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or at least anxious to know where such precious things were. Her behaviour now suggested she didn’t know what had been in the chest. But if she hadn’t known, it didn’t really work as a set-up, did it?
    Why would she have pretended there was no key, but had the key and put it out for a chest whose contents she honestly didn’t know about? It was all very strange. The more he considered it, the more he thought Granny P genuinely had been as excited as him – that maybe she hadn’t known about the key. But how was that possible?
    Someone
had put the key on the table.
    Freddie didn’t understand how it was possible, but he was definitely starting to have some doubts about whether Granny P had been involved. He decided that he would ‘find’ the diaries again. But he felt the weight of something not very nice pressing down in his mind. Even then he would be lying to Granny P. And he didn’t feel quite so angry any more.
    He tried to tell himself that it would be just the same for Granny P if he ‘found’ them now, after their tea break. But of course he knew it wasn’t.

6
On the table

    When the three of them went back up, Freddie got out the attic key. He had been a bit nervous that he’d produce the wrong one and get found out, so he’d been reciting to himself
left is chest, right is attic
all the way up the stairs to be sure he didn’t get flustered and forget.
    It was Granny P that spotted them first.
    The diaries were on the table – neatly stacked in the middle.
    Freddie was genuinely dumbfounded.
    He had hidden them in the far gable, quite far back and well out of sight; he had been the last person in the attic; and he had the only key. Even if there was a duplicate which Granny P had not let on about, Freddie had been with her and Dad the whole time since they had come down from the attic.
    The diaries were not there when they left. No one had been back up. And they were there now.
    Granny P was ecstatic about the new find. And so was Dad.
    â€˜Freddie, come here, this is really something,’ said Dad.
    â€˜To think,’ said Granny P, ‘we were so fixated on that silly chest that we missed what you were sorting through – and that you’d found these with the newspapers. Freddie – you’ve found something truly special! I’m so sorry we didn’t notice straight away. Didn’t you realise what they were?’
    By now Freddie was so confused that he had a genuine look of bewilderment about him – he hadno need to pretend anything. He was truly baffled. Search as he might through every possibility, he simply couldn’t find any rational explanation for how those diaries had ended up on the table.
    â€˜But they weren’t here. There was nothing on the table before.’
    â€˜Oh, Freddie,’ said Dad, ruffling his hair, ‘you must have been away with the fairies when you were looking at those newspapers, and totally missed the diaries sitting under them.’
    â€˜I didn’t miss them. They weren’t here,’ repeated Freddie, and then quietly again to himself. ‘I
know
they weren’t here.’
    â€˜Oh come on, Freddie, they didn’t just appear out of nowhere. We’re not falling for that one. Nice try.’
    Freddie wanted to protest, but he knew there was no point. He couldn’t explain it, and even if he tried he’d have to admit his part in finding and hiding the diaries. It would just have to be another thing between them that he let go.
    * * *
    Well, of course, once the diaries were discovered, especially because Dad was at home, the attic wasabandoned for the day and they all sat round the dining room table poring over them together.
    And so Freddie did find out the answers to his questions. The diaries belonged to Great-Great-Great-Grandpa Walter Seymour McCormack. They were more than 150 years old, which in itself was quite astonishing. They detailed