The Old Rectory and the Pharaoh’s Fingernail

By Louise Leedham

Tom has recently inherited the eerie Old Rectory beside a graveyard, courtesy of his late grandmother. Along with it, she’s left Tom a clandestine letter, housing the first clue to unearth her concealed jewellery and the enigmatic Pharaoh’s Fingernail—much to Tom’s bewilderment. Although unsure of the importance of an aged, withered fingernail, Tom knows he must locate the jewellery. However, can he accomplish this without enlisting the aid of his best pal, Toby?

Your guidance is crucial for Tom as he scours through the Old Rectory for clues, all while dodging Amy—his dad’s girlfriend. Though she harbours animosity towards Tom, her curiosity about the jewellery’s location seems fervent. Each clue draws Tom closer to the hidden treasures, but the mysteries of the Old Rectory are vast. Will Tom uncover the coveted items or will Amy’s prying nature thwart his quest?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Mar 28, 2024
• ISBN: 9781398445604

Louise Leedham

Louise Leedham lives in the Black Country in the West Midlands. She loves animals, especially dogs, and has been a vegetarian for 26 years. She likes historical architecture, especially old, spooky buildings, walking in peaceful places, adventure films and anything that makes her laugh. Some of her teachers at school didn’t think she was very bright and told her not to follow her dreams, they were wrong. To write this book for you she has transported herself into an imaginary world that is a bit more exciting than real life.

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About the Author

Louise Leedham lives in the Black Country in the West Midlands. She loves animals, especially dogs, and has been a vegetarian for 26 years. She likes historical architecture, especially old, spooky buildings, walking in peaceful places, adventure films and anything that makes her laugh. Some of her teachers at school didn’t think she was very bright and told her not to follow her dreams, they were wrong.

To write this book for you she has transported herself into an imaginary world that is a bit more exciting than real life.

Dedication

To Ste,

My little brother. I miss you so much. They say time is a healer, but every day hurts.

Copyright Information ©

Louise Leedham 2024

The right of Louise Leedham to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781398445581 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781398445598 (Hardback)

ISBN 9781398445604 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2024

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

1 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5AA

Acknowledgement

Thank you to my mom, dad, sister, Reggie, and Tom for all your support. Thank you to Billy Pooler, or Poolerbear lll, as he would like to be known, for reading the book and encouraging me to try to get it published. Thank you to Dale Martin for taking my photo at very short notice and a big thanks to Chris Wright for dropping everything to help me with all his computer knowledge.

Chapter 1

The bell sounded for lunch time and Tom was first out of his seat, out of the school gates and jogging home. He had forgot to pick up his homework for the afternoon art lesson and Miss ‘Nutty’ Naylor wasn’t his greatest fan, so he would have to have a jog home to pick it up to make sure he had plenty of time to get back to school. He also knew that Amy, his dad’s girlfriend, would be at home, and she would give his dad the low down on him forgetting his homework. However, the tall stories that Amy would tell was nothing compared to the wrath of Nutty Naylor.

Tom didn’t get on well with Amy and he always felt as though he stood in the way of her hopes, dreams and plans for the grand lifestyle she wanted for herself. Even the way she corrected him and pronounced her middle name, Tania, seemed to rub him up the wrong way and annoyed him. It wasn’t Tania, it was Tarn-ya.

Tom arrived home out of breath and he still had two flights of stairs to walk up before he reached the apartment that he lived in on the third floor, which his dad called The Penthouse suite! Tom counted each stair in his head as he began running up them, but ended up walking up the second flight because he was out of breath. He pushed his key in the door, unlocked it and walked inside. Amy was asleep on the settee with her lap top open and a home shopping channel on the TV.

She was supposed to be at work and she was always complaining about how busy she was throughout the day, and yet, here she was slumped on the settee with three empty mugs on the coffee table and sprawled out like a sack of spuds. She had an eye mask on and a towel wrapped around her head as though she had just stepped out of the shower. Her head was slightly tilted back, causing her mouth to fall open and she was snoring. Tom was pretty sure she was dribbling too, but he didn’t want to get too close to her in case she woke up. He realised his luck was in. Amy couldn’t tell tales if she didn’t know he had been back.

