Attica - By Garry Kilworth Page 0,106

– large Atticans in khaki dustcoats. Stay out of their way if you can.’

The boy leaned forward, hanging on to the mast.

‘Atticans?’

‘Villagers.’

The girl’s expression brightened. ‘Hey, you want to come with us?’

Alex shook his head. ‘No, sorry.’

They both seemed disappointed.

‘OK, good luck.’

‘You too. Try and find a map. There must be more than one, I’m sure. You’ll get home then.’

‘Thanks.’

They watched each other’s vessel for a long time until they both became specks in each other’s eyes.

‘Nice people,’ said Makishi, afterwards.

Alex thought the idea of being a rafter king sounded exciting. Board-comber, bortrekker or rafter king? How many others were there, in this wooden world of the attic? Beam-walkers? Roof-rangers? Maybe even tank-voyagers? Nah, he’d made his choice. Bortrekker.

Over the rest of the morning Alex sailed towards the edge of the sea and finally hove in with a slight bump against the side of the tank. He moored his craft, not knowing whether he was going to use it again. Dressing once more in his bortrekker gear, he was ready to go ashore.

He disembarked and began walking along the wooden rim. His legs felt wobbly and it seemed as if the solid ground beneath his feet were moving. That was just an illusion though, after days on a rolling vessel. He was here on dry land once again and close to the end of this quest.

Descending the ladder on the side of the tank he found himself among huge dunes of hearth tools – coal scuttles, tongs, brushes, shovels – which he climbed over with no difficulty. Beyond these dunes was a solid wall of upright pianos. These looked so much like fortifications that Alex wondered if he’d wandered into hostile country. Were these defences here because someone or something lurked behind them? A creature so insecure and unsavoury that it needed walls to keep out its enemies? Or perhaps the piano walls had been built to keep something in? Like a giant ape or a people so savage the attic would be devastated by their release?

‘Tread softly here, Alex,’ he told himself.

He climbed up on one of the pianos, to peer at the land beyond.

CHAPTER 20

Attack of the Music Makers!

‘I hope you haven’t come to steal my watches.’

Alex turned and was surprised to see a short stocky girl, in the rags and tatters of a board-comber. This one was quite different, however, to the board-comber who collected Inuit carvings. For a start, the mask she wore was quite attractive: a gold-dusted carnival mask which hid only the top half of her face. There were three scarlet feathers protruding gaily from the top of the mask. Her dress was even more flamboyant, with outrageous colours and lots of tassels and hanging ribbons. There were reds and purples, greens and blues, yellows and oranges. All these were happily mixed in together, making a spectacle more suited to a fairground. Instead of a bat hanging from one ear, this board-comber had a small owl on her shoulder. The owl regarded Alex steadily with round serious eyes.

‘Watches?’ asked Alex. ‘What watches?’

‘Don’t think I don’t know.’

‘Don’t know what?’

‘Why you’re here. No one comes here. You must’ve come to steal my watches. There’s no other reason.’

When the board-comber stepped in closer, Alex could see that in physical age she was not much older than himself. Probably about Jordy’s age. However, her eyes contained the promise of more wisdom than was owned by Alex, Jordy and Chloe put together. Her skin was like a smooth parchment, with a whole life history written upon it. Alex would guess she had been up in the attic many years and had learned its seasons, its cycles, its myriad quirky rhythms and tides. No doubt she had witnessed the moon locked in every glass in the roof and had seen the sun roll from one window to the next a hundred times.

This was a veteran of the attic: an ancient of days.

‘You’re wondering how long I’ve been here.’

‘Yes,’ said Alex.

‘A hundred years.’

Alex said, ‘You just made that up.’

‘No,’ she replied earnestly, ‘I’ve been here a hundred years. Don’t you know real time doesn’t move for us humans in the attic? It seems our bodies are caught in some kind of time-limbo between the two worlds. Have you seen the clocks and watches here?’

‘They go backwards.’

‘And in our old world, they go forwards.’

Alex realised he was supposed to see something significant in that and finally the answer came to him.

‘Oh, I see,’ he cried, ‘they oppose each other. They keep real