When Arthur awoke the next morning, the first thing he noticed was that the cat wasn’t anywhere to be found. Guessing it probably meant that he was still ‘riddling’ with the big ginger next door, and having caught wind that Aunty M was readying a long list of things for him to do, he’d fled upstairs to the attic to try and delay the inevitable.
Hiding in a part of the room that couldn’t be seen from the stairs, he placed the box on the floor in front of him and sat staring at it.
‘You know, I bet you turn out to be a whole lot of nothing,’ he said, finally picking it up. The longer he gazed at it, the more foolish he started to feel for wantingto believe that it could be anything more than just some ordinary little box. Feeling annoyed with himself, he was about to throw it in a drawer but stopped.
No, wait! What about everything that has already happened?… It can’t all be coincidental, can it? That weird white light; my hands; suddenly being able to talk to the cat; the hole in the tracks; the fish; the box; the reports of the men looking for it.
‘They’ve all got to be connected somehow. But how?’ he asked out loud.
‘You do know, right, that talking to yourself is the first sign of madness?’ meowed the cat, strolling into the room at that moment.
‘Ha ha, where’ve you been?’
‘Busy solving the greatest riddle that never actually was.’
‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’
‘You’ll see when I tell you the answer. Fluffy and I have solved it. Well, it was more me than Fluffy. I’m sure even he would agree.’
‘So?’
‘Well, it was really just staring us right in the whiskers the whole time.’
‘Great, but I’ve been staring at it all morning, and I didn’t feel it staring at my whiskers.’
‘That’s because you’ve been looking without really looking.’
Arthur rolled his eyes. ‘Brilliant! OK, and…?’
‘Hmm?’ asked the cat, distracted by a small beetle scurrying across the floor.
‘C’mon, what’s the answer?’
‘Oh, that. Just say “open” three times.’
‘What—that’s it?!’
‘I told you it was simple.’
‘Just a bit!’ Could it really be so simple? he wondered, shaking his head. ‘Well, I guess we should try it, at least.’
‘Yep, right—off you go then!’ said the cat, forgetting about the insect all of a sudden, and beating a hasty retreat towards the stairs.