Attica

chapter 21

Saviour of the Wooden World

‘I can’t do hang-gliding,’ Alex said, ‘if that’s what you’re thinking.’

Judging from her expression that wasn’t what Amanda was thinking.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she replied. ‘What I mean is, I can sail you across the Great Water Tank much swifter than you can travel on your raft. Then I can lead you through the attic on the safest and quickest paths, avoiding horrible mountains and the scissor-birds.’

‘You would do that for me?’ Alex said, surprised. ‘Don’t you have to stay here and guard your watches?’

On the mention of the word ‘watches’ the owl swivelled its head, first 360 degrees one way, then the same the other way. Two complete circles. It seemed disappointed there were no watches on view. It gave Alex a hard stare, as if it believed the boy had been trying to trick it.

‘Oh, I have to go sometimes. There are more watches out there to collect. It would be a poor collection, Alex, if I didn’t seek to enlarge it, to make it the best collection the attic has ever seen. I usually go after I’ve beaten back an attack by the Music Makers. That brattish Organist takes time to reorganise and regroup, before attempting another assault.’

‘What if he stole some of your watches and hid them?’

‘He’s tried that. I always find them again. They tick, you see.’

Alex said, ‘Why doesn’t he just smash them?’

She blinked several times then stared hard at him as if he had just told her he approved of murder.

‘That would be such a terrible wanton act of destruction,’ she said, ‘which no sane person would even contemplate. In any case, a thousand watches? How would he carry them all away? How could he manage to smash them before I got to him and scratched his eyes out?’

‘How long has it been going on like this?’

‘Oh, years and years.’

‘Well maybe this Organist has become so obsessed with the idea of getting rid of you he’s not sane any more.’

She said, ‘I can’t even think like that.’

They were quiet for a while, during which Alex thought he heard something, in the far distance, that he recognised.

But she soon interrupted his thoughts.

‘Now, Alexander the Great, we have to plan our passage. I’m a very good pathfinder you know, Alex. It’s not just the bortrekkers who can find their way across the world. The board-combers are good at it too. Perhaps not quite so good as bortrekkers, but nearly. How soon can you be ready? Shall we set out tomorrow morning?’

‘You want to get rid of me that quickly?’

The owl nodded thoughtfully.

‘Alex,’ said Amanda, looking him in the eyes (it was very difficult to take her seriously with an owl on her head), ‘I’ve told you, if you don’t go down quickly, you’ll never get down at all. Every day counts. The attic is working on your soul every moment you’re here.’

‘But I haven’t found Mr Grantham’s watch yet.’

‘It’s not over this side of the tank, Alex,’ she told him. ‘I’ve covered every inch of this territory, believe me. We’ll have to search for it on your way home – and if we don’t find it, why, then it’s truly lost, for the other side of the Great Water Tank is a vast landscape. No one has ever explored all of it to the eaves. It seems to go on for ever. I’m sorry.’

He sighed. ‘That’s all right.’

There it was again, that familiar sound. Faint music. A tune from a folk song. Was it in his head? Or was it really out there somewhere? Perhaps he too was becoming obsessed. Obsessed with the idea of finding Mr Grantham’s watch. Now it had stopped. Very spooky.

The owl screeched loudly, shattering his reverie.

Amanda dashed forward and leapt on someone sneaking around out in the darkness. She struggled for a moment, then returned into the evening gleam of the skylight. She had a village boy by the ear, one of those mercenaries who had ridden the bagpipe-spiders in the attack. His face was screwed up into a tight wad of indignation.

‘A spy,’ said Amanda, satisfied with her own detection. ‘I thought I heard something out there.’

The boy was about half her size. He had stopped kicking and struggling and now stared at the ground. Amanda began to speak to him. To Alex’s ears she sounded like a creaking gate, but he had heard the language before and knew it to be Attican. The boy answered her, defiantly it seemed, glaring at her. He kept pointing back into the darkness, in the direction where the Music Makers had come from. He seemed adamant about something. Finally Amanda let go of his ear. The Attican youth remained for a few more moments, still creaking away, then he ran off.

‘Well?’ asked Alex. ‘What was all that about?’

‘Fireworks.’

Alex raised an eyebrow. ‘Fireworks? You mean bonfire night fireworks?’

‘That brat,’ she waved a hand at the departing child, ‘said the Organist had made a firework. A very big one. I don’t believe him.’

