The Wikkeling Read online

  “An attic,” Rose observed, intrigued but not apparently amazed.

  “When we’re up there,” said Henrietta, “you have to be quiet so our parents don’t hear.”

  Henrietta was going to help Rose, because she seemed too small to climb up by herself, but to her surprise Rose zipped onto the desk and the chair, jumped to catch the frame of the attic door, and pulled herself inside, all in about half the time it normally took Henrietta, who followed as quickly as she could, feeling oafish in comparison.

  The wild housecat stood and stretched on the couch as they entered.

  “Rose,” said Henrietta, “this is a wild housecat. I found it up here.” Then to the cat she said, “This is my other friend, Rose.”

  The cat curled its tail over its feet and yawned.

  “What’s its name?” said Rose.

  “I . . . don’t know!” said Henrietta, a little taken aback.

  “Yeah, we should call it something other than just ‘the cat,’” said Gary.

  “What’s a good name for a wild housecat?” said Henrietta.

  “Is it a boy or a girl?” said Rose.

  “I don’t know that, either,” said Henrietta. “My grandpa said it’s supposed to be extinct, but I don’t know much else.”

  They all looked at the cat. It did not announce its gender.

  “We should pick something that would work either way,” said Henrietta.

  “How about Mister Lady?” said Rose.

  Gary and Henrietta grinned. “Perfect!” said Gary.

  “Do you mind if we call you Mister Lady?” Henrietta asked.

  The cat narrowed its eyes a little and cocked its head. It didn’t seem thrilled. “It doesn’t not like it,” said Gary. He turned away from the couch and walked over toward the windows.

  “If you ever want us to call you something different,” said Henrietta, “just . . . let us know.” That cat perhaps nodded a little bit, though Henrietta couldn’t be sure. It lay down and curled up on the couch, closing its eyes.

  “I’ve only been up here a few times,” said Henrietta to Rose. “I don’t know what any of the stuff back there is.” She gestured past the bookcases at the many shadowy objects behind in the deep recesses. “It used to belong to my grandmother.”

  “Rose, come look out the windows,” said Gary. Rose and Henrietta joined him.

  On the street below, a woman with a cart full of fruit gestured toward her apples, several adults on the sidewalk carried on an animated discussion, and a group of children skipped past, joking with one another and playing tag. One of them jumped onto the giant stump and ran across it.

  “I don’t understand,” said Rose.

  “This is the past,” said Gary. “That’s what the street outside used to look like here, a long time ago.”

  “We don’t know why we can see it, though,” said Henrietta. She and Gary were waiting for the moment when Rose understood, and became as thrilled as they had been. Instead of seeming surprised, though, Rose said, “Their school gets out a little after ours.” Gary and Henrietta saw that the children walking past below were all carrying books and book bags.

  Henrietta glanced over at the couch then to see Mister Lady hop down from it and limp over with some difficulty to stand next to the three of them, looking down on the old town with a gaze that seemed somehow sad. After a moment, the cat put a paw gently up against the glass.

  “I think Mister Lady might be from there,” Rose speculated. “Maybe she’s wishing she could go back.”

  Henrietta glanced at the couch again, and noticed something. The cobweb she’d earlier placed there was gone. “Hey!” she said to Mister Lady. “Did you eat that?”

  Mister Lady limped back over to the couch and laboriously climbed onto it, her injured leg dangling awkwardly. She looked at the three of them, and her expression, if Henrietta interpreted it correctly, said It’s about time you noticed.

  Henrietta said, “I’ve been trying to figure out what it eats! I was reading this—” she pointed to the Bestiary, open on the coffee table. She flipped to the page on wild housecats as Gary and Rose looked on.

  “That’s a drawing of one!” said Gary, pointing at the illustration in amazement. “Right there, like in a textbook, like it’s real!”

  “It is real,” said Henrietta. “And read the entry.” She gestured to the cursive.

  “I can’t read cursive,” said Rose.

  Henrietta looked to Gary.

