Now, Victoria was living at that time in a large rambling Victorian house in Shoreditch. Shoreditch was in London. The house belonged to her grandfather really. Victoria had moved in there with her mother last month because her parents had sold their own house and her father had gone abroad for several months. A move to a new house was planned on his return. Their old house was in Surrey. Anyway, her grandfather needed looking after more now. Victoria's grandmother had died some months previously. All this meant that Victoria had to attend a new school. She was now nearly eleven years old. She found it surprisingly easy to settle in and had made several new friends. That is if you could ever call Douglas a 'friend.' In fact, she thought to herself, who could bear to stay a friend of Douglas for any length of time.

Victoria had never been in the attic before. She closed her bedroom door quietly and crept up the next flight of stairs. She could just about hear the voice of her mother talking to her next door neighbour down in the drawing room. Their voices were just a faint murmur in the distance. She had been told not to go in the attic so she felt rather guilty. Her grandfather had said that it was too dangerous to go up there. He said that he would show her it sometime later. Her mother had been too busy moving in to take much notice of it. However, she thought to herself, I don’t suppose that grandfather will be too cross. After all, grandfathers are never really cross with their granddaughters. They just pretend to be sometimes.