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AAAA
The
100-year-old Mystery
Chapter 1
There is something in
the cellar.
There is something…
something evil deeply in the basement at the end of a
long and dark tunnel.
These are
the roof and the attic of the school. Can you imagine
the cellar?
It was half a year
ago when I went down to the basement of the school for
the first time. I did it with some friends for the hell
of it. We loved discovering the school. There was a
secret in every corner and wall. For example there was
the mansard on the third floor the air of which was full
of asbestos still it was so attractive for us. Rooms
furnished upside down, hidden doors, frescoes on the
walls, windows, skylights where without trouble you
could climb to a part of the roof of the school, which
couldn’t be seen from anywhere,. But the basement was
different.
At first we didn’t
think about going there but once we went down to play
table-tennis in the table-tennis room. It’s a really
small underground room with three tables and a lot of
rubbish. And with a door. With a massive 1,5x1,5 m big,
massive, iron door.
We didn’t really
think of opening it. We had tried it once but it had
seemed to be welded on so we’d left it all and for some
time we went to the table tennis room just for playing.
But one day, when I was about to win, one of my friends,
John raised his hand. You must know that John has
unbelievably good ears. Sometimes he can hear such
slight noises which nobody else can. So he raised his
hand and we knew immediately that he asked for silence.
We were all ears dumbly for some moments and then we
also heard it. Hardly understandable, totally quiet
speech. Then a buzz. Then speech again. We started to
look for the source of the noise and it took John barely
two minutes to stick his ears to the iron door.
– It comes from here! – he said excitedly. –
There is somebody in!
And indeed, from behind the door we heard the speaking
and the humming also. We thought, we took our time. In
the next two hours the speaking and the humming kept
changing each other then it was dead silence. We tried
to open the door, but it didn’t work.
It meant just one thing: there was another entrance. We
didn’t need more, immediately we went to the basement
door, where Steve in an instant picked the lock. Of
course, if they caught us, it wasn’t likely that we
could get away with it, but it didn’t matter now, we
thought. We loved being in the trespass.
First we went only a short way in among the lumber and
then we got into more and more halls. But we didn’t find
the entrance to the hall behind the iron door. Until
that Tuesday…
We were four down: me, John, Steve and a Korean guy,
Buck. Precisely we were searching in the lumber – that
was unbelievable what there were – when we heard that
somebody wanted to open the lock. It was a basic rule,
that we always closed the door behind us, so that it
shouldn’t be too prominent if somebody happened to walk
there
So somebody opened the lock. We hid immediately and we
were waiting. Three men came in. The first man was small,
stubby and he had glasses. I thought that he was the
boss. The two other men were muscular and they were
carrying something. Next to us there were boilers. The
boss went to the middle one and opened it. Then I
realized that it wasn't a boiler. It was a door! When
they closed the door, we ran out of the basement.
Next day we went back. We found the boiler and we opened
it. We saw a staircase and we went down slowly and
quietly. We reached a corridor. The wall was made of
metal. Some reddish neon lights lit the place. At the
end of the corridor there was a door, an armoured door.
I could see similar doors in submarines. Above the door
there was a sign: Danger! Radiation danger!
At first we felt frightened, but then we calmed down. We
wanted to see what the door hid. Steve wound a wheel
which unscrewed the lock.
The door opened...
Authors:
Richárd Rutai, Nóra Balla, Tímea Gergely, Alex Bali
Teachers:
Zsuzsa Szalayné Tahy, Zsiday Galgóczy Béláné
Szent István Gimnázium , Hungary
January 2009
Up
Chapter 2
I
was unbelievably nervous, excited and curious – I had to
know what the door hid. It was rusty but opened
completely and noisily,.. and ….. nothing, there was
absolutely nothing inside the room! It was simply dark
and bare and there weren’t windows or doors or other
passages. I couldn’t believe it – a sense of
disappointment pervaded me.
I started to search
stubbornly for something, anything could be interesting,
and the other guys followed me. We didn’t find anything
before dark and by then, as our eyes had become
accustomed to the darkness, a plaintive light coming
from the corner opposite pointed at us. It lit a kind of
little altar, similar to those present in Greek temples,
with the inscription “1900”. I thought it couldn’t have
been there since that year; surely the school wasn’t
that old, someone must have put it there – I was certain
of that. Anyway it wasn’t important for our research. We
knew that the room was the starting point of a maze and
we had to, at all costs, find the secret passage. But
our efforts were vain; after two hours we gave up our
search, and we went back home, it had become too late.
