The Moon King Read Online Free Page B

I suppose. Protein, don’t you know.’
    Ricky was counting plates. There were enough. He moved them carefully to the table and started to spread them out. He didn’t break any.
    ‘Yoghurt, eggs, that sort of thing. I don’t know why they call eggs “dairy”, do you? I never heard of a cow that laid an egg, did you?’
    Ricky was counting cups.
    ‘Anyway, it’s quiche tonight, only there’s ham in it, so Fergal will have to have a boiled egg instead.’
    Egg-cup, thought Ricky, and trotted back to the dresser for one.
    ‘Good thinking, Ricky,’ said Mammy Kelly.
    Ricky smiled as he opened the fridge. How do you open these juice cartons?
    ‘Scissors in the drawer,’ said Mammy Kelly. ‘Here, I’ll do it. It’s very easy to spill it if you haven’t got the knack. Hope they don’t all get hives. I forgot we had eggs for breakfast too. Do you get hives, Ricky? From too many eggs, I mean?’
    Ricky never ate too many eggs, so he didn’t know. He shook his head and then nodded it to be on the safe side.
    ‘I see,’ said Mammy Kelly. ‘ That complicated. Oh dear!’
    Ricky smiled again and counted everything just one more time to be sure.

CHAPTER 6
In the Attic
    Ricky had gone with Rosheen without really thinking about it, after tea, and now here he was, up past the rocking-chair on the first, dark half-landing, up past the dark first floor where half the family slept, up to the second , dark half-landing, with another bathroom door, and outside it yet another bookcase, and in front of that, a large chest, with a padded lid-seat and a huge bird-mobile swaying and clanking overhead. The birds looked as if they might swoop down at any moment and swipe your eye out.
    On he toiled after Rosheen, up into the dark again. He didn’t like the dark and he didn’t like the height. He felt as if he might go rolling back down the stairs at any minute. But he kept going, just concentrating on keeping his eyes on Rosheen’s heels as they flashed from step to step ahead of him. Next came the second floor, where the other half of the family slept, high up, looking down on the treetops. Then one more flight, narrower this time, and darker, and unbroken by a half-landing. This must be the top now, the very top.
    There were two rooms up here in the attic, way up atthe top of the house, hunching secretly under the roof, where no-one much slept, except extras like himself. Rosheen turned when they reached the attic floor.
    ‘Well done, Ricky, you made it!’
    She opened a door into one of the under-eaves rooms. Like every space and every available surface in this house, it was full of things. An old sewing machine, the type you have to pedal, treadle, to keep going, and heaps of brightly coloured fabric. An old-fashioned manual typewriter, still with its two-tone red-and-blue ribbon. A dressmaker’s dummy wearing a huge lampshade, with a fringe, so that it looked like a naked lady at the races. A very wobbly-looking desk, piled high with boxes and piles of books. A box spilling hard and shiny bars of glass over its edges. A room full of promise. You might find anything there. Ricky stood on the threshold and stared, and sneezed.
    But Rosheen closed that door and turned to the other door on the attic landing. She flung it open.
    ‘This is your room,’ she announced, standing back against the door to let him enter alone. The room was quite small, and of a very odd shape, with the ceiling sloping down on all sides, but all the same Ricky was dazzled by a sense of space and light as he stood in the doorway. Nowhere had he seen so much unoccupied space in this crazy, higgledy-piggledy, overstuffed house. The room was curiously, blessedly empty, except for a narrow iron bed and a tall and slender wardrobe. Boththese items stood directly on a plain wooden floor. The walls were painted white, and there were no friezes, no pictures, no borders, no panels, no ornamentation of any sort.
    He turned to Rosheen, his eyes shining.