Max Chandler
Hour 3
Short story

The Johnsons

“Honey!” said Harry.
Harry fumbled as he struggled to open the door with his foot.
“Honey!” repeated Harry, his arms full with boxes labeled “Billy/Susie's room”. His flawless wife Karen came to his help and swung the new bone white front door open as Harry took another shaky step towards the brand new, polished, hardwood stairs. Harry jumped a little to re-adjust his grip on the boxes. A cool breeze came in and Harry’s hat adjusted a bit to the left. Running at top speed, Susie and Billy came shooting down the stairs, laughing happily and passing a little china doll with a perfect plastic face that was atop a chair sitting in front of a tea table in the mid-landing of the staircase.
“Billy stop setting such an example for your younger sister and help me with these boxes. After all, you should start using those muscles if you want to be big and strong one day!” Harry said with a smile. Billy finished the stairs with a big leap and landed with a small thud as he tried to make himself sound a tad bit bigger by stomping his feet when he landed. He quickly ran back out to the shiney ‘52 Corvette that Harry had just purchased on credit because of his raise at his new job as a manager for his company.
“Dad the boxes are almost gone, theres only you and mama's room boxes now” , said Billy. Susie wandered a bit aimlessly around the house as she was a bit too small to help with the un-packing. She walked softly toward the stairs as they turned into concrete at the steps to the basement. She continued down the now cold, concrete stairs as she whistled a song she learned in school about safety. In her own world, Susie touches the cold concrete floor of her basement and looks up to realize where she was, glancing up slowly with caution as she saw a door in the wall. The door was a big metal door with an eye slot to see who was on the other side. Scared, Susie turns her head quickly back towards the stairs.
“Knock knock”. Susie gave a little sheepish peep as she stopped dead in her tracks. She was almost certain that the knocking came from the door she just saw, but then again she also heard her father talking to a new voice upstairs. Maybe the knocking had just been from a neighbor or perhaps Billy got accidentally locked out of the house and knocked on the door. Regardless of what the source of the sound was, she deemed it wise to escape the view of the eery door at once and scrambled back up the concrete stairs onto the welcoming hardwood floors her father, Harry had so specifically searched for.
Sure enough, the next door neighbor Steven had come by with his wife Veronica to welcome the Johnsons to the cul de sac. Susie walked out into the living room and sat by her Brother and played with her toys that her father had so kindly unpacked, for he knew how his daughter always needed to be entertained with something. “Thank you so much for the information Steven, we appreciate it! And be sure to ring us up and give fair warning before dropping another one of Veronicas delicious pies over! I don’t know if Billy will even finish his grean beans, let alone take a slice of such a delicious pie!”
Harry walked back in the door with a smile and shut the door. Then his face grew darker and Karen saw the look on Harry’s face. “Kids why don’t you go upstairs and help each other unpack” , she said.
“No problem mom! Sure thing, come along Susie lets go unpack!” said Bobby. “Honey what’s that look you’ve got there on your face? its not the chipper expression you usually sport”, said Karen as the kids raced up the stairs. “Dear. Steven just told me a few things about this community, Where it came from, who lived in it, and so forth.” , Harry said with a smug look. “Well yes dear of course. We knew there would be a story to any house that we decided on. That was part of what we were excited about remember?”, said Karen. “Honey what did he tell you?”, asked Karen with a