Attica

chapter 18

Rafter Kings and Rafter Queens

Chloe approached the place and saw a long large kit of some kind, wrapped in plastic.

A tent? It looked like a tent.

Dropping to her knees with her torch in her hand she shone it on a label which was visible through the transparent wrapping. Her eyes widened. Not a tent. A kite of some kind. She wiped away the dust from the covering and stared hard at the illustration. Not a kite either. A hang-glider. Her heart began beating faster. She picked it up, gathering it in her arms. It was quite light, despite the bulkiness.

When she arrived back at the edge of the lake, Jordy was alone, nursing his injured arm.

‘Has he gone?’ she asked. ‘The bortrekker?’

Jordy was staring angrily into the middle distance.

‘And Alex?’ she added. ‘Where’s he gone?’

‘Don’t ask,’ growled Jordy. ‘He’s a nutter. He’s gone off his rocker.’

‘I’ll find him in a minute,’ said Chloe.

Jordy suddenly became interested in what she had in her arms.

She put it on the ground.

‘I know what that is,’ he cried, gritting his teeth as his excitement exacerbated the pain in his arm. ‘It’s a hang-glider.’

‘Have you done it? Can you do it?’

‘Hang-gliding? Natch, I did it with the army cadets, before my dad married your mum.’ His voice took on that old swaggering tone. ‘I was pretty good at it. I flew like a bird.’ He saw her expression, adding lamely, ‘You know.’

‘Can you do it with a broken arm?’

Despair registered on his face. He looked down at his sling.

‘No, of course not,’ he said, crestfallen.

A determined look appeared on Chloe’s face. Jordy stared at her.

‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘You can’t, Chloe.’

‘Yes I can. I’ll have to. And you must help me. I’ve seen them on TV. You can do it with two people. The person who’s guiding the glider goes in the harness and the passenger’s slung underneath. They do it when they’re teaching a novice. We’re not even adults. We’re quite light, considering. Our combined weight is probably that of one adult. A largish one, admittedly.’

‘Yes,’ protested her step-brother, ‘but you’re the novice and I’m not exactly an expert. I know what I said before, but I’ve only done it a few times. We’re sure to crash, Chloe, then you’ll end up with something broken too.’

Nelson appeared and rubbed up against Chloe’s leg.

‘And we’ll have to take Nelson with us.’

‘Oh, my lord,’ muttered Jordy. ‘The girl’s serious.’

‘Of course the girl’s serious.’

‘And what about Alex?’

Chloe said, ‘Once I’ve taken you to our house, I’ll come back for him. I’ll be good at it then. I’ll have had practice.’ This time she didn’t sound too sure of herself. ‘He can wait here, by the tank.’

‘He won’t, you know.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Here he is now. Look at him.’

Alex was walking towards them. Chloe was surprised to see he had rid himself of all his old clothes, the silly oversized overcoats, the scarves and all the other excess clothes. If there had been no other change, Chloe would have been delighted by the alteration. It would have meant that her brother had given up his ideas about being one of those collector things that infested the attic. One of those people who had turned from a human into a dust-living creature obsessed with gathering one or another of the attic’s treasures.

But now Alex looked even worse. He had on a wide-brimmed hat, a coat with many capes, big boots. He strode like the tall youth they had just come to know. He walked with great confidence in his step. There was in his expression a new look, a look which chilled Chloe to the bone. She did not know this brother, this new Alex. He was a stranger.

‘He’s dressed like the bortrekker,’ she said.

Jordy murmured, ‘That’s what he thinks he is.’

‘That’s what I am,’ corrected Alex, coming up to them. ‘I’ve always had it in me and now it’s come out, and here I stand.’

He still had Makishi slung over his shoulder.

Jordy shouted, ‘You’re not a damn bortrekker, you’re an engine nerd. I should be the bortrekker, if anyone. I was in the army cadets, not you.’

Alex sighed and shook his head. ‘You haven’t the right kind of mind for the attic, Jordy. I belong here. I can feel it.’

Chloe said, ‘Don’t I get a thought, Alex? What about me? I’m your sister. What shall I tell Ben and our mother? Don’t you think you’re being just a bit selfish, deciding this on your own?’

Alex hung his head for a second, then replied quietly, ‘I’m sorry, Clo. But it has to be my decision. We’ll be grown up soon. Adults. Then you’ll get work as a newspaper reporter or something, maybe eventually go off with some bloke you’ve fallen in love with. And me? I’ll have a career somewhere in a town I don’t like but have to be there because that’s where the job is. Don’t you see, we’ll have to part company sooner or later. It’s just going to be sooner, that’s all.’

