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The houses were tall and all set back from the pavement, some with front gardens so large that there were trees in the middle of the lawns. Buddy lost count of the house numbers but it didn’t matter because, when they reached it, it was obvious which house was number 56.

Tall, brick gateposts guarded the two entrances to the semi-circular drive but there was only one gate and that was half-open and hanging off its hinges. The other entrance looked like a barricade – with wooden posts and tangles of barbed wire. There was a tall, straggly hedge that hid the garden and the lower part of the house but what Buddy could see made the skin crawl on the back of his neck. The windows were all boarded up as if what was inside was too terrible to see, or as if someone had tried to stop something horrible from getting out.

Buddy had known that Julius would dare him to go up to the front door and he had made up his mind to say no, but at the last minute he changed his mind. Julius was right: it was only an old house, even if some people had died there. So what – people must have died in almost every old house in the town; that didn’t make them scary. It was just an ordinary old house and he had to prove it to himself – if not he’d go on being scared by stupid things like ghosts. He’d walk right up to the front door. There was nothing to be afraid of. He just had to stop acting like a kid; he was nearly fourteen, after all. It was ridiculous all this stuff about ghosts and death. He had to stop it. If he walked up to the front door and stood there while he counted to ten – no, twenty – it would be like a victory and all his fears would stop for ever.

He crossed the lawn and walked softly up the gravel path up to the front-door steps. The steps were worn in the middle from all the people who had climbed them, including them – the murder victims! Buddy got to the top step and stared at the front door. There was an old door-knocker in the middle and on either side of it two planks had been nailed lengthways, presumably to cover broken glass panels. Half way down was a letter box. He was just about to push it open and peer through when there was a noise behind him.

He whirled around to see Julius and Charmian standing at the bottom of the steps. “You scared me, you idiots! What’re you doing, sneaking up on me like that?” “Coming to look for ourselves,” Julius explained in a loud voice. “Sssh! I’m going to look through the letter box.”

As Buddy turned back to the door, Julius skipped up the steps and banged the door knocker. “Anyone home?” he shouted. Buddy and Charmian stooped to look through the letter-box. Buddy bent down just as she pushed open the flap. Through the large slit they saw a flickering candle and a face staring back at them. Charmian screamed and together they fled down the steps in terror.

📚 Part 1: Retrieval (12 questions)

✏️ Part 2: Inference and Part 3: Vocabulary & Grammar

Inference (5 questions)

Vocabulary & Grammar (10 questions)