The dark room den

[Brownlie]

It could have been penned by Enid Blyton,
four boys and a girl finding a secret panel,
peeling back the carpet in the pantry,
a hidden door to our adventures and days of darkness.
The wooden slab lifted as though it sealed a tomb,
five faces peering into the gloom.

Father had hand crafted a stair
and said we should never, ever go there.
He told us a tale of a rancid basement,
were the house secreted all of its ailments, -- I think that because you've used enjambment on the previous line this next line reads a little awkwardly
all of its creeks and all of its groans,
this was not a place we should roam.

The first room was musty and smelled like a dungeon,
the dog barked looking down from the hatch,
there was always a canine on the caper with Blyton,
but without a torch he sent us scurrying back.

Through a small wooden frame to our antechamber,
carpeted with an offcut from the last years front room,
this quickly became our hideaway
and meeting place on holiday afternoons,
we furnished it with bean bags and a sweet stash.

Of course you needed a pass to get in, - I believe a comma after of course would help separate the parenthetical information
complete with a cellotape taken print,
signed and sealed with a drop of blood,
“always together” the dark room mob.

It was from that control centre our cases were solved,
neatly wrote up and filed in a box,
including the mystery of the milk bottle tops.
When neighbours complained of damage done early
by visiting vandals or something more scary.

I would just like to say that I’m here to report
and the dark room mob would swear this in court.
That while number 10 slept away with their dreams,
it was a sparrow that had it away with their cream.