‘Why not?’

‘Why make a firework? They had a box up here that went off once. The Removal Firm dealt with it, but it was terrible. It started a great fire which spread over a large area of the attic. They managed to put it out but if it hadn’t been close to a water tank the whole attic might have been destroyed. You can go to the place now and walk for three days over charred wood with charcoal beams overhead. Now the Removal Firm seek out any boxes of fireworks that are put up here and throw them in a water tank.’

‘But one firework – I doubt that would do much harm.’

Amanda shrugged. ‘Then what would be the point?’

Alex thought about it for a bit, then said, ‘I suppose – I guess it would depend on how big it was.’

‘The spy said the Organist had put torch batteries on it.’

‘That doesn’t sound right,’ admitted Alex. Then he asked, ‘Why did the boy tell you – about the firework?’

‘He said he was scared – he said they all are – they don’t like sudden loud noises, the village children. He said the Organist is bragging that it’ll make the loudest bang the attic has ever heard. That one said the other children had sent him as their messenger, behind the Organist’s back.’ She sighed. ‘I don’t believe it. I think it’s another one of his tricks.’

‘Does he think you’ll run, threatened by a firework?’

She shrugged again. ‘He’ll try anything. We’d better get some sleep now. We’ve got a long journey in the morning.’

Alex found himself a comfortable spot and curled up, trying to go to sleep. But something was bothering him. He kept thinking about the big firework and the batteries. In the middle of the night he woke up with a start. Something awful had come into his head. Something really bad. He went over to where Amanda lay and shook her.

‘Amanda! Did he say anything about a timepiece?’

‘Wha— who, what? What timepiece?’

‘Did the boy mention a timepiece of any kind?’

She sat up and rubbed her eyes.

The owl, guarding the camp, looked down with contempt on Alex from a rafter above his head.

Sleepily, Amanda said, ‘Oh – the firework. Yes, that was the stupidest part. The boy said the Organist had fixed a pocket-watch to the firework.’ She thought for a bit. ‘I suppose the Organist might have stolen one of my collection. Do you think he’s going to launch one of my watches into the high rafters on a skyrocket?’

‘No.’ Alex stared at her. ‘I think he’s made a time bomb.’

‘A bomb?’ Amanda shook her head in disbelief. ‘He wouldn’t do that.’

‘Why not? He’s crazy, isn’t he?’

‘A bit – well, quite a bit, actually.’ Amanda stared at Alex with wide eyes from behind her mask. ‘Do you really think he’d make a time bomb? Only anarchists do that, don’t they?’

‘We call them terrorists.’

Just at that moment Alex felt himself being gripped by strong hands. He tried to break away, but they held him fast. Looking round, he saw he was being held by two large Atticans wearing dustcoats. He recognised them as the same ones Nelson had chased off on the other side of the Great Water Tank. The others were standing close by. Six in all. One of the others tipped out the contents of Alex’s backpack. Among the things that fell out was the small camping stove, along with boxes of matches.

‘You let me alone,’ Alex cried. ‘Who do you think you are?’

‘The Removal Firm, that’s who they are,’ replied Amanda in a low voice. ‘Are those your matches, Alex?’

‘I only use them to light the stove. I need to cook my food.’

‘Oh, Alex,’ she said in a voice of despair. ‘You’re in very grave trouble.’

‘But what about the bomb?’

Amanda said something to the Removal Firm. One of them, a male with very dark eyes, answered her. Then he looked at Alex very sternly, and said something to the two who held him. Alex’s arms were released. He rubbed the circulation back into them. They had gripped him very hard. Amanda continued to speak with the leader of the Removal Firm and there followed a lot of pointing and gesturing in the direction of the region where the Organist had his Music Makers.

‘It seems,’ said Amanda, turning to Alex at last, ‘the Organist has fled. The Removal Firm came here looking for you because they sensed that the attic was in great danger. They believe a disaster is about to occur and of course they blamed you, the newest incomer. But when they got here the Organist saw them. He panicked and ran. Oh, Alex, I’m sorry.’ She regarded him through the eyeholes of her mask. ‘If I doubted you before, I’m inclined to believe you now. The Organist would never run away and abandon this place if he wasn’t guilty of something very bad.’

‘Who said he’s gone?’

