Scream, The by Aiken Joan

Author:Aiken, Joan [Aiken, Joan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Fantasy, Juvenile
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2015-07-07T15:05:53+00:00

7. The Pigeon

“ALL THIS HAS GOT TO STOP,” said Gran next day. “It’s like a sickness. Once it starts, if it has been used for wrong reasons it infects everyone around. Go up and knock on Mrs. McGregor’s door,” she told me, “and ask if she has time to step down and have a word with me about Mack and Orrin.”

No problem about going up to the McGregors’ flat. I roll myself along the passage and go up in the lift.

Unexpectedly, the door was open. And Mrs. McGregor was not inside. But a couple of builders’ workmen were, one looking out of the window, one studying the ceiling.

“Yon’s where the damp gets in,” he said.

“Aye, ye can see.”

You could. There was a big brown patch. The McGregors’ flat was the top one, under the roof.

The man who was looking out of the window shouted an order to an invisible someone down below.

I crossed the room in my wheelchair till I was beside him—as there was no Mrs. McGregor to stop me tracking dust over the carpet—and took a look out.

Down below was one of those huge articulated trucks with a crane attached. As well as the driver there was a man sitting in the control saddle of the crane. At that moment he was maneuvering the grab so as to pick up a pack of roofing slabs from the rear part of the truck. The claws of the crane scooped up a bundle of slabs as if they had been a pack of playing cards—but each of those slabs was at least ten meters long, and wide and thick in proportion.

Heaven knows how many tons the whole load of slabs must have weighed.

Then the crane began hoisting itself upward, undoing more and more silvery sections, which came sliding out of the body of the truck like a coiled snake unwinding. And the dangling claws—with their oblong freight—raised themselves up higher and higher. Now they were right outside Mrs. McGregor’s window. Now they were up above, out of sight.

“Dinna lay them down all together!” shouted the man at the window. “I misdoubt the roof mightna take the weight. Lay them doon in a row, side by side.”

I heard a shrill voice from the roof. Mrs. McGregor.

“Come away out of there, boys!” she was ordering. “Come away at once, the both of ye!”

Of course I guessed at once what the scene up there must be. Mack and Orrin McGregor, attracted like pins to magnets by the builders’ activities, were up on the roof, probably in hopes of being able to get their hands on the crane controls, or on its load, when the men’s backs were turned—and do heaven knows what damage.

Mrs. McGregor had gone up to prevent this, and also to tell the workmen where the rain came through.

I whizzed back across her carpet (mud and oatmeal squares) and went up in the lift to roof level.

Mrs. McGregor saw me first.

“Och, heavens above!” she cried. “Now look who’s here!”

Mack and Orrin gave me glances bubbling over with verjuice.

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