Excerpt: Finders, Keepers

From Chapter Two: 'The Cruft'

The second the door was open enough for Will’s scabbed elbows and thin frame to slide through, he was inside the house; looking around with a wide open mouth and eyes staring at the most amazing collection of odds, ends, memorabilia, and knick-knacks he’d ever seen. One room off to the left of the foyer was a library, but where there should have been rows and rows of books into the shelves built into the walls, there were clocks.
Clocks and clocks and ever more clocks were the only thing besides a large Persian rug in the center of the room, and a small end table with even more clocks on it. Alarm clocks, cuckoo clocks, a pair of identical grandfather clocks, one of which worked and the other was stuck at 11:52. They were not particularly beautiful taken one at a time, but the entire room was breathtaking. Each of the working clocks seemed to keep slightly off-kilter time, but the ticks and tocks were murmurs like a heartbeat still living in the house where his grandfather died.
Will could hear his parents wandering around through a maze of stacked periodicals, things like Time, Life, and Boy’s Life; there was even a massive wall of the slick yellow National Geographics that were in nearly mint condition. Grampa Buggy may have collected lots and lots of things, but most everything was either in working order, or nearly flawless.
The clocks picked off the seconds with their spindly and careful metal hands, and Will saw the big cuckoo clock, the flipside of Mr. L’s clock.
It was a dark scene. There were no candy houses, but there was an oppressive forest with a small cabin nestled in some finely crafted hedges. The color of the small house, faded yellow, like Grampa’s house, suddenly came to life as a strange tune began playing from within the beautiful, sturdy clock.
Clicking along a path as the tune flit and lilted around the room was a little girl wearing a red cape and hood.
Little Red Riding Hood, thought Will. It’s –
And now, from all corners of the woods, little yellow eyes were revealed from cunning little sliding panels. Suddenly, the dark woods became dangerous. And the little red cloaked girl was confronted by the Wolf. The clock then ended its tune and the Wolf dodged forward, enveloping the girl, and the eyes in the woods disappeared.
Will shivered, and shook his head. Then, Will smiled, and laughed out loud. That was a pretty weird clock. Will preferred Mr. L’s version. Of the two, though, it was the Dark Forest Will thought was the truth.

Not the happy little scene in Mr. L’s office.