Attica (4 page)

‘See that?’ she said, pointing it out to Jordy. ‘The Evening Star.’

‘But locked in here,’ he muttered. ‘Trapped inside a bloody great attic.’ He reflected for a moment, before adding, ‘No wonder they call them trapdoors.’

A silence fell between them again. A little later Jordy’s torch went on for a few seconds. He inspected his wrist. Then it went out again.

He whispered to her, ‘My watch is going backwards.’

They both lay down on the boards and tried to sleep. In the middle of the night Chloe heard noises in the darkness. Not loud sounds, more like people walking softly, or small creatures scratching around. They were not even particularly alarming noises. Simply sounds which told her she and her brothers were not alone.

Later Chloe felt something soft brushing her face. She pushed it away, too sleepy to do anything else. An animal curled in the hollow of her stomach and joined her in sleep.

They woke early. The light was grey and dingy for a while, then the sun came through the skylights. The first thing they did was drink from the tank without any fuss. Alex found half a bar of chocolate in his pocket, which he shared out. Had it been in Chloe’s pocket, or Jordy’s, they would have starved. Alex was the only one who didn’t gobble down chocolate as soon as it was in his hands. He saved things for later. On this occasion his restraint did not irritate Chloe. Instead of saying in a
sarcastic voice, ‘Oh, you’re so good, little brother’ she said, ‘Well done, Alex.’

‘Could have told us last night,’ muttered Jordy, chewing his three squares.

Alex replied with some logic, ‘Then you’d have had nothing for breakfast.’

Chloe suddenly looked around her, remembering.

‘Nelson came in the night,’ she said. ‘Isn’t he here?’

The two boys stared around them. ‘Can’t see him. You sure?’

‘Yes, positive. Oh well, he’ll find his way back.’

When Chloe had filled her bottle again, the three explorers set out once more. They were assuming that they would find their way out, but Chloe wondered what Ben and Dipa were doing. She guessed her mother would be frantic. Neither Chloe nor Alex had ever stayed out all night before – not without their mother knowing exactly where they were.

Chloe wasn’t sure about Jordy.

She had picked up inferences from her step-brother that things had not been too stable in his family, during and after the divorce. Chloe had the idea that Jordy had run away at least once, when the split in his family had come. Then Jordy’s mother had declined custody of her son, a rejection which must have hurt him. Perhaps he might still have chosen to be with his father, but to have a mother who did not seem to want him must have been painful.

Maybe Ben was at this moment blaming Jordy, thinking that perhaps he’d run away again, taking the other two with him.

‘What is this place?’ muttered Jordy.

‘Obviously it’s a giant attic.’

‘We guessed
that
,’ Jordy snapped, ‘but why is it so big?’

‘How am I supposed to know?’

They looked at each other for
a moment, then Chloe said, ‘Can we stop arguing for a while? We’re all in a fix and we need to pull together to get out of it. Can we just be friends?’

Jordy stared, then grinned. ‘Yeah, sorry, Clo. I don’t mean to be mean. I mean – well, you know what I mean. Just because we don’t always agree, doesn’t mean anything.’

She smiled too. ‘There’s about three million
means
in there.’

‘You’re no good at maths. There are only about half a dozen. OK, let’s not worry, let’s get walking.’

‘Have you thought,’ she asked, ‘how Ben and Dipa are going to be worrying?’

Jordy shrugged. ‘Not much we can do about it, except keep going. Got to find a way down, is all.’

Chloe knew that Jordy’s pretence at a casual attitude was a front. She knew he felt responsible for what happened to them in any adverse predicament, such as this one. That was because he was male and because he was the eldest. It was stupid of him, of course, but his real mother had drummed some rubbish into him about men being stronger and having to take care of women, who were supposedly weaker.

Chloe felt well able to take care of herself and didn’t need a guardian who was only two months older than she was, even if he was a male. But she couldn’t tell him that, because he would take no notice and it would only make him all the more anxious. Jordy was a product of someone who believed in the old order, when men ruled the world and women did as they were told. Men were made of iron, women were fashioned of thin glass. It was a load of old rubbish, really.

‘We don’t break any more,’ she muttered. ‘We’re made of tougher stuff these days.’

