parents completely ignorant of where they were or what they were doing, with the possibility of never finding home again, and Alex seemed carefree and content. It wasn’t that he was happy exactly, but he certainly wasn’t worried in any way. Chloe couldn’t pin it down exactly, but Alex apparently had a connection with the attic that she did not. He appeared to be at home here.
Passing through a dim area, where the light clustered around a few peepholes in the roof, something happened.
‘Did you see that?’ cried Alex.
Chloe’s heart was beating fast. She had indeed seen it.
The dust was still settling from the sudden disturbance. It was difficult to believe. For many days now they had been wandering Attica without seeing another human being. Now one had popped up, just like that. A woman had unexpectedly opened a trapdoor from below.
The woman had lifted a box and pushed it along the boards as far as her arms could reach. Then she had vanished again, closing a trapdoor behind her. Another box of junk for the attic. To the woman’s eyes, unused to the dimness, the darkness had been impenetrable. Somewhat harassed, with fly-away hair, she had disappeared as quickly as she had appeared. Obviously to her this was not a vast continent whose guttered eaves were long journeys away, but simply her own small attic space.
‘Look, you can see the cracks now.’
Chloe looked down. There were faint lines in the dust forming a square. She stirred the dust with her toe, pushing it aside, and found underneath the unmistakable shape of a trapdoor. It was the first they had seen since leaving their own part of the attic. Perhaps there had been more which had gone unnoticed.
‘Oh, Alex,’ she said. ‘I wish this was our house.’
‘Well – well, it’s not.’
‘But it might be next door?’
Alex raised his hands. ‘Is this our part of the attic? No. There’s none of our stuff here. That means we’re in another part. If you go down that trapdoor, Clo, you might never come back up again. Who’s to say where you’ll end up? Not just another house in another street in another town. Could even be in another part of the world. You wouldn’t want to go down and find yourself in Holloway Prison, would you? Or stuck in a hut in Alaska? I know I wouldn’t.’
‘Of course I wouldn’t,’ she snapped, ‘but that’s just guessing. This is the first trapdoor we’ve come across …’
‘No it’s not,’ replied her brother calmly, staring at her from beneath the brim of his big floppy hat, ‘there have been lots more. You just haven’t seen them. I have.’
‘Stop being so know-it-all.’
‘Oh, I don’t know everything, but I know enough. I can’t help it, Clo, I have seen other trapdoors. I thought you had too. You mustn’t take any notice of them. We’ll know if ever we come across our own.’
If ever? Chloe’s heart pounded. He really didn’t care. You could hear it in his voice. It didn’t matter to Alex if he never went home again. She stared back into his deep brown eyes. There was no troubled look in them. They were calm and accepting. If she felt she had grown a lot in spirit since she’d been in the attic, Alex’s spirit had somehow been transformed. Chloe didn’t know him. He had turned away from her. It was not necessarily a bad change; Alex had not become some evil monster. He was simply very different. At least, part of him was.
‘Don’t keep looking at me like that, Clo. You’re scary.’ He nodded at her head and grinned. ‘You’re beginning to look like a witch. You need to wash your hair.’
Now this was more like the old Alex. She reached up and touched her hair. She had always been very proud of it. It was long, black and silky, like her mother’s. Very full, very thick. It had always shone with natural oils, but now it felt like straw. Horrible matted straw. She reached out, lifted Alex’s hat, and ruffled his straggly hair. ‘You too. You look like a tramp.’
‘Do you think we could find some shampoo somewhere?’ He scratched. ‘I think I’m getting fleas.’
‘You can’t be getting them. You either have them or you don’t. Anyway, I’m not surprised. Anything could be in those old clothes you’ve taken to wearing. A colony of termites. In any case I don’t think you’ve got lice.’ Chloe always insisted on calling things by their proper names. ‘I