Attica (31 page)

They shot over the amazed Removal Firm, every one of them standing looking up helplessly at their escaping quarry.

Jordy yelled down, ‘Never seen anyone fly before?’

Obviously, they hadn’t.

Jordy then cried, ‘Hey, look – we’re over an Attican village. The bortrekker figured the whole journey would take us about four hours, to cover the distance to home.’

The draught riffled through their clothes. They were in fact riding on the back of one of the swiftest draughts in the attic: a high level layer of fast-moving air that travelled parallel to the apex of the roof. It was not one of those draughts which brought good or bad weather, but was a constant stream flowing from an inlet at one end, to an outlet at the other.

‘Go
higher here,’ said Jordy, when they eventually came to a plain with tea chests dotting it. ‘Go much higher. I know it’s difficult, with the air so thin up there, but this is where the— Uh-oh, there they are!’

Below them flashed a thousand glints and sparkles.

‘Oh, how pretty!’ exclaimed Chloe, ignorant of the danger. ‘What a lovely show!’

Jordy knew better.

A huge swarm of scissors had taken off from their perches and were rising on sharpened evil wings. These Siamese-twin knives came snipping through the dusty shafts of sunlight, soaring upwards towards the pair on their hang-glider. Should they reach it, their blades would make short work of the glider’s fabric. Fortunately the nasty metal birds proved too heavy once the air became more rarefied and, try as they might, they kept falling back, unable to climb to such heights. One or two pairs of nail scissors, being lighter than the kitchen or barber’s scissors, actually made it to within a metre or two, but even they did not have the strength to reach the glider.

‘You don’t know how close we were to disaster,’ said Jordy, relieved. ‘Those pretties would cut us to shreds.’

‘I can see that now,’ replied Chloe in alarm. ‘I thought they were Attican fairies.’

‘Attican demons, more like.’

The pair fairly flashed along, sometimes so fast it made Chloe feel giddy. Down below, familiar landmarks swept under them. After more than two hours they came to Jagged Mountain, that monstrous pile of weapons upon which sat the shadow-beast Katerfelto, feared throughout the attic.

The flight
was a fantastic experience for Chloe. She was conscious of a wonderful feeling of freedom, a lightness of form, a sense of release from the tensions of being locked to the earth. It was as if a leaden anchor in her had suddenly changed to feather-down and the world had to let her go. She had wings. She was flying through the air. How privileged she felt, to be born among the fortunate in a world of modern devices. This was a miracle of science, to be able to fly using just a rag and a few aluminium struts. There was a gentle power in her which filled her with joy.

‘Birds must feel like this,’ she cried, wholly aware of the rhythms of the draught, its strong surges and uplifts, its minor eddies and currents. ‘And angels.’

‘Angels, is it?’ called Jordy, back up to her. ‘Well, there’s a little devil here, who’s waking up.’

Nelson poked his head out of the neck of the jacket and looked down. His feline eyes widened in disbelief. The next moment he had turned completely round and had his nose pressed to Jordy’s stomach, his heart beating fast.

‘Didn’t like that, is my guess,’ laughed Jordy. ‘I don’t think we’ll see his face again during the flight.’

At that moment Chloe lost concentration, along with meeting a side-draught which came out the blackness of the eaves. The hang-glider lurched to starboard, the right wing-tip dropping sharply. For a moment it appeared they were going to turn over and spiral downwards towards the solid boards far below. Then to make matters worse a low area of criss-crossing rafters appeared in front of them. Chloe actually went through the first triangle of timbers, almost sustaining a fatal rip in the wing. As it was, one of the thin aluminium poles which kept the framework rigid caught an upright beam and bent at right-angles. They rapidly started to lose height.

‘Pull up!’ said
Jordy in a calmish voice laced with urgency. ‘Not too sharply now – easy, easy. Steady. Get the glider level. Don’t worry about those rafters: we’re going to miss them.’

They did miss the timbers, but only by centimetres. Jordy was suddenly shocked to see a girl scrambling around in the network of rafters. The girl looked lithe and strong, and had very long hair. She was dressed in a ragged shirt. Grabbing for a rope, she swung from one rafter to another to avoid being hit by the hang-glider. Jordy locked eyes with her for a second, then he and Chloe were gone, leaving the roof’s canopy and its occupant behind them.

