The World According to Emily James | ✔️

Chapter 5: The Secret Warehouse

Louis set aside some rocks and suddenly lit up. "Alice, look, a drawing!" he said. I grabbed it from his hand and looked at it.

"Not a drawing," I muttered. I looked up at Louis. "A letter. The letter 'H'."

"Maybe if we find more rocks with letters on them, we'll be able to find out what word it creates!" Louis said excitedly.

We found more and more letters, and soon the rocks surrounding the lake were almost gone. Some kids gathered around us in interest, even the ducks who swam back to our side.

There was a W, E, R, A, O, S, U and another E. After searching through the rocks again, Louis and I began to scramble it to form a word.

"What do you think?" asked Louis.
I took out the notebook and the pen Emily also gave me. I tried forming some words, until I found an answer.

"Louis, I got it!" I said. "It's 'warehouse'. Warehouse!"

"Whoa, a warehouse?" Louis scratched his head. "Does she mean the warehouse that looks over her bedroom window?"

"What do you mean?" I asked. Even though I was allowed to enter the Jameses' house, I never was allowed to enter Emily's bedroom.

"There's this warehouse that Emily and I go to when we were younger," Louis explained, "and you could see it through her bedroom window. It's old and smells wet, but it's cool."

"Okay then," I said, picking up the rocks that spelled "WAREHOUSE" and placing them in my backpack. "Lead the way."

***
We arrived at the warehouse a moment later. Louis tied the bike near the post and we entered inside.

"Creepy," I muttered. It's dark, and smelled really wet.

"Don't worry, I have a flashlight in my phone," said Louis, bringing out his phone that emitted a strong, bright light.

"Okay, that's a lot better," I said, rubbing my arms against each other.

We explored the warehouse and saw a door that was blocked by a massive rock.

"Huh, never noticed that before," Louis muttered. He pushed the rock and it moved away easily. "Light rock."

We entered the room and saw a row of tables, all coated with thick dust. There was a tall shelf at the left corner, with battered books and broken vases and dried stems that could've been flowers ages ago.

"It's a working area," I said softly. "People must've been working here before, before your house was built."

"Seems really old to me," said Louis as he turned the light towards the table. "There must be some drawers here or something. You know, it might be filled with paper work or clues,"

"Yeah, clues," I laughed.

Louis later found a small cabinet at the last table at the back. "These things are all written in fancy script," he said. "Might not understand it. Something about politics."

"That's unflattering,"  I remarked sarcastically. I was never into politics, even though Dad works for the government.

"I have to agree," said Louis. "Oh wait, what's this?"

He carefully pulled out a thin sheet of paper, teared at the sides.
I walked next to Louis. "Looks like Emily's writting," I said. "It says, Behold those who are ignorant, because they cannot see. But those who mind, see well they do."

"Silly," Louis said, chortling.

"Whatever Emily means there, that's just plain weird."

I couldn't blame Louis. Sometimes Emily's just so wonderfully weird not even I can understand her.

"I still think it's important," said Louis, handing the paper to me. "Keep it. You try to study the place for more clues, while I rush home and bring some food and other necessities."

Then he exited the door, leaving me alone with already three clues that would be my hope for finding Emily.