Escape from Knightsbridge

Chapter Two - Value Liberators

He had walked in his sleep again — that had to be the explanation for his muddy feet. The last time he had done that, his father had found him out in the backyard, though Hobson had no recollection of ever leaving his bed.

He stripped off the dirty sheets and threw them down the laundry chute. If his parents, and his mother, especially, knew that he had wandered out into the woods alone at night and had somehow returned without them knowing, they'd be worried sick. His mother would probably start sleeping outside his bedroom. Or worse, they would make him sleep in their bedroom. The thought made Hobson shiver.

He tiptoed into the bathroom and washed his feet in the tub, then went back into his bedroom and cleaned up the trail of dirty footprints across the floor. Satisfied that all evidence of his sleepwalking had been erased, Hobson got dressed.

He scooped up a pair of shorts and a tee shirt from the floor and put them on, slipped his feet into socks, and stepped into his black, high-top Chuck Taylors.

Hobson stood at the top of the back staircase, which went down into the kitchen. The rich smell of bacon and eggs frying and cinnamon rolls baking wafted up to the second floor. His stomach rumbled. Breakfast was his favorite meal of the day. He hurried down the stairs and into the kitchen, where he found Grandma Gwen standing at the counter, pouring a cup of coffee.

"Good morning, dear," she said. "You're out of bed early."

"Morning, Grandma." Hobson went over to her and stood on his toes. Though small for his age, Hobson clung to the hope that he had inherited the height gene from his father's side of the family. Grandma leaned down to accept a peck on the cheek. Maybe someday, he thought, he would not need to get on his tiptoes to kiss his grandmother.

Gwendolyn Doyle was nearly six feet tall, and her long raven hair, piled in a tight beehive bun, added to her stature. Her eyes were as dark as the coffee in her cup.

"Would you like me to make scrambled eggs?" she asked.

"Sure. I'm starving." Hobson rubbed his stomach for emphasis.

"I had a feeling you would say yes." On the counter beside the stove Grandma had already filled a bowl with eggs and milk. She turned on a burner and poured the mixture into a frying pan.

As the eggs began to cook, she said to Hobson, "Would you let your father know that his breakfast is getting cold?"

"Sure, Grandma." Hobson crossed the large, airy kitchen and opened the basement door. He went downstairs to his father's workshop.

Hanging from the walls were tools of every shape and size. Screwdrivers, hammers, drills, saws, and chisels were grouped together in one area, pliers, clamps, and wrenches in another. On one of the long work benches sections of cut pipe lay discarded, the silver shavings littering the concrete floor like curled metal worms.

But that was only the outer workshop. Behind a door at the far end was where the "serious work" was done, as Hobson's father often said about that second section. The door was kept locked whenever he was not in there. Hobson knocked.

"Come in," called his father from the other side.

Hobson entered.

The second room was much larger than the outer shop. It was the size of the kitchen, living room, and dining room combined. And if the outer workshop was the foyer, then the work space Hobson now stood in was the grand hall. Filled with shiny machines, gizmos and gadgets which seemed better suited for the space shuttle, this inner sanctum had the white-walled, pristine feel of a laboratory, and it gave Hobson a trill of excitement to imagine the important work his father was conducting there.