In that awful second Jordy had fallen in love and he felt a terrible pain, an unbearable ache. He knew he would be looking for this girl of the attic jungle in all the other girls he met, and none would ever compare with her athletic beauty or the character he had seen in those eyes.

Jordy wanted to tell Chloe that he at last understood.

‘What the heck are you doing?’ cried a fraught Chloe. ‘We’re about to crash, you oaf! What do I do?’

Jordy snapped himself back to the task in hand. He issued some orders, which Chloe followed to the letter.

‘Now straighten her out properly. That’s right, bear down on that side. Excellent. WATCH THAT RAFTER! Phew, that was a close one, missy.’

‘Don’t call me
missy
!’

‘Sorry, OK, here comes another one. Ease by to the right, that’s it, now swing in a bit steeper than normal – not
too
steeply – OK, OK, that’s it, we’re nearly out of ’em. God,
that
was close. Last one – under it – bank to port. Port!
Turn left
. That’s it. Super cool, babe … sorry, sorry, Chloe. Super cool. Now level off again and just keep your sights on that dark patch at the end there. That’s it.’ Jordy consulted his map again, then stared at the topography below. ‘Yep, head directly for that spot.’

Once they
had reached this ‘spot’ they found a sort of twilight area which led into almost total blackness.

‘I think we’re nearly home,’ he said with relief. ‘Are you tired, Clo?’

‘Exhausted,’ confessed Chloe, who had now been guiding the hang-glider for nearly four hours. ‘My arms are dropping off.’

‘Well, we’ve got the most dangerous bit of all coming up, but don’t tell Nelson.’

Chloe said, ‘Landing?’

‘Correct. Now this is what I want you to do …’

He gave her clear and unequivocal instructions. They would not be easy to follow in themselves but she could not fault him for clarity. It was now up to her not only to land the hang-glider, but hopefully for the pair of them to come out of it with only one broken arm between them.

Jordy then proceeded to go through the landing instructions again, talking her down as they did it, until they were almost on the ground. Then Chloe, misjudging it, for it is easy to have the illusion that the floor is reachable with one’s feet when in fact it’s still quite a drop below, she relaxed. The glider dipped suddenly and sharply and the pair of them hit the floor with an unexpected thump.

Fortunately Chloe managed to keep her feet. She ran along the boards at a stumbling pace, her legs getting mixed with those of Jordy. Finally both of them fell over and went sliding along, the wing of the glider on top of them. They ended up in a heap against an old sofa, which if it had not been there would have seen them smash into a solid pillar of oak. Tangled string, torn fabric and twisted aluminium spars kept them prisoners for a short while, until they managed to unravel themselves. Neither was hurt. Not even Nelson had been banged, since Jordy had slid along on his back. Nelson extracted himself from his hammock and made a dignified three-legged exit into the darkness where they were all eventually going.

‘Wow,’ said
Jordy, undoing the final knot to a cord around his neck, ‘that was really something! You did good, girl. You did good.’

Chloe was staring at him.

‘Oh, what?’ he cried. ‘What have I said wrong now?’

‘Nothing. Show me your arm. Your
broken
arm.’

Jordy looked down at himself and saw that he’d taken his bad arm out of its sling and was using it just like the healthy one. In fact, both arms were all right. The injury had disappeared without leaving any mark that he could see. Somehow, now that they were in their own attic space all was well.

‘My watch! The hands are going the right way round again!’

He showed Chloe the watch. It was indeed back to normal.

‘Let’s go down now,’ he said, taking out his torch and stepping into the blackness of their own attic. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

Chloe hung back.

‘What is it?’ asked Jordy. ‘Is it Alex?’

‘We may never see him again,’ replied Chloe, sorrow filling every artery and bone in her body. ‘Will we ever see him again, Jordy?’

Jordy replied in a flat voice, ‘I don’t know.’ Then he lifted his tone. ‘But what I do know is, he’ll be all right. He’s a dark horse, isn’t he, your brother? He’s got some guts, I’ll give him that. Follow your dream. Well, he’s following his all right. I never thought he had it in him. Oh, I know – we
both
want him back, but it’s got to be his decision. I bet he’ll get bored of being a bortrekker and we’ll see him back again soon.’

‘I’m
not so sure,’ Chloe said. ‘He’s very stubborn.’

‘Are you up there? What are you doing in the attic?’

