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 gone home? Perhaps they’d fallen down some hole in the boards and were hurt – or even dead? Maybe it had not been a good idea to go on ahead by himself after all? Why was he always trying to be the big brother to them, instead of letting them share the responsibility?
At that moment Jordy sat bolt upright and listened hard.
What was that?
Music?
Definitely music. He could hear the distant strains of a fiddle being played somewhere just outside the forest of clocks. The sound was mournful and melancholy at first, but then the pace picked up and the tune became what sounded like an Irish jig. Jordy jumped to his feet and went in search of the musician, who was no great violinist.
Jordy reminded himself that he ought to be careful. If the musician was an Attican he could expect a cold reception at the very least. It was best to remain concealed until the situation became clearer.
Creeping up to the pale of the forest of dead clocks, Jordy peered into the dense blackness. Anything could be out there: a different people; a herd of strange beasts; even monsters.
But there were no monsters. What there were, were rats.
From a high skylight a shaft of moonlight, very bright, very intense, full of flecks of dust, fell upon the attic floor.
In this spotlight two rats were up on their back legs, dancing. They were gently twirling and spinning, hopping and jumping, both moving to the music from a hidden minstrel. Their tails swished in time to the cadence, their ears twitched and their forelimbs waved. They were lost in the melody, caught up in their own rhythmic steps, as they pranced and leapt, swayed in an elegant manner, and even quivered with the longer humming notes. Two willowy rafter rats with intent expressions, dancing to the magic of a fiddler’s tune.
‘How can they do that?’ murmured Jordy to himself.
But they did. And they did it magnificently.
Then the speed of the music picked up pace and the dance became faster and faster, until Jordy felt giddy for the two rodents. They spun, they somersaulted, they flew through the air. It was a dance of demented red-eyed rats with whirling-dervish suppleness in their bones. What demons possessed their souls to dance with such frantic energy, such frenetic movements? Surely at any moment their limbs would fly off, their heads would shoot from their bodies? Jordy had never witnessed such a scene.
He became aware of an audience out there, beyond the dancing rats, who were just as entranced as he. When his eyes grew used to the darkness he could see they were villagers: Atticans, probably the same ones who had chased him earlier, now lured by a fiddler’s tune. The villagers stood and watched the pair, absolutely absorbed by them. None appeared to look for the music maker. They simply enjoyed the dancing rodent duo and ignored the presence of the one-man orchestra.
It was sheer poetry in the moonlight. Jordy was not normally one to appreciate such delights, but this time he knew he had witnessed something quite extraordinary.
Once the music stopped the rats slipped away up into the darkness beneath the rafters.
The villagers had brought gifts with them, of food and drink, which they left standing in the shaft of moonlight. When the Atticans had gone, Jordy waited to see who would take the gifts. No one did. Eventually he decided to take some of them himself. His stores could always do with a boost. So he crept out and reached for one of the bottles of drink. Unscrewing the top he took a long swig. It tasted a little like weak ginger beer and after a diet of plain water it was delicious. Jordy then reached out for a parcel of food: squares of something which looked like confectionery.
A hand of strong thick fingers clamped around his wrist.
‘Aahg!’ Jordy almost died of fright.
‘Leave them where they be,’ snarled a rough, coarse voice, ‘or I’ll snap your arm like a matchstick.’
Still all Jordy could see was this thick wrist in the spotlight provided by the moon, with a bunch of hairy fingers attached.
‘Leave me alone,’ he cried. ‘I haven’t done anything.’
‘Nothin’ but steal the food out of my mouth.’
‘I haven’t touched the food yet.’
‘Nothin’ but snatch the drink from my lips.’
Jordy’s fear ebbed a little as no threat was carried out.
‘It’s not your food – the villagers left it.’
‘Didn’t I earn it?’ growled the hoarse-voiced speaker. ‘Didn’t I busk the life out of two talented and willin’ rodents, who danced their socks off to my beautiful music? Who do you think trained the rhythms into ’em? Old Nick? Who put the skill in their little feet? Who gave ’em the music to make ’em dance? This food is payment. Mine. You can bugger off, if you like, and leave my wages where they be, thank you.’
Jordy felt the grip relax and he wrenched his hand free, so that he could run back into the forest of clocks.
Once he’d got away he stood there panting and sweating.
Who the heck was that? Was it human?
Jordy gathered his courage and went back, to stare out at his erstwhile captor.
It was indeed a person. It was a tall powerful-looking boy in a thick ankle-length raincoat with many folds. On his feet were knee-length leather boots with heavy heels. On his head was a broad-brimmed felt hat with a wide floppy brim. You could imagine rain pouring off that brim as the rugged face beneath stared out over unexplored regions.
‘Hey!’ cried Jordy. ‘Are you a local or are you like me?’
The boy looked up from his task of chewing a sweetmeat. There was a tough air about him. He had a jutting jaw that made granite look like soft sandstone.
‘Human? Was once, I s’pose.’
‘I’m human too.’
‘You be a bloody nuisance, that’s what you be.’
It had been a long time since Jordy had talked to another member of his own species.
‘Can we talk?’ he asked. ‘Can I come out there and talk with you?’
‘If you do I’ll break your neck.’
‘No you won’t.’
The s
quatting youth looked up from his eating again and seemed to sigh.
