In The Tower

Chapter 4

(3 Weeks Left)

It turned out that waiting was all we could do. I haven't flown in the week since the incident, but it gets more tempting by the hour. I've been shifting and talking to Ash to curb some of the urge, however, it barely keeps me from rushing outside and throwing myself off the roof.

"Ash, what are you doing?" I groan. He turns around and gives me an innocent look. From ontop of the book I was reading.

He blinks his wide, innocent looking green eyes, "What do you mean? I'm just getting comfortable." I lift up my book a bit and, without warning, tilt it towards the ground. Ash slides off onto the floor and lands in a heap; it seems like his feline reflexes are on vacation. He untangles his limbs and stands up. "What was that for?" he splutters.

"For interrupting my book. You deserve it," I state as I settle back in with my book. I start reading again; someone slipped this book into my food drop-off a couple weeks ago. It's a pretty good book, and it's obviously been well loved. The spine has started to break and some pages have worn away or been stained by previous readers. It has that old book smell, too.

"Stop reading and pay attention to me!" Ash whines and paws at my leg. I spare him a glance and he goes into begging mode. He leaps up and puts his front paws on my knee, then gives me the perfect puppy dog eyes. They're large and shining, looking like he could burst into tears at any moment. Except for the fact that he's a cat and can't cry.

"You know that doesn't work on me. What do you want anyways?" I roll my eyes at him.

"I'm bored. We should do something," he complains.

"What would we do? I've been reading. You could sneak outside again," I offer.

He attempts to shake his head, but it doesn't work very well. "No. I almost got caught the last time. Although, I did catch a very tasty mouse... No, no. I know, we should clean the attic! Isn't that the last thing on your boring cleaning list?" Ash suggests excitedly, practically bouncing up and down. For being a sassy, serious cat most of the time, he can sure be childish.

"Why would you want to do that? You just said it was boring," I point out, trying to divert the subject away from the attic. There's a lot of memories stashed away up there, some of them very bad.

"Well, at least it's something to do. Plus, it could be like an adventure. Who knows what's up there!" he insists.

"I don't know, Ash..." I hesitantly trail off.

He starts his begging mode again. "Please?" he pleads. I try to not look into his eyes, but then, he mewls a little, like a baby kitten. I glance at him, his shining eyes tugging at my heart. He's good. I shake my head; it's gonna have to be cleaned sometime.

"Fine," I give in. "But we should probably eat lunch first."

"Yay!" he cheers. I don't know how he switches moods so quickly, sometimes he's sassy, other times he's a child. Whatever.

~~~~~

After I finish cleaning up after lunch, we head up to the attic. I sneeze when I get up there; even though I walk through every day, the dust never seems to go away. I look over the towers of boxes, dismayed at how much has to be done. I tried to clean it earlier this week, but I had a sneezing fit and had to stop before I even started.

"Sometimes I forget just how bad it is up here," Ash murmured from beside me.

I nod slowly, "Yeah. Well, where should we start? Or, better yet, how?"

"Um, let's start by taking the boxes downstairs. We're not gonna get anything done with them up here. We could let them down level by level," he suggests determinedly. I nod again at that, feeling a bit more brave.