The Borrowers Aloft (7 page)

Chapter Thirteen

The next two or three days established their daily routine. At about nine o'clock each morning, Mr. or Mrs. Platter—or both—would arrive with their food. They would air the attic, clear away the dirty plates, and generally set the borrowers up for the day. Mrs. Platter, to Homily's fury, persisted with the cat treatment: a saucer of milk, a bowl of water, and a baking tin of ashes, set out daily beside their food on a clean sheet of newspaper.

Toward evening, between six or seven o'clock, the process was repeated and was called "putting them to bed." It was dark by then, and sometimes they would have dozed
off
—to be woken suddenly by the scrape of a match and the flare of a roaring gas jet. It was one of Pod's rules that, however active they might be between whiles, the Platters' arrival should always find them back once again in their box. The footsteps on the stairs gave them plenty of warning. "Never let them know we can climb," said Pod.

The morning food seemed to consist of the remains of the Platters' breakfast; the evening food, the remains of the Platters' midday meal, was usually more interesting. Anything they left on the plate was never served up again. "After all," they had heard Mr. Platter say, "there are no books about them, no way to find out what they live on except by trial and error. We must try them out with a bit of this and that, and we'll soon see what agrees."

Except on the rare occasions when Mr. or Mrs. Platter decided to do a repairing job in the attic or to stagger upstairs with trays of china or cutlery to be put away for winter, the hours between meals were their own.

They were very active hours. On that first afternoon Pod, with the aid of a bent pin and a knotted strand of raffia, achieved the ascent of the table, and once safely ensconced, showed Arrietty how to follow. Later, he said, they would make a raffia ladder.

Gradually they worked their way through various cardboard boxes; some contained teaspoons and cutlery; some contained paper windmills; others, toy balloons. There were boxes of nails and assorted screws, and there was a small square biscuit tin without a lid, filled with a jumble of keys. There was a tottering pile of pink-stained strawberry baskets and sets of neatly packed ice-cream cones, hermetically sealed in transparent grease-proof paper.

There were two drawers in the table, one of which was not quite closed. They squeezed through the crack and, in the half-light, saw it was full of tools. Pod's leg went down between a wrench and a screw driver, and in extricating himself, the screw driver rolled over and struck Arrietty on the ankle. Although neither injury was serious, they decided the drawer was a dangerous place and put it out of bounds.

By the fourth day the operation was complete: they had learned the position and possible use of every object in the room. They had even succeeded in opening the lid of the musical box, in a vain hope of changing the tune. It slid up quite easily on a brass arm, which, clinking into a locked position, held the lid in place. It closed, rather faster but almost as easily, by pressure on a knob. They could not change the tune, however; the brass cylinders, spiked with an odd pattern of steel prickles, were too heavy for them to lift, and they could only look longingly at the five unknown tunes on the equally heavy cylinders ranged at the back of the box. But with each new discovery—such as the steel backing of the lower part of the door and the dizzy height of the dormer windows from which the sloping walls slid steeply away—their hopes grew fainter: there still seemed no way of escape.

Pod spent more and more of his time just sitting and thinking. Arrietty, tired of the musical box, had discovered on the magazine pile several tattered copies of the
Illustrated London News.
She would drag them one at a time under the table and, turning over the vast sail-like pages, would walk about on them listlessly, looking at the pictures and sometimes reading aloud.

"You see nobody knows where we are," Pod would exclaim, breaking a dreary silence, "not even Spiller."

"And not even Miss Menzies ..." Arrietty would think to herself, staring unhappily at a half-page diagram of a dam to be built on the lower reaches of the Nile.

As the mornings became chillier, Homily tore some strips off the worn blanket, and she and Arrietty fashioned themselves sarong-like skirts and pointed shawls to draw around their shoulders.

Seeing this, the Platters decided to light the gas fire and would leave it burning low. The borrowers were glad, because although sometimes the air grew dry and stuffy, they were able to toast-up scraps of the duller foods and make their meals more appetizing.

