The nursery was very quiet tonight. The whole house seemed to be quiet without the dance group there and without Gillian's chattering.
Mishka was tired from a day back at work, but the quiet atmosphere seemed to be too much for her. It felt as if the walls of the mansion were pushing her to go out again tonight, which was not something that she usually did.
"I can't go out two nights in a row. This is my TV night in, so I can recharge my batteries. Now, why do I feel like someone who's used to going out every night? Can it be the slight break in routine by spending the evening with Gillian and her mother?" she asked herself.
Mishka checked everywhere near the nursery ceiling, looking for a place where a secret camera could be installed. There always seemed to be too many shelves there, but tonight it seemed as if they were just not enough to hide a camera. Not even with all the vases and clay pots which always seemed to be everywhere.
"It's a good thing I didn't tell Milla that I'm coming down here or she would have come here to join me after her chores," Mishka told herself. She was literally shaking on the inside from nervousness.
She paced up and down one last time in despair and then her phone rang.
"Gosh, that will make someone notice I'm here for sure," she remarked as she quickly pulled her cell phone from her jacket pocket. She had put on a jacket because it was usually cold in the nursery.
"Hi," Mishka answered just above a whisper when she saw that it was Gillian calling.
"Have you found a place to put the camera yet?" Gillian asked in a hurried tone of voice.
"I'm still looking, but not very successfully since I don't even know how big this camera's going to be," Mishka replied with her eye on the open doorway.
"Oh, it should be small and unnoticeable," Gillian remarked.
"Like the size of a pen or a cell phone? How small exactly?" Mishka asked nervously looking around herself.
"It could be like a pen, yes, or even as small as your eyeball," Gillian replied.
"Okay. Well, I think that the smaller one is the more expensive type and it's gonna be very difficult to find without drawing attention to oneself," Mishka commented as she began to walk towards the nursery door.
"We should find a technician to get it for us. It will look suspicious if we go and buy it ourselves," Gillian responded.
"Gosh, that means that we're gonna involve a third person," Mishka remarked with a frown. This was beginning to get bigger than she had imagined.
"Unfortunately that's what happens in cases where a person wants to find out about something secretively. One has to involve more people because it's just not possible to do some things alone," Gillian commented.
"Okay, let me get out of here now. I'll call you later," Mishka responded before ending the call and pushing her phone back into her pocket.
She looked around and listened for sounds.
"No, I don't think anyone could have heard me speaking," she thought to herself. All the plants and herbs on the table and on some of the shelves did look strange at night. As if they could contain more powers than mere healing.
"Why do natural healers have to involve the supernatural side to their work?" she asked herself. "That's what happens in most movies involving Eastern or African healers. So, is Grandma like them?," she wondered before turning out the light and walking out the door with brisk steps.
"I really have no explanation for coming down here if I run into someone now," she thought as she hurried along the short passage which led to the narrow staircase.
There was nobody upstairs and only the faint sound of voices from servants who were chatting somewhere, like the kitchen or the scullery, could be heard.
Mishka's father went out after dinner, so it was just herself and her grandmother who would be watching television shows together in the TV room.
She could hear the sound of the television set now as she walked upstairs.
"Grandma must be watching her favourite stuff. I'll just take a magazine along so I can get past the boring parts on the show, until I can watch my own stuff afterwards," Mishka told herself once she reached her bedroom.
She closed the door behind herself and took her jacket off. She took her cell phone out and hung the jacket back in its place.
"Now who are we gonna trust to buy a small camera for us?" she asked herself.
Mishka went to sit on the armchair in the corner of the room.
"That's the problem of being raised in such an isolated way. I don't even have a cousin around that I can trust to do something confidential. Now I will have to trust a stranger and pay them, with the result that I have to live with the knowledge that they're for sale. That means that someone else can pay them to tell on me just as easily," she muttered to herself as she twirled her finger around a strand of her hair.
"I should stick to music. This private investigator stuff belongs to Gillian and her mother," Mishka decided at last. She got up from her chair and grabbed a magazine from a rack before going to join her grandmother in the TV room.
Myrtle was in a happy mood because she apparently liked what she saw on her show. Mishka was used to watching television with her because then there were no arguments between them. Her father also joined them occasionally.
"Family evening for us but one is missing," Mishka told herself as she sat down in her favourite spot, not too close to Myrtle.
She immediately focused on the show to see what was fascinating Myrtle so much that she wasn't even looking away from the screen and kept on chuckling.
Mishka's phone rang in her jeans' pocket almost as soon as she sat down.
"Oh, no! It better not be Gillian again. I told her that I would call her back," Mishka thought before looking at the phone screen.
"Oh, Freddy, thank God," she said inwardly before answering and getting up to walk away from Myrtle.
"How's tonight without dance class?" she asked her choreographer.
"I'm somewhere you would love to be. There's some Egyptian dancing going on here, girl," Freddy responded.
"Goodness, where is that?" Mishka asked in surprise.
"Oh, some heavenly mansion, but I don't care about the owners. I'm here for the dancing," Freddy responded.
"Oh, I'm having my family night in tonight," Mishka responded with a chuckle. "Sounds interesting though," she added.
"I don't think it's very far from your neighbourhood. Somewhere near the forest," Freddy remarked. Mishka could hear the music in the background as he spoke.
"Near us?" Mishka asked.
"Yes, it's funny. The house looks like the White House from the outside, but inside it's totally rocking cool," Freddy continued in a jovial tone.
"Near our neighbourhood and the wood? A house that resembles the White House? Don't say," Mishka responded in a totally surprised tone.
What were the odds of that happening? Freddy and his group were apparently at Bruce's mansion tonight!