The Wolf in the Attic Read Online Free PDF Page A

from a city that the Turks destroyed when I was very little. One day we will go back, and throw the Turks out, and we will have our house again, with the balcony that looks out over the sea, and it will be warm summer. Always.’
    Jack has a strange look on his face. ‘I’ll be... damned,’ he says, very quietly, and his grip on my hand tightens for a moment. ‘What a curious little bundle you are.’
    We turn off Walton Street. It is darker here, and despite myself I shrink against Jack. I know these streets as well as my own hands, but everything seems different tonight, as though Oxford is a woman who has just unveiled herself, and the face revealed is not who I thought it was.
    ‘It’s all right my dear,’ Jack murmurs. ‘No-one is going to hurt you. You are quite safe.’
    Our house is lit up and the front door is open. People are trooping out and Pa is in the doorway, shaking their hands as they leave. As Jack and I approach, he nods at us absently, and goes back to his handshaking. The meeting must have gone on forever.
    I realise then that he did not even know that I was gone, and it barely registers with him that I am standing holding the hand of a strange man in the street. And for a tiny, little boiling second of time, I hate my father.
    ‘What’s your surname, Anna?’ Jack asks me quietly.
    ‘Francis. At least it is now. I think it was something else once.’
    ‘And is that your father on the step?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Jolly good.’ Jack’s black, bushy eyebrows have drawn together, and there is even more colour in his face. I realise that something has made him angry. He doffs his hat, and leads me up the three steps to Pa, shunting people out of his way like a train.
    ‘Mr Francis?’ Pa waves off the last clots of the Committee people, and looks at him, and then at me. Only then does it register in his face that something is out of kilter here.
    ‘Anna – what the devil? Yes, I am George Francis.’
    ‘My name is Lewis sir. I found your daughter on St Giles, in a state of –’ But here I on tug Jack’s hand, and as he looks down at me, without a word I plead with him not to say whatever is to come next.
    ‘That is to say’ – he gives me a tiny nod – ‘I encountered your daughter and decided to see her home, since the hour was late and the streets were somewhat rowdy in that quarter. She is perfectly well, and if I may say, a delightful child. I hope you do not consider it untoward of me.’
    Pa reaches out his hand, his handshaking hand, and it is engulfed by Jack’s big paw. ‘Why, not at all sir. I am most grateful to you.’ He looks at me, and he has that hard set to his face as he takes in my appearance, the same as when I tried to cut off my hair. ‘Anna, what have you been at? Go straight upstairs and draw a bath for yourself. You are in a filthy state.’
    And to Jack, he says. ‘Won’t you come in, Mr Lewis? I should be happy to compensate you for your trouble with a drink, or taxi fare perhaps.’
    ‘Not at all, not at all. I was passing this way at any rate, and I must be making my own road home.’
    I squeeze past them, so very tired, knowing that I am in trouble again and that the adventure is done for now. I will cop it for this. I can see it in Pa’s eyes.
    The house is warm after the cold of the night, and the yellow light seems so calm and normal after the Meadow under the moon. I hug Pie, and feel like crying again, but will not. I will not.
    Jack and Pa are saying their goodbyes. I start to trudge up the stairs. Even Pie seems heavy, and my feet are like two cold stones.
    ‘Anna!’ It is Jack’s voice. I look back, and see he has raised up a hand in farewell.
    ‘Say hello to Odysseus for me when he returns!’ he grins, and winks. I can’t help but smile back.
    Then he is gone, and the door is closed, and Pa stands there looking up at me in the lamplight. I am in the shadow on the stairs, and I don’t think he can even make out my face.
    ‘Where have