There, directly in front of her, was a window. It looked like an old ticket office but there seemed to be nothing beyond the glass. Next to the window was a door. It was a large metal door, and on it painted in capital letters the word ATTENDANT was peeling off.
Cecilia nervously approached the window. She felt the same as when she had taken the long walk from her seat to the stage to do a reading in assembly. It was the worst. Her fingertips tingled with anticipation as she reached out and tapped the glass. Cecilia peered in but there was no response. She walked over to the door and tapped politely underneath the writing. She waited and waited.
“This is silly,” she said aloud and made a fist and banged heavily on the metal. No sooner had she banged than she was answered: three loud bangs hammered back. She was held stiff in a moment of terror. Cecilia banged again; after all, what choice did she have? The same bang was returned. She changed the rhythm; the new rhythm was repeated and then out of nowhere she lost her temper and shouted, “Are you going to open this door or what?”
It was extremely rude but Cecilia was desperate and she had no idea what was happening to her or where she was. All she could do was hope that there wasn’t something awful behind the door. She bit her lip as she waited for something to happen. Cecilia jammed her hands in her pockets. What if the person behind the door was dangerous—what were they doing all the way down here in the first place? The door swung open and a loud, deep, musical voice bellowed down from above.
“What are you doing here, little thing?”
Cecilia stood there, astonished. The man in front of her was not just a man: he was also an animal and he appeared to have the face of a fox. It’s rude to stare, thought Cecilia. This can’t be happening, thought Cecilia. Act normal, thought Cecilia.
“Hello,” she said. “I’m lost!” She laughed nervously.
“That you are.” His accent had a hint of Scottish in it. For some reason this put Cecilia at ease, perhaps it was because it meant that at the very least she was still on her own planet.
“I realised I was lost a while ago and I’ve been wandering about for hours!” She looked at his face curiously. Maybe he’s getting ready for a fancy dress party, she thought, or perhaps she’d stumbled onto a secret location where they were shooting a film—but he sure looked real.
“And what, pray tell, do you want me to do about your loss, little thing?”
“Well, I was hoping that you might point me in the right direction?”
The fox-faced man was strikingly handsome and quite tall—at least as tall as her dad, who was six-foot-two. He had spiky black whiskers and dazzling amber eyes, and although she could see he had a set of sharp teeth, they didn’t seem scary—rather, mischief whispered around the corners of his mouth as though he was about to share a secret.
“Oh dear,” he said, folding his arms and shaking his head. “It’s a very, very long time since I had a wanderer in my midst. I think you’d better come in and sit down. Don’t worry, we will bring you up to speed, help you fill in the gaps! In the end, you know, there is no ‘right’ direction.” He smiled. “My name is Kuffi, by the way. Now, don’t you think it’s rather rude of you to disturb someone at his work with all that banging and huffing and puffing and not even introduce yourself?”
“I’m really sorry,” Cecilia replied, holding out her hand. “I’m Cecilia Hudson-Gray.”
“No thanks, I’d rather not if you don’t mind. You’re filthy! Pleased to meet you, nonetheless,” he said, patting her on the head with a fury palm. She might have expected Kuffi to have paws but his hands were the same shape as a human hand, just covered in the same fur that covered the rest of him—thick, silky red fox fur.
“Oh. Pleased to meet you too, Kuffi!” Cecilia said, looking down at her own soot-stained hands. They were so black it was as though she had been touching the souls of shadows and she wondered what the rest of her must look like!
It was dark inside Kuffi’s cabin. However, Cecilia had begun to notice that there were different types of darkness. It seemed there were different shades that made a person or thing feel or look a certain way. In Kuffi’s room it was like a warm tropical evening in late summer, and although the room was quite sparse (aside from heaps of books), it felt cosy. The light was low and comforting and the entire room, which wasn’t very big, smelled sweetly of ginger and fresh earth. Cecilia thought the piles of books scattered everywhere looked like discarded empty crisp packets and her stomach rumbled as she thought of crisps. It seemed like such a long time since breakfast—then she remembered she had that half a packet of Cherry Drops in her pocket. She got them out and began unwrapping the crumpled tube eagerly. She held out the packet to Kuffi first, of course.
“Cherry Drop?” asked Cecilia, warily holding out the packet.
“Was that you making that noise then? Why were you growling at me?” he asked.
“I’m not, honestly, it was just my stomach rumbling. I’m a bit hungry, that’s all.”
“It sounds monstrous.”
“It does feel like there’s a monster in there, to be honest,” said Cecilia, crossing her arms across her tummy.
“Goodness! How awful. It sounds rather vicious. You scared me there a moment!”
“You scared me too!”
Cecilia and Kuffi chuckled
