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