The Advent Calendar Read Online Free

Megs stumbled into the room, looking rather dishevelled but cheerful. ‘Morning, darling. Morning, idiot brother. Time to get ready to go. Hairdresser’s in ten minutes.’
    At that very moment, the doorbell rang very loudly several times. Alice opened it on her way upstairs. Four of Sam’s mates stumbled in dressed in Chelsea colours. It was Saturday and a lunchtime kick-off. They swept through the house like a tornado and when they left, moments later, Sam was with them, washed, scrubbed (well, almost) and dressed in football shirt, scarf and woolly hat. Alice saw him from the bathroom window wedged into the back seat of his friend’s car clutching a large mug of coffee and blinking his way into the day. Just as they pulled away, the house phone rang. Alice could tell from the way Megs spoke that it was Josie, Sam’s ex. Megs liked Josie. So did Alice – though they both thought she was much too nice for Sam.
    ‘You’ve missed him by a whisker, my love, sorry. Football. Early game, I think. I would have given him your message but I didn’t see him last night, you see. I’ll write him a note. Yea, you too. Have a good weekend. Bye.’
    Megs had a good look at the calendar when she put the phone down. ‘Strange-looking thing. What does it do? No chocolate? Never mind, Alice. Want me to buy you another? Not to worry then.’
    That was it for the rest of the day really. Hairdresser’s. Visit to grandparents over in Luton. Saturday night telly. Alice had left all her friends behind when she moved house, so there wasn’t much to do at weekends. The calendar was, well, just a bit too strange to talk to your mother about, wasn’t it? Or your friends for that matter. Or anyone really. From time to time, in the advert breaks or in the middle of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? she glanced over at the wall. Once, when Megs was out of the room, she turned out the lights and the little candle in the open door gave out light as if it was real, which of course it couldn’t be. Her mum hardly noticed it after the initial fuss. Alice saw this was a Two Bars of Dairy Milk Saturday. She wasn’t sure, but she thought Saturdays were probably the very worst days for Megs. Whenever Alice asked how she was, Megs would just smile and pretend.
    Sunday mornings were always lazy, do-nothing, please-yourself times. For Megs and Sam, that normally meant sleeping in (if Sam was around at all). But Alice couldn’t sleep past eight o’clock today. Her dreams were full of strange events in different worlds. She could hear Sam’s snoring through the living-room door. He was here then and taking over the front room again. Softly she pushed open the door and tiptoed into the room. She went first to the calendar and her heart skipped a beat. She could just see it by the light of the tiny candle in the first window. A second door had appeared in the bottom half of the calendar. She touched it with her fingertips: it was icy cold and seemed to be made out of tiny strips of steel welded together. She picked at the edges with her fingers but again there was no way of opening it.
    Half in excitement, half in fear Alice punched in the code: nine, colon, two. She closed her eyes and braced herself for the journey back to the strange city. Nothing happened. She opened one eye. Everything in the room was still the same. She opened both eyes, looked around and saw Sam’s phone spilling out of the pocket of his jeans.
    Like a hobbit stealing treasure from a sleeping dragon, Alice crept over to Sam without making a sound. She stretched out her hand, grabbed the phone and flipped open the lid. Message waiting. That sound she thought was snoring – well, never mind. Yeucch. She pressed the buttons and brought up the message: two, colon, four – just the same as yesterday. Different number.
    Alice held the phone close to the bottom of the calendar to see better and pressed the first two buttons. Again, they felt large and important, like the combination of