He closed the front door quietly and tiptoed past her into his bedroom. His homework was where he had left it, but he noticed that his diary wasn’t in the exact place that he had put it.

Tom stowed his homework in his bag and was just about to exit his bedroom and attempt to sneak past Amy when her phone began to ring. His luck had run out and now he would have to endure Amy telling his dad embellished tales of her own version of the story. He slowly and quietly pulled the door ajar and peeked through the gap. Amy was sitting on the settee talking to her elder sister Fiona. He had never met Fiona because she lived in the South somewhere, which is where Amy grew up. In fact, he or his dad had never met any of Amy’s family. He decided to pull the door open a fraction more to listen to what Amy was saying.

Honestly Fiona, I’ve really landed on my feet since I’ve been with Mike. He’s given me access to his bank account, even though he hasn’t got lots of money, and guess what… the old bird has recently died and he’s inherited her house, a big, run-down Rectory, nearby. I think I can convince him to sell it and buy a big, new house on Pear Woods Road. Mike has got an appointment with the solicitor tomorrow morning concerning his inheritance and the kid has got to attend too. I don’t think it’s right for a kid to inherit money, I mean, what’s he going to spend it on? I could invest that money in diamonds, she began to laugh. Of course, I’m going to insist on attending the reading of the will too, the old bird might have left me something. She used to wear some nice and unusual pieces of jewellery and if she hasn’t left me anything then I want to know how much Mike and the kid have been left in her will.

Tom had heard enough. How dare she refer to his beloved grandma as an ‘old bird!’ She was being totally disrespectful with that remark, and the greedy good for nothing wanted all of their money to lavish on herself. As for Pear Woods Road, that was where the school bully, Ethan Holder, lived. That’s the last place on earth he wanted to live, in fact, the further away from Pear Woods Road, he lived, the better.

What on earth did his dad see in Amy? She wasn’t pretty, she was short, stick thin and looked older than her age with long black hair. In fact, she only needed a wart on her nose and she could pass for a witch!

His dad was tall, quite handsome, he had his own hair, and he changed his under pants twice day. He knew this because his mom and dad used to joke about it before she died. Tom was aware that it was quite rare for a man to change his underpants twice a day, or even once a day, and it got Tom thinking to himself – did some men put the same dirty pants back on after having a shower? Tom scrunched up his nose thinking about it – Eeeeee.

He checked his watch. If he didn’t make a move now, he would be late, and Nutty Naylor would have him in detention. He had an idea of how he hoped he could get out of the flat without being seen. He secured the rucksack on this back, opened his bedroom window and looked at the drainpipe. He was pretty sure he could climb down safely, so pulled himself out of the window, held the drainpipe firmly and pushed his window shut behind him. He made a mental note that he must lock it when he got home later, before Amy noticed and reported it back to his dad.

Tom clambered down the drainpipe and he was almost at the bottom when he heard the sound of fabric ripping. When his feet were safely on the ground, he felt the seat of his trousers to make sure they hadn’t torn and left his pants on show. Luckily whatever ripped wasn’t his trousers around his bottom. He checked his watch again and made a hasty retreat back to school for another terrible afternoon with Nutty Naylor the Numpty teacher from Hell.

Tom’s afternoon didn’t run very smoothly and the home time bell had rung at precisely the right time because Nutty Naylor had been nuttier than usual.

As Tom sat in class, he had noticed that the bottom of his trouser leg had torn, and that had been the ripping sound he had heard when he had climbed down the drainpipe. As he bent down to take a closer look, he felt something brush past the top of his head. Tom looked up in surprise and realised that Nutty Naylor had thrown a book at him and it had missed his head, but it skimmed through his hair as he had bent down to look at the tear in his trouser leg. The book had hit the wall behind him and landed on the floor. He looked at Miss Naylor, she appeared to be foaming at the mouth like a dog with rabies. She gnashed her teeth together and yelled.

THOMAS COPE, YOUR HOMEWORK IS DISGRACEFUL! I WON’T TOLERATE YOUR SMUTTINESS.

Nutty Naylor was holding up his homework for everyone to see and she was glaring at Tom with an angry scowl on her face.

"I asked you to draw something you can see in your back garden. Since when