A white chalk spiral appears in Maja's classroom and leads the children toward a secret hiding somewhere in school.
Maja loved school. Her classroom was bright and busy, with drawings on the walls and green plants basking on the windowsill. Everything was just as it should be, until one morning the children stopped in the doorway and stared.
A thick white spiral had been drawn across the blackboard with chalk. It curled and curled, then slipped down to the floor and stretched between the desks like a secret path.
Mrs Iwona blinked at it. “Who drew this?” she asked.
No one answered. The class only looked at one another with round eyes.
Franek crouched down beside the line and ran a finger close to it, careful not to smear it. “Look,” he whispered. “It goes all the way behind the bookcase.”
Now nobody was thinking about reading or writing. The whole class moved slowly after the chalk trail, tiptoeing as if they might wake something up. It led under the teacher’s desk, past the bin, and around the legs of the chairs. Maja could hear her own shoes squeak on the floor.
Then the line stopped.
Behind the bookcase, the chalk mark had vanished. Maja leaned closer, searching the shadowy gap between the shelves and the wall. Something there caught the light. It gave off a tiny glow, just for a second, from behind one of the pictures.
The children froze.
Even Mrs Iwona went very still.
Maja held her breath and stared at the picture, wondering what was hiding behind it and why the chalk trail had led them here at all.