Attica (25 page)

Somewhere along their trek that sturdy ginger tom Nelson joined them, his shoulders hunched, his fur fluffed against the cold. He three-leg-limped alongside Alex, his head straight into the blast of the blizzard, as if he was determined to prove that man’s best friend is not
always
the dog.

Not long after Chloe had climbed back up into the attic, the bortrekker had looked back to see that some creatures were following the children’s trail. The bortrekker, a veteran pioneer of the attic, shuddered at the sight of these creatures. Though they looked like pleasant old men in dustcoats with brown buttons they were of course the Removal Firm.

Young people who stayed in the attic, like the bortrekker and the board-comber, were especially fearful of the Removal Firm. They called
them the Removal Firm because that was what they were. They didn’t move furniture. They removed anything that was a threat to the attic. Humans who were new needed to checked for spores, insect eggs and seeds in their clothing, which might result in a wood disease. Spores or eggs that might lead to dry rot, or woodworm, or any of those terrible wood-ravaging, wood-destroying blights. Humans were potentially corrosive. Humans were unwittingly destructive. So it was believed by the Removal Firm.

The rumour among the human intruders in the attic was that the Removal Firm imprisoned such criminals in old steel lockers discarded from public changing rooms in the real world. These were never to be opened again. The prisoners would never again see the light of day, or the dark of night. They shared the fate of the boy in the story, who climbed into a trunk during a game of hide-and-seek. They became ghastly secrets.

The bortrekker hid himself in a pile of dried and artificial flowers. He was a tall youth, reasonably strong, but he knew he was no match for the Removal Firm. Those creatures were incredibly powerful and could crush him in their arms if they so wished. He had seen one of them lift a heavy metal safe and place it aside as if it were cardboard. He had witnessed another cracking a thick beam as if it were a twig. The bortrekker was not one to underestimate the strength of his foes. He had not done anything wrong, so far as he could recall, but it was best not to be ‘inspected’.

‘May you rot yourselves,’ he muttered, cursing the Removal Firm. ‘May your noses drop off and your toes turn grey. May your livers turn to mush and your tongues shrivel to boot laces. May you—’ but there he stopped, for they were coming his way.

The bortrekker held his breath as they passed, the dried flowers covering his human scent. Soon they were gone and he laughed to himself, having beaten them once again. In the opinion of the bortrekker
it was fear that had given rise to the Removal Firm, and fear that kept them going. Fear, he was often heard to tell his two dancing rats, is a corrosive thing in itself when it leads to prejudice and irrational action.

The bortrekker went on his way. When he was certain the Removal Firm were out of earshot he took his fiddle out of its case and began to play a jaunty jig. The two rats Arthur and Harold leapt out of his pockets in glee and began dancing on their hind legs around his feet. Arthur’s choreography was nothing short of genius, he being the light-footed one with inventive steps, while Harold’s rhythm was vastly superior, as he swayed in time to the music. ‘O what jolly boys are we,’ sang the bortrekker, ‘rattling the boards of a wooden sea …’

Once the storm had abated Chloe and Alex were able to forge ahead. Nelson stayed with them, hopping tirelessly alongside. Without realising it they were approaching the forest of tall clocks from the most difficult side. The weather here was always inclement and the boards showed it. Instead of the landscape being flat it was violently undulating where the boards had become warped. Extreme cold and heat had shrunk and expanded the planks in rapid motion, causing them to twist out of shape. Humps and dips made walking difficult and both children tripped several times when catching their feet on a board that had come loose or had twisted like a rope. There were gaps out there, large enough to fall through, though Nelson skipped between and around them as agile as any tri-cornered cat.

‘Watch out for splinters if you fall over,’ Alex warned. ‘Some of the planks are split and broken.’

Indeed, there were ragged plank ends in places and shards lay here and there. Bare nails protruded like fangs, some by as much as three or four centimetres.

The rough going got worse before it got better. They crossed an area where a water tank
had overflowed, flooding the boards. Some of the planks had actually curled back on themselves here and were like sleigh runners. However, once over this patch they returned to normal undulations caused simply by dampness and swift drying. The reason for the bad weather appeared to be a series of skylights that had been left open. Now they let in the elements: the wind and the rain, the heat of the summer sun, and any birds who cared to venture in from the outside world.

