Ok, so I started posting this story almost a year ago, but since then I’ve chanced some things, including some names, so I decided to re-upload it so I don’t get myself confused. In doing that, I’m probably confusing you guys, sorry! Bear with me please!

You don’t really have to read through the long paragraphs in this chapter, they basically just describe the house and birthday gifts. This whole chapter is pretty boring really, in my opinion, but it gives a lot of info you’ll need to know for future chapters.

Also, if you catch any mistakes, please point them out to me and I’ll fix them. I haven’t done a thorough check to see if everything still flows together and makes sense… sorry!

Chapter 1

The New Mansion

My family and I stood outside of our new mansion.

“It’s so big!” exclaimed Michelle, my 7-year-old sister.

“It’s supposed to be big, Michelle,” my 11-year old brother Matthew said.

“Can I finally have my own room?” I whined. I was the oldest in our family of eight kids, and our old house had only had two kids bedrooms.

“Well, let’s take a look and see,” answered Mom, boosting my 2-year-old brother Mark up on her hip. I dashed through the front door before anyone else could. The others were in the house a split second later. When everyone was inside, Dad pulled a gate across the floor so no one would try to look at the house before the rest of us.

“Everyone remember, no running, stomping, or jumping. And use inside voices. All right, have fun!” Dad said as he pulled the gate away. Everyone followed me, so I got to choose where to go.

The kitchen had a big working surface with a built-in oven and dishwasher. The living room had a couple of windows, a ledge, and a door leading into the kitchen. The dining room had a ledge for flowers and a perfect spot for a T.V. There were four guest bedrooms. That was the first floor.

The second floor had an enormous playroom, two sitting areas, another room for a T.V., and a pretty big extra room, which would be used as a schoolroom.

Then came the third floor. There was a master bedroom, with one bathtub, two showers, and a walk in closet. Next to that was a fairly large bedroom, about big enough got three small kids.

Across from that was a nice sized, medium bedroom, about big enough for two normal sized kids. To the left of that was a room big enough for two people. On the next wall was another room big enough for two people. Next to that was a walk-in storage cabinet with three levels of shelves.

Everyone agreed that as soon as we decided who slept where, we could decorate our rooms. Then we would work together to put the furniture in.

“I can’t wait to see my room!” Matthew exclaimed.

“Me either!” I agreed.

“Me either, either!” Monica squeaked.

“Silly girl!” Megan and Melanie, my 9-year-old and 8-year-old sisters laughed. Monica, my 5-year-old sister, is so cute that it’s hard not to laugh. The rest of us burst out laughing, too.

“Megan and Melanie can have the room next to Michelle and Monica’s room, which will be the one next to the master bedroom. Matthew and Michael can have the room with the bathroom, which is next to Megan and Melanie’s room. That Means Melissa’s room will be the one on the fourth floor. Is everyone ok with that?” Mom asked.

“Yes!!!” everyone shouted together.

The others and I followed Mom out to the moving trucks. The first truck had all the bedroom and bathroom things. Dad was already standing by it.

“A truck!” Michael said excitedly. Michael, my 4-year-old brother, loves trucks.

“You kids can help unpack your suitcases and the bedroom things. Your mom and I will do the rest,” Dad said. We set to work right away.

---

I sat in my room on my bed. I still couldn’t believe that two of my biggest dreams had come true; I had my own room and I lived in a mansion! Still, I felt like I was missing something. I decided to explore my room. I looked on the walls and in my closet. I looked on the ceiling and behind my med. I couldn’t figure out what was missing. Then I thought of a place I hadn’t looked. Under the bed! I looked under my bed and saw a trap door!!!

I stared at the trap door. Why hadn’t I seen it before? I made up my mind at once to investigate. I poked my head out my door and into the hall. The coast is clear, I said in my head. I closed and locked my door. I crawled under my tall, canopy bed, opened the trap door, and peeked inside. There was a funky pink and purple staircase. I shut the trap door and climbed up the stairs. When I got to the top, I saw a light blue door. When I opened it, I couldn’t believe what I saw! Before me was a giant room the size of one story of the house!!!

