in your class.’ She laughed. ‘We’re very ordinary.’
Punch’s expression cleared immediately.
‘Oh, that. You don’t want to worry about that. We like mixing with the general public, don’t we, policeman? They’re our bread and butter – or were. Where’s my darling Judy? I must go and chivvy her up. Won’t be a sec.’ He disappeared into the tent.
Chloe said to the policeman, ‘He’s a very kind Punch – are they all like that?’
‘Oh yes. Up here we can be ourselves,’ he replied, ‘but to tell you the truth, this Punch is rather special. He believes in acting the Good Samaritan whenever he gets the chance.’ He leaned forward in a conspiratorial manner and murmured, ‘This one’s very pious, very religious. It’s said that one of his hands is made from a piece of the True Cross.’
The wooden Good Samaritan eventually emerged again.
A buxom red-cheeked Judy in a mob cap and wearing an apron came out of the striped tent with Punch. She beamed at the children, holding the apron out in front of her by its two bottom corners. In the hollow were about thirty birds’ eggs: probably pigeons’ eggs by the size of them.
‘Well, how nice,’ she said, clearly very pleased. ‘Alex and Chloe. What nice names. Punch said you would like some eggs? I’ve got some here …’
She sat down on the floor. The others joined her. Judy handed one egg to Alex and one to Chloe. Alex went to peel his straight away and was dismayed when it came apart in his fingers. Yolk and white dribbled to the floor. The egg was raw. ‘Oh dear,’ he said. ‘Not cooked.’
Disappointment showed on the faces of the puppets.
‘But we can soon cook them, Alex, on your little stove,’ said Chloe.
The puppets looked at each other in alarm.
‘Not with fire, I hope,’ said the policeman. ‘Fire in an attic, you know, is not a good thing.’
‘Oh, of course,’ replied Alex. ‘You’re right, I wasn’t thinking.’
He then took a handkerchief out of his pocket, took the eggs from Judy and placed them in it, tying the corners carefully.
‘We’ll eat them later,’ he said for the benefit of the puppets. ‘Raw, naturally.’
‘Now that we’ve met some – some real people,’ Chloe said earnestly to the puppets, ‘perhaps you can help us?’
‘Certainly, of course we can,’ replied Judy. She turned to Punch. ‘Can’t we, dear?’
‘Naturally, my love, we always try to assist our own kind.’
Chloe had to be very careful in the way she phrased her questions.
‘Why is it,’ she said, ‘that in the attic, things talk that normally don’t? Like, er – like masks, for instance – can talk. Alex has a mask – the one hanging on his back – which talks all the time. Yet there are other objects that stay as they are, and don’t walk or talk.’
‘Perfectly reasonable question,’ answered Punch, with the policeman and Judy nodding at each other. ‘You see, my dear, the attic is like – how shall I put it – like a continent. It is vast. And not only that, it’s an invisible vortex – do you know that word? Good! Very bright children,’ he said in an aside to Judy and the policeman. ‘Without being able to help yourselves you are drawn into the middle, into the very centre of the maelstrom – that’s a foreign word for whirlpool which clever children like you need to know.
‘As you leave the edges and are pulled further into the middle of the attic, things get more peculiar. Anyway, the long and short of it is all sorts of inanimate objects come to life, can move and talk, even think in a way. Just as we do,’ he added quickly. ‘Others, as you say, remain inanimate, unmoving. The attic’s not consistent you know. That’s what makes it so interesting. One day you might approach a statue and nothing happens, the next day it leaves its pedestal and runs after you. I love that side of the attic, the quirky, unpredictable side. Anything can happen. One thing is certain: you should stay out of the middle and away from the eaves.’
Middle? Eaves? What was left? The in-between areas?
Alex said, ‘Why, only yesterday we were right up against the eaves. It’s hard not to be near the eaves.’
‘Ah,’ interrupted Judy, ‘that’s because the roof isn’t just an up and down triangular roof. It’s lots of rooftops, all fitted together. If you were to go up there, outside – God forbid,’ she crossed herself, her wooden hand making