‘They did.’ Amanda nodded towards the Removal Firm, who stood like a solid wall before Alex. ‘They came past his camp. When he saw them approaching he ran like a scared rafter rat. He won’t get very far. They’ll catch up with him, sooner rather than later. But they’re very concerned about the possibility of this bomb. Are you sure, Alex? Are you certain?’

‘Of course I’m not,’ Alex answered. ‘It was just a theory. But torch batteries and a watch? It’s got to be more than some firework banger. We’ve got to find it, Amanda, before it goes off. You know him best. Where would he be likely to plant it?’

The bits of Amanda’s face that weren’t covered by the mask went very, very pale.

‘I don’t know,’ she whispered. ‘In one of the pianos? Perhaps he’s trying to blow up my defences?’

‘Well, we’d best start searching. Who knows how powerful he’s made that bomb? I bet he doesn’t even know himself. If he’s good at music, he’s probably lousy at science. Tell these twerps they’d be better off helping us than beating me up, if that’s what they’re going to do.’

Amanda spoke rapidly in that creaking voice. To give them their due the Removal Firm went into action with alacrity. All six ran with Alex and Amanda to the line of pianos and began lifting lids and looking inside. Once they had exhausted the pianos they tried other places, peering in dark corners, looking in odd shoe boxes, tipping out crates, lifting the lids of trunks. There were so many places the Organist could have hidden his bomb.

Bundles of clothes were turned over, the underside of card tables were inspected, rattan chairs were frisked. The Removal Firm went to the village and questioned those who had assisted the Organist in his battles, but the villagers insisted they knew nothing more about the firework than had already been divulged to Amanda by the boy.

Amanda thought about her boat and ran to the quay to go over it, but the bomb was not on board.

‘Where? Where? Where?’ she cried. ‘We must find it.’

Once, while they were all searching, something returned to irritate Alex: that little melody that had been haunting him. He couldn’t pin it down though. It was like the faint sound of some insect in the air. It hummed on the edge of his reasoning, but he could never quite decide whether he could actually hear it or not. Then he forgot about it, deciding that seeking the bomb was the most important thing. Other less worrying things could wait for a more tranquil time, when he could think more clearly.

The others were sitting in a circle not a great distance away from Amanda’s collection of watches. Alex looked round at them. There were six bald-headed wrestlers in khaki dustcoats and, in stark contrast, a girl festooned with coloured ribbons and feathers. They all looked very tired. Was he leading them on a wild-goose chase? They didn’t seem to think so, or they would have scorned his theory and dragged him away to his fate.

The Removal Firm, he had to admit, worked like Trojans. They battled tirelessly with piles of junk and heaps of rubbish, sorting through them with never a creak. Finally they seemed to have exhausted every possibility and even Alex was beginning to think the whole thing was a hoax. Perhaps the Organist had made a fake bomb and had then taken it apart and scattered the pieces over a large area? But then why would he run? That bit didn’t make sense. He had fought Amanda for years over this territory. Why would he abandon it just because the Removal Firm were close by?

Yet where was the bomb? They had looked everywhere.

At that moment Amanda’s watches began to chime the hour.

It was noon.

Among the tunes that started up came the one that had been haunting him.

He put words to it in his head:

Frère Jacques, Frère Jacques …

There it was! That was it. The bothersome sound.

… dormez vous? dormez vous? …

‘Out of the way!’ cried Alex, jumping up and leaping over the heads of the Removal Firm.

He ran to the pillar of watches.

… sonnez les matines, sonnez les matines …

All the chiming watches were in full sound now, spilling out their own tinkling variations.

… ding, dang, dong …

Alex scraped away at the base of the pillar, scattering Amanda’s precious collection over the boards.

… ding …

There was the bomb! There Mr Grantham’s watch! There the batteries!

… dang …

Alex ripped out the wires, tore away the watch.

… dong.

Alex fell back, sweating, the watch in his palm. He felt drained. He held up the pocket-watch and looked at its hands. The hour hand had been bent inwards so that when it reached it, it would touch the metal figure 12. Hair-thin wires were connected to both. Vertical noon. It had almost made it. Almost. If it had touched that would have completed the circuit and detonated the bomb. How close it had been! After a while he was aware of a ring of faces above him, looking down on him. Amanda was smiling. He could see the curve of her mouth below her mask. He could see the twinkle in her eyes. There was hero worship in those eyes.

‘Alex, you did it. You found the bomb. You are so clever.’

