Andrew, always called Andy, and Mary Lawson
were spending the evening walking round the streets
of Amsterdam near their hotel. They were on the
Lijnbaansgracht when Mary saw the half-open door and
pulled her brother inside.
They looked round the room in the half light of the
evening.
‘Well, no one’s living here,’ said Mary. ‘But look – there
are builders working here. Maybe they just forgot to shut
the door.’ There was no furniture in the room, just a lot of
builders’ things. ‘Let’s have a look round,’ she said. ‘It’ll be
interesting to see inside a Dutch house.’
‘Mary!’ said Andy. ‘What if someone comes?’
‘No one’s going to come,’ said Mary.
‘But Mum’s going to be really angry if we’re not back,’
said Andy. ‘She’ll just say that we can’t go out any more
without her. Then we’ll have to stay in the hotel all the time
and that’ll be really boring.’
‘OK, OK,’ said Mary. ‘You’re right, as usual.’
Andy turned and started to go out of the door, but
suddenly he stopped and pushed Mary back into the room.
‘Someone’s outside,’ he said very quietly.
Together they looked through the half-open door,
careful that no one could see them. It wasn’t their house:
they didn’t want anyone to ask them what they were doing
there.
Amsterdam is an unusual city. It has streets, houses,
shops, restaurants and cinemas, like other cities; but,
because it is very flat, it has lots and lots of bicycles and not
so many cars; and it also has a lot of canals and a lot of boats
on the canals.