The well in the garden

We were banned from the Thompson's garden. It was 'a bad place', but we went anyway, crept over the fence at the bottom of our garden, along the ditch to the back of their house. I had to help Juno over the Thompson's fence, as she's just a girl and the fence was taller than she was.

The house had been empty for as long as anyone can remember. Mum said that the Thompsons died in a bad way and that no-one wanted to live in the house now. I asked if that meant the house was haunted and she told me not to be so silly, which means yes it is.

Juno was too young to remember that there had ever been any Thompsons, to her it was always the empty house.

It was a huge garden, the biggest in the street, big enough for a whole army of children to play in. The grass was long, as tall Juno and up to my chest. We played hide and seek, which was really easy, all we had to do was crouch down and we were hidden. It took Juno ten minutes to find me, in the end she gave up and started crying and I came out of hiding to stop her running to tell mum, as we'd have gotten into terrible trouble if mum found out where we were.

We decided to play another game, one we could do together, called finding things. We looked for treasures in the long grass. A man in the paper had recently found a hoard of Aztec gold at the bottom of his garden, enough money to buy Coventry the paper said, though I wouldn't use it to buy Coventry, I'd buy a sweet factory and a pet tiger. Two pet tigers, so it wouldn't get lonely while I'm busy at the sweet factory.

A garden this big, with grass this long, must have an Aztec hoard in it somewhere.

Looking for treasure is a lot harder than you'd think, mostly all I found was nasty slimy creatures, ugly mud and ancient crisp packets. I even found a wrapper for a Marathon, and they haven't been made since the war. I remember granddad telling me about them, when America won the war they made us change the names of all our sweets.

"I've found some Roman pottery," Juno shouted cheerfully, holding up a piece of broken flower pot. "I bet it was made by Caesar."

I told her to shush 'cause I'd found something much more important than a piece of flowerpot, even if it was Caesar's flowerpot. A well, an old, abandoned, crumbling well, which had been hidden by the grass.

"You mustn't go near", said Juno when she saw what I'd found, "you could fall in."

"It's only dangerous if you're not careful," I said, but she backed away and refused to join me.

I reached the edge and looked down. It was dark, it looked about a hundred miles deep, though you couldn't see the bottom. Maybe it went all the way to the centre of the earth, where the monsters live.

The well hadn't been used for a long time, but I turned the handle at the side and it seemed to work. Though it squeaked a lot I could see the chain moving round and slowly I saw a bucket rise up towards me from the bottom of the well, a bucket from the centre of the earth.

There wasn't any water in it, just dust and dirt, which poured out through the holes in the bucket's bottom.

"We should go now," I heard Juno say from behind me, but I had better plans.

"Look," I said, "there's a ladder inside the well. If you were going to hide an Aztec hoard, the best place would be at the bottom of the well. No-one would think of looking there."

"You mustn't," said Juno, "you'll fall and hurt yourself. Anyway, the ladder's probably broken."

Typical girl. "The bucket still works, so the ladder will too," I told her. I climbed onto the wall of the well and almost fell in, as the bricks gave way. I managed to keep my balance though, sat on the side of the well, feet dangling inside and tested the ladder. It took my weight, no problem, so I climbed onto it.

"You'll never see down there anyway", said Juno, "we should go back and get torches."

She was right, but I knew that if we went home she'd tell mum who'd stop us coming back. It's no fun having a sister, if I had a younger brother I could have sent him back to get a torch, but I had to carry on.

It was very dark and smelt like the bottom of a river (I fell in a river when I was young, I smelt of it for weeks afterwards). The steps were slippery and I nearly fell, but I managed to hold on.

I'd gone down what must have been miles. I could no longer hear Juno, whether it was because she'd finally shut up or was just too far away I don't know.

I heard a groan, a moan echoing all around me. I thought it must be a ghost and nearly let go in fright, but I listened really hard and realised it was the ladder talking. It was creaking with the strain of carrying weight for the first time in hundreds of years.

I kept going down, but the groaning got louder, it sounded like an army of knights in rusted armour creaking towards me. Every time I moved down another rung it made another groan, until suddenly the ladder was ripped off the wall and I fell and fell and fell until I hit the bottom with a thud. Then crash, a thousand knights fell on top of me.

I could feel pain all over. I tried to move, but the weight of the ladder piled on top of me was too much. Most of the pain was coming from my leg, which was twisted underneath the rest of me, in a position that would have made mum's yoga teacher jealous, and she can bend her legs behind her head, I've seen her.

From a long, long way up ahead I heard Juno screaming and I shouted back at her to find mum. I don't know if she heard me, but eventually her screaming stopped.

I think I've only been here ten minutes, but it might be a thousand years, I might have grown old down here, with a beard down to my toes. There's no way of knowing, there's no day or night down here, it's all the same. Juno might have grown up, gotten married and forgotten all about me, like Danny's mum forgot all about him when she met her new bloke. She didn't leave him at the bottom of a well though, just at his dad's.

I think I must be crying, as there's something wet on my cheek. I'm too old to cry, really, but I guess when you're alone at the bottom of a very deep well it doesn't matter, no-one will see you. Maybe they're not tears anyway, maybe it's blood, maybe I smashed my head. Maybe I'll be left with a hideous scar.

I think I can feel the box of treasure just to my left, but I can't quite reach it, as I'm trapped by a pile of metal and a broken leg, and it's too dark to see. I'll have to wait until I'm rescued, but if Juno ever comes back we're going to be rich. Rich enough to buy Coventry.