‘What?’ said Jordy, turning
his head, a puzzled look on his face. ‘What did you say?’

‘Nothing.’

Suddenly Alex stopped dead in his tracks.

‘Did you see that?’ he asked, staring off to the right of where they were standing. ‘Someone’s out there.’

‘Where?’ asked Jordy, straining to see through the dimness into the far side of the attic. ‘Out there?’

‘Someone moved. I saw a shadow jump.’

Chloe said, ‘Perhaps it’s someone who’s just come up from the house underneath us?’

‘It didn’t move like a person,’ Alex said. ‘It moved like – like some other creature. I don’t know what. An animal or something.’

‘Stop scaring me,’ cried Chloe, her heart beating faster. ‘Don’t play games, Alex.’

‘I wasn’t –
look
, there it is again. In the shadows. Maybe it’s Nelson?’

‘I saw it. I saw it,’ cried Jordy. ‘It wasn’t a cat, it was – I dunno – it
must
be a person.’

Alex shook his head. ‘No, it wasn’t. It didn’t move right. Look, again! It’s sort of jerky. Now it’s gone. Gone into the blackness.’

‘I think it’s a person,’ said Chloe quickly. ‘I think we’ve got to look for him – or her. Whoever it is. They can tell us the way out.’

CHAPTER 3

Sky with a Thousand Windows

‘Who?’

Young people
.

‘You can tell they’re new to the attic. They keep
twisting their heads round trying to catch the dust sprites. No chance.’

The youthful board-comber sees them through the holes in his Venetian carnival mask from afar off and he shivers in another person’s shoes.

He wears several layers of ankle-length coats, all too big for him. He has on his head a great floppy hat, also several sizes too large. These clothes do not belong to him, but were some other’s, for the board-comber himself owns nothing; no clothes at all. He takes them where he finds them and they become part of him, but never belong to him. The camouflage is perfect. When he feels the need to transform himself into a pile of rags he simply falls on the floor in a heap.

I am afeared of people
, he tells the bat hanging from his left earlobe.
But they draw me to them
.

‘That’s because you was people once yourself,’ says the bat. ‘You think of them as family.’

The board-comber, like all
his kind, was once an ordinary boy, but he has lived here too long. He does not like direct contact with his old race, for now he’s different, he’s not a person. He wears the mask – it is the mask known to Venetians as Cocalino the jolly friar, with red nose and cheeks and bright red lips – not because he wants to scare anyone, but because he’s not what he used to be. He’s something different now.

But he likes to see children, follow them, gather bits of conversation like dust on a draught.

‘They’re looking,’ the bat cries. ‘You should hide.’

The board-comber drops to the floor and is instantly a pile of rags. Those looking from afar cannot see his eyes, peering out between the folds. All they see are old coats, thrown in a heap, with a hat on top. Those who look more carefully might notice the frozen features of Cocalino, who beams at them with an expression of merry contentment.

Have they gone yet?
he asks the bat.
Anyway, how can you see them? You’re a blind creature
.

‘I am at the moment. You’re squashing me.’

The board-comber lifts his head slightly and finds he has indeed been crushing the bat.

Sorry
.

‘How many times?’

I know. I’m sorry
.

‘So long as you really are.’

I really am
.

‘They’ve gone now. You can get up. Are we going to comb the boards any more today? It’s getting late.’

Just a little longer. The light’s still golden
.

The pair of them, horseshoe-bat and board-comber, exist in the attic for one purpose: to collect things. They comb the boards like shell-gatherers comb beaches, but not for shells of course. Not this board-comber at least. It is interested solely in soapstone carvings made by the Inuit Eskimos. That’s his bag. That’s what he seeks. Others might collect paintings, or toy cars, or books, or porcelain figurines. This one scours the tideless reaches of the attic for Inuit carvings. Head down, he walks the long wooden planks, inspecting flotsam, jetsam or any kind of drift-junk, turning over heaps in case a gem of a soapstone carving lies beneath. When he finds one, his heart fills to bursting with joy. He could shout his pleasure to the four high draughts but doesn’t, for board-combers are shy creatures and do not like attention. They wear masks to hide their features and they wear their many layers of clothes not just as a disguise but to become shapeless things of no worth.

