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As quickly as possible they made their way back to
the main road and then to the park gate. It was never
locked. A high hedge ran along the edge of the park
between them and the houses. The other side of the park
was on a hill. They found a bench that looked onto the
houses.
"Any idea which one it was?" Michael asked.
"Not really. At a guess, maybe that one."
She pointed to the largest house, at the end of the
lane.
Michael interrupted her. "What's that?"
He was staring at the end house, and Lea tried to follow
his gaze. At first she saw nothing. Then she noticed
a very faint green glow pulsing once a second in one
of the ground floor windows. It pulsed a few times,
stopped, pulsed some more, and then stopped again.
"What is it?"
"Beats me," Michael admitted. "Morse
code?"
"I didn't know you knew Morse."
"We learned it in Boy Scouts but I don't know
if I'd still remember it."
Michael watched carefully. "L," he translated.
"I. I. S. Six dashes. Six dashes? That doesn't
mean anything."
Suddenly there was a low humming, buzzing kind of sound
and the whole park seemed to flicker and light up. They
both leaped to their feet.
"What's that!?" Lea shrieked but Michael
was already laughing. The power company had chosen that
moment to turn the lights back on. Sodium streetlamps
from the nearby road sprang back to life and spilled
yellow light into the park. Lights in the houses came
back on, and shone into the gardens. Their dark-adjusted
eyes had made everything seem much brighter than it
really was.
"I'm sorry," Lea said. "Caught me off
guard."
Michael ignored her, and spoke in an urgent whisper.
"Look at the house!"
She could already hear the sound. It was a strange
whining noise that rose and fell in volume and frequency.
From the window of the same house they had studied before,
a brilliant white light flashed in accompaniment. It
flashed very bright and they saw the panes of glass
in the windows blow out in sparkling shards. A moment
later the sound of the breaking glass reached them.
"What is this?" Michael murmured.
"Who lives there? Wish we'd thought to get the
house number."
"Six," Michael said.
"You sure?"
He nodded. "I think we should get going. It would
be nice to take a look but we'll both get into trouble
for being out late."
"Want to take another snoop tomorrow night?"
"Definitely."
As they began to walk towards the gate a fork of lightening
hit a tree in the other side of the park. The clap of
thunder mixed with the sound of the tree exploding,
into a deafening bang. Small shards of wood flew in
every direction.
Michael and Lea looked at each other, amazed, wondering
what to do. The tree was ablaze as if someone had doused
it with fuel. The lightening had split the main trunk
in two and half the tree had blown over with the impact.
Now the second half fell on top of the first, and the
blaze seemed to burst with renewed vigour.
Lea shrugged. "Nothing we can do," she said
sadly. "Poor tree. That fire isn't going out any
time soon."
As if on cue the rain started to fall in a thick curtain
of heavy droplets that hit the road so hard they bounced
up again a foot into the air.
"Dammit!" Lea shouted, pulling her coat over
her head. They began to run.
Michael was looking over his shoulder. "At least
it put the fire out."
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