One day Mrs. Platter bustled in and, looking very purposeful, went to the closed drawer of the table. Watching her from their box in the corner as she pulled out some of the contents, they saw it contained rags and rolls of old stuff, neatly tied around with tape. She unrolled a piece of yellowed flannel and, taking up the cutting-out scissors, came and stared down on them with narrowed, thoughtful eyes.

They stared back nervously at the waving scissor blades. Was she going to snip and snap and tailor them to size? But no—with a little creaking and heavy breathing, she kneeled down on the floor and, spreading the stuff doubled before her, cut out three combination garments, each one all of a piece, with Magyar sleeves and legs. These she seamed up on the sewing machine, "tutting" to herself under her breath when the wheel stuck or the thread parted. When her thimble rolled away under the treadle of the sewing machine, they noted its position: a drinking cup at last!

Breathing hard and with the aid of a bone crochet hook, Mrs. Platter turned the tiny garments inside out. "There you are," she said, and threw them into the box. They lay there stiffly like little headless effigies. None of the borrowers moved.

"You can put them on yourselves, can't you?" said Mrs. Platter at last. The borrowers stared back at her with wide, unblinking eyes, until, after waiting a moment, she turned and went away.

They were terrible garments, stiff and shapeless, fitting nowhere at all. But at least they were warm; and Homily could now rinse out their own clothes in the bowl of drinking water and hang them before the gas fire to dry. "Thank heavens, I can't see myself," she remarked grimly, as she gazed incredulously at Pod.

"Thank goodness, you can't," he replied, smiling, and he turned rather quickly away.

Chapter Fourteen

As the weeks went by, they learned gradually of the reason for their capture and the use to which they would be put. As well as the construction of the cagelike house on the island, Mr. and Mrs. Platter—assured of vast takings at last—were installing a turnstile in place of the gate to the drive.

One side of their cage-house, they learned, was to be made of thick plate glass, exposing their home life to view. "Good and heavy" the glass would have to be, Mr. Platter had insisted, describing the layout to Mrs. Platter—nothing the borrowers could break; and fixed in a slot so the Platters could raise it for cleaning. The furniture was to be fixed to the floor and set in such a way that there should be nothing behind which they might hide.

"You know those cages at the zoo with sleeping quarters at the back where you wait and wait and the animal never comes out? Well, we don't want anything like that. Can't have people asking for their money back ..."

Mrs. Platter had agreed. She saw the whole project in her mind's eye and thought Mr. Platter very farseeing and wonderful. "And you've got to set the cage," he went on earnestly, "or house, or whatever we decide to call it, in a bed of cement. You can't have them burrowing."

No, that wouldn't do, Mrs. Platter had agreed again. And as Mr. Platter went ahead with the construction of the house, Mrs. Platter, they learned, had arranged with a seamstress to make them an entirely new wardrobe. She had taken away their own clothes to serve as patterns for size. Homily was very intrigued by Mrs. Platter's description to Mr. Platter of a green dress "with a hint of a bustle—like my purple plaid, you remember?" "Wish I could
see
her purple plaid," Homily kept worrying, "just so as to get the idea...."

But Pod's thoughts were set on graver matters. Every conversation overheard brought day by day an increasing awareness of their fate: to live out the rest of their lives under a barrage of human eyes—a constant, unremitting state of being "seen." Flesh and blood could not stand it, he thought; they would shrivel up under these stares—that's what would happen—they would waste away and die. And people would watch them even on their deathbeds—they would watch, with necks craned and shoulders jostling while Pod stroked the dying Homily's brow or Homily stroked the dying Pod's. No, he decided grimly, from now on there could be but one thought governing their lives—a burning resolve to escape. To escape while they were still in the attic. To escape before spring. Cost what it might, he realized, they must never be taken alive to that house with a wall of glass!

For these reasons, as the winter wore on, he became irritated by Homily's fussings over details such as the ashpan and Arrietty's unheeding preoccupation with the
Illustrated London News.

