The Secret

“What do you think is in here?” 

     Philip asked knee-deep in curiosity and sewage. His head swiveled over to look at Peri, shining his flashlight directly into their eyes. Shutting them swiftly, Peri shrugged. “Something no one wants us to find.” Emily laughed and quickly flew her hand up to her chest pocket on her flannel coat. “Too late!” She shouted, her freckles bouncing around on her face. 

     A small stitched horse seemed to be shouting its disagreement as she dug around in the pocket. Finally, her hand flitted over to the huge vault and she slipped in an odd Rubix cube-like shape into its perfect hole. A click sounded as soon as the cube fell into place and all three of us gaped in wonder as the cog began to turn all on its own. 

      Slowly new cogs began to reveal themselves in the machine, shaking off waste items I’d rather not speak of. As new and smaller cogs appeared the group began to take the shape of an odd tree, extending its branches with each click and shudder. 

     Philip was the first to speak with a muffled “Wooooah” Just as he spoke the bundle of cogs swung toward him and with a yelp, he leaped headfirst into the murky liquid-like substance. Groaning he sat up and with a squeamish look on his face began clawing off the substance, however, he froze halfway, gasping in awe only to begin coughing as the action made him swallow the unspeakable items contained within the sewer. 

     Whilst Philip sputtered Emily stepped into the area now revealed to them. “Uhhh, peri, you’re seeing this right?” She asked nervously, almost fearful in amazement as she stared at the pristine flooring just beyond the odd cog machine door. Peri nodded, breathless. 

     In front of the children was a laboratory with squeaky clean tables filled with colored chemicals bubbling up together. Most fascinating however was beyond the initial glace, because while what I just described to you is what the children could see if they only looked straight ahead through the doorway by simply tilting their head their eyes feel upon an entirely different scene. 

     Surrounding the clean laboratory were the same tables turned to ash, it looked as if the whole rest of the lab had, had a terrible baking incident. Not only this damage but glass bottles had also been turned over and they lay shattered on the floor. 

     Just as Philip finally managed to stop his violent coughing and shuddering Emily began walking over to the cog door. Her eyes seemed to sparkle as she ran her fingers along its brown and dusty back, revealing a bronze that shined under her flashlight’s glare. 

     Not wanting to be out adventured Peri quickly waddled over to Emily, “Are we gonna go in?” They asked in wonder. Emily took a moment to respond, seemingly considering this more than she’d ever considered anything before. She peeked into the room, examining every crevice for some sneaky creature just waiting to jump scare them. Finding nothing in her search Emily hopped into the lab and Peri tailed after.

     Philip was the only one of the trio to doubt Emily’s inspection, having a peek himself before reluctantly stepping in as well. “This seems like a bad idea” He muttered, his boot squelching as he removed it from the sewage. 

     As Philip tripped his way into the lab Emily examined the shards. “What do you guys think happened here?” Peri shrugged, staring at the colored bubbles in the clean part of the lab, “Probably something bad.”      

     “You know Peri you don’t talk a lot.” Emily innocently commented as she began gathering the glass tubes. “Why is that?”

     “Aren’t we getting a little old for you to act like a toddler who points out the first things they notice?” 

     “Damn okay, you don’t want to talk about it you don’t want to talk about it.” 

     Philip finally landed awkwardly on the pristine ground and bolted over to the pair. “That was uncalled for Peri, is something bugging you?” He asked sliding in as a barrier between Peri and a table.

     Your high-pitched voice for one, Peri bit back the reply and instead said, “No, I’m fine. Just a little annoyed with my dad.”

     Emily nodded, although anyone could see that she was still startled by Peri’s sharp reply earlier. “What’d he do this time?” She asked, trying to add some light to the conversation.

     “He just, he wasn’t even a little bit suspicious when I asked him for these clothes.” 

     “Isn’t that a good thing though?” Philip asked, “I don’t think he would have let us come in here if he had figured out what was going on.” 

     Emily came up behind the two and shoved Philip out of the way and into a turned-over table, “Of course, it’s not a good thing Philip! Honestly don’t you even pay attention? Peri’s dad has never shown any concern for them! Isn’t that a little bit worrying to you?” 

     Rubbing soot off his patchy brown sweater Philip shrugged. “I guess? I dunno Emily I think it makes things a lot easier for all of us. I mean, imagine if Peri had to come up with elaborate lies like me, or sneak away like you! It’d be so much harder for us to get our hands on all the equipment their dad keeps locked up in that weird basement!” Whilst he tried to get up he ended up he revealed a small trapdoor hidden under the table. 

