6 The Visitors

CHAPTER 6 The Visitors One night, several lonely weeks later, a weary Sara reached the top of the attic stairs. She was surprised to see a flicker of candlelight coming from under her door. She opened the door to find Ermengarde, dressed in her nightgown and wrapped in a red shawl, sitting on the crooked footstool. When Ermengarde looked up, Sara could see that her eyes and nose were pink from crying. "Ermengarde!" cried Sara. "You shouldn't

be here. You will get into trouble." "I know," Ermengarde said, "but I don't care." She squeezed her eyes shut and two big fat tears rolled out, down her pink cheeks. "Oh Sara, please tell me," she begged. "Why don't you like me anymore?" A lump rose up in Sara's throat. "But I do like you," she answered. "I thought it was you that didn't like me anymore!" The two girls rushed into each other's arms. For the first time ever, Ermengarde let go first. Only then did Sara realize how lonely she had been without her best friend. "I couldn't stand it anymore," Ermengarde said. "I had to come up here and beg you to be friends again." "You are nicer than I am," Sara said. "I missed you, too, but I was too proud to say anything." She frowned. "You see? Now that

my luck has run out, I've discovered that I am not so nice after all." Ermengarde glanced around the attic room with both fear and curiosity. "How can you bear living up here?" she asked. Sara looked around as well. She found that she was actually getting used to it. "I just try to pretend that I am someplace else," she said. "For a while I couldn't pretend at all, or tell stories—not even to myself." She nodded in her serious way. "But it's all coming back to me now, slowly but surely." Sara told Ermengarde about how she and Becky and Emily were prisoners in the Bastille prison. Ermengarde was instantly drawn in. She had sorely missed Sara's storytelling. "Will you tell me more about the Bastille?" she asked. "May I sneak up here at night sometimes, when it is safe, and visit you?"

Sara told her she could, if she was careful. Suddenly, however, both girls saw the doorknob to the attic room turning. Who could it be? they wondered in suspense. Miss Minchin? Miss Amelia? Or one of the older girls, like Lavinia, who would surely tell on them? When the door opened, however, it was none other than little Lottie. Today, it seemed, was to be chock-full of visitors. Although flustered, Sara was not entirely surprised to see her little "adopted" daughter. Lottie, who was still only seven, was quite confused about the sudden change in her make-believe mother. She had tried to get Sara to tell her where she had been taken and why. Sara had refused to tell her, but Lottie was one stubborn little girl. She had listened in on the older girls' gossip about Sara. This evening, she started on her voyage of discovery. She climbed stairs she never knew

existed—so many stairs that she thought her little legs would fall off— until she reached the attic and saw the light under Sara's door. At first, she was overjoyed to have found Sara. But when she saw the bare and ugly room, her face fell. "Mama Sara!" she cried in horror. She seemed as if she might start wailing and flailing again—something she had not done in a long time. "Surely you don't live here?" "Please, Lottie," Sara begged. "Don't make too much noise, or I will be yelled at for sure, and I have been yelled at all day." She forced a smile. "Besides," she offered, "it isn't such a bad room." "It isn't?" Lottie asked, glancing around once more, looking uncertain. "Why not?" "Quite right," Ermengarde added, looking as confused as Lottie. She had forgotten all about the storybook romance of the Bastille prison.

"Well," Sara began, "for starters, I am lucky to live in an attic that has windows. Not all attics do, you know. And you can see all sorts of things out these windows that you can't see from downstairs." "What sorts of things?" Lottie asked. "Why, enchanting roofs and railings covered in soot," Sara began, "and chimneys with smoke curling up out of them in wonderful designs. And friendly sparrows, chirping for crumbs. And the rain's big fat drops falling from the sky and going pitter-patter upon the slate roof like gumdrops. And such splendid sunsets! Dazzling bright red and gold ones, or little fleecy, floating clouds hurrying across the blue sky, riding the waves of the wind. And other attic windows, like that one just across the way." Sara pointed. Lottie and Ermengarde looked out at the building next door. "Where other heads might peek out at any minute."