She gently took the pocket-watch from his hand.

He explained. ‘I heard the tune. I’ve been hearing it all day, somewhere in the distance. But it didn’t connect until now. Frère Jacques. You said you hadn’t got a watch that chimed Frère Jacques.’

‘And I don’t. I didn’t. The Organist must have found it himself, while he was out looking for musical instruments.’

Alex sat up. ‘It nearly did for us, that French monk’s song. If the bomb had gone off – well, I think it would have brought the pillar down.’ Alex slapped the wooden support. ‘And if that one had come down, they would all have started snapping.’ He looked up. ‘The roof of the world would fallen on our heads.’

Once this had sunk in, Amanda interpreted it for the Removal Firm, who all nodded their heads sagely and patted the pillar.

Amanda turned back to Alex and said, ‘They agree with you – they say you saved the whole attic from destruction.’ Her eyes showed how proud she was to be associated with him. ‘Oh, Alex.’

He shrugged modestly. ‘Anyone would have.’

‘No, they wouldn’t. They wouldn’t have the brains. An engineer’s brains. However …’ She looked downcast.

Alex said, ‘What is it?’

‘They – they say you can’t stay. You have to go. Go back to where you came from. You’re a risk, you see. You play with fire.’ She looked into his eyes again. ‘But they won’t arrest you. You’re free to go. In your own time.’

‘That’s nice,’ he remarked sarcastically, then said, ‘Oh well, you can’t fight the Removal Firm. Will they let you take me?’

‘Yes – they trust me.’

‘That’s all right then.’

Alex turned away. He felt a little flat now. The saviour of the world ought, he felt, to be given a parade or something. But they wanted him to go: said he had to go. He’d broken the rules, the law of the attic. All right, he’d take his punishment. He knew he had done one of the best things in his life. Something he would never forget. They couldn’t take that away from him. Nobody could. It was his moment and they all knew it too.

‘Goodbye,’ he said, turning and shaking their hands, one by one. ‘May all your removals be as easy as this one.’

They looked surprised. They probably weren’t used to shaking hands, he thought. Maybe they didn’t do such things? But they looked pleased. These were the guardians of the attic, the preservers of wood and life up here among the beams and timbers. And he, Alex, had shaken their hands. Not many humans would have done that.

They left then, probably in pursuit of the Organist. Would he get the same punishment: banishment from the attic? Or did they indeed imprison criminals in sea chests or changing room lockers? He couldn’t think they did. But then again, this was not Alex’s world. This was the attic.

Amanda left him to go down to the jetty to prepare the boat for sailing. He noticed she had not given him back Mr Grantham’s watch. Was she going to keep it after all? He trailed down to the quay after her.

‘Hello,’ he called, walking down to the jetty where the little boat bobbed on the waves. ‘Are we ready?’

The owl looked at him and nodded slowly.

‘I don’t like your owl much,’ he told Amanda, as he put his backpack into the boat. ‘Or rather, he doesn’t like me.’

‘Oh, he’s just jealous. Usually he gets all my attention.’

‘Well, he’ll have you all to himself soon.’

Once they were all in the boat, the owl left Amanda’s head and perched on the prow. Then they were off, scudding across the waves at a speed which thrilled Alex. Spray hit his face and ran down his cheeks in rivulets. They cut through pillars of golden sunlight, and tacked through avenues of deep shadow. Once or twice Amanda barked an order and Alex had to jump to some task with alacrity or earn her displeasure. Still, even though she treated him with less respect than gentry do their scullery maids, he found the whole experience exhilarating. He loved it. It filled him with a white wind that carried his spirit to the very heights of the attic.

‘Free!’ he cried, as the little boat shot over the surface of the water, its spinnaker billowing proudly. ‘Free as a bird!’

The owl’s head swivelled and the big eyes glared.

‘Well, some birds,’ amended Alex weakly. ‘The ones that actually are free.’

They made excellent progress. Amanda taught him even more about the skylight suns and stars, filling in his knowledge where there were gaps. She was much more adept at following the motion of the swell than he was and her touch was sensitive enough to feel it in the tiller when it was hardly even there. Certainly when Alex tried it, he could feel nothing at all. The shape of the dust clouds, the colour of the waves, the angles of the rafters high up in the roof, these were her guides. Her navigating skills were, as she had said, almost as good as those of the bortrekker. She also had the mystical uncanny knack of missing flotsam and jetsam which might damage her boat.

