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wasn’t likely. On Mondays Reuben always stayed all day when he went into town. But there was always the possibility that he could change his routine. And besides, they’d been in the house for a long time. And Neely’s urge to leave—to walk swiftly downstairs—perhaps even to run—was getting stronger and stronger.
    “Okay,” Grub said. “I just want to look at the drums. There on the stage. Come on.”
    At the far end of the room there was what certainly did look like a small stage. Probably a bandstand, Neely thought, where the musicians sat for the grand dances Dad talked about. While Grub, humming again, examined a decrepit old set of drums, Neely stood on the bandstand imagining the long narrow floor crowded with dancers, the women in long velvet or satin dresses and the men in fancy tuxedos. And the band—a big one with lots of blaring trumpets and wailing saxophones. Still imagining the band, she turned and, for the first time, noticed the view from the window.
    The window was long and low and had a wide sill. The lower half of the glass pane was protected by two strong metal bars, but above the bars nothing obstructed a view that went on forever. Here, just beyond the northern end of the house, the plateau ended in a steep, rocky cliff. Far below lay the treeless plain and even farther away to the northeast the dim blue line where the ocean met the sky. It was a beautiful scene—the sloping green plain splashed with yellow and red, and farther away the blue-green sea spangled with sunlight.
    “Look, Grub.” She grabbed his arm and pulled him away from the drums. “Look. The sun’s come out. And look at the view.”
    For a moment Grub looked, but then he suddenly stepped back, pushing himself away from Neely and the windowsill. At the edge of the stage he turned back, frowning.
    “What’s the matter?” Neely asked.
    He shrugged. “I don’t know. I just don’t like looking down there.”
    Neely looked out the window again, seeing this time not the distant view to the plain and the sea, but what could be seen if you looked straight down. Straight down the three stories of Halcyon House and then the long steep drop of the plateau wall. She shivered, and then turned back to look at Grub.
    “It’s all right,” she said. “See the bars. No one could possibly fall out.”
    “Umm.” Grub nodded, but his forehead was still wrinkled. He turned away and started walking down the long room. Halfway to the door he turned back and said over his shoulder, “Let’s go now, Neely. Let’s go home.”

Chapter 10
    W HEN NEELY CLIMBED OUT ONTO THE VERANDA ROOF AND shut the window behind her it was with a definite feeling of relief. The kind of jittery mixture of relief and satisfaction that you feel when you’re being unbuckled from a really terrifying carnival ride. Exactly the kind of “I’m glad I did it—but never again” reaction she’d had when she climbed out of the loop-the-loop at the fairgrounds.
    But on the way home the jittery feeling gradually faded and was replaced by a pleasant excitement as she conjured up memory pictures of everything she had seen. All the great old rooms came back vividly—and with each scene she imagined interesting additions.
    In the dining room she added to the memory of paneled walls and elegant furniture the image of an old man seated at the end of the table. An old man with a stern face and a great bush of gray hair. And other diners, men and women in beautiful clothing and among them a lovely slender woman and three children.
    In her imagined scene the boys, dressed in grown-up-looking suits like the ones they were wearing in the portrait, were acting like kids, poking each other and grinning—probably about the silly things the grown-ups were saying. They had looked that way in the picture, as she recalled, a little bit devilish with their long sleek faces and tilted eyebrows. And then there was the little girl in her lacy dress and huge hair ribbon, looking