‘Hey, guys – how do you like my skateboard park?’

Chloe looked up and her face broke into a smile. It was Jordy. Somehow he’d found a skateboard and was using the undulations to practise his moves. Even Alex, who often found the sporty side of Jordy a bit hard to take, had to grin at his step-brother’s antics.

The three of them hugged and slapped each other on the back, then Jordy suggested they go to his camp in the forest of tall clocks. When they got there they found he had made himself very comfortable, using a dust cover over four of the clocks to make himself a tent. He couldn’t stop talking at first, running over all that had happened to him since he’d been alone. The other two gave him their accounts and he seemed a little disappointed to find that Chloe and Alex’s adventures matched his own, if not surpassed them.

‘So, you got a camping stove?’ marvelled Jordy, giving Alex due praise. ‘Can we get a cup of tea?’

‘We could if we had some tea,’ Alex replied.

‘Never mind. Perhaps we can send Nelson out looking for some, eh, Nelson?’ Jordy fondled the cat’s nape. ‘Good old Nelson. Kept me company, he did.’

‘He did us too!’ cried Alex. ‘He must have been going back and forth between the three of us.’ He went on, ‘Nelson brought me a pigeon, and a rat. I stripped and gutted them and cooked them
up. They tasted good.’

‘You ate a
rat
?’ said Jordy, studying Alex now as if for the first time since they had been reunited. ‘What’s all that gear for?’

‘What gear?’

‘The kit. The big coat. The boots. The hat. The
mask
.’

‘Oh, these.’ Alex laughed carelessly. ‘I just took a fancy to them.’

Chloe caught Jordy’s eye and the older brother stopped asking questions about the way Alex dressed.

‘So, my little brother’s becoming self-sufficient in his old age,’ said Jordy after a while. ‘How did all this come about?’

‘I just woke up one morning – and there I was.’

Jordy for some reason felt a little uncomfortable probing his step-brother like this. He was afraid he was going to find out something he didn’t particularly like, though there was no real evidence that he would. But for one thing he was a little disturbed to find such a change in Alex in so short a time. It wasn’t that there was anything wrong with the way Alex was behaving. It was just that it was wrong for Alex. Indeed, his step-brother seemed just as shy and quiet as he always had been: still the reserved young man. But now there was a strong quiet confidence in him that shook Jordy a little. A determination about him that seemed to have come from nowhere. And the clothes he wore
were
a little eccentric, even for the attic. Chloe had immediately shed her layers once out of the stormy section of the attic, but Alex continued to keep his on, as if they were now part of his make-up, part of him.

‘I learned to navigate the attic,’ he told the other two brightly, ‘from the bortrekker. The guy you met by the trapdoor.’

‘He was some character, wasn’t he?’ Alex said, agreeing with Jordy. ‘I really liked him.’

Jordy was even more put out now. Alex was encroaching on
his
territory. Jordy was the
adventurer, the orienteering expert. Alex was supposed to be interested in engines and science and all that sort of nerdy stuff. It was a bit annoying to find his little brother copying him. Unfortunately he said as much, and had to witness another new side to Alex, as his young step-brother gave him a withering look. He muttered something about Alex copying him.

‘
Copying?
I’m not copying you. You don’t own the rights to map-reading, do you? What did you ever invent that anyone would want to copy?’

‘Now you listen here—’ began Jordy angrily, but Chloe interrupted.

‘Please, boys – we’ve only just met up again.’

Jordy’s eyes were still smarting, but he managed to blink, and soon had his feelings under control. He admitted to himself in the next minute or two that he had lost his cool a little. Thinking about it again, he decided ‘So what?’ – so Alex was becoming more like him. Did that matter? In one way he ought to feel flattered that his brother was beginning to follow in his footsteps. A good leader makes good leaders of others, he told himself, and Alex was simply learning from him. Good on Alex. Good on him.

‘Sorry, Alex.’ Jordy put out a hand to shake. ‘Just lost it for a moment – this place, you know.’

Alex grinned and shook Jordy’s hand. ‘Yeah, I know. Me and Clo have fallen out once or twice too. It’s the attic.’