Sometimes, privately, Alex took her for a witch.

They made the far side in good time, even when a fog delayed them in a busy part of the tank known as the Rust-riven Roads, where she said many an Attican had fallen from the mast or rigging to end his days. The owl helped them in the fog, by hooting to warn other vessels of their intentions. When Amanda was not listening, Alex whispered to the owl, ‘At least you’re good for something.’

The owl farted.

Once they made the far side, the trekking began. Days of it. It was sometimes tedious, sometimes exciting. They circled villages full of lumpy, plaster-covered Atticans with their sewing-machine cars. They avoided dangerous places, like mountains made of weapons. They crossed deserts of boards with dunes of old clothes and forded shallow tanks on the edges of dark plains of planks. Forests there were, of many different trees, and valleys of dust, and lanes of boxes. Sometimes there was kindness and food from local people. At other times Amanda avoided contact, knowing the region was hostile to people, both native and not. It was long and arduous yet – yet deep down in some way Alex did not want it to end.

The owl was a constant companion, sometimes on Amanda’s head, but now sometimes on one shoulder or the other. Alex was surprised to learn she had conversations with it, always just out of his hearing. Did it reply? It seemed to. He was never quite sure. It reminded him that Amanda was not quite human any more, no longer a real person. She was something else, something part fey, part human, part attic-creature. Even if he were to stay a hundred years with her, he would never really get to know her.

As she had promised, Amanda knew her paths. She took the pair of them through seemingly untrodden ways where the dust had previously gathered, unsullied by boot or claw. They left their mark on the trail. Amanda said that their footprints would remain a thousand years, gathering more dust in the hollows of the heels and in the shallows of the soles.

‘Just like the footprints of astronauts on the moon,’ he told her, but she was shocked when he explained. ‘Have you never heard of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin? They were the first men on the surface of the moon.’

‘Men have desecrated the surface of the moon? Titania and Oberon will hate that,’ she told him, as if Shakespeare’s fairies were real people. ‘How could they soil the silver moondust with the mundane feet of men?’

He thought that sounded very poetic and kept the sentence in mind to pass on to his sister, when he next saw her.

One morning there was a hoar frost. A chill draught had blown down from the upper reaches of the attic and turned any moisture to crystals that glittered in the early sunlight from the windows. Young Jack Frost was about, dancing with twinkling toes on box, board and bagatelle. Alex woke thrusting the crackling blanket from him to rub his legs with his hands. It had been a cold night and he had shivered for the last hour. The owl seemed to smile at him, saying, Now the feathers come into their own.

‘You’d better watch it,’ muttered Alex. ‘I’ve had pigeon pie since I came up here, and I wouldn’t say no to owl pudding.’

‘What did you say?’ asked Amanda, rising and yawning, stretching her arms up in a big Y. ‘Did you speak to me?’

‘No, I was simply saying good morning to your owl.’

Just then Alex noticed something lying twenty metres away.

‘I know that pile of rags,’ he said, getting up. ‘He’s got himself a fox fur for a topknot.’

He walked to a heap of clothes and poked it with his toe.

‘Morning, board-comber,’ he said. ‘Like the hat.’

The Inuit carvings collector stirred himself. He had wrapped a fox fur round his head in the night. He looked up at Alex. The nose of the fox ran down the nose on the mask of the board-comber. Its dark eyes glittered. To Alex it was like addressing a boy with two heads. The board-comber looked about a hundred kilos heavier than he had before, but it was only more padding, several more layers of old clothes.

The black bat dangling from his ear twittered, and the board-comber said, ‘I’m just about to ask him.’ He turned to Alex. ‘Did you find me any you-know-whats on the other side of the lake?’

‘No, I’m sorry. I did look.’

The bat twittered and the board-comber sighed.

‘Oh, well – never mind – so long as you looked.’

‘I did. And now I’m going home. Hey, you should meet another board-comber, my friend over here. She collects pocket-watches.’

But a funny thing happened. The two board-combers refused to look at one another. They didn’t speak. They completely ignored each other. There was a kind of shyness there, or rivalry, Alex couldn’t decide which. Perhaps a little of both? But it was obviously a professional board-combers’ thing. Board-combers didn’t acknowledge one another, and that was that. Some code of culture which was unbreakable, even for a mutual friend. The old board-comber wished Alex the best of luck and said goodbye, and the new board-comber yelled that she was ready to leave. Alex told the old one if he ever got his hands on some carvings down below, he’d chuck them up into the attic and know they would end up in good loving hands.

