Creatures

Chapter Ten

After climbing four flights of wide, creaking steps, we finally reached the attic. In most houses, the attic is no big deal. You have to make sure you don’t bump your head, but that is about it. But the mansion’s attic was different, very different. First of all, it’s huge. The roof didn’t come to a single peak over this giant house. Instead, it sort of flattened out into many small roof peaks over different sections of the building.

The attic itself consisted of dozens of oddly shaped rooms with walls that cut at sharp angles. Sometimes you could hardly stand up straight because the ceiling slanted down on you and the whole room was only four feet high. All the rooms were dimly lit and dusty and strangely quiet. Usually the only light came from tiny dirty windows that cut slits in the ceiling or down close to the floor. The light that did get in past the cobwebs and layered dust was gray and lifeless.

“Everything smells old,” I said, twitching my nose.

Beth followed me closely. Sarah and Jake had gone off in another direction to explore. We entered another room, looking around. This one was storing five huge chandeliers of cut glass covered in white sheets. They hung down from chains mounted in the slanted ceiling. The chandeliers tinkled when you touched them.

“Do they honestly expect us to clean this place up?” I asked her, holding up my broom and dustpan. “It would take an army a year to do all this.”

Beth bent down and swept up a foot-wide hole in the dusty floor. “See? It can be done, you just have to actually do some work,” she said laughing at me.

“Oh,” I said, “now that we are alone, I wanted to apologize for Sarah’s mean words. She isn’t normally like that. I don’t know what got into her.”

“You don’t?” she asked. She sounded surprised.

“No, she’s normally sweet.”

Beth shook her head and widened her clean spot on the floor.

“She’s just jealous, silly,” she told me.

“What?”

“She’s probably used to having your attentions all to herself. You know what I mean.”

I opened my mouth to deny it, but snapped it shut again. It did make sense. Beth was new and Sarah was used to getting all my attention. But that meant…

“You think she actually likes me?” I asked.

Beth just laughed and rolled her eyes. I joined her in sweeping up. After a few minutes, the room looked a lot better.

Then I heard a familiar sound. It was the sharp tread of boots on the creaking hardwood floor. Miss Urdo was coming. We were hard at work when she came in and she nodded curtly. We had even cleaned some of the junk off the tiny slit windows along the floor.

“Very good, children,” she said. “Come with me, I’ve got something to show you two.”

We got up, dusted off our knees and followed her. Beth gave me a questioning look and I shrugged in answer. I had no idea where she was taking us.

We followed her graceful, sure steps quietly. Even Beth had figured out by now that Principal Urdo didn’t like questions.

Beth skipped ahead of me, and began imitating Miss Urdo’s unique way of walking. She put her hands to her sides with fingers out and walked by swinging her hips. She walked on her toes to create the look that the Principal had because of her heeled boots. Beth really did look like Urdo, but she was overdoing it, of course, exaggerating everything for a laugh.

Beth looked over her shoulder and gave me a huge impish grin and I almost blew it by laughing aloud. I managed to contain it and only released a single snort.

Urdo’s head slid around and her eyes landed on us. Beth was instantly herself again. She was quick, I was impressed.

Urdo gazed at each of us for a second. We smiled back, innocently.

“This,” she said, reaching her hand down to a tiny door in the wall and twisting the brass doorknob. “Is a very special laboratory.”

She opened the door, which had to be no more than three feet square. Light and cold air swept in through it.

Urdo gestured with a slow sweeping motion of her hand.

We crept through the door in a crouch.

Urdo followed us and clicked the door shut behind us.

A large part of the laboratory was taken up by an enormous, old-fashioned brass telescope that stuck up like a cannon through a domed metal ceiling. I had been on a field trip to see Haggart Observatory. There they had computers and electric motors to control the telescope. In this place, there were only huge gears and levers and cranks. Everything had to be moved by hand.

“Wow,” said Beth, “this is great!”

Urdo smiled at her. When she smiled, she looked pretty. Normally, I never thought of her that way. She was old compared to us kids. I figured she must be at least thirty. She usually had such a serious look, I never thought of her as pretty.

Urdo went to a hanging chain that dangled down one wall. She grabbed the chain and hauled on it. There was a rattling, rusty sound as unoiled equipment squealed into life. Part of the dome ceiling slid aside, allowing a slit about a foot wide to open up.

Snow and cold wind blew down upon us from the gray skies outside. Beth grabbed her own shoulders and shivered, but she looked excited.

“Are we going to try out the telescope?” I asked.

Urdo nodded and indicated a big brass wheel near me. It looked like the kind of wheel you saw on old movies to steer sailing ships, except it was made of metal. I grabbed it and cranked it. It barely budged. Beth came and helped me.

Grunting and straining with effort, we got the wheel moving. It became easier once it was started.

“Hey, the telescope is moving!” said Beth.

I looked up and sure enough, as we cranked the wheel, the barrel of the telescope rose up and poked its tip out into the sky.

“But wait,” I said, pausing in my efforts. “How are we going to see anything? The sky is totally overcast and there is snow everywhere.”

Miss Urdo gave us a smile. It was a cold, thin smile.

“This telescope is special,” she said.