     “Hey, guys, what’s this?” Philip tentatively asked, brushing ash off the handle. Bored of staring at the walls in wonder Peri and Emily walked over to him. “Well, it looks like the next page of this mystery,” Emily said excitedly, her cheeks going red as she began to examine the trapdoor. Instantly Pei pointed out a small hole, “I don’t think we’ll get to see that next page until we get the next key though.” Their voice drooped a bit in disappointment. 

     Emily pouted, letting her head fall back in dismay. “But I worked so hard! I thought I stitched together all the clues and we were going to crack this town’s deep mystery.” Peri rolled their eyes in mild amusement in reaction to their friend’s whining. 

     “Isn’t there any other way besides the sewer to get out of this place?” Philip asked, dismayed as he stared at their ungodly entrance.

     While Emily continued to sulk a little next to the trapdoor Peri and Philip split up into either side of the room and searched for a different exit. 

     “There’s no way someone entered that loose manhole every time they wanted to come down here,” Peri muttered. Emily began picking herself back up and trying to shift some of the less charred tables around, “Then why would that entrance be so extravagant?” Philip shrugged, “Maybe they wanted to alligators to see it?”

     Peri and Emily flashed him a look. “What? Alligators live in the sewer!” Philip shouted

 defensively. The two simply shook their heads, sad that Philip’s education had failed him so.

     Finally, Peri pushed aside a table that had been flipped against the wall revealing… a door! One which had miraculously completely avoided the explosion which had taken out most of the lab. 

     “Found it!” They called, and without waiting for their friends to come over Peri turned the door handle. It was rusted and the handle didn’t turn easy however after a few seconds Peri powered through and slammed open the door. A bit surprised at the noise they had caused Peri paused for a moment, peering up into the darkness.

     After a moment Peri heard shuffling from above them and what sounded like the creaking of floorboards. Having reached the door Emily peered in, “I think it’s a staircase, but where does it go?” curiously, she was the first to begin climbing up the stairwell. Peri was next, quickly grabbing onto the handrails. Philip hesitated for only a moment before joining them in the climb. 

     “What do you think we’ll find when we climb up?” Philip asked, uncomfortable with how steep the stairs were. Emily bounced as she stepped, her mind alit with creativity. “I bet we’ll end up in the townhall! And then we’ll learn that it was the mayor’s grandfather who built this place. And, and, we’ll soon figure out that it was destroyed by artificial life he created after they failed to find meaning in their existence and tried their hardest to destroy not only themselves but also the very man who forced them into that meaningless thing called life!” 

     Peri exasperatedly huffed, although there was a smile on their lips as they did so. 

     “Well, what do you think we’ll find? We’ve already heard Philip’s stupid alligator theory, it’s your turn”

     “What do I think we’ll find?” Peri asked, smiling. However, before Peri could tell the other two what terrible thing they thought lay at the top of the stairwell a light other than the trio’s helmet flashlights flooded in. 

     Just above them, a mustached face looked quizzically back at them. “Peri? Is this what you were up to?” Peri rolled their eyes as soon as the voice hit their ears, “Dad” they said unenthusiastically. 

     Philip began to panic, “Oh, uh, well, hello there sir! We were just… just…” he trailed off from his stuttering and hoped that someone else would figure out how to make this completely normal.

     Emily realized far quicker than Philip how odd it was that Peri’s father had just happened to find a doorway to this weird lab. “Say Mr.” she trailed off for a moment, desperately trying to remember Peri’s last name from when their teacher took roll.

     “Ulm.” He said, nervously. 

     “Right,” Emily said, even more, suspicious now because of the odd last name. “Mr. Ulm, just what do you work as?” Peri’s father simply looked her up and down and answered, ‘Why don’t you come up here and we can have a nice chat about that.” Emily nodded slowly, her lips pursed and her eyes all squinty.

     When Emily didn’t move Peri shoved her a little up the stairs, growing annoyed. Suddenly remembering where she was Emily began marching up the stairs, rather confident for someone who smelled like waste products.

     When the three reached the top of the stairwell which they discovered to be the bottom of a chest in Peri’s basement they instantly ripped off their sludge-covered overalls, boots, and gloves. In turn, Mr. Ulm switched off the flashlights on their caps and took them off, piling them up before throwing them onto the pile.