‘Look,’ says the
bat, ‘a recent chest of drawers. Is your heart going pitter-pat?’

Oh, it is, it is. Do you think there’s one in a drawer?

‘Who knows? You have to look.’

They’re so rare in this part of the attic. We should have emigrated over the boards
.

‘If they weren’t rare, you wouldn’t be interested in them. Who wants to look for something common?’

That’s true
.

He searches the chest of drawers thoroughly, finding only a few bits and bobs of no interest at all. Cotton reels. Buttons. A few old postcards. A scarf.

Those young people. They might have one in their pockets?

‘Fat chance, unless they’ve just been to Alaska or Northern Canada.’

Maybe they’re straight from Cape Dorset?

‘The eternal optimist. Is it likely? How many people go on holiday to Baffin Bay? I could count them on my claws. You just take those drawers out and look behind them. Sometimes humans hide things behind drawers, so that others can’t find them. Anything there?’

Only a dead bat
.

‘You liar.’

Had you, there
.

‘Not a chance. Can
we rest up now? You need to go to sleep and I need to go out and hunt. I’m starving.’

Shall we count our treasures first?

‘We know how many there are. We counted them last night.’

I want to see them again
.

The board-comber takes a leather satchel out of the folds of his coats and lays it carefully on the attic floor. Having opened it, he begins to take out carvings and carefully unwrap the rags which protect them. First there is a beautiful jade-green dancing bear, which is so finely balanced it can stand on one leg without a prop. Next comes a sealskin-coated Inuit drummer, complete with drum and drumstick. Then a dark-grey whale, so shiny it brings tears to the board-comber’s eyes. After that a ruffled-coated wolf is revealed: white and savage-looking, but with tender eyes.

There are thirty-seven pieces in all. Five of them were found in the same box. They’re heavy, but the board-comber never minds the weight. In fact, he likes it, because it reminds him of his success. There is nothing to match the finding of another Inuit carving: no feeling like it. It’s what keeps the board-comber in the attic, what turned him from a person into what he is now. He strokes the bounty of the boards, finding great pleasure in the smooth stone which has been transformed from a simple chunk of rock into a work of art.

Beautiful
, murmurs the board-comber.
Aren’t they?

‘Oh yes,’ replies the bat, ‘quite beautiful.’

But being lost in his bonanza the board-comber has not noticed that the bat flew away long before the question was even asked.

The sun had multiplied. There were skylight windows all along the heavens now, a hundred, maybe a thousand. They let in a grubby light. The boards had opened up into a wide plain, with hills on the periphery. These hills were fashioned from furniture – chests, chairs, side-tables, wardrobes – and junk such as umbrellas, books, walking sticks, rolls of carpet, workman’s tools. At about one o’clock (an hour before noon on Jordy’s watch) the trio came to a forest of hat stands. These were of the kind that had a central pole and curved prongs like horns at the top, of which some were leafed with hats, scarves, feather boas and the odd coat. In parts they formed thickets and in other areas they were spaced apart, to allow for clearings where the party might rest up and look about them.

‘It gets weirder,’ said
Jordy. ‘What’s that?’

He indicated the piece of paper which Chloe had taken from her pocket.

‘Oh, just my books list – you know, my favourite reads.’

‘Oh, that.’

Jordy was not a great reader. He liked sport. It is possible to be good at both, and interested in both, but he was not. Alex was not interested in sport at all, nor especially reading and writing – in fact, all three bored him somewhat. Alex was destined to be an engineer.

‘That
thing
is still following us,’ said Alex matter-of-factly. ‘I saw its shadow on the edge of the woodland.’

‘Alex, we’re talking about a
person
,’ replied his sister. ‘It’s not right to call him or her a
thing.
It must be someone who’s looking for something in their attic. We mustn’t assume they mean to harm us.’

‘Why?’ asked Jordy. ‘Maybe it’s just waiting its chance?’

‘I’d rather think
good of people, than bad, wouldn’t you?’

Alex said, ‘Listen, stop arguing, you two, we came up here to look for Mr Grantham’s watch.’