Grandma's Attic

Chapter Nine

Fleur released Thredwyl. "How many times, Daisy? Knock before entering."

"Have you had that waxed, Fleur? How disgusting. Does Mum know? You do realise that's a sign of not wanting to admit you're a woman – like anorexia: a refusal to grow up."

By now Fleur had grabbed a silken robe and wrapped it around her body.

"Too late," the intruder Daisy said. She'd quite a nasty tongue. "I've seen it now. And what's—hey, what is that?" She was looking directly at Thredwyl. Thredwyl was looking at her.

Shorter than Fleur and without the sapphire hair, hers was more the colour of topaz or citrine, held in two unruly clutches to either side of her head. Yet she had the same emerald eyes, absent the deep blackness around them. Indeed, no black for her, but a frock of riotous colours, tightly gathered around her chest. The frock then fell in full folds to her naked knees. She had short white socks and besandalled feet.

"That," Fleur answered, "is a Hobbit. And what are you doing home already and barging in here? And what does it matter if Jace has locked himself in his room?"

"Mum said to tell Jason the moment I came in—did you know it's raining? Really ruined Jasmine's barbeque—but don't worry, her mum brought all of us home, though how dismal for Jazzy. And that's not a Hobbit. Hobbits are taller. At least three feet, maybe four, fictional and Flores. Is it real?"

"Of course, I am real," Thredwyl answered the girl, Daisy.

"I'm taking him to the guys at Anthropology," Fleur said.

"But there'll be no one there," Daisy said. "Not after four on a Friday. No one there now till Monday morning."

"Oh, fuck," Fleur swore though it sounded like she didn't mean it.

"I will take care of our little friend." There was no doubt in Daisy's tone that she intended to claim him.

"You can't, he's mine." Fleur stepped in front of him.

This talk of Fridays and Mondays meant nothing to Thredwyl. But if holding his hand out to this shorter, smaller, non-sexualised Daisy stole him away from the luscious Fleur's lascivious company, then he'd hold out his hand. He'd cling to her leg, he'd plead for her to take him away. But that wasn't needed.

"Would you rather I tell Mum about you being waxed? And what I caught you doing with this little fellow? This innocent little fellow." She scooped him up. Thredwyl allowed it without a struggle. "Come on, little fellow. Since she killed my Flopsy and Peeps, I have just the place for you."

Thredwyl scrambled up the next set of stairs, unable to keep up with young Daisy despite her constant chatter must have slowed her. She was bringing him 'up to speed' on her family, she said.

"Me and Fleur, we share a father. Chris Doley—I don't suppose you've heard of him? No, most people haven't. He's a musician. Guitar mostly. He used to play with a resident band at one of the holiday camps—Butlins, but I don't suppose that means anything to you? That was before he scooped the biggie on the Lottery and bought this place. That's also where he met Flirty Fleur's whore of a mother. Sheryl—Sheryl Broadman. She was singer with the band and already sleeping with him—so Mum says. But as soon as he was stinking rich she wanted the ring, the bank account and everything.

"It didn't last long. Their millions slid down the drain in a frenzy of spending—the whoring Sheryl being a shopaholic. Looking at imminent broke, Pops got a job. Session musician, like he still does, for Lynx Studios—that's just down the road, in Cambridge—but that didn't suit Sheryl. She fucked off with her personal trainer. Went to Tenerife, where the trainer left her and she, forced to fall back on her talents, became a singer in one of the hotel bars. Now she's supporting her spending habits by servicing the hotel guests, after hours.

"So, you see, we mustn't blame Fleur for her depravity—and she is depraved. I caught her once with Helas. You know, fiddling with him? She wasn't doing that to you, was she? I mean, if she did, that's abuse, and there are laws against that. Did she...touch you? Like, down there? Only you don't have to be quiet and put up with it. We'll blow the whistle on her, she'll get put in the nick, and the world'll be a sweeter place."

Thredwyl tried to digest everything the young giantess said though a great deal of it skimmed over his head. But this of the touching.... Yet she didn't allow him the chance to say. Off she went again with more family history.

"Me and Jason share a mother—we don't know who his father is; Mum's never said, at least not to me. Probably some Shakespearian bit-actor—that's what Mum used to do before the sitcom that's raked her in a considerable income over the years. Karen Kaye, but I don't suppose you've heard of her either. Ah, and here we are. My room."

She opened the door with considerably less violence than had the black-eyed, black-encased lascivious Fleur Doley. "Like?"

Thredwyl blinked at the kaleidoscope of colours. He stood just into the room, his jaw dropped nigh to his knees. Surely here he had stumbled upon a cave of gems, everything sparkling, everything bright in emerald greens, sapphire blues, topaz and citrines, amethysts, rubies, all hectically mixed with none of the obsessive order Thredwyl had seen in the giants' lower rooms.

"I call it my Aladdin's Cave," Daisy said with a noticeable stride of pride. "Mum says as long as I keep it tidy—by which she means I have to pick up my knickers and things. But there's more. This is my room. Now I'll show you what'll be yours."

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