“It’s morning, Sleepyhead, time to get up. Remember today we have to……….”
THE ATTIC
©2003 by Mae Ondracek
“It’s
morning, Sleepyhead, time to get up.
Remember today we have to clean the attic.”
“I can’t,
Mom. I don’t feel good,” Tom said
lazily.
“Well then,
I had better call Barry. He said he’d
help clean out the attic,” and his mom turned to leave Tom’s bedside.
Tom jumped
out of bed, grabbed his mother’s arm and cried, “Wow! Barry will come to help us? That’s great.
I’ll be ready soon.”
Mom, Mrs. Bartic, hurried to finish making breakfast and when Tom
entered the kitchen, breakfast was on the table and there was a knock on the
door. As Mrs. Bartic
went to answer the door, Tom wolfed down his breakfast and Barry walked into
the kitchen and said, “Well, Tom. I see
you didn’t leave anything for me to eat.”
“Hi, Barry. Glad you
could come to help us with the attic.
That is one job I won’t like,” Tom said after swallowing his last
mouthful of food.
“Oh, come on
Tom. You know there will be a lot of
surprises up there,” Barry said.
“I know,”
Tom said sadly. “I only wish my dad was
still alive to help us. He was great,
you know.”
“I know he
was a great guy, Tom. We were all really
sad when he died so suddenly,” Barry said.
“Enough
chatter, boys. Let’s get these boxes,
tape, and pens upstairs so we can start filling the boxes,” Mrs. Bartic said.
Up the steps
all three trooped with arms full of items to work with. “Careful on this last step boys,” Mrs. Bartic said. “I’ll
have to nail that down before we start carrying out the garbage.”
Both boys
stepped gingerly on the last step and entered the attic. “Wow!” Barry cried. “Look at all this neat stuff. What is this, Mrs. Bartic?”
as he picked up a small undescrible item.
“Well,
Barry,” Mrs. Bartic said, “That is what Dave, Mr. Bartic, gave me on our first anniversary. It’s a wachamacallit. We laughed over it a long time as it has no
useful purpose.”
“I wondered
where it went,” Tom said. “How come it
is up here?”
“I just
couldn’t stand to look at it anymore after your dad died,” Mrs. Bartic said. “But
let’s mark a box with put back
downstairs.”
Tom quickly marked the box as Barry
put the thing in it. Then Mrs. Bartic told him to mark a box for garbage and another one Tom. Barry piped up, “How about one for Barry?” he asked
Mom laughed
and said, “O.K. Tom. Mark one Barry.”
Tom picked
up an old meat grinder and asked, “How come you kept this, Mom?”
Mrs. Bartic laughed and said, “That old thing. Your dad was going to fix it but he never got
around to it. That goes in the garbage
box.”
Barry
stammered. “Oh, Oh, Oh, Mrs. Bartic.Can I pl…pl…please have it?
I’d like to try fixing it up.”
“Are you
sure, Barry?” Mrs. Bartic asked.
“Oh, yes,”
Barry said, so it went into the box marked Barry.
They worked
hard until Mrs. Bartic stood up and announced, “Well,
boys. That is enough for now. Let’s go have some lunch.”
“Lunch,”
both boys said in unison. “It’s not that
late is it?” Tom asked.
“Yes,” Mom
said. “It is
As they ate
their toasted cheese sandwiches, tomato soup, and hot chocolate, Barry said,
“Boy, I can hardly wait to start work on all my neat stuff. Thanks for letting me take it, Mrs. Bartic.”
“You’re
welcome, Barry. I hope you can get some
of it fixed. Now let’s just run water in
these dishes and get back upstairs.”
“I’ll get
the hammer and a nail,” Tom cried as he dashed into the garage.
“Here it
is,” Tom said. “I’ll go fix the stair
before you two get up there,” and off he went.
Mrs. Bartic and Barry heard hammering and as they started up the
stairs, it got quiet. “I suppose Tom is
looking for more stuff to go into his box,” Mrs. Bartic
laughingly said.
When they
entered the attic, Mrs. Bartic called out to Tom but
he didn’t answer. She said, “Well, we’ll
just have to do this by ourselves, Barry.
Tom doesn’t want anymore stuff.”
Barry
laughed and said, “Oh, good. Then I can
take that small train out of his
box. O.K.?”
Mrs. Bartic started sorting and Barry asked, “Isn’t this Tom’s
shoe, Mrs. Bartic?