‘Come on out then, but mind, I live up here ’cause I don’t like my own kind. I prefer the company of rats to people. But you look lost, boy. Come on out and tell me the tale of woe.’
Jordy set his jaw. ‘It’s not a tale of woe,’ he argued, stepping out of the clock forest. ‘There’s no woe in it. I’m simply missing a bit of company. My brother and sister are around somewhere, and when I find them I couldn’t care less what you do – whether you hate people or not – but until I find them I haven’t got anyone else to talk to.’
‘I’m not sure if I care for that or no – I think I don’t. But come anyway, if you must.’
Jordy squatted down near his new companion.
‘Was that an Irish jig you were playing?’
‘It was a jig all right, but not all jigs have to be Irish. It were a sailor’s tune, learned from sailors. I might have been one once. Hard to remember now.’
‘What are you doing up here – in the attic? Are you lost?’
Jordy had been about to add ‘like me’ but pride held back the words in the end.
‘Nope. I like it here.’ The youth was eating what looked like the roasted leg of a bird. ‘It’s peaceful and unbothersome.’
‘Can I have some of that?’ Jordy pointed to the meat. ‘I’ll swop you for some apples I found.’
The boy gave Jordy three cold drumsticks.
‘Here – but keep your shrivelled old apples.’
‘How do they cook it?’ asked Jordy. ‘I haven’t seen any fires.’
‘And you won’t,’ replied the boy. ‘They use lenses – from telescopes, binoculars, magnifying glasses. With lenses you can cook something under direct sunlight without producing a naked flame.’
Jordy ate the bird with relish wondering why a naked flame was so much of a problem. ‘You better watch out for those rats,’ he told his companion, ‘or Nelson will have them for breakfast.’
‘Nelson bein’ …?’
‘Our cat. He’s got three legs.’
‘Kind of guessed that, by his name. If he kills my boys though, I’ll skin him alive and eat him too. What’s a damn cat doing up here in the attic? Who let him up here?’
Jordy felt a little shame. ‘I guess we did.’
‘Huh! Well, you’ve been warned.’
‘So have you. Nelson won’t listen to me. He doesn’t listen to anyone. All I’m saying is, watch your rats. If they dance in front of Nelson he’ll think it’s Christmas.’
Suddenly the youth grinned at Jordy over a legbone.
‘I’m beginnin’ to like you, boy,’ he said. ‘You’ve got some grit about you. Most of the lost ones up here cry for their mummies. This is a good, generous land up here, if you know how to live. I do and I like it.’
‘How did you come to be up here?’ asked Jordy, taking a swig of 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 Water Tank. Never been that way myself, but I’m told it’s there. I’ll get there one day, before I die. Other places to go first. Bortrekking ain’t so much a living as a pastime. I guess I’m like a tramp or a hobo, wandering the world. There’s no great purpose in it. It’s just somethin’ to do. I could be readin’ books – read most of them I wanted to – but I can do that anyway, while I’m roamin’ here, there and everywhere.’
Jordy leaned his back against one of the great pillars.
‘My sister likes books – my step-sister. Chloe. She carries a list of her top favourites in her pocket always.’
‘Used to do that. Till I read all my favourites and started on those I’d never heard of.’
‘I’ve got a step-brother too: Alexander.’
‘Magnificent name,’ said the bortrekker. ‘Alexander the Great. Warrior king, conqueror of empires, horseman, traveller, undoer of difficult knots –
he was a bortrekker, you know – reached the mighty river Indus.’
‘Well, Alex’s ancestors came from India, but he’s no Alexander the Great. He’s a bit into himself. Likes engines and inventions and things. I’m more into sport myself.’
‘Is that so?’
‘Yes. I tried to join in with a game the Atticans were playing with T-squares, but they chased me away when I got a goal.’
The bortrekker shook his head.
‘You want to stay away from them locals. They’re not like us humans. May look a bit like us, but they’re from here and we’re not. You must’ve noticed I stayed hidden in the dark when I played my violin. That’s ’cause they think we’re spectres. How would you like ghouls roamin’ over your cricket pitch, eh? Not much. That’s the way they feel, I guess. They leave me gifts when I get Arthur and Harold dancin’ for ’em, but they don’t know it’s me. I don’t know who they think it is – maybe some god? – but so long as I don’t show myself I can get away with it.’
‘Arthur and Harold?’
‘My rats.’
The bortrekker pointed to the two creatures who were washing themselves with their paws. One of them now wandered off and found the crook of a rafter in which to curl up and go to sleep. The other kept looking at Jordy with a rather disconcerting stare. Jordy supposed Arthur and Harold were not used to seeing their musician talking with another human.
Jordy said, ‘And you call it a violin, not a fiddle?’
‘Same difference. I’m told a fiddle is a violin played with the base tucked into the elbow joint, and a violin is a fiddle played with the base tucked under the chin.’
Jordy laughed. ‘That’s a bit like how you can tell a crow and a rook apart.’
‘What’s the answer?’
‘A rook is a crow if it’s on its own and a crow is a rook if it’s in a flock.’
The bortrekker laughed. ‘God, I haven’t laughed in a long time. That feels good. You’re all right, boy. Teachin’ me to laugh again. Tell you what I’m goin’ to do for you in return. I’m goin’ to teach you to navigate this world. It ain’t easy, but I’ll teach you the basics. You’re not tired, are you?’
Attica Page 15