  “Uh . . .” he said. His eyes darted around suddenly, evasively, and he backed away from the book. He turned partway toward the trapdoor, but stopped. A grim determination settled on his features, and he faced his friends. “I have to tell you both something,” he said. “My secret.” He looked up at the rafters and then down at his shoes. “It’s . . . well . . .” He hesitated, and seemed to brace himself. “I can’t read,” he said finally. He spat the words.

  In the midst of the strangeness of the attic, this really was a surprise. Henrietta had half expected Gary to admit that he could make things float with his mind, or become invisible. It took her a moment to absorb his admission.

  “But you’re the teacher’s kid,” she said. Gary’s face turned scarlet, and he glanced at Rose. Henrietta clapped one hand over her mouth—she’d been so shocked, she’d forgotten that this was also a secret.

  “It’s okay,” Gary sighed. “Rose, my mom is our teacher.” Rose nodded, still somehow immune to surprise.

  “But you pass the practice tests!” Henrietta protested. “And the Competency Exams! You’re the best in class.”

  “I know how to type,” said Gary. “I just can’t read what I type.”

  “What about when we write compositions?”

  “I ask my mom what it’s going to be, and then I copy stuff the night before and memorize the letters.”

  “That seems harder than reading,” said Henrietta.

  “Well, it isn’t,” said Gary. “And don’t tell my mom. If she knew, she’d ground me forever.”

  “You’d be Finished,” said Henrietta.

  “Yeah,” said Gary. “But the thing is, too—” Now that he’d started talking, he wasn’t about to stop. From the quickness with which the words spilled forth, it was obvious he’d wanted to confess this for a long time. “—I think I’d like being a garbage collector. I wouldn’t have to fake anything anymore. And, and, actually . . .” Gary put his hand in his pocket and pulled it out to reveal a small, crumpled up piece of paper. He sat at the table and began to unfold it. “I kind of like garbage. I have a collection of it.”

  Henrietta and Rose stared at him as he continued to attentively smooth the small sheet.

  “Trash?” said Henrietta.

  “Interesting trash,” said Gary. “Like this,” he said. He finished smoothing out the little piece of paper. It was a sticky note which had the words henRift and andi scrawled upon it.

  “Where did you get that?” Henrietta and Rose said simultaneously. For the first time, Rose looked completely surprised.

  “History Nutrition room trash can,” said Gary. “I saw Henrietta throw it out, and I wondered what it was. I’ve looked at it for awhile. I think someone made a mistake on it. I think it says ‘And and I.’ I’m not sure,” he admitted, still obviously embarrassed by his poor reading skills.

  “Rose wrote it,” said Henrietta.

  “That movie was wrong,” said Rose. “There’s no one named Henrift Andi. It was two people. Henrift and Andi.”

  “How do you know?”

  “A book my dad read me,” said Rose. “It said there were two people. They were scientists. A man and a woman.”

  “That’s weird,” said Henrietta. “Why would the movie be wrong?”

  “I wish I could read,” said Gary, folding the sticky note and returning it to his pocket.

  “Well, we did tell my mom we’d study,” said Henrietta.

  Gary looked doubtful. “I’m pretty stupid,” he said. “Maybe we could try later. Were
n’t you about to tell us something?”

  Henrietta let the issue drop. She pointed at the Bestiary. “This says wild housecats eat cobwebs, and so I put a cobweb on the couch, and . . .”

  “And Mister Lady ate it?” said Gary. “Let’s get more!” There was a relieved note in his voice.

  For the next several minutes, they forgot themselves in a flurry of gathering. Henrietta and Gary stayed close to the main area, both still a little nervous about being on their own. The dark lanes of old stuff behind the bookshelves, though full of magnificent cobwebs, seemed a bit scary. But this didn’t deter Rose. The attic reminded her of home. The moment she’d arrived and taken a breath she smelled the wonderful rich pages of all the old books.

  She went straight behind the bookcases, going far back into the dusty depths, where there were old dressers, tables, locked chests, stacked boxes, a record player, and many other fascinating antiques.

