The haunted house

The haunted house was at the end of the Kelso Avenue. The street at the end had a slight curve in it. My friend Joseph and I would look at it on our way to the woods through the years. It was mostly covered with ten-foot hedges that surrounded the house. We never ventured through the tall hedges. We lived only a block away. The story went that the couple who lived there married very young. After the husband died a sudden death the wife went half mad, just walked out of the house, and locked the door-never to return. Everything in the house was left at that hour; the shades were all drawn. It was a good size house, with four bedrooms, an attic and a basement. What stood out in our minds were the large, dark green hedges that circled the house in a ghostly fashion. The neighbor across the street, Mr. Ives, always trimmed the overhang of the hedges off the sidewalk. I got small jobs cutting lawns to make a few bucks here and there through the neighborhood. It meant a lot to a nine year old. A few years later I got curious and went through the hedges, where everything was dead except for the locusts. I walked around the tall weeds to the front porch, every step on the wood made an eerie crack. All the shades were drawn, and the door locked tight. On my way out, I noticed a few basement windows through the tall weeds. As I got closer, I could see they were rotted with age. I gave one a little push and I realized that with the right tool I could open it. The next day I told Joseph, and asked him if he would be interested in getting into the haunted house with me early in the morning. He agreed. I got a small crowbar and we planned to meet in his backyard at 6am, 6:00 came, but there was no Joseph. So I called him, “Joe-e-e-ey”. He woke up and came downstairs and joined me in the yard. Off we went, with crowbar in hand, to the haunted house. Before we walked through the small opening of the hedges, we looked around to make sure nobody was watching us. Little did we know, across the street Mr. Ives was watching us from his dining room window; he was getting ready for work. We got the window open without much trouble. I never forgot the first look into the basement tubs, which were rotted with cloths; the stopper was never taken out. (Dali where are you-your best masterpiece is yet to be painted!) Joseph held the window for me as I lowered myself down onto the moss tubs. We slowly made our way through the dim, smelly, cobwebbed basement to the steps leading upstairs.....