I stepped inside the room. Half of the floor, the half that I was standing on, was carpeted. The other half was polished wood. In one corner of the room, there were screens showing what was going on in each room of the house, including outside my door and the front door. The rest of the room was empty, except for seven wide boards on the opposite end of the room. I crossed the room and flipped over the boards. There was a canopy bed on each of the boards! The beds were each a different color- pink, yellow, blue, purple, white, green, and turquoise. I set my bunny that I carried around everywhere on the green bed and slowly looked around the room again. Then I saw a bright light coming from the screens. It was coming from the one showing outside the front door. It was my friends, Katie Shaughnessy and Elizabeth Medina! I ran across the carpet until I got to the wood floor, and then slid the rest of the way to the canopies. I flipped the boards back over and dashed out the blue door. As I was going down the secret staircase, an idea popped into my head. I could invite them to sleep over!

“We could sleep in the canopy beds,” I whispered to myself.

“Where’s Bunny?” Katie asked jokingly. Bunny was the name of my stuffed bunny.

I realized that Bunny was still in the secret room.

“Rats!” I muttered.

“What?” Elizabeth asked.

“Nothing,” I replied.

“Anyway, we brought you some things for your room,” Elizabeth said.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Our pleasure,” Katie answered.

“And it’s my pleasure to invite you to spend the night,” I said with a smile.

“We’ll ask our moms,” Katie responded. They gave their presents to me and ran to ask their moms. I decided to wait and open them when we were safe in my room.

Katie, Elizabeth, and I say on my bed. They each gave me a Target gift card. Each card was worth $25. That was $50 total!

“Thanks again guys!” I exclaimed.

---

“Goodnight!” we said to my mom. Mom shut the door.

Elizabeth rolled over. “So where are we really sleeping?” she whispered as Mom’s footsteps faded.

“Follow me, I’ll show you. Just stay quiet on the way,” I answered. Elizabeth and Katie followed me, quiet as mice, under the bed, up the staircase, and through the blue door.

“This place is sooooo big!” Katie exclaimed. I groaned, thinking everyone in the house had heard her, but I found out later that the walls were so thick that nobody could hear anything going on in the secret room.

“I know. I was just exploring it when you two came to the door,” I said, sliding across the floor again over to the boards. Elizabeth and Katie did the same.

“But we didn’t even ring the doorbell,” Katie pointed out. “How did you know we were here?”

“See those screens over there? One of them shows the front door.” I nodded my head in the direction of the screens, counting the boards until I came to the one I had set Bunny on.

“So you saw us through the screen,” Elizabeth finished. She and Katie had wandered over to the screens and were looking at them. “Cool!”

They came back over to where I was just as I was flipping over the canopy Bunny had been on.

“Whoa! Neat!” they exclaimed when they saw the canopy.

“Pick one to sleep on,” I said. I was surprised to find that Bunny hadn’t fallen off the bed like I thought he would have. Things on these beds go against gravity! I thought. Cool!

Katie and Elizabeth had turned over the rest of the boards. Katie picked the purple canopy, Elizabeth picked blue, and I picked green.

I brought up some things I had either just gotten or already had. We put together a bookshelf in one corner of the room and put my books in it. In the corner to the left of the wall with the beds, we put together a desk and pushed my favorite swivel chair up against it. We put my lamp on the desk and a T.V. next to it. We hung some shower curtains I had saved from the trash around the beds. We put a heart tug under the desk chair, and then we were done.

“Oh, and one more thing,” I said. “Don’t tell anyone about this room!”

Elizabeth and Katie nodded. We each sat on out canopy bed and admired the room. Soon we were all fast asleep.

---

“Let’s search the attic for things to put in the room after we get dressed,” I suggested the next morning. Sunlight was streaming in from the windows built into the roof above the beds.

“Ok,” Elizabeth and Katie agreed.

“Each of us can get dressed in our canopy,” I said. The shower curtains were strung between the beds in a flash. As soon as we were all back in my room, we made sure that everything looked normal, and then we headed downstairs for breakfast. We quickly ate our scrambled eggs and toast, gulped down our juice, and brought our dishes to the sink.

“You girls sure look like you’re in a hurry this morning,” Dad said from the doorway. “What are you up to?”

Oh great! I thought.

“We’re… uh… we want to organize my bookshelf,” I lied. “All the books have to be in alphabetical order.”

Dad seemed to not be listening. Instead, he was flipping through the cannels on the T.V. trying to find a sports game or discovery channel or whatever else dads watch. My friends and I leapt up the stairs and up into the attic.

In the attic, we found three perfectly good, two-seat couches, two coffee tables, a set of four T.V. trays, and twelve blankets. We also found two chests, one dresser with seven drawers, and seven rocking chairs. What is up with the number seven in this house? I wondered.