That evening I rang up the guys and we decided all
together to concentrate on the altar, the only thing we
could conduct a research on. I was so excited, I love
discovering new things, so that night thinking of our
adventure, I fell asleep very late. I had a strange
dream, I was in the ‘dark room’ and I felt as if I was
flying. There was also a voice calling me repeatedly,
but I couldn’t understand where it came from. When I
woke up I thought that it could have been the effect of
my condition of excitement and expectation.
The next day we went down to the “dark room”. Several
times John told us to stop, convinced he had heard a
noise, like someone calling, coming from the depth of
the basement, or better still from the earth.
When we arrived in the room we went up to the altar and
I cleaned it from dust. But as soon as I touched it, I
felt strange, very strange. It was as if my body was
weightless. Then a very unexpected and curious thing
happened, my dream turned into reality – the same voice
I had heard in my dream was calling us again, and it
repeated over and over again “Travellers, so your
destiny has been revealed, you have heard the call of
‘Mystery’ . Don’t fear the men you have seen, now you
have to delete everything you know about this life”…..(to
be continued)
Author:
Fabrizio Conti Gennaro (V^A)
Teacher: Nancy Trifiletti, Liceo Scientifico, Patti (Messina),
Italy
March 2009
Up
Chapter 3
 As
soon as I heard this voice I saw my three friends were
disappearing. then I felt strange and finally I couldn't
see anything at all.
After some hours I woke up in a temple. I had my friends
just there, on the floor near me.
I called them and I asked them if they were ok. John,
Steve and Buck were terribly frightened and shouted "where
are we?" but unfortunately I didn't Know it so I
couldn't give them any answer. John stood up and he told
me off saying: "It 's your fault! We didn't want to
follow you! I hate you and your adventurous character!"
'' shut up,” I answered back “we have to look
for a solution" and while we were arguing, the voice
spoke again... and it told us that we had to find the
sacred altar's statue in three days' time or we would
die.
We were locked in a
room in the temple and on the wall we could see an
iscription saying: "Look
for the key" .
We looked each other, we were very very scared but we
started looking for it straight away. I started to look
on the shelf. John looked under the table and Steve
under the carpet. Buck saw the key on the wall, in a
tiny hole in the wall.. And he caught it with a smile on
his face."I got it!" And with this key he opened
the trapdoor that was on the floor.
They went down and they arrived in a dark corridor. Buck
started to cry. I tried to calm him down.
 I
could hear him but I couldn't see him. Suddenly we heard
a noise and, when Steve turned the light on, we saw Buck
was dead. He had been killed. An arrow had killed him. "OH
MY GOD! BUCK!" We were so disperate! But we had to
go on to stay alive. (to be continued..)
Authors:
Giada Signori, Marika Laino, Giada Antonaccio
Class 2E, Liceo Scientifico Sperimentale linguistico
Brocca
Follonica (Grosseto), Italy
Teacher:
Marta Bartolini
March 2009
Up
Chapter 4
 The
body was lying on the stone floor in an unnatural
position, with the arrow thrust into his back.
Steve was screaming, his face was white, his pupils were
small dots.
I tried to calm him down.
After a time which seemed eternal his scream became a
long but quiet cry.
I saw it all in slow-motion, the images were unfocused,
frayed, as if the world wanted to stop and throw us in
the deep space.
But nothing more happened, slowly my perception of the
reality returned normal.
I was scared but I was the first to talk:
"We need to move " I said
" Why? and where do you want to go? " Asked
Steve in tears.
"I don't know, but, sure, we can't stay
here and wait for our destiny!"
I shrouded the body who once was my friend with my coat
and I started to have a look around me.
The room was squarely, without any sign of human
work, as if it was made up
of a unique block of stone dug from the trapdoor who
caught us.
The walls were impenetrable, untouched from the race of
the time, no doors or windows, no way to escape.
Suddenly, without any warning, we heard a low whistle
that was coming from everywhere. My mind was
obfuscated.
I fell asleep so fast as I had never done before.