Chapter Fifteen

During this period (mid-November to December) several projects were planned and attempted. Pod had succeeded in drawing out four nails that secured a patch of mended floorboard below the kitchen table. "They don't walk here, you see," he explained to his wife and child, "and it's in shadow like." These four stout nails he replaced with slimmer ones from the tin box on the table. The finer nails could be lifted out with ease, and the three of them together could move the board aside. Below, they found the familiar joists and crossbeams, with a film of dust that lay—ankle-deep to them—on the ceiling plaster of the room below. ("Reminds me of the time when we first moved in under the floor at Firbank," said Homily. "I thought sometimes we'd never get it straight, but we did.")

But Pod's present project had nothing to do with homemaking—he was seeking a way that might lead them to the lath and plaster walls of the room immediately below. If they could achieve this, he thought, there was nothing to stop them climbing down through the whole depth of the house, with the help of the laths within the walls. Mice did it; rats did it; and as he pointed out, risky and toilsome as it was, they had done it several times themselves. ("We were younger then, Pod," Homily reminded him nervously, but she seemed quite willing to try.)

It was no good, however; the attic was in the roof, and the roof was set fairly and squarely on the brickwork of the main house, bedded and held in some mixture like cement. There was no way down to the laths.

Pod's next idea was one of breaking a small hole in the plaster of the ceiling below and, with the aid of the swinging ladder made of raffia, descend without cover into whatever room it might turn out to be.

"At least," he said, "we'd be one floor down, the window will be lower and the door unlocked." First, though, he decided to borrow a packing needle from the tool drawer and make a peephole. This, too, was hazardous: not only might the ceiling crack, but there was bound to be some small fall of plaster onto the floor below. They decided to risk it, however; borrowers' eyes are sharp but tiny: they could manage with a very small hole.

When at last they had made the hole and to their startled gaze the room below sprang to view, it turned out to be Mr. and Mrs. Platter's bedroom. There was a large brass bed, a very pink, shiny eiderdown, a Turkey carpet, a washstand with two sets of flowered china, a dressing table, and a cat basket. And what was still more alarming, Mrs. Platter was having her afternoon's rest. It was an extraordinary sight to see her vast bulk from this angle, propped against the pillows. Very peaceful and unconcerned she looked, reading a home journal—leisurely turning the pages and eating butterscotch from a round tin. The cat lay on the eiderdown at her feet. A powdery film of ceiling had settled in a ring on the pinkness of the eiderdown just beside the cat. This, Pod realized thankfully, would be swiftly shaken off when Mrs. Platter arose.

Trembling and silent, the borrowers backed away from their peephole and noiselessly felt their way through the blanketing dust to the exit in the floorboards. Silently they lifted the small plank into place and gingerly dropped back the nails.

"Phew..." said Pod, sinking back as they reached their box in the corner. He wiped his brow on his sleeve. "Didn't expect to see that!" He looked very shaken.

"Nor did I," said Homily. She thought a while. "But it might be useful."

"Might," agreed Pod uncertainly.

The next attempt concerned the window—the one through which they could see the waving branch of the ilex. This branch was their only link with out-of-doors. "Wind's in the east today," Mrs. Platter would sometimes say as she opened the casements to air the attic (this she achieved by standing on a chair). The borrowers took note of what she said, and by the streaming of the leaves in one direction or another could roughly foretell the weather. "Wind in the east" meant snow.

When the flakes piled up on the outer sill, they liked to watch them dance and scurry but were thankful for the gas fire. This was early January and not the most auspicious weather for Pod's study of the window, but they had no time to lose.

Homily on occasion was apt to discourage him. "Say we did get it open, where would we be? On the roof! And you can see how steep it is by the slope of these ceilings. I mean, we're better in here than on the roof, Pod. I'm game for most things, but if you think I'm going to make a jump for that branch, you'll have to think again!"

"You couldn't make a jump for that branch, Homily," Pod would tell her patiently. "It's yards and yards away. And what's more, it's never still. No, it's not the branch I'm thinking of..."

"What are you thinking of, then?"

"Of where we are," said Pod. "That's what I want to find out. You might
see
something from the roof. You've heard them talk—about Little Fordham and that. And about the river. I'd like just to know where we
are.
"

"What good does that do us," retorted Homily, "if we can't get out, anyway?"

