“Gee, thanks.” He ducked in, waving some cobwebs away, wincing. As he started up the stairs, he added, “Hopefully right now you’re really impressed by my bravery.”
“Totally,” I replied. “I’d be even more so, except you tried to get me to go ahead of you.”
He laughed out loud, and then suddenly I was smiling. I’d never considered myself to be a particularly funny person. That was Colin’s thing. But I realized I didn’t mind being mistaken for one.
Anne appeared on the landing, carrying her pad. “Did Ihear something about wasps?” she said. “Should I get the Raid?”
“Get the Raid!” Clark yelled from above us.
She turned and headed back down to the first floor. Meanwhile, Ben climbed up. I waited in the middle.
“Get behind me,” Anne instructed once she returned, the can of Raid in her hand. She took off the cap, readying it, then took a breath. “Okay. Let’s go.”
The stairs, while narrow and dark, were uneventful. At the top, the attic was immense. Shapes of boxes and more furniture stretched all the way from where I stood to a single small window on the other end, where Clark was.
“Looks like some raccoons or squirrels got in at some point,” he said, grunting as he pushed it open. “If they’re in the walls, we have a problem.”
“You’d know,” Ben said. “They are not quiet.”
“Oh my God! Is that the dollhouse?” Anne said, walking over to a pile of boxes. “Clark! Remember all our little princess tea parties we had?”
Clark said nothing as Ben and I both looked at him, then at each other. The thought of him doing anything dainty was a bit hard to process. Ben said, “Princess tea parties?”
“We hadsomany,” Anne said. “Clark’s favorite was the little pastries. I wonder if… oh my God! Here they are!”
There was aslapas Clark whacked at another wasp. “Where’s that Raid?”
Anne tossed it: He caught it with one hand. As she bent over the dollhouse again, I walked over to join her. It took a minute before I realized it was a replica of the Woods itself,all the way down to the long back porch and placement of the front door, just off-center. “Wow,” I said, as Anne took a miniature cake, perfectly frosted, from a nearby box. “This was yours?”
“We got to play with it,” she replied. “But it was originally your mom’s. See?”
I followed her finger to the front porch. On each of the three small steps was carved a name:CATHERINE FINLEY WOODS.“Who made it?”
“Our grandfather,” she told me, putting in a table, then the cake on top of it. “The Honorable Judge Woods.”
“That’s a mouthful,” I said.
“Most everyone just called him the Judge,” she told me. “Which fit, I guess. From what Mom says, he was always pretty quick to give his opinion. Whether he was at work or not.”
There was a hiss as Clark aimed the Raid at something. Ben stepped closer to the window, waving a hand in front of his face. “Okay. Let’s do this. Before we all die from the lack of air up here.”
A pause as we all looked around the large, dim space packed with boxes. Meanwhile, a boat chugged by distantly, trailed by people laughing. Summer was always going on, somewhere.
“All right.” Clark cleared his throat. “Ben and I will do this side. You guys take that one.”
“Um,” I said, as Anne found her pad, “I don’t think I’m exactly qualified to know what stays or goes.”
“Just list stuff, then,” Anne said. “I’ll do the rest.”
All right, then,I thought. Metal wardrobe, empty. Kids’ bike missing handle bars. Several buckets I chose not to examinetoo closely. And, in the corner, a guitar. When I pulled it out, several moths followed.
“Whoa. What is this?” I heard Ben say.
Turning, I saw he was holding a huge metal contraption with a handle. It looked like some kind of medieval torture device.
“Waffle iron,” Anne told him.
“Seriously?” He scrutinized it. “You had to have some serious upper-arm strength.”