An hour, a day or a month later, a green light scared my
eyelids.
Green lines were grooving the north-wall, slowly,
from the ground to the ceiling in a dust cloud.
So unbelievably between the dust a tall, black-dressed
figure came.
He spoke with a grave voice, an inhuman and terrible
voice:
"Foreigners! This
is your last chance to go back!
This is the last temple before the gates of the infinity.
No human foot can pass it, stay away! If you want to
live, find what you know and don't come back "
Authors:
Marco Pesoli
Class 4 B, Liceo Scientifico Tecnologico, ITIS S.
Cannizzaro
Colleferro (Roma), Italy
Teacher:
Daniela Ianni
March 2009
Up
Chapter 5
John, Steve and I
were very scared, but we decided that we had to find a
way out of there. So, we began to investigate carefully
into the temple trying to find a solution that did not
lead to infinity, because then we would not be able to
leave.
Look! - John said - this seems a strange
geometric figure door, but is not made of any material.
Steve had the idea of investigating it to see what
secrets it hid. Certainly it could not be the door of
the Infinite, because we supposed it would be invisible.
Suddenly a strange cold invaded us, as if we were at the
North Pole. The cold was very intense and we did not
wear any appropriate clothing for it. So, with Buck’s
clothes we tried to make some gloves, but it was
impossible: because we couldn’t stop our hands from
shaking.
Immediately, we heard some strange noises. We did not
know whether we should go through the door. Finally, we
decided to walk through it, and another invisible door
prevented us from going through.
We saw some strange symbols appearing on the floor near
Buck’s body, who by that time had began to acquire human
form in a strange position.
Immediately we noticed that the symbols had the same
shape that the position in which Buck’s body was. We
decided to put Buck’s body on top of those symbols.
We were amazed, because suddenly a bright light appeared
and Buck began to stand up.
Then, the arrow in his back began to move off his body
without leaving any wound. The cold atmosphere was gone
and we started to feel a pleasant heat.
Buck looked at us and smiled as if nothing had happened,
and said:
"Now we have to follow the symbols to get to the
altar’s statue. We should not be confused, we have only
to find the truly shapes of: a rhomb, a triangle and a
square and the shape of an eye. We must continue in this
order.
"We were perplexed and asked him: How do you know all
this?
He answered with a very calm voice "I saw it while I
was sleeping. We must get moving, we have very little
time”
For the first time, Buck’s voice made us feel good.
Immediately, we saw how the arrow was lit and began to
fly throwing flashes of light, making it a magic key.
We tried to get to the key, and the nearer we got to it,
the most visible the door became. We had to try to open
in order to know what secret was hidden behind that
mysterious door.
John, who was the bravest, he used Buck’s coat to reach
the key. He picked up it and taking a deep breath; he
opened the door, then we saw a huge hall. This time it
was very light and an inner peace invaded us all.
We decided to go ahead. The place was packed what looked
like a maze of passages, each one of them was of a
different colour. There were footstprints in each, as if
other people had passed earlier through there. At the
end of each corridor we could see a bright door,each one
had a symbol that we had to follow.
Suddenly, we heard the same voice which I had dreamed
before becoming more intense, as if it were getting
closer to us. We stayed motionless for about five
minutes and then a multicoloured skull appeared from
nowhere. We ran looking for an exit. Then John saw a
door in the distance and we ran towards it hoping that
this could be the exit to the outside and also find a
statue like the one above. The statue had an emerald
embedded in the chest in which a riddle appeared.
Steve was attracted to it more than the rest of his
friends. He touched it and suddenly we heard a voice
that said: “Around here there is a gate, go through
it”.
The riddle said that we had to find a hieroglyph to
decipher what we had to do, but we already knew that:
Buck had revealed to us through his dream.
Later, we walked and we felt like someone was behind us:
It was the shadow of the inhuman voice again that said
to us
- As you have passed the first test now let’s go on
decoding the hieroglyph.
Who are you? - John said.
How long do we have? - Steve asked.
And I added: And if we do not pass the test what will
happen to us?
The voice replied:
- Do not ask silly questions and decode the
hieroglyph. Start searching it, you have only 24 hours,
15 minutes, 2 seconds.