  Encouraged by Rose’s confidence, Henrietta and Gary ventured a little further as well, and soon the three of them had amassed a considerable ball of cobwebs, which they deposited next to Mister Lady on the couch. As the children watched, the cat batted the ball lightly with one velvet paw, sending it rolling a few inches across the cushion, and then looked up at them. Henrietta thought its expression might have said, This could have been a little bigger, but thanks.

  “We should probably go back down,” said Henrietta, “in case my mom comes to check.”

  She opened the trapdoor, and the three returned to her room. They heard Rose’s father’s voice from elsewhere in the house, and proceeded to the sitting room, where Henrietta’s mother and he were conversing.

  “We have instant lavender or instant peppermint,” Henrietta’s mother said. Henrietta turned to Gary and Rose, and motioned for them to step back into the hall.

  “They’re just sitting down,” she whispered. “That’s what they were saying when we left!”

  “I don’t get it,” said Gary.

  “I don’t think any time has passed,” Henrietta said.

  PART 2

  Spike-Tailed Fish and Flesh-Eating Worms

  Time passed—or didn’t—happily for a few weeks after these many discoveries. Henrietta visited the attic twice each day: afternoons after school with Gary and Rose, and at night before bed, alone, when she changed Mister Lady’s bandages. The wound was almost entirely healed, although for some reason it seemed reluctant to close completely.

  Henrietta liked being in the attic at night. It reminded her of the evening she’d first discovered it, and she’d begun to enjoy being by herself. She found she could think more clearly, and she sometimes sat on the couch in silence with Mister Lady, not doing anything other than rolling the events of the day around in her head.

  When the moon shone through the windows it brought a haunting glow to the little living room, the dusty bookshelves, and the deep interior. It was both eerie and beautiful.

  Afternoons when school finished, Rose, Gary, and Henrietta went up together. They’d spend hours talking, looking out the windows, reading old books, playing games, and studying. One afternoon Gary brought some of his most prized trash objects, which included a strip of fabric from an old chair that had an image of an acorn stitched on it, and a box from a brand of TV dinner that didn’t exist anymore. Henrietta and Rose couldn’t see exactly what Gary found so fascinating, but he spoke in low tones, saying, “Now this is of particular interest. . . .” before revealing a tan Styrofoam packing peanut. Henrietta began to wonder if maybe Gary really should let himself get Finished from school. If anyone would make a good garbage collector, it would be him.

  Another afternoon, Rose surprised Henrietta and Gary when she arrived in the attic armed with linen thread, glue, a ruler, a razor, and a metal spike with a wooden handle, all of which she laid on the coffee table with great solemnity.

  “What is all of this?” said Gary. “It looks dangerous. What’s that?” He pointed to the spike.

  “An awl,” said Rose. “These are for repairing books. Like the Bestiary.” She opened the front cover and showed Henrietta and Gary that the endpapers were partly unglued, and a tear had started down the hinge of the back cover.

  “I didn’t know books could be repaired,” said Gary. “Isn’t it more sensible to just get a new one?”

  “A new Bestiary?” said Rose.

  “Oh, right,” said Gary. When it’s irreplaceable, it makes sense to take care of it.

  There followed a most illuminating conservation lecture in which Rose described the parts of a book, its materials, and common construction methods. Then she effected a simple repair of the Bestiary, much to the amazement of Henrietta and Gary. “My dad is better at it,” she said.

  “Where did he learn?” said Henrietta.

  “. . . Nowhere,” said Rose. Further questioning produced only silence.

  Mister Lady grew increasingly active as days passed, often chasing after motes of dust in the main area. One afternoon Henrietta found a tuft of fur beside the couch, and concluded that the cat was also doing some hunting.

  Through the windows, Henrietta, Gary, and Rose continued their fascination with the old world outside. Usually when they arrived they’d see the children coming home from school, but sometimes the two eras came unstuck from one another and they’d arrive to find midnight through the windows, or sunrise.