I found it over there.”
“Why,
yes. He was wearing those this
morning. Tom, you come out of hiding
right now,” Mrs. Bartic cried.
There was no
noise except a soft moan, like the wind softly blowing through the trees. “Come on Tom, or we’ll never get this cleaned
out before evening,” Mrs. Bartic said.
“M…M…Mrs.Bartic,” Barry cried.
“Wh…wh…where did that m…m…mirrow come
from? I didn’t notice it before.”
“Well, I
don’t know. We never had a mirror like
that,” Mrs. Bartic said as she reached for it.
The mirror
seemed to dance just out of reach as Mrs. Bartic
reached for it. “This is most peculiar,”
Mrs. Bartic stated.
“How can an inanimate object move without help? I wonder if Tom is behind it?”
Barry went
one way as Mrs. Bartic reached for the mirror again
and it could not dance off. Instead it
flew into the air and landed in Tom’s box.
“Well, I
guess Tom wasn’t behind it Mrs. Bartic,” Barry said.
“No, he sure wasn’t. Now there is writing on the mirror, but I
can’t read it except for ‘Mom’. What do
you suppose it says?”
Barry looked
at the message, as small as it was and said, “Mrs. Bartic,
I think we are looking at it backwards,” as he pointed to what looked like an
‘I’. “This says ‘need’,” Barry said.
“Why yes,
Barry. You are right. It says, ‘Mom, I need your help to get out of
here’.” Mrs. Bartic exclaimed.
Mrs. Bartic reached for the mirror but when it jumped, it hit Barry
in the chest and he grabbed it.
“Lo…lo…look, Mrs, Bartic. I got it.
Now what do we do with it?”
Mrs. Bartic carefully took the mirror and cried, “How, Tom? How do I help you?”
They watched
as words appeared on the mirror and Mrs. Bartic read,
‘I don’t know. I stumbled and fell into
here. Please help me’.
“Let’s put
in a rope to see if Tom can get out with it,” Barry suggested. “Oh, Mrs. Bartic,
I’m scared.”
“So am I
Barry. But we have to stay strong to
help Tom get back here. Now you hold the
mirror flat like this as I put this string into it to see what happens.”
Mrs. Bartic picked up the string and dangled it over the
mirror. With a swoosh it was gone, right out of her hands. Mrs. Bartic pulled
her hand back and exclaimed, “Wow! Did
you see that? It really gobbled up that
string. But I’ll have to get something
tougher. We threw those curtain
tie-backs in the garbage. I’ll get one
of them.”
Mrs. Bartic got a tie-back and looked in the mirror and said,
“Tom, I have a curtain tie-back for you to grab onto. Hope you can reach it.”
‘No, Mom, I
could not reach it. It has to be
longer’, as the mirror gobbled the tie-back up.
“Oh, dear. What do I
use now? Oh, Barry. Be careful.
I need your help and don’t want to have to look for you in the mirror,
too.”
Barry had
seemed ready to crawl into the mirror when Mrs. Bartic
reprimanded him. “So…so…sorry,
Mrs. Bartic.
“Th…th…that thing
was asking me to come into it.”
“Oh, Barry. Turn the
mirror more towards the wall. I’ll get
that longer rope over there and see if Tom can reach that.”
Mrs. Bartic came back with the longer rope and said into the
mirror, “Here, Tom, is a very long rope. Please reach it,” and she put one end into
the mirror.
The mirror
tried to swallow it quickly but Mrs. Bartic had tied
the other end to an attic timber and she was guiding the rope into the mirror
when she seen, ‘Got it, Mom, pull back’, come onto the mirror.
Mrs. Bartic pulled for all she was worth and suddenly Tom popped out of the mirror and he and his
mother landed on the floor. Mrs. Bartic hugged him tight and looked at Barry holding the
mirror, “Barry, I’ll take the mirror now.
We have to break it so no one else gets caught in it.”
“N…n…no, Mrs. Bartic. It said not to break it. I…i…it could make
y…y…you rich,” Barry exclaimed.
Mrs. Bartic grabbed the mirror and put it in the garbage box and
hit it with the hammer lying nearby. She
pulled the frame out and sure enough the mirror had broken out. “O.K. you two, let’s each take a box of garbage
out to the corner and the mirror will be out of our way.”
Mrs. Bartic quickly tied the box with the mirror in it and they
each took a box out to the corner, happy to be rid of such a bad thing that
took Tom away but also let him come back home.