Dipa’s voice floated up to them through the open trap-door.

‘We’re coming down!’ cried Chloe, eager to see her mother. ‘Won’t be long.’

They heard Dipa say something to Ben. She sounded annoyed.

‘Oh well,’ said Chloe to Jordy, ‘we might as well go down and face the music sooner rather than later.’

Jordy went first.

Just before Chloe followed him she took one last look into the dimness. Lo and behold, out of the half-light came her first and last dust sprite. It dashed out of the darkness of Attica, into their personal attic space, and right up to her. A grey, featureless being the size of a squirrel. Then before her eyes it went
puff
and fell to the boards as a cloud of motes.

The attic taunted, and teased, then it finally showed you what you wanted to see.

‘Goodbye, spirits of the attic,’ said Chloe grimly. ‘I don’t think I shall be back again.’

They descended the ladder and turned to face their parents, expecting to be chastised or overwhelmed with emotional greetings after so long an absence. Instead, Ben looked at his watch and said, ‘I don’t know, we go out for the afternoon and you all disappear. What are you messing around up there for? Aren’t you supposed to be doing some homework today, Jordy? And where’s Alex? Is he with you?’

‘Ah,
Alex,’ began Jordy in a faltering voice, ‘yes, well,’ and though Jordy had intended to be entirely honest with his parents, at the last minute he chickened out. ‘He’s – he’s up there. He won’t …’

CHAPTER 19

Voyage over the Great Water Tank

The bortrekker and the board-comber helped Alex build the raft out of plastic bottles, wood and cord. When it was finished it looked like a jumble of junk, but it was serviceable. It floated well, bore his weight easily and sported a mast with a square sail made out of a bed sheet. All three boat builders were pretty pleased with themselves. They held a celebratory dinner before Alex set sail. The two young Attican pioneers gave the sailor some provisions before he set out, for which he was most grateful.

‘Stay clear of the Removal Firm,’ said the bortrekker, shaking his hand for the last time. ‘They’re ugly brutes, they are.’

‘And if you
do
happen to see …’ began the board-comber.

‘… any Inuit soapstone carvings,’ finished
Alex with a smile, ‘yes, I’ll gather them up and leave them here, on this spot for you. Oh, that reminds me, of course, this is for you. I pinched it from my sister’s backpack. I doubt she even remembers she had it.’

Alex reached into his pocket and pulled out the soapstone walrus, handing it to the board-comber. The board-comber’s eyes widened under his mask. He took the carving reverently and stroked it. Then it disappeared into the folds of his many-coloured, many-layered clothes.

‘Thank you,’ replied the bundle of rags before him, ‘and the bat says thank you, too.’

The last thing the two attic-dwellers did was give Alex a bag full of beautiful paperweights, to trade with any creature he might come across.

Alex set sail at about the same time as Chloe
and Jordy were climbing up the ladder of the tank, hauling their hang-glider behind them. He too managed to miss the Removal Firm by a very short time. They stood on the shore and shook their fists at him. Alex replied with a rather crude gesture which he knew would have shocked his mother. However, any shame he felt was crowded out by a feeling of triumph. He had beaten the Removal Firm and what was more had drawn them away from the bortrekker and board-comber, to allow those worthies to escape back into untrammelled regions, where they would be safe from these human ejectors.

Then there was the final shock of seeing Chloe and Jordy, flying high above him. He thought at first it was an attempt to get him back, but then Alex realised they were not after him. They were simply using the warm air above the water to carry them high up into the attic’s atmosphere. He watched them sweep through dusty shafts of light, waved when he realised that Chloe had seen him, then adjusted his sail and sped on. There was a heavy swell on the surface of the tank and very soon he had sailed down into a trough of water and the hang-glider was lost to his sight.

‘Bye, sis!’ he called, wondering if she could hear him. ‘Bye, Jordy!’

Then his craft called for all his attention, as he started to climb up out of the trough and on to the heights of the swell. He soon dispensed with his heavy coat and hat, and took off his boots. It was much more comfortable to sail in his shorts and bare feet only. He piled his clothes in the little cabin they had built in the middle of the raft, which kept his food dry. There was a bed in there, a canvas camping cot they had found, and several other home comforts. From the map Jordy had shown him it appeared to be several days’ sailing to the far side of the tank. Comforts would be needed.