Hello everybody out there! Chapter 9 is a bit longer than the others, I hope you enjoy it! Please tell me what you think!
Enoch looked at the clock for the tenth time in the last thirty minutes. Two hours before the bomb would hit their home and would burn it down to ashes. Miss Avocet had still not arrived and slowly but surely Enoch became nervous. That's why Enoch was currently going through Miss Peregrine's study. He felt like an intruder. It was her, not him, who should be standing here right now. Well, to be precise if she would be in the position to be here right now everything would be fine.
Enoch pulled open the drawers of his headmistress' desk. They were as neatly organized as he had expected. He found letters, pictures and jewelry he had never seen her wearing. Also, there were several things he did not recognized. Those must be objects from the future he mused and quickly put them back as not destroy them. He tried to spend as little time as possible snooping in her personal belongings. He was simply looking for her money and their passports. He closed the drawer he had just looked through and was surprised to find the lowest one locked. For a moment he contemplated using pure force but decided against it. He did not want to destroy her antique interior.
He looked around. Where could she have hidden the key? Basically the key could be anywhere. He let his eyes wander through the room. There were large book shelves attorning the walls. Beautiful art decorated the remaining spaces. Actually, her office was overflowing with pictures, books and antique furniture. Everywhere were vases, glass and what looked to him like nugatory odds and ends but probably all had a history and had a high emotional value to Miss Peregrine. The whole room looked like a museum that displayed the life of Miss Alma Lefay Peregrine. And where would this clever and canny woman hide a key that was potentially essential for the wellbeing of her beloved children? She had to make sure that in case of an emergency the key was well hidden so that it could be found by no one intruding their home but not too well so that he wouldn't be able to locate it. There had to be a clue somewhere.
The clue had to have a connection to them. He scanned the room again looking for connections to her children. There was a large picture on the wall in a beautiful golden frame with little blue diamonds. It was their group picture that had been taken about one year ago. It showed each of their peculiarities. Miss Peregrine was standing next to her children looking proud like any mother should when she regraded her children.
Carefully Enoch looked behind the frame but knowing that their headmistress would not have been so foolish as to choose such a simple hiding place. Of course not. Feeling a little disappointed anyway he took a closer look at the picture. Maybe there was clue hidden in the picture. After several minutes he had to admit that probably the picture was just that-a picture without any hidden clues. He sighed and sat down behind her desk on her admittedly quite comfy chair. Where was the damn key?!
For a moment he considered the case that the key was nowhere in this room or that the content of the drawer was completely irrelevant. He quickly dismissed this thought. It had to mean something.
Then he spotted something on the top of one of the book shelves. It was a simple looking box. Normally he would have ignored it but now he climbed on a chair and pulled it down. It was quite heavy. Inside were piles and piles of childish pictures and handicraft work. It were all the things they had ever made for their ymbryne. She had kept it all in this box. Suddenly he could imagine her sitting behind her desk, the box on her desk looking through its content remember the joy and love she felt when she had been given those works. He took a closer look at the uppermost picture. A lump formed in his throat when he realized that it was a picture he had drawn just after he had arrived at this home several years before the loop had been created. The ymbryne he had been living with before had been very old and had not been able to handle a grumpy and moody boy who on several occasions had not hesitated to raise an entire grave yard. Thinking back he felt sorry for being so difficult. Miss Peregrine of course had not accepted any disobedience. In the early years she had made every child that had committed a wrongdoing draw a picture of their act of disobedience as an apology. He had drawn this picture as an apology after he had broken into her study. He remembered that he had looked for money too. He had wanted to leave the island. Of course she had caught him. She had been very angry and for the first time in his life he had been scared. But he had not been scared of her, he had been scared of being abandoned by her. After he had apologized with this picture he and her had had an intensive talk that had ended with him lying across her lap crying his eyes out. He had never felt the urge to leave the island again. It felt as if it had only been yesterday.
He took a closer look at the picture. There was him in Miss Peregrine's office just like he was now. And there was something underneath his feet. Or at least it looked as if it was underneath his feet. Unfortunately his young self had not been very talented at drawing pictures with the right perspective and proportions. He looked closer and suddenly his breath caught. Could it be? There underneath his feet he had drawn a…key! He could not remember this particular detail but apparently snooping through her personal belongings he had found a key. Quickly he slid off the chair and onto his knees. With his hands he felt for something different on the floor that indicated a hidden concealment. The tips of his fingers brushed against a gap between two floor boards that was unusually big. He used his finger nails to move the floor board slightly. Jackpot! With some difficulties he managed to loosen the floor board until the board could be taken out. Thank the bird! He had no idea how he had managed to find the key as a young boy but he was unbelievably grateful for it now.
Quickly he grabbed into the hole and felt for any hidden objects and there in the farthest corner lay the key! He grabbed it and put the board back. Then he hurried back to the desk. The key fit perfectly into the hole! He pulled open the drawer and there was everything he had been looking for. In a small bag with the label 'for emergency' was enough money and their twelve passports. He quickly took it out, locked the drawer and hit the key again. He then hurried out of the room. He had spent enough time disregarding her privacy.