  Whenever the sun was out, so were people, crossing the boulevard on errands, chatting on street-side benches, selling groceries and other goods from carts. One afternoon a whole picnic took place atop the gigantic stump, and thirty people ate and drank there. Occasionally, a car passed, strange and large, and people stopped what they were doing to look. Cars were a curiosity.

  At sunset, a man would stroll the boulevard bearing a long metal stick with a flame at the end, lighting the streetlamps. A real flame burned in every one, flickering and casting wavering shadows along the trunks of the maple trees.

  All three children spent considerable time reading up in the attic, even Gary. One of the things that had always kept him from reading was that he couldn’t see the point. Why read when you could learn from TV or the radio, or ask a computer, or your cell phone? But in the attic, reading was quite helpful.

  One afternoon, while exploring behind the bookshelves, Gary happened upon a large glass jar full of thick, glaucous liquid. Floating in it was some kind of preserved creature. He carefully picked up the jar and carried it out past a pile of luggage, an old dresser, a sewing table, and the bookcases to the living room, where he placed it on the coffee table.

  Henrietta jumped when she saw it. The thing looked like a gray bird, but it was covered in scales like a fish. It sloshed gently back and forth in the cloudy solution, which Gary’s transport had agitated.

  If Gary had seen something like this at school he would have taken a picture of it with his phone, and the phone would have told him what he was looking at. Or he could have spoken a few descriptive words, like “Part bird, part fish,” and his phone would have sorted some search results based on those keywords.

  And, indeed, Gary did produce his phone with the intent of taking a picture . . . but the phone was dead. “It’s broken,” he said, shaking it a little.

  “That happened up here to me, too,” said Henrietta. She took out her own phone. The screen was blank.

  “Rose, does yours work?” said Henrietta. Rose, over by the windows, was watching a group of children kick an empty can along the brick street.

  “I don’t have one,” she said.

  “I forgot,” said Henrietta. “Why don’t your parents get you one? What if there’s an emergency?”

  Rose shrugged. She came over to look at Henrietta’s phone.

  “It’s like at my house,” said Rose.

  “Your house?” said Henrietta.

  Rose’s mouth snapped shut so fast her teeth clicked.

  “What is it, Rose?” said Gary, sensing her hesitation.

  “Nothing.” Rose sat by
the coffee table and looked into the glass jar at the strange preserved creature.

  “Does your house have a lot of books in it?” said Henrietta. “Is that why you know how to repair them?”

  Rose continued to look silently at the creature. At the end of its tail was a long, threateningly curved hook.

  “Let’s see if it’s in the Bestiary.” She slid the book toward Gary. “Do you want to try it?”

  “You know I can’t,” he said, scowling.

  “I didn’t mean it like that,” said Henrietta. “I was just thinking—it doesn’t matter how long it takes when we’re up here. If you want to try.”

  “I guess that’s true,” said Gary. He brightened a little. The lack of time pressure made the situation seem a little more encouraging. He opened the Bestiary, and Henrietta and Rose sat on either side of him. Even Mister Lady approached to watch.

  “This might be kind of hard,” said Henrietta, “since we don’t know what it’s called.”

  “But there are pictures,” said Gary, flipping through the brittle old pages. “Let’s just look for it.”

  “I didn’t think of that,” said Henrietta.

  “Because you can read,” said Gary, smiling. It took a while, but they finally found an illustration that resembled the creature in the jar.

  Henrietta read the title silently. She looked at Gary.

  “Do you know how to sound things out?” she asked.

  “A little,” said Gary.

  “That’s a Q,” said Rose, pointing at the first letter.

  “Kw . . .” Gary said. “And the next letter is a U, then an A . . . A is like ‘apple,’ right?”

  “It depends,” said Henrietta.

  “That’s what I hate about reading!” said Gary, instantly exasperated. “It’s like they make it hard on purpose.”

  If the alphabet had been invented in the Addition, all As would probably sound like the A in apple. In the Addition, streets ran on a grid, and the houses were identical. The “number one” at one restaurant was the same as the “number one” at every other restaurant, and it would only make sense to have an equally regular alphabet.