2
A noise disturbed her and she sat up. She rubbed her eyes. Niamh had gone.
“Niamh, Niamh where are you” she yelled.
“I’m in the kitchen Aoife” came back the reply.
Niamh was indeed in the kitchen poking about the cupboards being equally bored. Seeing that Aoife had fallen asleep, she decided not to shout something about the cottage falling down – and had mooched off.
Aoife stood up and followed her into the kitchen. Niamh was standing on a chair holding the bottle of the antibiotics that Aoife had not taken.
Aoife put her hands on her hips – “still think I was not sick then Niamh?” she said ain scornful tone.
Niamh looked her, “yes, no, well whatever. I was just looking at the bottle, I’m bored”.
Aoife paused for thought and then let out a burst of excitement – “I know” she said – giving Niamh a little bit of a fright – “Lets see if we can find something interesting in this cottage. What about the attic. Have you seen that yet?”
Niamh looked up and said – “Attic? No I’ve only seen it when Dad was in there getting some paint.”
“Paint?” said Aoife – “wow … there must something else up there that might be more interesting than that.”
Niamh paused, climbed down from the chair and walked past Aoife – “What’ya waiting for? lets go”
Aoife sighed again and following Niamh, they climbed the small wooden staircase leading to the small landing.
They had to be careful though, the builder who had made this little wooden staircase had forgotten to put any glue on the banisters and if you were not careful bits of it would fall off.
They stood on the landing – looked at each other, and looked at the wooden doors leading to the attic.
Niamh opened the doors and looked in. “I think we are going to need a torch” she said, “its really dark in there”.
Aoife remembered she had seen a little silver torch in a drawer in the bedroom dressing table and she went to fetch it. She switched it on and pointed it into the darkness of the attic.
Leaning forward, she stuck her little head in and looked round behind the doors. It was small alright and she realised that they would have to be careful.
The light of the torch revealed a water tank and some bits of wood on the floor. She could also see the big wooden timbers that made up the main part of the cottage roof and the flat boards that the outside slate tiles rested on.
“Its small in here” she said to Niamh, “we will need to crawl on these big timbers but I can see a way to get along the floor.” Aoife knew that you must always step on the wooden timbers and not the flat floor in an attic.
If you did you were likely to end up in the kitchen rather more quickly than you or more importantly, your Father would like!
She warned “Niamh, we need to be careful when crawling on the attic floor, there are bits of wood and nails.” Niamh rolled her eyes – “OK Aoife, I know a nail when I see it”
“Right well just follow me,” she said.
Aoife then Niamh clambered into the attic. They struggled to get their legs and arms onto the floor –
Niamh bumped her head when she put her hand on a nail. “Ouch!” she yelled – sat up and bumped her head. “Ouch!” Aoife was about to say something but she just sighed again and pointed the torch into the darkness.
Once they were both inside, one of the attic doors closed slowly behind them. A shaft of light showed them where the doors were but the torch was the only light ahead of them.
They made their way along the eave of the roof.
Aoife was shining the torch into different parts of the attic, but so far here was nothing of interest. She kept crawling quite slowly and making sure her knees and hands were balancing on the wooden timbers.
Niamh could see even less, she saw the outline of Aoife’s bottom – “not interesting in the least” she
thought.
They turned a corner in the attic and Aoife could see right along a small dark passageway between a wall and the angle of the roof. She could not see the next corner she shone the torch but it was just blackness at the end.
“Niamh” – she said quietly, “look at that we can crawl right along there and that will take us round the attic”
As Niamh turned the corner, she looked back and could see the already small shaft of light disappearing as the other door closed. There was a draft and then it was completely dark apart from the torchlight.
“Aoife – the doors just closed” she said in a slightly nervous voice.
Aoife turned round and pointed the torch into the Niamh’s tummy. “It’s the wind” she said, “its going to push the doors closed. Gosh Niamh don’t be such a scaredy cat”
With that, she turned and continued crawling along the passage way. Niamh gave a small sigh and just followed the bottom with torchlight ahead of it.
By now the rain was beating quite hard on the roof and the girls could barely hear themselves what with the heavy noise of the rain falling on the tiles.
“It is quite scary really” Aoife thought but she was not going to say that to Niamh! Onwards they crawled into the darkness.
A crack of thunder in the distance, Aoife stopped. Then it seemed to come into sight – she could see the other corner.
They reached the corner and turned. It was another passage, almost exactly the same as the one they were on. Well perhaps it seemed a little different. The timbers they were crawling on seemed to be getting more jagged.
“Niamh, look at that” said Aoife and Niamh cranked her head over Aoife’s head and looked round. It was the same passage – almost exactly the same in fact. We must be going round in a circle said Niamh. Aoife could see that now – if she crawled along this passage and with one more turn, then they should be able to see the same attic doors they came in on.
Aoife did notice one thing though. As they crawled along the passage-way – just after that rumble of
thunder, it had gotten slightly colder. “Come on Niamh”, said Aoife, “I’m getting cold and there
really is nothing to see in this attic, it’s just too small.”
So they continued to crawl along the passageway and when they turned the next corner they saw the closed doors.
Well at least they thought they were the doors. They were older perhaps and less – well less perfect.
The doors they had opened were a light pine colour.
When Aoife shone the torch on these doors, they seemed to be made of dark wood and instead if being a single panel, they were made from individual planks of wood – like floorboards.
By now Aoife was very puzzled. Maybe these were different doors, but they had come full circle and the doors they came in from should have been just here.
She turned to Niamh and pointed to them. Niamh was by now getting impatient.
“Oh for goodness sake Aoife, lets just get out of here. It’s cold and I would quite like to get back to my game of dominoes and get something to eat, I’m hungry.”
“OK, OK” said Aoife breathing a deep sigh and with that, she pushed the doors open.
Her eyes squinted into the sunlight and her mouth fell open as she let out a gasp at what she saw. This was clearly not the same cottage they had just been living in five minutes ago.