‘Come on!’ called Amanda in a testy tone, not looking at either of them. ‘Time we were on our way.’

‘I’m coming.’

Before he ran back to her, the board-comber he was with leaned closer and pressed three small packages into his hand.

‘For your sister,’ he whispered. ‘A gift. For your brother. And for you. For helping me find a new treasure.’

‘I know what mine is,’ said Alex, grinning, weighing the largest of the parcels in his hand. ‘Thanks. Thanks a lot.’

Alex shook a hand that had the texture of crumpled paper.

He put the gifts in his backpack.

When he got back to Amanda, he said, ‘An old friend.’

‘Huh, can’t be that old, you’ve only been up here five minutes.’

‘Well, he helped me, just as you’re helping me.’

‘Who cares?’ she said.

Alex wanted the two board-combers to become friends, but they clearly would have none of it. He thought it a little sad that there were so few nearly-humans in the attic and those there were could not be sociable with one another. Yet, when he thought further he realised that was precisely why they were up here. They wanted as little social contact as possible. Then a chill ran through him, as he realised his own dark side. He had contemplated remaining in the attic. He was one of them, one of those who wanted to break away from people and become a loner. What had done that to him? Why had he become so disenchanted with other people?

‘My dad,’ he said to himself grimly, ‘that’s what did it.’

‘What?’ asked Amanda. ‘What did you say?’

‘My dad died. He didn’t stand a chance.’ Alex’s eyes brimmed with tears as he thought of his father, deep-set eyes ringed with dark circles from working late in the evenings, very gentle, very caring. ‘It just happened, like that,’ Alex snapped his fingers. ‘One minute he was standing in a supermarket, the next he was lying on the pavement outside. No one knew what to do. Ben would’ve,’ he said savagely. ‘Mum would’ve. But that crowd, they were useless.’

‘Your father died?’

‘Of a heart attack, lying on the ground. Absolutely useless. Oh, they called an ambulance of course, but that came too late to save him. I hate that crowd. Someone should’ve done something. They just stood there. The bloody buggers just stood there and did nothing.’

Amanda stopped and looked at him. ‘Would you have known what to do?’

‘Me? I’m just a kid.’

‘Alex, most people know very little about what to do in emergencies like that – they haven’t had the training. I wouldn’t know what to do and I’m a hundred years old.’

Alex was reluctant to let go of his anger. ‘Yes, but you lived in a different time, when people didn’t know very much.’

‘I know as much as you,’ she retorted hotly. ‘What’s the capital of Ceylon?’ she challenged.

‘Never heard of it. There’s no such place.’

‘Yes there is and it’s Colombo, Mr Thinks-he-knows-it-all!’

‘Ha! Colombo is the capital of Sri Lanka, not this place Ceylon.’

‘Sirry Lanker? Never heard of it. You made that up.’

They both glared at one another as they walked along, still moving towards Alex’s eventual destination.

Finally, after a while, Amanda softened. ‘I’m just saying,’ she said, getting rid of her defiant pose, ‘that you can’t expect ordinary people in a crowd to know what to do with a heart attack.’

Miserably, he had to acknowledge this. He himself lived in a household where medical things were talked about all the time. He guessed others lived in houses where banking or bricklaying was the subject around the dinner table. It was hard though, to lose a dad to something so quick and vicious. Alex found it difficult to live in a world which could snatch a loved one away from a family so quickly and easily. What if his mum were next? Or Chloe? Or Ben and Jordy? It wasn’t fair. Someone should do something about it, because it made you want to leave such a world for good, and stay in Attica where you’d never have to face such losses. If you didn’t have anybody around, you couldn’t lose anyone, could you?

He hung his head. ‘I’m sorry, Amanda.’

The owl clucked and ruffled its feathers.

‘That’s all right,’ she replied. ‘You should think about your father sometimes. Try to think of the good times, though. He would want you to do that, wouldn’t he? His death probably lasted only a few minutes, but he was alive and well for many years, wasn’t he?’

‘I guess.’

‘Then why concentrate on those few minutes, horrible as they probably were, when there’s a whole life to look at?’

