Enchanting World of Garden Irene McGeeny Read Online Free Page A

Peter.
    â€œCome on and I’ll show you,” was the only answer that seemed fit to Garden Irene by this time. She pulled her key with the gold ballerina key chain out of her backpack. She also had another key on a rabbit’s foot key chain.
    Now Peter was getting a bit anxious. “Okay. You have two keys. Which one is for this castle or whatever it is?” he asked as he rolled his eyes.
    â€œI have to use both keys or I can’t get inside,” she answered.
    Garden Irene walked to her front door, put one key into the doorknob and one key into the bolt lock above it. Simultaneously she turned them, and the door opened. Peter swallowed hard, as though he was about to discover something pertinent to his case.
    She pushed the door open, stepped inside, and turned to invite Peter, only to be stopped by his question.
    â€œGarden Irene, wait! Are you sure your parents won’t mind?”
    â€œOf course they will mind!” she insisted. “They told me not to tell anyone about this.”
    â€œDon’t tell anyone about what?” he almost yelled.
    â€œCome on. It’s too late to worry about anything anymore. We’re here, so let’s make the best of it,” she quickly answered. “I’ll just have to hope that my parents understand how you are, and how I did not have any choice but to show you.”

CHAPTER
    7
    Peter stepped into what he thought would be a dollhouse-sized home, but to his surprise, he entered a mud-room that was lined with coat closets, plus two single doors and one double set of doors.
    Garden Irene said, “This is where we leave our shoes or boots and hang our coats before we go down.”
    Now Peter was even more confused.
    â€œWatch, Peter,” she said. She pushed a large button located to the right of the double doors, and magically, the doors opened as if they were in a department store and an elevator was ready to pick up the next load of shoppers.
    â€œThis is how we get to my underground castle. The door to the right,” she explained, “is a bathroom in case anyone is outside and needs to use it. Come on, Peter, let’s go down.”
    He stood very still for a few seconds, trying to picture what Garden Irene had said in his head. He then followed her into the carpeted elevator.
    â€œThe other single door,” she continued, “has a set of steps that my grand-daddy built in case there is a power outage and the elevator won’t work.”
    She pushed a button and the double doors closed. Peter could tell by the feeling in his stomach that the elevator was descending. After traveling about three flights down, the elevator came to an abrupt stop, and the doors opened.
    Peter stood with his mouth hanging open at what even his wildest imagination could never have dreamed. Before him lay lakes and streams, and stalactites hanging from the roof with teeth ready to bite. He heard the flow of a fabulous waterfall, and saw the vastness of the underground cave. But most intriguing of all was the monstrous castle that stood in the background; it left him absolutely speechless.
    She stepped very confidently down the path to the castle. It was a long, brown walkway with a short wall of rocks on both sides except when they crossed the bridge to get over a small lake. Peter, on the other hand, hadn’t moved since he had stepped out of the elevator.
    â€œCome on, Peter,” Garden Irene called to him. “There’s so much that I want to show you, but we don’t have a lot of time.”
    â€œTime . . .” Peter mumbled. “Oh, yeah, time.”
    â€œThere are only certain places that you’ll see trees and plant life because there aren’t many crevices for the sun to shine through. You see, we’re in a valley, so the sun will show its light only once in a while,” she said very excitedly.
    As they began their trek toward the castle, Peter saw more and more teeth-like protrusions