Page 22 - Jeremiah Lollipop

bedroom, where he found some paper and a pencil and did some more

careful figuring. He got much the same result. He scratched his head,

puzzled. This was impossible! The back room of that house must be

ENORMOUS!

He took his sheet of numbers to his mother but she was too busy

peeling spuds to look at it. He tried his dad, but he was reading the

newspaper again. Jeremiah wondered what his dad looked like – he

hadn’t seen him for a few days.

Jeremiah decided that this mystery had to be cleared up. He resolved

to investigate the mysterious concrete house as soon as possible, but he

had to wait for a time when Mr. Flannel was not there, and at the same

time his mum mustn’t catch him or she’d see to it that he was roasted

alive, cut into little pieces, fed to some hungry water buffalo and then

forced to eat carrots!

As luck would have it, the opportunity to investigate the house came

that very evening. First Jeremiah’s dad went out to some business

meeting, and his mother settled into the couch to watch some ghastly

program in which everyone was emotionally unstable, and then Mr.

Flannel started his truck and drove slowly away.

Jeremiah found the torch in the kitchen drawer, tested it, then he

quietly went out the front door and walked across the road. The street

was silent, and the lights had just come on. They were glowing as they

warmed up. Jeremiah went up the dirt path and stopped beside the big