‘Hey,’ cried Jordy, changing the subject, ‘what do you think of the dust sprites? They’re weird, aren’t they? Look, there’s one now. Oh, he’s gone. Really weird.’

It was clear from their faces they didn’t know what he was talking about. Their heads swung back and forth and finally brother and sister looked at each other and shrugged.

‘Dust sprites,’ explained Jordy, amazed that they were so slow at seeing the obvious. ‘I’d seen them but it was the bortrekker who told me
exactly what they are. They’re the spirits of the attic. They’re everywhere – in the rafters, on the boards, in all the nooks and crannies. Sometimes they form themselves into little figures of dust, run along for a bit, then they sort of go
puff
and settle back as dust on the boards again. Don’t tell me you haven’t seen them?’ He stared at their faces, before adding, ‘You haven’t, have you?’

‘No,’ admitted Chloe, biting her lip. ‘We’ve seen movements, out of the corner of our eyes, but I thought that was just an overactive imagination – along with the funny light up here.’ She was a little upset to realise that an Ariel might be here in the attic and it was Jordy and not her who was aware of him. The attic could be a little spiteful in that way: revealing things to those who had no interest in them, while others yearned to see such sights. How contrary was this land of boards and rafters. It played with its visitors like toys.

While they had been sitting there talking, clocks had been striking at odd times in the distance. Jordy had systematically disabled all the clocks within an hour’s walk, so that the constant ticking and chiming would not drive him crazy. Now the more distant chimes were like owl hoots to a camper: for most of the time his brain didn’t register them. Once he concentrated, of course, they were there, but he could soon switch them off again.

‘We saved you some honey,’ Chloe told Jordy. ‘We found a bees’ nest in an old suitcase.’

‘Oh, wow – thanks.’ He really was grateful. ‘I’ve been eating veg until I look like a cabbage.’

Chloe said, ‘You don’t look like a cabbage. You look very – very swashbuckling.’

‘Thanks.’

At that moment Nelson slunk
away. Jordy watched him go and said, ‘What’s the matter with him?’

Alex answered, ‘He’s heard something. Listen!’

They all tuned their ears.

‘All I can hear,’ said Chloe, ‘are the clocks.’

‘More and more of them,’ said Alex. ‘The number of strikes has increased and I can hear the ticking now.’

Jordy cried, ‘Alex is right. Someone’s repairing the clocks as they come this way. We’ve got to move.’

They were all experienced enough now in the ways of Attica to know that every new encounter was dangerous. On the one hand they had met some helpful characters, like the puppets and the bortrekker. But for the most part the creatures they’d met had proved to be hostile. Here was a new encounter coming their way. It was best to avoid it. If this thing repaired clocks, it might very well prove a menace to those who had disabled them. There was something a little crazy about a being who took the time to make sure all clocks had been wound up, even though they were telling the wrong time and striking falsely.

Jordy put his arm through the leather loop of his skateboard carrier and slung it over his shoulder. Then he followed Alex and their sister, hastily packing things. They hoisted their packs on their backs, and set off in the opposite direction to the clock-menders. This woodland of theirs could be likened to a forest of dwarf oaks. There was no height to it, but the squared trunks were solid enough to impede rapid progress. Here and there a grandfather clock had fallen over, just as real trees topple in the forests of the earth. If it was on its face there was glass everywhere, sometimes a pathetic hand or two, and in extreme cases, cogs, wheels, ratchets, a large shiny pendulum, chains and weights and other internal works. These were clocks with pretty faces too: pastoral pictures of
goosegirls leading their flocks, or ploughboys at the plough. Chloe thought that if she ever owned such a clock she would
never
banish it to an attic.

When they emerged from the forest they came across two massive armies of toy soldiers. A great battle was taking place. Although the generals and their troops were not interested in the human children their numbers were so great they formed a sea of uniforms – many different kinds – spread across the attic’s boards. The noise, for such tiny creatures, was astonishing. There were no guns going off, nor rifles which worked, but there was a clatter of tiny swords, bayonets and other metal objects against metal chests. So far as Chloe could see, none of the soldiers could hurt each other, but seemed intent on doing so. Generals of course were having a fine time, ordering battalions here, divisions there, and corps everywhere else.