I had to agree myself, looking about as Holly returned.

"Oh! Chris! Look at the curtain!" she gasped. I turned, and saw the midnight blue fabric that was littered with silver stars. "It's so pretty!"

"It looks like the sky," Carol stated. "Look at the piano!"

My attention shifted to the new object, several rows of black and white keys with pipes rising out of the back. "What kind of piano is that?" Nick questioned with a frown.

"It looks like an organ. But the pipes are way too small," Holly observed.

I pressed a key or two on the organ, but no sound came out. "It's broken," Carol announced.

"I guess," Holly shrugged. "Things do break, after all."

I nodded in agreement, moving to glance behind the organ to see if it needed to be plugged in. I didn't see a cord, only about two feet of dead space before the wall.

"Look at all the boxes!"

Again my attention was dragged from one object to another, as Carol and Nick darted down a short set of stairs to the isle where more crates sat, this time filled to bulging and overflowing. Holly and I followed as our siblings and discovered that some of the crates were set up to look like closets.

"They're costumes!" Carol squealed happily, donning a large feathered hat.

"And props," Holly added as she pulled a sword from another crate. "I guess this was an acting theater. I thought mom mean like a movie theater."

"Holly! Help me put on this dress!" Carol held up a frumpy old gown, much too large for her. Still, Holly helped slide the outfit over her head. Carol flounced about in it, gathering fistfuls to climb the stairs up to the stage. Nick joined her a second later, decked in a large captain's coat.

I stood up and looked at my three companions, Carol and Nick twirling about amid the lights and sending up dust plumes. Holly was digging about the costumes, holding various ones up to her.

Worry came across me, and I started, "Hey guys. Listen."

They all turned to me as if on cue, looking curious. "This is our secret, okay? If anyone finds out, they're not going to let us come here anymore. So no telling anyone."

"Okay," Nick agreed easily.

"Promise you won't say a word to anyone, Carol," Holly ordered. "Not even to mom or your friends at school."

"Promise," Carol mumbled.

"Really promise!"

"Okay, okay. Promise promise."

Holly turned to me with a wide grin. "I promise too."

"So this is our theater!" Nick shouted, throwing his hands up.

"No. It's not a theater because no one else is invited," I responded.

"Yeah. It's more like a palace," Holly added. She held up a dress to her, meant to be short on a grown up, but was just above the floor on Holly. "How does this look, Chris?"

"Fine," I replied absently as I looked at the curtain. A smile crossed my face. "We're going to call it the Star Palace," I announced."And it's just ours."