‘It’s not the same. That’s natural. That’s a natural thing to happen. This isn’t.’ She grew angry. ‘And we’ll never see each other again. If it was some old town I’d come and see you. But I can’t come back here. You know that. I might not be able to. The attic might not let me.’ She stared into his face, realising her words were making no difference. ‘Oh, go on then. Do it. I can’t force you to come back. I’ll never speak to you again, you pig. I hate you. I really hate you. Get out of my sight.’

She burst into tears and turned away from him.

‘I really am sorry, Clo. I’ll help with the hang-glider. And I’ll find Mr Grantham’s watch. I’ve looked on the chart. The watches are on the other side of the lake. I’m going to sail over there and get it and I’ll bring it to the trapdoor to our – to your house. You can take it to Mr Grantham.’

Her shoulders stopped shuddering. She stood there for a few seconds without replying, then she turned. ‘You will?’

‘Yes, I will, honest.’

‘All right. Perhaps you’ll have changed your mind by then. It’s a lonely life, being a bortrekker, I’m sure. You could change your mind.’

‘It’s possible,’ said Alex, but he had seen the crafty look in his sister’s eyes and knew her plan. She was, he was certain, going to try to kidnap him as he handed over the watch. She would be there with Ben and Jordy, and maybe his mother, and they would first try to persuade him to come home, then – if he refused – they would grab him and bundle him down the attic steps and hold him until he promised never to go up into the attic again. Oh, he knew his sister all right, but he played along with her. ‘It’s quite possible. As you say, it’s a lonely existence. I might change my mind.’

‘Good. Help with this then.’ She bent down and began ripping open the cover to the hang-glider, her sharp nails put to use on plastic instead of her brother. ‘Let’s see how we put it together.’

Jordy sat back, instructing them.

The hang-glider was not of a type he was thoroughly familiar with, but he had at least seen the design before. It was not one of the new paragliders, but one of the older gliders with an aluminium-tube frame over which was stretched the fabric, forming a sort of triangle shape with points on the trailing edge. They made a few mistakes, but there was an instruction book, and with Alex’s engineering skills and Jordy’s actual knowledge, they managed to put it all together in two hours. The harness was a little tricky but they worked that out in the end. Finally it was ready. They strapped Chloe in, adjusting the buckles until she looked right.

‘You look like Batman,’ said Jordy, grinning. ‘Very swish.’

‘Do you think I should try a solo flight first?’ she asked her step-brother. ‘Just to get used to it?’

‘Not a chance. You heard what the bortrekker said. The warm air draughts go one way. You haven’t got the skill to manoeuvre the glider, even if you manage to stay up there. You’ll get carried away and crash into rafters or something. I need to be with you.’ He looked up. ‘We’ve got to get on one of those layers of draught up there, follow the high parts of the attic so that we don’t hit any beams or projections from the roof. In most places you can’t even see the roof, but it does come down low in others. No, Clo, no practice runs. When we take off, we do it for real.’

‘Where from?’

‘From the top edge of the water tank. I felt the water when we were up there. It was quite warm. There’ll be a thermal above it we can use to gain height. We’ll have to take off over the water, gain some height, turn when we can, then head back for the boards.’

Chloe looked at him with admiration.

‘You know your stuff, mister, don’t you?’

Jordy suddenly went uncharacteristically shy. ‘Oh, I don’t know.’

‘Yes you do, doesn’t he, Alex?’

‘My bruv?’ He slapped Jordy on the back. ‘He’s brute.’

‘Hey, watch the arm,’ cried Jordy, wincing.

Chloe then turned her attention to Alex.

‘What about you? How are you going to cross the tank?’

‘I thought I’d make a raft. There are plenty of packing cases – things like that – about.’

‘Shall we help you?’

‘No, no need, sis. The bortrekker’s coming back to give me a hand. Thanks anyway.’

‘Oh,’ she said, her looks turning dark again, ‘the bortrekker.’

‘I know you don’t like him now, but it’s not his fault I’m staying, you know. It’s mine. I would’ve done anyway. I might have been a board-comber. That’s what they call the collectors up here. Board-combers. You’d have liked me even less then, wouldn’t you? All wrapped up in stinky clothes and looking like a walking rag-bag.’

‘Like you?’ her face crumpled a little, her large dark eyes moistening. ‘Alex, I love you. You’re my little brother. I love you so much it hurts.’

