Read Online Dido and Pa by Joan Aiken - Free Book Online

stone rail, or coping, on top, supported by a row of fat little stone or plaster balusters, their fatness diminishing to thinness down below; wonder if they'll hold my weight, thought Dido doubtfully, shaking one of them. It joggled. She tried another, which seemed firm enough. Returning to the attic, she had one more go at yelling and thumping the door. Nobody answered. Be blowed to 'em, thought Dido. She removed the blanket from the mattress and poked it through the casement, climbed out, crawled along the ledge with it, and doubled it around the baluster she had chosen, so that the ends hung down on either side; then, holding on to the blanket, she scrambled over the parapet and let herself down toward the end beam. Just as she felt the timber with her feet, the baluster pulled away from its rotten foundation and crashed past her, cleaving the water far below. Dido fell, too, but was able to grab the beam when she hit it, and hung on to it, wrapping her arms and legs round it. She began to slide down backward, much faster than she liked, unable to get a proper hold of the slimy, slippery, massive timber. Luckily it was not regular in shape, but just a tree trunk, propped against the end of the house; soon various lumps and bumps on it slowed down Dido's progress. They also bruised her and banged her. Never mind—she had not been stunned or knocked into the water by the falling baluster, which might easily have happened.
    If this were a fair, thought Dido, they'd charge you a penny and call it the jungle glide; and I'll be tarnal lucky if I don't get a sousing at the bottom.
    But no: she was able to reach over and grab the rusty fence as she neared the bottom, and swung across to it, scraping her hands rather badly and getting her trousers soaked in the process. Her feet trailed in the water, and at first, kicking about, she could find no purchase for them; gritting her teeth, she hoisted and dragged herself up by her arms, edged a knee onto the bottom rung of the railing, and so managed to work herself along the fence to its street end.
    "Not bad!" said Dido, very pleased with herself; and she stepped ashore on the green-weedy cobbled ramp that formed the end of the alley, running down to the river. Her knees felt weak and trembly; she waited for a minute or two, holding on to the fence, until they were stronger and her head stopped banging, then set off resolutely, but quietly, toward the landward end of the alley. Passing the steps which she had gone down that morning with her father and Mrs. Bloodvessel—was it only that morning? it seemed a very long time ago—she noticed a green and tarnished sign on the rail that said BART'S BUILDING in barely readable letters. Probably once upon a time the place had been a warehouse.
    She was just tiptoeing, with great caution, past the front door when, to her utter dismay and annoyance, it opened, and her father stepped out.
    "There now!" he said gaily. "Now, isn't that a quinci-dence! Sink-sink-sinkro-nicity. Why, we might have—
hic
—arranged to meet on this spot by apple-pointment—
hic
—I never experienced anything so simmle-simmle-simmle-taneoglous. Lily had just said to me, 'Denzil, what was that splash in the river? I do show—so hope,' says she, 'that wasn't your dear daughter, our divine Dido, a-falling to her death.' 'No, no, my angel,' says I in reply, 'our canny little Dido would never do anything so—
hic
—harum-scarum and headstrong, not to say—
hic
—so downright ungiggle-grateful as to climb out the window. But,' said I, "tis an excellent thing, my love, you reminded me of our dear little sprite, for 'tis high time I took her along to meet our friend and biggie-benefactor. I'll step out the door a moment,' says I, 'to see if it snows, and then rouse up our little angle from her slumbers. And out I steps. And who should I see, a-coming along the lane, but her own self—all a-ready for our outing, and frisky as a lamprey."
    Dido could see that her