‘I dunno. It’s just that every time I think of him, I get this image of him lying on the pavement, his eyes all wide and frightened. I just can’t get it out of my head. So I don’t think of him very often.’

‘I can understand that, but you’ve got a strong spirit, Alex, you can force yourself to remember him as he was. Did he laugh?’

‘Oh yes, quite a lot. But he could get angry too, when my school reports weren’t good. He was dead keen on education. I used to get annoyed with him for that. But he was good with jokes too.’

‘Did he take you fishing?’

‘No – he wasn’t that kind of dad. He worked too hard to see us that often. But when he had some time we’d go to the Science Museum in London – somewhere like that. He loved engines, just like me. And books, he liked books too, like Chloe. He used to share things with us.’

Amanda’s eyes twinkled. ‘Maybe he didn’t like either, engines or books? Maybe he was interested because you two were interested? He sounds like a good dad to me. You had a lot of him. I didn’t have a father, not one who I knew, so you’re lucky you got what you did.’

Alex stared at Amanda, realising why she was a board-comber.

‘Yeah, I guess.’ He tried to imagine what it would have been like to have no father at all, not even a step-dad like Ben. ‘You had a bad time, eh?’

‘It wouldn’t have been so bad,’ she replied, ‘if they hadn’t beaten me so often …’

She shook in anger, stirring her colourful ribbons and rags: little flags of rage fluttering at the past.

Bullies, he thought. Even worse than people who did nothing for a man having a heart attack. There were bullies at his school who could make your life a complete misery. These days there were lots of kids who had no dads at home and no one thought much about it. But the bullying still went on, just the same. If they didn’t call you one name, they’d think of another: the colour of your skin, the fact that you had freckles and ginger hair, the fact that you wore glasses – anything, really. And if taunting didn’t stir you, they often resorted to threats and violence. Bullies were another reason why you wanted to escape from the world, if you didn’t deal with them.

‘Well,’ said Amanda, bringing him out of his reverie, ‘we’re here.’

He looked up. ‘Where?’ he asked, surprised.

‘That patch of darkness is where you go.’

Alex blinked hard. ‘In there? My house?’

‘That’s where you came from.’

‘Oh.’

The time had come to say goodbye.

Alex unslung the African mask from his shoulder.

‘Well, Makishi, I can’t take you with me – you’d just become a wall-hanging down there.’

‘I do not want to part from you, Alex, but I do not want to adorn a wall.’

Alex handed Makishi to Amanda. ‘You’ll look after him, won’t you?’

She nodded. ‘I’ll wear him sometimes.’

‘Well, he’s a boy’s mask really, but I’m sure he’ll like it better here than down in my world.’

‘And we must say goodbye too, Alex.’

Alex said weakly, ‘Oh well, here goes – see you, then.’

‘No,’ she replied seriously, ‘we won’t see each other again, I’m afraid, but I did like meeting you, Alex. I haven’t spoken to a human in – oh, I don’t know how long – but I enjoyed our time together. Now you must go back to what you know, and me to what I know.’

‘You make sure that old Organist doesn’t come back,’ he said fiercely. ‘You keep those Music Makers on their toes.’

‘I will,’ she laughed. She touched his cheek with her fingertips. ‘Goodbye, Alex.’

And she was gone, a pretty creature of many-coloured rags running across the boards, heading for a forest of standard lamps.


Safe inside the forest, she turns and looks at him standing there, until finally he enters the dark patch behind him.

‘What was all that about?’ asks the owl.

Oh, you know. What if you were to meet another owl?

‘I’d scratch her eyes out.’

No you wouldn’t. It’s just that he had that smell, you know, of down there. That faint odour of real world about him. I miss my mother, and my grandmother.

‘You can go down, if you want.’

And leave you? And my lovely watches? No. But he was a nice young man, wasn’t he? Very exotic. I think he had ancestors from the Orient.

She sighs and thinks about a favourite watch which is covered in stars and moons and comes from that part of the world.

‘Well, I didn’t like him,’ says the owl emphatically. ‘I thought he was drippy. Didn’t seem to know what he wanted.’

That’s just part of being young. You’ve been old for so long you can’t remember what it’s like to be young.

‘I’m just glad he’s gone.’

Didn’t you like him at all?

The owl ponders and a little truth comes out.

‘Well, he was quite humorous sometimes. He made you laugh.’

And you?

‘Just a little.’

‘Owls don’t laugh.’