‘Oh.’ He felt a knife going into his heart. What did she have to say that for? Girls were so soft. ‘Well – you know.’

To cap it all, Nelson limped forward on his three legs and looked up into Alex’s face. Nelson’s expression was one of puzzlement and just a little contempt. Did he understand? Alex was a little aggrieved at his cat’s attitude. If anyone should understand about the right to roam at will, Nelson should. After all, cats were the worst. They wandered where they liked, took no heed of relationships that did not provide food, and generally walked alone with not a care for anyone or anything. It wasn’t fair of Nelson to judge him, when Nelson himself was a worse offender.

‘You can look,’ muttered Alex. ‘You’re just as bad.’

Jordy was by now feeling exhausted. He fell off to sleep without a by-your-leave. Chloe, after all the stress of the day, did the same very soon afterwards. Alex looked down at the sleeping bodies and became very emotional. He was now planning to leave his brother and sister for good. That meant leaving his mother and Ben too. His mother he loved, of course, and he’d grown rather fond of Ben over the last year. Ben didn’t try to push the father bit with him, but was still firm when he felt Alex needed it. Alex had a lot of respect for his mother’s new husband, though of course he kicked against Ben’s authority sometimes.

‘Well, Makishi,’ he said, ‘it’s just you and me now.’

‘You are keeping me, Alex? A bortrekker has no mask, unlike a board-comber.’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t abandon you, you ugly old circumciser.’

‘Thank you. You are most kind. And thank you for the compliment. I flatter myself I have always been fairly ugly.’

‘You’re extremely ugly.’

‘Nice of you to say so.’

Next, Alex patted Nelson on the head. Nelson gave him a different look from the one a short while ago. Alex sighed. Leaving was a difficult thing to do when it came down to it. Alex hadn’t thought it would be. He had seen himself walking away without even a slight feeling of regret. However, he was determined to follow his star. If he went home with the other two he would never get back. He knew that. He had to do his own thing.

So he went, without looking back.


When Chloe woke she shook Jordy.

‘Come on. We have to get you home.’

Jordy’s bleary eyes opened. ‘Eh? Oh, yes.’

He sat up and rubbed his face vigorously with his free hand.

‘Damn, it does ache a bit, Clo. It’s hurting like mad now.’

‘Well, it will, until you get it set properly. That splint’s only to stop you jolting it. Now, how do we get the hang-glider up to the lip of the water tank? I need both hands to climb the steps.’

‘A thick cord. We’ll haul it up. Or rather you will. You go up there. Where’s Alex? He could help us.’

‘Gone,’ said Chloe simply, climbing the steps. She had turned from Jordy quickly to hide the tears from him. ‘We can’t bother with him now. It’s important to get you home.’

Once she was on the top edge of the water tank Jordy threw up a partially unravelled baton of cord. She caught the baton on the second throw. Jordy tied the end to the nose of the hang-glider which was pretty clever since he only had that one hand. But he managed it.

Chloe then hauled the hang-glider up the side of the tank, finding it surprisingly heavy as a dead weight. Once she’d grasped it, Jordy came up the ladder himself, agilely letting go of one rung to catch the next one up, without any danger of falling whatsoever. He was indeed a very good gymnast and athlete. What was more, he had the three-legged Nelson on one shoulder. The ginger cat was looking rather apprehensively at the drop below them, gripping Jordy with his sharp claws.

‘Ow, Nelson! Pack it in.’

However, when Nelson saw the water, he gripped even harder and Jordy had to peel his claws off, one by one. Then Jordy made a kind of hammock out of his jacket, tucking the bottom into the top of his trousers, and put the ginger tom in there. Nelson obviously felt warm and much safer inside his cloth cave and promptly went to sleep.

Now Jordy was up and alongside Chloe, he sat on the twelve-centimetre-wide board which rimmed the lip of the tank. He gripped the hang-glider and told Chloe to stand up and then take it from him.

It took quite a time before they were ready. Jordy had shown her how to strap herself into the harness. Then she fitted his harness to him. Finally, they stood one behind the other on the narrow ledge with the hang-glider on Chloe’s back. Jordy was in front facing away from the water. Chloe was behind him, also facing away from the tank. When they took off, she would be attached to the glider, face down, and Jordy would be below her, also face down. Everything was set. It just needed a little bolstering of courage, which was not an easy thing to do with such a drop.

