Young Fredle - Louise Yates [62]
“Make my farewells to everyone. Especially Tarnu. Can you remember that?”
“I’m not silly,” she told him crossly. “Of course I can. But, Fredle?”
“What’s wrong? Do you want to come, too?” Fredle hadn’t thought of that before, but now that he had he wondered what Linu would think of life in the kitchen, and wondered how the kitchen mice would react to learning what it was really like to live in the cellar. Now that he had thought of it, he rather hoped she would come with him.
But she was shaking her head. “I better not.”
“If you know the way to get there, then you also know the way back,” he told her.
Linu continued shaking her head, but she said, “I’d have to say goodbye, and explain where I’d be, and tell them I’d be with you so I’d be safe.”
Then Fredle was shaking his head. He had learned that if you didn’t get going right away—if, for example, you went back to say goodbye or take a last look at the stars—then something might easily happen to keep you from ever reaching your destination. Or even to make you went. If reaching your destination was important, you couldn’t hesitate. “I can’t wait,” he apologized to Linu.
Just as he was saying that, she was saying, a little sadly, “I can’t go.”
So they parted, Linu to retrace her steps along the boards and Fredle to go along the pipe until it turned up, into the ceiling, into the house above.
18
The Return
It was a long journey for Fredle, walking beside the pipe where he could and balancing on top of it when he had to, scrambling up insulation and across thin, narrow boards. Eventually, the pipe emerged into a dark, closed place that smelled of soap and flowers. Rolls of soft paper stood in a stack in one corner. There was nothing at all familiar about the place, although it did smell faintly of mouse, as if once, long ago, a family of mice had lived there. What kind of mice would they have been? Fredle wondered. But they weren’t there now and he didn’t want to linger. The darkness was too thick; it lay too heavy on his eyes and skin. He knew he had arrived upstairs, but this wasn’t the part of upstairs he was looking for, so he went back down the pipe, back inside the walls and along to where the pipe next went up, to enter another enclosed space.
This space was not as dark as the first. It had doors, one of which was not fully closed. Moreover, the soapy smells here were sharp and familiar, and so were the boxes and soft sponges and stiff brushes and folded pieces of cloth through which Fredle clambered, moving hastily in his excitement, heading for the light. He knew where he was. When he went cautiously up to the opened door and looked out, he saw the kitchen.
It was light in the kitchen, although not as bright as daytime outside. From his hiding place, Fredle couldn’t see any movement, but he heard human voices, and the baby fussing. He heard the soft click of dog nails on the floor. He waited, listening, trying to understand what he was seeing, to identify something he had previously seen only in darkness.
He smelled food. He could now identify one of the smells as chicken, but that was the only familiar odor.
He heard Mister say, “This is the best chicken noodle soup you’ve ever made, honey.”
“You always say that,” Missus answered.
“It’s always true,” Mister said.
“And I always tell you, the secret is lots of bones in the stock. But do you think the baby is running a temperature?”
“She’s teething, that’s all.”
“Should I call the doctor?” asked Missus.
“If it’ll make you feel better,” said Mister. “Angus and I are taking the truck up to check on the sheep and then I’ll be in the cornfield until supper. That’s where I’ll be if you need me.”
All of this time, the baby was fussing away, not crying, just making little unhappy, dissatisfied sounds.
“You know where I’ll be,” Missus answered.
There was a scraping sound, and “Angus? Come,” Mister said. Fredle watched shadows moving across the black-and-white floor.
A voice quite close to him said, “Fredle? What are you doing in there?”
Fredle