The Wolf in the Attic Read Free

think I could grab a handful of it and put it in my pocket. And the cold is getting deeper, seeping through my coat and setting chilly fingers on my bare knees, but I don’t care. I tug Pie out of my coat so she can see the night too, and so I can hug her close to my face.
    The world seems so not real at night under the moon and stars, with the streets and cobbles and motor-cars and heads-down hurrying people all taken away. Here and now, is the world as it was near to the beginning, when God breathed life into it out of the darkness, and brought it up out of the waters. Was that the second day? I think so. A world empty, before the creatures crawled out of the seas to set their footprints upon it.
    I am shuddering with cold, but very happy, my dragonfly mind calm and still now, as though it has become frozen along with the settling dew. I almost feel as though I am floating over the fast-freezing grass.
    I walk on, in a silver cloud of my own breathing.
    Godstow Nunnery is up at the Lock to the north-east. We have picnicked there, among the ruins. I think it would be a grand place to be in summer, if you were in love.
    Fat Henry destroyed it, but the ruins are perfect as they are, so I can almost forgive him. It would be… it would be truly something to picnic there with someone you loved, to hold their hand in the grass, and look up at the sky. I wonder if Miss Hawcross ever lay back in the grass at Godstow with her grey hair still brown, and held her soldier’s hand under the sun before he went off to Passchendaele.
     
     
    O UT OF THE dark a light leaps, yellow and small, like a candle fighting the wind. It’s out on the Meadow to the north-west, near the river. I feel angry at once that the night has been invaded, that perfect tinsel-bright moon mocked by a stupid little campfire. I look at Pie, and pull a face. There is nowhere to be alone in this world, not even here, not for more than a moment.
     
     
    B UT I CREEP forward all the same, curious as a cat. Pa told me once I look like a cat, with a pointy chin and big eyes. But I don’t think a cat could possibly have a nose like mine. It’s too long and crooked, and it steers my whole face like the prow of a boat.
    I don’t care anyway. Helen of Troy was beautiful, and look what a flibbertigibbet she turned out to be. Beautiful people are invariably boring, Pa says, because there is less of them to admire under the skin than there is upon it.
    But Mama was beautiful; I’m sure she was.
    I wish I could see in the dark like a cat. I am shivering, and I step in cow-pats as I creep towards the light. My shoes are so wet with the dew that I may just as well be barefoot anyway. Except for the cowpats. Yuck.
    I look at Pie again, and sigh. I am close now. Nothing for it, but I shall have to crawl. I can even hear voices, quite a few, and there are shadows passing back and forth in front of the flames. The fire seems brighter than the moon now, especially as the clouds are thickening again. The earlier perfect night has gone, transformed into something else by firelight and strange voices and smelly cow poo. But it is still exciting. I make believe that it’s the Hun up ahead, or Johnny Turk, and I am a brave soldier about to erupt out of the darkness and cut all their throats.
    I would feel better if I had a knife. I have one at home, a little Watts penknife Pa used to keep for scraping out his pipe. But I don’t think it’s big enough to cut a Turk’s throat.
    Next time, I promise myself, I will bring a knife. It’s best to be prepared for all kinds of villainy when out at night.
    With my mouth open, I can hear my own heartbeat in my throat, a pulse, a rush, as though my insides were at the back of my teeth, crowding forward to look out.
    The voices are louder now. Men, snarling and growling, a flash of anger. I grip Pie so tight that I am sure she will pop in my grasp. For a moment I lower my head to the ground and I feel a cold thrill go through me. I am no