When I was bringing up some blankets, I tripped and crashed into the wall. I stood up and brushed myself off. Then I looked around. I was in an elevator!

“Elizabeth! Katie! Come here!” I called to my friends. They immediately came rushing onto the pink and purple stairway.

“Where are you?” Katie called, looking around.

“I’m on the other side of the wall. I found an elevator!” I responded. I pounded on the wall. “Right here!”

Elizabeth pushed on the wall, and a panel in the wall flipped.

The three of us continued to bring things up to the secret room through the elevator. We got everything to the room in twenty minutes!

When everything was in the room, we gathered my gift cards and walked to Target. We looked around, and then bought a pack of ten plates, forks, knives, bowls, spoons, and cups. Matching placemats caught my eye, and we bought those, too.

---

“Can I invite five people to my party this year instead of the normal amount?” I asked Mom. It was one week before my 13th birthday party.

“I guess. How come?” Mom asked.

“That’s another thing. Can I have a slumber party this year?” I asked.

“I don’t see why not. Just tell them to bring their own pillows and sleeping bags,”

Mom replied.

---

I sat in the secret room and thought about who I should invite to my birthday party. “Definitely Katie and Elizabeth, since they already know about the room,” I said to myself, “and Shannon, Samantha, and Mel. Ok, now I have to make the invitations.”

As I was walking down the pink and purple staircase, I tripped and crashed into the wall… again! Before I knew it, I was pushing a button that said “basement” in the secret elevator. I hadn’t seen that before; and, as far as I knew, nobody knew that the house had a basement! The ride was smooth and quick. In the basement, I saw games, puzzles, books, furniture, stuffed animals, and dolls!

“This stuff is going to the secret room,” I murmured. “I’m going to show this to my party guests.”

I decided to look around the elevator to see what else I had missed when I had first discovered it. Leaving the basement with the promise of returning on the day of my party, I headed to the elevator.

The different buttons in the elevator went to all the places my screens showed. As I was running my hands along the smooth, half-sphere buttons, a thought came to me. If I wanted to bring everything to the secret room, I would need more shelves! I gathered the money I had pulled out of my bank account, $350.50, and rode my bike to Casher’s Marketplace. At the store, I found exactly what I wanted- a set of five shelves, with ten sections on each one, a big vanilla-colored toy chest, and three tubs. I also bought a mini-refrigerator and a large mirror that I could attach to a wall in the secret room.

I set everything up in the secret room, which I called the Fuuswamz for some strange reason (I was just saying a bunch of random stuff one day and something I said sounded like Fuuswamz). There was still a gi-normous open area in the middle of the room for gymnastics, dancing, games, etc.

I couldn’t wait for my party!

---

I sat in the Fuuswamz, anxiously waiting for my guests to arrive. Then, the light came on to the front door screen. “My guests are here!” I exclaimed. I ran to the elevator and pushed the button that was marked “front door”. There was a screen in the elevator that showed where the elevator had landed. I checked to see if anyone was watching, then I used a remote to open the wall so I could get to the door. (I had found a remote when I was exploring the elevator.)

“Hey, guys!” I greeted my guests.

“Happy birthday!” they answered.

“Hey, Mom? They’re here! I’m taking them to my room!” I yelled.

I led the group through the wall, into the elevator, and into my room. Everyone thought it was the coolest thing that there was a secret elevator and secret room that only I knew about. I had to agree with them!

In my room, everyone started firing questions at me. All I said was, “Come with me.”

I led my friends to the Fuuswamz. I showed them the canopies, the screens, and everything else. For a little while until it was time for cake, we hung out and talked. After we had cake, I opened my presents. Katie gave me a very long storage tub. Mel gave me a small chest of drawers that came up to my waist. Samantha gave me some American Girl rugs, which were shaped like circles. Shannon gave me a doghouse, dog dishes, and a dog carrier. I had no idea why until I opened Elizabeth’s gift- a cute labradoodle puppy! (Labradoodles are a cross between a Labrador and a poodle.)

“Thank you all sooooo much! I love these gifts!” I exclaimed. “Now I think we should be getting to bed since we’re going to Color-Me-Mine tomorrow. Goodnight!”

“You’re forgetting something,” Elizabeth said.

“What?” I asked, confused.

“What you’re going to name your dog, duh!” Elizabeth responded.

“Oh, right! I think I’ll call her… McDog. And her middle name is Nalds! McDog Nalds. MacDonalds… get it?” Everyone was quiet. “Awkward… goodnight, everyone!”

“Goodnight!”