The Message in the Floorboards

1The house on Archer Street was more than a hundred years old, and it creaked like an old ship. When Mum said they were pulling up the carpet in the back bedroom, Ella expected dust and maybe a lost coin. She did not expect the floorboard that lifted when she pressed it.

2Underneath, between two wooden beams, lay a small tin box, its red paint worn to rust at the corners. Ella lifted it out with both hands as if it might break.

3Inside was a folded sheet of paper, brittle and brown at the edges, and a single marble, green with a white swirl. The writing was in pencil, in a careful, looping hand.

4To whoever finds this, it began. My name is Florence May Archer and I am eleven years old. It is the 3rd of August 1915. My brother Albert has gone to the war in a place called Gallipoli. This is his best marble. He gave it to me to keep safe until he comes home. If you are reading this, please keep it safe too.

5Ella read it three times. Then she went downstairs and read it aloud to Mum, who sat very still at the kitchen table.

6“Archer,” said Mum slowly. “Like the street.”

7That night, Ella searched online. It took two hours, but she found him: Private Albert John Archer, 18, of Archer Street. Returned to Australia in 1917, wounded. Married in 1921. Died in 1978, aged 81.

8Ella sat back. Albert had come home. He had lived a long life. But Florence had hidden the marble, and somehow it had stayed under the floor for more than a century. Had she forgotten? Or had she left it there on purpose, as a kind of thank-you?

9Ella would never know. But she knew what to do. The next morning she found a sheet of paper and wrote: My name is Ella Nguyen and I am twelve years old. I found Albert’s marble. He came home. I am keeping it safe.

10She folded her letter beside Florence’s, placed the marble between them and closed the tin. Then she put it back under the floorboard, and pressed the board down gently, the way you would close a book you meant to read again.