The shadow disappeared and then we found the riddle
writing on the door. The room was entirely lit and Buck
said – Look! I have found the hieroglyph! We are going
to decipher it!
We have to hurry up. We have do not much time left.
We must concentrate on the hieroglyph - Steve said.
Maybe there is some clue that will help us to
decipher it - John replied, suddenly the light went
out and there was a beam that lit up the scroll with the
response.
The scroll said: "If you want to find out the secret
fear, you have to find the right door".
And when we said these words aloud the hieroglyph was
solved.
The door is opening- John shouted.
Stop! – said Steve- It could be a trap.
It could be output, we must take risks! – I
answered.
Come on Steve, if you stay here you could die –
John said.
Finally, we walked through. We entered into the next
room and saw an immense straight hallway with doors
listed on each side.
Let's go and see what is at the end! Maybe it is the
way out!- I screamed.
When we arrived, we found a key. We had passed another
test! But we did not know what door this key belongs too!
We tried every door.
Steve had the hunch that it was door number 1, so he
opened the door and we entered into a bright room. At
the end of it there was a shining light, as if we were
outdoors and not in the school’s cellar..
We approached slowly, and … surprise!, we had arrived to
a lush garden.
Now we had to discover the symbols that would lead us to
the statue.
Authors: Sara Alemán, Fernando Alías, Sarai Álvarez,
Sara Benítez, Alejandro Casañas, Jennifer Déniz, Melisa
González, Álvaro Hernández, Carla Lorenzo, Joel Martín,
Cristian Medina, Baudilia Medina, Naomi Montesdeoca,
Carla Pérez, Helio Pérez, Alberto Ramos, Jeremías Ruiz,
Nandini Santana, César Santiago, Raquel Alemán, Keila
Carril, Aránzazu Déniz, Rita Falcón, Yaritza Garcia,
Kevin González, Zuleima Henríquez, Marco Hernández,
Beatriz Jiménez, Paula Jiménez, Cynthia Medina, Támbara
Moreno, Amanda Rivero, Eric Rodríguez, Joel Salazar,
Airan Santos, Laura Sosa, Ángel Alemán, Andrea Almeida,
David Báez, Yasmina Cabrera, Rubén Falcón, Noemí Falcón,
Pablo Falcón, Juan José García, Néstor González, Fátima
González, Josué González, Elizabeth Granado, Verónica
Guerra, Alessandra Mateos, Airam Medina, Kevin Moreno,
Zuleima Navarro, Agoney Ponce, Mª Dolores Rodríguez,
Jessica Rodríguez, Omar Rodríguez, Estíbaliz Santana,
Israel Suárez, Jonathan Vega, Yumara Ventura, Yesenia
Acosta, Andrea Armas, Óscar Artiles, Cristiam Castro,
Paula Dávila, Eva Dominguíez, Brenda Espino, Iván
García, Nereida González, Francisco González, Karen
Guerra, Javier Marrero, Yaiza Medina, Samuel Medina,
Sergio Montesdeoca, Verónica Pérez, Miriam Rodríguez
Yumara Rodríguez, Aramis Ruíz, Carlos Sánchez, Cristian
Santana, Saray Santana, Lorena Vetter and Tatiana Yánez.
Illustrated by Noemí Falcón and Fátima González
Teachers: Juani Cabrera and Carmen Rosa Hernández
CEIP La Goleta (Arucas) Gran Canaria, Spain.
April 2009
Up
Chapter 6
The room was light
and in the middle of the garden stood a gigantic tree
with a lot of keys on it. To the right there were six
tall trees with hammocks between them. The garden was
big. You could not see where it ended and there was
plants and grass which was not kept nicely. Around the
garden there was a big brick wall. We stood in front of
the key tree and the road to it was coated with a kind
of paving stone on which there was engraved some signs.
Some of them were shining and we could see that it said
a message. Steve started to run towards the tree but the
rest of us shouted that he shouldn’t because the floor
had started to fall apart. He looked back and at the
same moment he hit the tree and fell backwards and down
into a hole where the floor used to be. We could see he
was whirled around but there were also plenty of iron
chips which were whirled around with him and they
entered his skin. Steve screamed from pain and gradually
he was covered with iron. We looked in horror while we
covered our ears.
