Bella and the Wandering House (2 page)

They used to go out sailing all the time but after Grandma died, Grandad said it was too hard without her. And when he moved to this squeezy little house, he had nowhere to keep the boat anyway. He was getting older, he said. It was time to let it go.

Bella didn't think he had really let it go. Even though he didn't stare at the photo as much as he used to, she knew he still missed those days. You didn't love something – or someone – that much and not miss them when they were gone.

Grandad set the periscope down on the bench, folding the elbows onto themselves so that it packed up tight. ‘Now that's finished, I should get started on your birthday present. Any idea what you'd like this year?'

Bella smiled and shook her head. ‘You decide.'

She knew that no matter what she asked
for, Grandad would come up with an idea of his own. It had always been that way. The year he built her bedroom, he had given her a painting of the ocean. ‘A girl needs the ocean,' he said. If the beach was too far away for her to see it from her window, then a painting was the next best thing.

The next year he gave her a ship's anchor, crusted with salt and tiny shells, and another time it was a captain's hat with gold piping around the brim. Last year he presented her with a shiny brass compass and showed her how to find north.

‘You never know,' he always said, ‘when something like that will come in handy.'

Bella couldn't imagine how that might be true, but she loved Grandad's presents all the same. Just having them in her room made her feel like she had a piece of him with her all the time.

‘Are you sure?' Grandad said now, looking down at her.

Bella nodded. ‘Surprise me.'

There was a knock at the door then and a voice called out, ‘Hello?'

‘Your mum,' said Grandad. ‘You'd better get going before you're
latelatelate
.' He grinned, making a show of looking at his watch and waving his hands about like a person – or a white rabbit – in a great hurry. Then something came over his face. He strode across to where Bella had left her bag. He unzipped it and began stuffing something inside. ‘You should borrow this.'

Bella raised her eyebrows. ‘Your periscope? But why?'

Grandad shrugged. ‘You never know when something like that will come in handy.' He lowered his voice as Mum came down the hall. ‘And listen – what you told me before, about the house? It does sound strange. A little strangeness can be a good thing, but still … you should keep an eye on it.'

That night, Bella couldn't sleep.

It was late. Outside, the neighbourhood was quiet. Moonlight streamed in the window, throwing strange shadows across the room.

From where she lay, Bella began to count the stars that hung in the window. It was what she always did when she had trouble sleeping, marking off each familiar pinprick of light one by one.

But tonight some were missing. They had slipped out of view, beyond the window frame, and others had taken their place. She could only see half of Orion's Belt now … and what were those two bright stars that had crept in
to the top right-hand corner?

She rolled onto her back and looked up at the ceiling. There were stars up there, too – tiny, glow-in-the-dark stickers Grandad had stuck there a few birthdays ago. It was the only time her present hadn't come in the post. Every year, Grandad insisted on posting his gift, even though he always came over on her birthday. ‘A girl should get a parcel in the post,' he said, and took extra care with the package, making it look all fancy, with a big ribbon tied in a bow, and
Miss Bella Carmichael
on the front in curly writing.

But the stars were different. That year, he did a special home delivery, sneaking in to put them up while she was at school. It took him hours because he didn't stick them just anywhere like most people did, but in their exact right places, as if they were really in the sky.

‘The stars are important,' he said. ‘A girl should know where they are.'

Bella stared up at Orion's Belt and smiled. It had been the best surprise, coming into her room that night to find the ceiling all aglow. Maybe just for tonight she could count these instead.

One
, she began.
Two
…

She had reached seventeen when she felt it. First, there was a gentle lift in the wind. Shadows shifted around her as the curtains billowed.

Then came a soft creaking noise, a kind of low groaning. Those sounds had scared her when she first moved upstairs, but Dad said it was just the wood settling into place. The wood had come from one of Grandad's backyard piles and was old and weathered. They had painted it yellow, smoothing across the top with long sweeps of the roller, but sometimes little bits flaked off so you could see the pale blue it used to be hiding underneath.

Bella was used to the wood now – to the way it shifted and whispered in the night. It
didn't frighten her any more.

Nineteen
, she went on.
Twenty
.

And that was when the stars moved. No, not the stars but the ceiling. The whole ceiling was moving, and the floor too. And now the sky was slipping past her window as the frame tilted this way and that.

She sat up and grabbed at the bedframe.
The house!
she thought wildly.
It's falling down.

It was strange, though, because it was a
slow kind of falling, a gentle kind of falling.

And then it was stranger still, because her bed, which had begun to slide just slightly across the floor, came to a stop. It seemed to hesitate for a moment as if it were making up its mind about something. And then it began to move again, only in the other direction now, back toward the wall, as the floor and the walls and the window and the sky tipped the other way.

As the house stopped falling down and began falling … up?

Bella sat perfectly still, her hands curled tightly around the bedframe. What was happening? Was it an earthquake?

