Wow. Alex had only been to his grandfather's house a few times before when he was little. He had never remembered it to be this grand. And he had certainly never remembered it to be this big.
Let alone the house, the front garden was enormous. Almost jungle like and with trees so tall they cast shadows of shade over the garden like umbrellas blocking out the sun.
A picket fence enclosed them inside the yard and a stony pathway twisted its way through the plant life to the door entering the house.
Alex stepped out of the car and onto the stony pathway, following it, his parents in the lead until they made it to the house. Everything was so huge. Even his dad nearly had trouble reaching the key lock on the door. A while passed as he fumbled around with the key until finally it clicked open, allowing them to enter.
Inside was a spectacular sight. It was even bigger than it had looked from the outside. More furniture than Alex had ever seen in his life lay inside. Cabinets stood in rows along the walls containing Grampa's strange collections of items he had obtained on his many adventures around the world. Alex's pocket watch had been taken from one of those cabinets and handed to him.
There were more rooms in Grampa's house than any house Alex had ever been in before. Bedrooms, bathrooms, lounge rooms, "Only one kitchen," complained Mum.
One kitchen; but five bedrooms, three bathrooms, two lounge rooms, a large study filled with books, a small ballroom for dining on special occasions and yet another room containing an ordinary dinner table. Corridors and hallways connected some of the rooms together. The walls of Grampa's house were also decorated by pictures of different family members.
"Hey, that's Aunt Judy," commented Dad as Alex and himself walked through one of the lounge rooms with quite a lot of photos. "And Uncle George," said Alex gesturing to another photo of an old man wearing gold rimmed glasses. "This one looks pretty familiar too . . ."
They were interrupted by a smashing sound in the room next door. They rushed in to what turned out to be the kitchen and found Mum staring bewildered at a broken china tea cup on the floor. "Don't worry," Dad soothed her. "Grandad never did like that one very much anyway." He found a duster and pan in one of the benches bottom draws and brushed up the mess.
"Alex the big bedroom with the double bed is Mum's and mine. We might keep the small one near the ballroom as a guest room. Why don't you go choose one, or all of the others to be your own?"
Alex rushed down the corridor. He had never had a really big room to himself - let alone three. He stopped outside the first room and noticed a photo hanging on the wall beside it. It was a photo of him and his Grampa. Alex had been much younger and was sitting on his knee. By the expressions on their faces it looked like they had both been laughing.
This room would be his Alex decided. He really had no use for more than one. Especially since he only owned one belonging. The bed creaked as he sat down and an empty desk sat next to its end. Alex reached deep into his pocket and pulled out the watch. Its face read exactly the same time as it always had - twelve o-clock the hands stubbornly unmoving.
On his back with his legs tucked up Alex lay back onto the bed. With the watch in his hand he drew it closer and closer to his face, studying its gold numerals hiding under fragile glass. He stared intensely for a long time until suddenly something made him blink. It had flashed, and continued flashing right in front of his eyes coming from the watch face. Something had started moving on the watch face between the gold numerals. Then he realized what it was - the hands. The clock had started ticking.