     “Now then, should I arrange for parents to come to pick you up, or would you two prefer to handle that yourselves?” Emily looked as if she wanted to say something however Peri spoke first. 

     “So that’s it? You’re not even going to question what we were doing down there? I gave you a lie you know, you didn’t even want to hear what I was going to do with your stuff but I gave you an excuse anyways! And it was a dimwitted lie and we both know it! I was all like ‘I need it for a school project’ and you did not bat an eye! The least you could do is pretend to care about me!” 

     “Listen, honey, I figured-”

     “NO! I am not done talking father! You stare past me every day! I could be doing whatever crazy stuff I want to and you just ignore me! And that hurts! I just can’t understand why you would ever adopt a child if you were never going to care about them!”

     Philip and Emily uncomfortably sat on a dusty stitched together couch. 

     “Peri” The name came out as a whisper for Louis, “I do care about you honey, I do” His eyes began tearing up as they went on. “No, no you don’t!” Peri’s voice grew raspy as their volume lowered. “I saw your photobook this morning, you left it out! I saw how happy you were with her! And then she realized what a rotten person you are and left you! So you decided to adopt someone else to torment and that ended up being me!” The word rotten stung Peri even though they were the one who said it. 

     “Peri, Peri my darling my child. I’m so sorry.” Louis’s voice shattered into tears. “That’s not true and I’m so sorry I made you feel like it ever could be. That, that lady was going to marry me 15 years ago but then she had to go fight in a long war overseas. So two years later I saw your photo on a website and I knew I could give all my extra love to you.” 

     Eyes wet Peri crashed into Louis’s arms. “I’m sorry I thought so bad of you” Peri apologized, thinking themself silly for ever having such a thought cross their mind. 

     “I know I haven’t been the parent you wanted me to be Peri, and I’m sorry, I’ll make it up to you” 

     Still awkwardly sitting together Emily and Philip were finally noticed by Louis. “Ah,” He said, “Yes well back to my earlier question, would you like to walk home or…?” 

     Emily quickly shook herself out of the awkward and went back to her suspicious face. “Not so fast! You haven’t explained why you have a secret lab!” 

     Philip chuckled, “Eh she’ll walk home and I’d like to be picked up, please.” Mr. Ulm nodded, “Right” He swiftly grabbed his phone out of his back pocket and began texting. “In the meantime, I do believe I owe you three an explanation.” 

     Peri sat down behind his armchair as their father sat down. Seemingly embarrassed to have been so emotional. “I currently work from home as a biochemist. How I work from home, used to be that lab. Currently, I use our garage.” 

     “You’re boss lets you work from home?” Philip asked, curiosity getting the better of his awkwardness.

     “Well, I am my boss so yes. I run my own business funded by investors interested in my experiments. “The previous lab was destroyed when-” 

     “You had a huge accident with your chemicals and accidentally blew everything up!” Emily interjected excitedly. Louis tilted his head and shook it. 

     “Precisely! Wow, who are you Pythia? Although you will have noticed a specific area where everything was clean, that was the area I had planned to propose to my lover in.” 

     A ding sounded from Mr. Ulm’s pocket. “Well go on then Philip, your parents are here.”

Looking a bit disappointed that he wouldn’t get to discuss their findings with his friends Philip stood up, “Bye guys, I’ll come over tomorrow for us to talk, okay?” 

      “Of course! See you tomorrow Philip!” Emily shouted a little louder than she had to given that Philip was less than 5 feet away. 

     As soon as Philip disappeared Emily sprang to her feet and began to beg, “Mr. Ulm can I please stay the night here? My mom’s out on my business trip and my Dad will definitely say yes so can I please stay here tonight?” Louis rubbed his nose, sighing, and nodded. Then quickly looked to Peri as Emily exploded into squeals. They smiled at him sweetly and nodded. 

     As the three climbed the stairs Peri had a thought come over her that they couldn’t believe they’d forgotten. “Hey, dad, there’s a trapdoor in your lab, what’s under there?” Peri asked. 

     Louis looked back at them and grabbed their hand, sighing. “Child of mine, that is a secret you’re just not ready to know.” And as he said this he let go of her hand and giddily walked to the kitchen. 

     Emily met Peri as they exited the stairwell. “So like is your dad some kind of… biochemist, Einstein? And why doesn’t everyone know about his work? Why does he feel the need to hide it in a secret lab? Will that woman ever come back to him” Peri shrugged, “I Guess That’s just something the world’s not ready to know”