The Door at My Neighbor’s House

            As I looked through my bedroom window all I thought about was what was behind that door for what felt like the twentieth time this week. It was a small door, no bigger than a 6 or 7-year-old. It was a brown door up against a big, blue house across the street. If I’m being honest, it was a lot older looking than I thought it would be. It belonged to our new neighbors across the street. Another one of their crazy purchases…

            “It’s vintage,” they bragged at every street party. “Probably worth more than most of you combined,” they joked.

            I didn’t care too much for my new neighbors. They were always talking about how much better they were than everyone else. They would always come over and talk about the new tea pot they got from the year 1736 or the chair they purchased that belonged to a princess from the Dark Ages.

            I usually replied with, “That’s cool!” or “Where did you find it?” just to keep them entertained. They loved talking about themselves and how rich they were.

            But one day, I looked out my window and saw that my neighbors might have actually got something cool for once. It was a door that they put on the right side of their front lawn. The door was brown and had vines with pink flowers growing on the rim. Don’t ask me how they were able to get the door, but they were proud of it. The door was beautiful. I could admit that.  

            “It’s for Charles,” they said.

Charles was their bulldog they recently got to make them look more “family like”. I didn’t know a whole lot about that dog, but I knew that he would have a pretty good life ahead of him if he stayed with those folks.

            “Like a doggie door, so his poor legs don’t have to go up the steps.”

            I think that that door was more than just a doggie door though. No doggie door lit up in the middle of the night like the one in Coraline. It’s true!!! Every night that door lights up like the gateway to heaven or something. I’ve never seen a doggie door like that. Maybe that’s what modern is supposed to look like now, light up doggie doors. Or maybe my neighbors just got a lot weirder than I thought they were. There was definitely something different about that door. But I didn’t bother losing sleep to find out what it was.

Clearly, I wasn’t the only who suspected something too. My friend, Maggie, comes over nearly every week and even she had issues with it.

            “Soooooo, that’s a doggie door?” Maggie asked.

            “Apparently,” I responded, “but I can’t be the only one that thinks it’s kinda… out of place?”  

            “You’re not. I think it’s weird too.”

It wasn’t long before the whole neighborhood knew. Kids from the park started making rumors about it.

“It’s a portal to another dimension!” they’d yell.

Adults would whisper to each other at parties.

“Where did they get it from?”

“I can’t get my kids to sleep at night!”

Even kids from school were talking about it. It all seemed like a big fuss over a doggie door, but still, I can’t help but wonder what’s behind that wooden door? Was it really like the door from Coraline? How many of the kids’ rumors were true? What was that small, wooden, beautiful, doggie door lookin’ entrance hiding?