Suddenly he was kind of send upwards from the whirl wind
and landed on the grass next to us. Steve had become
half man, half robot – a Steveminator. His one eye was
his normal blue eye, the other was shining red. He
looked up and down himself in an investigating way and
the same did we. We could see Steve get angry. His one
eye shined sharper and sharper red, he clenched his
fists and when he said something his voice sounded
metallic and resounding. “We have to get out of here,
and we have to do it now. We have to get out so I can
get normal again. Let’s get hold of that key”. We all
looked at the key tree. The only way of getting to the
tree was by skipping. All those paving store whereupon
there were scratched some signs stood as solitary posts.
Between the posts there was nothing – absolutely nothing.
We looked at the signs and slowly we started to
recognize the signs. They looked like the signs the
Vikings used – runic letters as we just have heard about
in the subject history. But in which order should we
jump?
Steve’s metallic voice sounded again. “Let me jump to
the tree. I have already fallen down once so nothing
much can happen to me anymore”. The rest of us didn’t
protest much but we still had to find out how Steve had
to jump so that no more paving stones would disappear
into the deep nothing. “Try to look at the tree trunk”,
shouted Buck suddenly. “Doesn’t it look like there is
something written on it?” We all looked over at it
and quite correct. It really looked like it said
something. Steve adjusted his red eye so he could read
it. “It is a riddle”, he said. Steve read out
loud: “Solve this riddle and you will get the key to
freedom and eternity”. “Is the eternity freedom?”
asked Buck. We shook our shoulders. We didn’t know. We
could only hope that we could solve the riddle so that
we could come home.
Steve read on:
“
What tree grows from down the middle of the Earth and
into the sky? What tree has roots in all the world’s
wisdom and shrewdness? What tree spreads all over the
world?"
We looked at each
other – the helplessness was to be read in our eyes.
Steve read it one more time. We were completely quiet.
It couldn’t be the key tree because it was not so tall.
Suddenly Buck exclaimed: “I know it! The signs are
runic so it must have something to do with Vikings and
they believed that there was a gigantic ash tree in the
middle of Asgaard where the Gods lived. If only I could
remember what the name is”. We called out all sorts
of names we could remember from the lessons which had
something to do with Vikings, but nothing happened. “I
have it!” exclaimed Buck suddenly and with his arms
lifted out to each side, Buck called “YGGDRASIL!” We
stood quiet, but nothing happened. We don’t know how
long time passed, it felt like hours but suddenly a weak
ringing started to sound which became more and more
powerful. It was the keys from the key tree which slowly
had begun to float around the tree. They became more and
more and flew faster and faster around the tree. All of
a sudden all the keys flew out to all sides except one –
it landed in front of Buck. He picked it up and right
away the statue with the green emerald appeared next to
us.
Buck put the key in place and a door was opened behind
us. We walked cautiously there. We could feel coldness
from the other side but still we walked through and into
the cold room. Four doors were in front of us in the
room. Clear and distinct the voice from before sounded.
It said that we could only walk one person through each
door. Three of the doors would lead back to the school.
One of the doors would lead to eternity. We looked at
each other silently. Wished we never had walked down
into that damned basement. Without words we took each
other’s hands and embraced each other. None of us knew
who would come back to the school – and who would end up
in eternity. Slowly we placed each one of us in front of
a door, took a deep breath. Buck counted to three and
with hesitating steps we each entered a door. Suddenly
we were in the school’s toilet. The only one missing was
Buck. We embraced each other while we cried over the
loss of Buck. Steve was back to normal again and with
loud shouting we left the toilet. We all agreed that we
would never enter the school’s basement again.
Authors:
5th grade students - Jessica M. Grigorian, Pernille M.
Hansen, Sarah F. Jensen, Karoline B. Larsen, Anna L.
Niemann, Simone F. Saltoft, Ahmed H. Ahmad, Rawesh
Hassani, Jihad Ismail, Johannes S. Jensen, Joakim Jürs,
Peter B. Larsen, Jonas Munk, Lucas J. Maaloee, Holger E.
H. Nielsen, Lukas Pedersen, Jeppe Zingg, Nicoline Hjorth
School: Herfoelge School, Denmark
Teacher: Helene Tind
Drawing: Freja M. L. Hansen, Freja N. H. Leer, Lasse F.
S. Madsen
June 2009
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