the ball well. It lifted about six centimetres off the floor and passed between the two oncoming players. Onward it flew, surely and truly, and ended in the corner of a goal on the far side.
The crowd went into an uproar. They surged on to the pitch.
‘Yay!’ Jordy yelled, elated. ‘Goal!’
But the mood was ugly.
They were not coming to congratulate him, to raise him up on their shoulders and carry him triumphantly through the attic. They were coming to get him. Many had picked up T-squares and were holding them in a threatening manner. Jordy was left in no doubt they were angry with him and meant to do him harm. He decided it was time to leave. He dashed off into the dim regions of the attic. Happily they did not follow, probably feeling that having chased him away was a victory in itself, ghosts in the attic often being quite stubborn creatures.
Jordy went disconsolately back to his camp site among the grandfather clocks and brooded for a while. That game with the T-squares had reminded him of how much he was missing his old life. He moped around for the rest of the day, thinking that he wasn’t going to move again until Alex and Chloe caught up with him. At least they never minded indulging him when it came to a game of cricket or hockey or something, even if they didn’t feel the same way about it themselves. They could be a pain in the neck at times, but they had their good points.
Jordy went for a walk in the evening, avoiding the three villages. He was on his way back when he saw the villagers gathered in a large group around something hanging from the rafters. He hid behind a pile of junk and observed them from a distance.
At first he thought it was another game, but then the scene seemed too solemn for it to be sport of any kind. Something more serious was going on. He studied the object hanging like a huge plumb bob from the rafters by a long rope. Covered in butcher’s muslin it looked like a giant cocoon, a chrysalis. About the size of a large side of mutton, it spun slowly on the end of a rope.
What the heck is that? thought Jordy.
He noticed that the villagers were all dressed in white and some of them, the ones with hats on, had wooden bowls in their hands which they offered to the masses. These containers seemed to be full of grey powder which the Atticans took in the fingers and sprinkled on each other’s heads, until their lumpy bald pates were as grey as rain clouds.
Suddenly four villagers appeared with an enormous brass bed, carrying it up on their shoulders, one person to each leg. The brass was polished to a brilliance and sparkled in the evening light from the roof windows above. There was no mattress on the bed, only a white blanket.
The cocoon was cut ceremoniously from the rope and placed on the bed. The four carriers moved off with the crowd following and throwing the grey powder on to the cocoon. Jordy went along with them, ducking and weaving between piles of junk to remain hidden. Eventually the party came to a spot where two villagers stood with tools in their hands. They had removed three boards from the floor. The cocoon was then lifted from the bed and placed in the hole and the floorboards hammered back in place. At this point the creaking voices were raised to a high pitch and Jordy had to put his hands over his ears: the discordant sounds hurt his hearing.
Finally the group dispersed and Jordy was alone once more.
‘Wow,’ he said to himself, ‘that was weird. I wonder what that is under those boards. Something valuable, I’ll bet.’
He resisted the inclination to go and prise the boards up to see what it was. Even if it was a treasure hoard he was in dangerous territory. If he was seen it was a long run back to safety and he didn’t want to risk being caught stealing valuables as well as food. He returned to his den in the clock forest to think about what he had witnessed.
When the sun had disappeared from the skylight windows, he lay on his back and mused. Suppose Alex and Chloe never came? He’d lost sight of them out on the boards now. They had vanished. What if they’d turned round and