triumphantly, ‘he knows where Jordy is!’
‘You do?’ cried Chloe. ‘Oh, where is he?’
‘Yonder,’ replied the bortrekker, pointing. ‘In a forest of tall clocks. He’s safe enough, for the time being, though I have to warn you, the cold Northern Draught is coming. I do believe he be waiting for the pair of you. Saw you coming days ago, but you must have wandered off the straight and narrow. Easy thing to do, up here.’
‘Then we’d better be on our way,’ Chloe announced. ‘Come on Alex, we must find Mr Grantham’s watch.’ Chloe bent over to pick up her pack and felt a heavy lump in her pocket. It was the little statuette from the house below. The one she had kept in case she needed a weapon. She hoped to goodness that removing it was not going to cause all sorts of chaos and confusion in the world below: altering the tides, the climate and weather, the phases of the moon, the hours of daylight. But she wasn’t going to ask the bortrekker. He seemed to like being the voice of doom. She would rather not know.
Chloe quickly transferred the stone figure to her backpack.
Later, after the bortrekker had left them to continue his odyssey across Attica and they were en route to the forest of tall clocks, she took the carving out again and studied it. She saw now that it was of a beautiful green walrus. Chloe admired the carving, then stuffed it back into her pack again
A little later they came across a bees’ nest in an old suitcase.
‘I know how to do this,’ she told Alex, taking off her pack. ‘We need some cardboard from an old cardboard box. We could do with some women’s tights or stockings.’
Alex easily found her some cardboard. It wasn’t difficult: Attica had cardboard boxes all over the place. He didn’t find any tights, but he did discover a box with some old lace curtains in. These, Chloe said, would be absolutely perfect for the job. She put on a hat and threw one of the curtains over her own head and shoulders and bid Alex do the same. Chloe looked like a Spanish bride in her curtain, with Alex the bridesmaid. Their faces were protected against stings, as were their hands when they put on gloves.
Chloe rolled up a piece of the cardboard, then asked Alex to light one end with a match. Once it was burning she blew it out, but continued to blow on the end, making it glow like charcoal embers. She then ordered Alex to lift the suitcase lid. When he did so, the bees began to come out. Chloe lifted her veil enough to blow through the cool end of the cardboard roll and made the smouldering end glow again. Smoke came out and was wafted into the nest. This had a calming effect on the bees and Chloe and Alex were able to steal some of the honey without getting stung. They later ate it by sucking it out of the honeycomb. It was the most delicious meal they’d had in their lives.
‘Oh, that was good,’ said Alex, patting his stomach afterwards. ‘That was really good.’
‘I agree,’ replied Chloe, licking her fingers. ‘Very good.’
Alex had had a long chat with Makishi about jungles and wildlife in the tropics. He was feeling content and quite fulfilled. He lay back and looked up at the sky, a heaven made of timber. He liked the russet colour of some of the higher rafters way, way up in the ether. Then the dark ones to the edges: the pale softwood lower ones. Vast. Immense. A massive vault which soared to measureless dizzying altitudes. How peaceful it was up there. What was that? A bird? Something very like a bird: a black shape winging its way through the network of spars and beams. Too high really to recognise exactly what it was. Did it matter? Not really.
It was as he was lying there that a scent came to him on a draught. It was the kind of smell which might have a bushman murmuring, ‘The rain is coming!’ The old Alex didn’t know what the smell was, of course, but deep within him a new Alex was emerging. Fledgling though it was, it gave voice to its feelings and cried out, ‘There’s a storm coming!’
Alex huddled against one of the strong oaken pillars which supported the roof, knowing he and Makishi were safe in the protection of its lee.
CHAPTER