She listened for footsteps, a door opening, for the sound of Mum or Dad coming up the stairs. They would know what this was. They would know what to do.

But the only sound was the creaking of the wood and the squeaking of the bed as it continued to slide slowly across the floor.

Maybe she should call out
– Mum! Dad! –
like she used to when she was having a nightmare? When she did that, someone always came.

Only … just now she wasn't sure she wanted anyone to come. What was happening was strange and a bit scary but it didn't feel like a nightmare. There was something mysterious and exciting about it, something that made her want to keep it for herself.

Keep an eye on it
, Grandad had said. And so she would.

She peeled her fingers slowly from the bedframe. She swung her legs out over the wooden floorboards, reaching down with one foot and then the other. As the floor rolled beneath her, she wobbled her way across the room, holding her arms out for balance like a tightrope walker.

When she reached the window, she blinked. Once, twice, a dozen times.

It must be a dream.

It isn't a dream.

Streetlights and houses slipped past, framed in the window like a strange, silent movie. The neighbours' place, the flats, the tiny park at the end of the street.

Beneath Bella's feet, the wood seemed to hum, smooth and cool and secret.

She squeezed her eyes tight shut, then opened them wide. She pressed her face to the glass, her heart pounding in her chest.

It isn't a dream.

It wasn't. The house was moving.

Bella's fingers trembled as she reached up. They shook as she loosened first the catch for the window and then the screen. Grandad had made it so you could swing them both open at the same time, so there was nothing between you and the sky.

Mum thought it was dangerous but Grandad said, ‘Nonsense! Not if a girl is sensible.' He turned to Bella. ‘You are sensible, aren't you?'

Bella nodded quickly, because it was quite possible to be a dreamer and sensible at the same time. And whenever she opened the screen she was careful to sit quietly in the
window, perhaps letting her legs dangle a little over the side but never leaning out.

She would be even more careful now. She wouldn't climb up into the window but would keep her feet planted firmly on the floor. And lean out just a little, just enough to see. How could the house be moving? Grandad had said a little strangeness could be a good thing, but …

The house swung suddenly to one side and Bella gripped the window frame, steadying herself. The house slowed as it reached a corner, then turned this way and that, as if it were wondering which way to go.

Bella waited until it straightened, until they had set off again through the quiet streets. And then she leaned out into the night to see what she could see.

But when she looked down, there was nothing but roof. Her room was set back from the front of the house and the eaves were too wide to see past. She could lean a little more
… but that would be dangerous and she was sensible and …

Suddenly, it came to her.

You never know when something like that will come in handy.

She picked her way unsteadily to where her school bag hung on its peg by the door. The periscope was still folded up inside where Grandad had put it. She carried it over to the window and unfolded it piece by piece. Then she lowered it until it hung below the edge of the roof, and put her eye to the opening.

At first she saw only darkness. She blinked and refocused. Was she even doing it right?

Then there was a flash of something – a wash of pale light and a shape moving through it.

Of course. She was seeing darkness because it was dark. Because it was night-time. The periscope could see around corners but it couldn't cut through the blackness.

For that, she needed the streetlights.

There was another one up ahead. She
pressed her eye back to the periscope and waited.

There it was again – something moving across the lens. It looked knobbly and pink and almost like … no.

She shook her head. That was just silly. She needed to get a better look, but the light flashed past so quickly each time.

Then they rounded the corner and she smiled.

Just ahead was the shopping centre, awash with bright light.

She waited, ready.

The house continued onward with its rhythmic, bobbing motion.

As they came into the glow from the shops, the shape moved past her eyes with each roll of the floor. Up and down, up and down. And slowing now, as the house eased to a stop.

Bella blinked. She had been right.

Pink and knobbly and …
one, two, three, four, five.
She swung the periscope sideways,
scanning for what she could hardly believe must be there.

And there they were. Another group of five, pressed flat to the footpath. Some large, others smaller. Just as you'd expect. Just as toes should be.

Pink toes on the end of flat, wide feet, on the end of …

It was impossible. It was true.

The house was walking.

The house had legs.

Bella stumbled backwards. The periscope slipped sideways, sending everything into a spin before her eyes.

Legs?

She straightened the periscope and set her eye to it again, breathing out slowly, trying to calm her racing heart. With her steady gaze, there was no mistaking it.

Legs. Two of them, spindly and long like a flamingo's.

Impossible. True.

And still there were no footsteps in the hall; there was only the low rumble of snoring from downstairs as Mum and Dad slept on.

She drew the periscope back into the room and set it on the floor beside her. She pulled the window closed and climbed up onto the sill, leaning back against the curve of the wood.

For a while, the house roamed around the shopping centre. It walked past the bank and the supermarket. It lingered outside the travel agent, tipping Bella's room sideways as it leaned down into the window. Plastered to the glass were brightly coloured posters with photos of tropical beaches and enormous cruise ships.
Fabulous Fiji!
they read.
Sail Away to Paradise!