Unseen Passage for Class 3 - Passage 02

Eddie does not like cleaning, but over the past few days, he has had to stuff his old toys into garbage bags and the new ones into boxes. He tossed out old, dried-up Silly Putty, puzzles he once glued together, plush animals and more. Eddie’s family is about to move to a new house, and they need their home clean for the next family who will live in it.

“Won’t they want our stuff?” Eddie asked his mother. “Who wouldn’t want toys?”

Eddie followed his mother to the foot of the rickety ladder that led to the attic. Eddie’s father was already up there, looking through boxes of old photographs.

“One step at a time, please. This ladder is older than me,” Eddie’s mother warned.

Eddie carefully climbed up the ladder. At the top, Eddie was surprised to find a big, dark and dusty room. The ceiling was slanted, and the floor was made of rows of wooden planks with strange pink fluff in between the planks.

“You’ll have to walk on the wooden beams,” Eddie’s father said from deep in the room. “The pink stuff between the beams is called insulation. If you step on that, you’ll fall through the floor and wind up in the kitchen!”

With the help of his mother, Eddie balanced on a wooden beam and slowly walked through the attic. He reached his father, who handed Eddie a small and dusty picture. It did not have much color left, but showed a young boy playing baseball in his backyard.

“Is this me when I was younger?” Eddie asked.

“That is me, Eddie, when I was your age,” his father replied. “I found it in one of these old boxes.”

“Look, here’s one of me,” Eddie’s mother said, handing Eddie another photograph.

This picture showed a young girl playing hopscotch on a sidewalk. Eddie put the two pictures side by side on the wooden beam he was balanced on.

“You guys were kids?” Eddie asked.

“We weren’t born this old,” Eddie’s mother said, laughing.

Eddie looked at the pictures some more. He had never seen his dad or mom playing baseball or hopscotch or other games. They were always working, cooking, cleaning, driving and doing other adult things. It was hard to imagine them as kids playing in their backyards.

Eddie followed his mother to the corner of their attic where a dusty window was notched into the wall. Looking out, Eddie could see his back yard with a swing set, a tiny tricycle and a machine that made giant bubbles. Eddie had been playing with those toys for as long as he could remember.

“Soon, a new family is going to make this house their own,” Eddie’s mother whispered from over Eddie’s shoulder. “And we’re going to have a new yard to make our own, too.”

Eddie looked back out the dusty window. He liked the swing set, and he did have a lot of fun in that back yard, but he was not a little kid anymore. At the new house, he would be going to a new school. He wanted to try out for the school soccer team and maybe join the drama club. Maybe it was a good time to move after all.

Eddie and his parents finished cleaning the attic and climbed down the old ladder, into their now almost-empty house. Eddie picked up their camera, took it to his parents and said, “Mom, Dad, could you take a picture of me playing in our back yard?”