ginger beer without asking. ‘Did you get lost?’
‘Oh, we all get lost at first. I went up into my attic to look for somethin’ – can’t remember what now, it’s so long ago. I was a reader then. Found some books, started readin’ one of ’em. Then another. Loved reading in them days. Once I’d read all them I’d found in a cardboard box, I moved out a bit, outside my own attic space. Once you do that, you’re a goner. I became a browser. Would be one today, if I hadn’t found that book on navigation. Inspired me to become a bortrekker.’
‘What’s a bortrekker?’
‘Someone who treks the boards – a wanderer – an attic explorer of sorts, I guess you’d say.’
Jordy liked the sound of that.
‘And a browser?’
‘Someone that wanders the attic, lookin’ for books. Picks ’em up, reads a bit. Puts ’em down. Moves on. Finds another book. Reads a bit. And so on. Browsing. Just browsing.’ The voice became dreamy as he said this, then the bortrekker waved his arm at the darkness around them. ‘Lots of ’em out there. Bortrekkers, board-combers, browsers, others. You won’t come across many of ’em, ’cause this is a big, big place. And only a few of us roaming over it. How long have you been here?’
Jordy told him.
‘Well, you’re only just startin’, but you’ll find out. The boards,’ he waved a bird-bone again, this time in one direction, ‘they seem to go on for ever …’
At that moment though, there were squealing sounds behind Jordy and he turned to see the two rats were descending from the rafters. The bortrekker threw them the bones of the cooked bird he and Jordy had been eating. The rats fell on this fare with great enthusiasm, cracking them in their rodent jaws. They nibbled away at what was left of the flesh on the bones, staring at Jordy as they did so, their small red eyes unblinking.
‘That performance tonight,’ said Jordy. ‘It was good.’
‘The audience was expectin’ it. They’d been to a funeral. They needed cheerin’ up.’
‘A funeral?’ Jordy suddenly thought about what he had seen at the village. ‘Do they – do they bury their dead under the boards?’
The bortrekker gnawed on another bone. ‘Yep. First they gut ’em and hang ’em high up in the rafters, though. Way, way up, in the high draughts of the loftiest regions. Dry ’em like Parma hams, so there’s no moisture left in ’em. That way there’s no smell of rotting flesh, if you know what I mean.’
Jordy’s stomach felt queasy all of a sudden. He felt stupid for thinking that what he had seen stashed away was buried treasure. Of course he did not mention this to the youth sitting with him.
‘I saw them,’ he said. ‘They threw powder over each other.’
‘Dust,’ explained the bortrekker. ‘Old grey dust.’
CHAPTER 12
Bortrekkers and Electric Dust Storms
‘You want to become a bortrekker?’ asked the youth. ‘Is that it?’ He looked up and waved an arm and sighed. ‘This here place, the attic, is a wonderful land when you get to know it. I love it. It’s in my blood now, every plank, every splinter. When it knows you like it, the attic looks after you, in its timbery way. I can understand why you want to stay here. I felt the same after I’d been here a bit. I never want to leave.’
‘No,’ replied Jordy honestly, ‘I don’t want to stay here. This is a great place, I’ll give you that. I like it here. It’s exciting. Things happen to you. But I don’t want to stay for ever. I just need to know how you find your way around. I have to find a pocket-watch, you see. Not just any watch, a special one. Could you teach me how to navigate? You say you don’t have a compass or a map. How do you do it? I need to know because I also have to find my brother and sister, and then the way out.’
The bortrekker settled back into his raincoat, tipping his big hat over his eyes.
‘Compasses are no good up here. The needle always points to the middle of the attic. You see, the natural or the unnatural way of this place is to draw you into the centre. So a compass will take you in that direction. Charts? There is a map …’
‘… in a golden bureau where the ink imps live.’
‘Ah, someone told you. Yep, that’s where it is, down by the Great