Wearily, Pod turned and looked at her. "We've got to go on trying," he explained.

"I know, Pod," admitted Homily quickly. She glanced toward the table under which, as usual, Arrietty was immersed in the
Illustrated London News.
"And we both want to help you. Like we did with the raffia ladder. Just tell us what to do—"

"There isn't anything we
can
do," said Pod, "at least not at the moment. What foxes me about this window is that, to free the latch, you have to turn the handle of the catch upwards. See what I mean? The same with that vertical bolt—you've got to pull it out of its socket
upwards.
Now say, to open the window, you had to turn the handle of the catch downwards—that would be easy! We could fling a piece of twine or something over, swing our weight on the twine like, and the catch would slide up free."

"Yes," said Homily thoughtfully, staring at the window. "Yes, I see what you mean." They were silent a moment—both thinking hard. "What about that curtain rod?" asked Homily at last.

"The curtain rod? I don't quite get you—"

"Is it fast in the wall?"

Pod screwed up his eyes. "Pretty fast, I'd say; it's brass. And with those brackets..."

"Could you get a bit of twine over the curtain rod?"

"Over the curtain rod?"

"Yes, and use it like a pulley."

A change came over Pod's face. "Homily—" he said. "That's it! Here am I—been weeks on the problem—and you hit on the answer first timé..."

"It's nothing," said Homily, smiling.

Pod gave his orders, and swiftly they all went to work: the ball of twine and a small key to be carried to the table and up to the topmost box (this to bring Pod, sideways on, to within easier throwing distance of the curtain rod); the horseshoe to be knocked from the mantelshelf to the floor and to be dragged to a spot beside the musical box and immediately below the window; several patient swinging throws by Pod, from the box. pile on the table, of the key attached to the twine, aimed at the wall above the curtain rod, which stood out slightly on its twin brass brackets (and suddenly, there had been the welcome clatter of the key against the glass and the key falling swiftly, as Arrietty paid out the twine, down past the window, past the sill, to Homily on the floor beside the horseshoe); the removal of the key. by Homily and the knotting of the raffia ladder to the twine, to be wound back again by Arrietty to bring the head of the ladder even with the window catch; the tying, by Homily, of the base of the swinging ladder to the horseshoe on the floor; the twine to be pulled taut and made fast by Arrietty to a table leg; the descent of Pod to the floor.

It was wonderful. The ladder rose tautly from the horseshoe, straight up the center joint of the casement windows to the catch, held firmly by the twine around the curtain rod.

Up the raffia ladder went Pod, watched by Arrietty and Homily from the floor. When on a level with the window catch, he tied the first rung over it, making—for a few essential moments—the ladder independent of the twine. Arrietty, beside the table leg, paid out several more inches from the ball, enabling Pod to knot the twine about the iron handle of the catch. Pod then descended to the floor and brought the ball directly below the window.

"So far, so good," he said. "Now we've all got to pull on the twine. You behind Arrietty, Homily, and I'll bring up the rear."

Obediently they did as he said. With a twist of twine, tug-of-war like around each tiny fist, they leaned backward into the room, panting and straining and digging in their heels. Slowly, steadily, the handle of the latch moved upward, and the hammer-shaped head dipped down in a sliding half-circle until at last it left one casement free.

"We've done it," said Pod. "You can let go now. That's the first stage." They all stood rubbing their hands and feeling very happy. "Now for the bolt," Pod went on. And the whole performance was repeated; more efficiently, this time, more swiftly. The small bolt, easy in its groove, lifted gently and hung above its socket. "The window's open," cried Pod. "There's nothing holding it now except for the snow on the sill!"

"And we could brush that off—say we went up the ladder," said Homily. "And I'd like to see the view."

"You can see the view in a minute," said Pod, "but what we mustn't touch is that snow. You don't want Mabel and Sidney coming upstairs and finding we've been at the window. At least, not yet awhile.... What we must do now, and do quickly, is shut it up again. How do you feel, Homily? Like to rest a moment?"

"No, I'm all right," she said.

"Then we better get going," said Pod.