‘There’s about ten metres to play with,’ said Jordy, looking down at the boards below, ‘so it’s got to be a good launch.’

At that moment there appeared a group of those who had attacked them earlier but who had been routed by Nelson.

They swarmed over a pile of boxes and headed for the ladder up the side of the tank. The Removal Firm had arrived dressed in thick protective clothing: overcoats, gardening gloves, shin pads. No savage cat was going to stop them now, no matter how many teeth and claws it had. They were set on capturing the incomers before the disaster occurred. Their grey wrinkled faces were intent. They moved with great purpose in their steps.

‘Take no notice of them,’ ordered Jordy, sucking in his breath as he looked down on the dust-coated Atticans. ‘In a few moments we’ll leave them behind. Are you ready? Steady yourself. We’ve got plenty of time. They’ve only just started climbing the ladder.’

‘I’m ready,’ cried Chloe, her knees shaking. ‘I really am.’

‘Let’s do it then!’ cried Jordy.

But Chloe still made no move to push off.

The first of the Removal Firm arrived at the top of the ladder and gripped Jordy’s ankle with strong fingers. Jordy calmly kicked away the creature’s forearm, knocking it off balance. It fell from the top of the ladder with curses on its horrible lips. On its way down it crashed into others climbing up behind it and took them with it down to the boards. There was a terrible commotion among the Removal Firm as they were knocked and scattered over the boards. A screeching went up which would have penetrated Chloe’s head, had she not been desperately trying to screw up enough courage to take off from the tank.

‘All right,’ she whispered in Jordy’s ear. ‘I’m really ready this time.’

Finally the pair kicked off almost in unison and swooped out into the space above the boards. The jolt on take-off caused Jordy to yell in pain, but he quickly assured Chloe he was all right. Chloe, in fact, was too terrified to take much notice of Jordy’s discomfort.

‘What do I do?’ she cried, as she saw those below her craning their necks, their eyes wide.

‘First of all, don’t panic. Don’t make any sudden moves. If you get into trouble, just straighten the glider out. There’s nothing to hit around here. No electric pylon wires or branches of trees.’

And he was right. Above and around them was just the broad expanse of dusty air between the boards and the roofing felt. The several square suns of the attic shone down on this strange new giant bat, whose dark shadow flowed over the boards and objects below. ‘Do everything calmly, easily, gently. Now turn back towards the tank.’

‘How? How?’

‘Just as we talked about. You’re still panicking. Calm down. That’s it. Now dip your left wing – no, gently, gently – that’s it – turn back over the water – turn, gradually, don’t dip too steeply, up, up a fraction more, pretty good, Clo, pretty good – you’re a natural …’

The grim faces of the Removal Firm were staring up at them as the shadow of the glider rippled over their ranks.

Whether Jordy had meant that last statement or not it gave her the courage she needed. Once she was above the water the hang-glider began to lift on the warmer air. She kept it straight for a while, climbing every minute, until Jordy reminded her that she needed to spiral, because they were going the wrong way. He told her how to manipulate the glider, talking her through it gently all the while. Soon she was doing what was necessary, turning in circles, like an eagle climbing up the face of the sky. It felt good. It felt exhilarating. The fresh draught rippled the fabric of the hang-glider, cooled her face. She knew she was doing well.

Then suddenly she looked down and saw a vessel voyaging out on the surface of the lake. There was one occupant aboard and he looked up, startled when the shadow crossed his craft. It was Alex, sailing swiftly towards the far horizons of the water tank. He seemed to hesitate for a moment, then he lifted his arm and waved to the flying couple.

Chloe almost lost it there and then. She pulled down too hard and nearly took the glider into the water. It swept so close to the surface a wave clipped Jordy’s face and spray covered his jacket. Nelson looked out, alarmed, made a mewing sound, and retreated down into the depths of the jacket again. Somehow Chloe managed to pull up at the last minute, saving the three of them from a cold wet fate. When she looked again, Alex had sailed into the heaving swell, his raft no longer visible.

‘Oh my God!’

‘No, I’m not your god, I’m just your hang-gliding instructor, which is pretty much like a miracle, however, since I’ve only flown a few times myself – but there you go. Or rather here we go. Now, turn out over the attic floor. Easy, easy. Brilliant turn! We’re on our way home. I’ve got the map here …’ He reached inside his jacket and found the map, folded to a manageable size, so that he could follow the route he had chosen. It was warm from having Nelson’s furry body next to it. ‘We obviously need to steer clear of low rafters,’ he called up to her.

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 …’