Karolina, Michał, and Kuba stumble into a strange secret in the school attic while trying to get the stage ready for the play.
It was Tuesday evening, and Karolina had convinced Michał and Kuba to stay after lessons and help get the school stage ready before the big play. School No. 47 on Klonowa Street looked different after hours: the corridors were too long, the doors too quiet, and every sound seemed to bounce around like it had somewhere better to be.
In the theatre hall, the last light of day pushed through dirty windows and fell over a cloud of dust drifting above the seats. Karolina balanced a hammer on one finger like she was born to run a renovation company. Michał was trying to be useful. Kuba was pretending not to have just nearly stepped in a puddle of spilled energy drink.
"If the attic is where the good stuff is hidden, I’m officially disappointed," Kuba muttered.
"You say that now," Karolina said, crouching beside the stage. She held up a rusty doorknob she had found under it. Three initials were scratched into the metal: P.S.Z.
Michał leaned closer. "That is either extremely old or extremely suspicious."
Before Karolina could answer, a soft knock sounded overhead.
All three froze.
"Tell me that was the building settling," Kuba said.
"If it was, the building has terrible timing," Michał whispered.
Karolina grinned, because of course she did. "Or there’s something up there."
A narrow staircase hid in the corner behind a curtain that looked older than the school itself. Michał shone his phone torch at it, and the three of them started up, one careful step at a time, with the kind of excitement that only comes from knowing they should probably turn around and not doing it anyway.
The attic was bigger than they expected and much stranger. Old posters for school events sagged from the rafters, a suitcase sat in the middle of the floor like it had been dropped in a hurry, and on one wall lay several jigsaw puzzles showing the principal in a pirate costume, complete with an eyepatch and a parrot perched on his shoulder.
Kuba snorted. "I need this on the school newsletter immediately."
"Just don’t find anything worse in that suitcase," Karolina said, already moving toward it.
She never reached it.
Something heavy shifted in the darkness at the far end of the loft. The phone light swung wildly across an old portrait of the headmaster, then caught on the edge of a wardrobe door creeping open by itself.
A figure stepped out.
He wore a top hat, had a huge fake moustache, and was looking straight at them.