by Meg McKinlay
Bella blinked. She had been right.
Pink and knobbly and … one, two, three, four, five. She swung the periscope sideways, scanning for what she could hardly believe must be there.
And there they were. Another group of five, pressed flat to the footpath. Some large, others smaller. Just as you’d expect. Just as toes should be.
Pink toes on the end of flat, wide feet, on the end of …
It was impossible. It was true.
The house was walking.
The house had legs.
Five
Bella stumbled backwards. The periscope slipped sideways, sending everything into a spin before her eyes.
Legs?
She straightened the periscope and set her eye to it again, breathing out slowly, trying to calm her racing heart. With her steady gaze, there was no mistaking it.
Legs. Two of them, spindly and long like a flamingo’s.
Impossible. True.
And still there were no footsteps in the hall; there was only the low rumble of snoring from downstairs as Mum and Dad slept on.
She drew the periscope back into the room and set it on the floor beside her. She pulled the window closed and climbed up onto the sill, leaning back against the curve of the wood.
For a while, the house roamed around the shopping centre. It walked past the bank and the supermarket. It lingered outside the travel agent, tipping Bella’s room sideways as it leaned down into the window. Plastered to the glass were brightly coloured posters with photos of tropical beaches and enormous cruise ships. Fabulous Fiji! they read. Sail Away to Paradise!
Then the house straightened and set off again, striding swiftly onward. And Bella sat and watched the night stream by – row after row of slumbering houses, street after street of quiet blue dark. She watched until she couldn’t watch any more. There was something about the gentle swaying of the house, the soft sighing of the wood, that was like a lullaby. After a time, her eyes became heavy, and sleep slipped over her like a blanket.
In the morning, she woke up in the window. She stretched her arms and blinked in the sunlight. Then she grabbed the periscope and lowered it outside again.
The legs were gone. Or not gone, but hidden? She smiled as she imagined the house lowering itself into the yard. Crossing its legs? Folding them neatly beneath itself? Wriggling and jiggling down into the grass until it was in the exact right spot.
Except not quite.
It was the smallest strangeness this time. The path was almost lined up – almost but not quite. And there was a little too much tree in her window – an extra branch, a few too many leaves. It was such a small strangeness that you wouldn’t notice it unless you were looking. Unless you were keeping an eye on things.
The house went out that night too, and the one after. It went out every night, wandering the silent streets – up and down, here and there. Through parks, and past shops, sometimes stopping to sit on the grass, or look in the windows. And always, at each corner it came to, pausing to turn this way and that before moving on.
Sometimes Bella stayed awake, waiting for the house to rise to its feet, and sometimes she tried to but couldn’t.
Sometimes she woke up in the window, and sometimes in her bed.
Always, she looked for small strangenesses – a little extra sky, a flattened flower or two, the veranda sloping oddly downward.
Mum and Dad didn’t seem to notice the strangenesses. And they never woke up when the house was moving.
Perhaps, Bella thought, that was the biggest strangeness. Or perhaps it wasn’t a strangeness at all.
Perhaps it made the most perfect sort of sense. Because if they did wake up, they wouldn’t sit in the window, quietly watching. They would run around, flapping their arms and saying, ‘Oh, no! What are we going to do?’
When there was nothing to be done and no need to do it.
Nothing, that is, except fit your back into the window’s perfect curve and enjoy the ride.
On Tuesday, Bella smiled as she followed Mum and Dad down the hall. She could hardly wait to tell Grandad about the house. She had thought about calling but she didn’t want to talk on the phone. She wanted to sit across the table and see Grandad’s face when she told him – about the legs and the toes, about the wandering and the strangenesses.
Was there a strangeness today? She had woken late and hurried to breakfast without checking her window, and the curtains down here were closed.
She would see soon enough, anyway. Just ahead, Dad was opening the front door, stepping out onto the veranda.
As the door swung, she saw a clump of leaves, a thick branch. The big gum tree? But it didn’t have branches this low down … and its leaves were different, too. They were long and thin but these looked small and feathery.
Maybe this was a different tree? Maybe the house had spun itself around and this was one of the trees in their backyard?
Bella’s heart raced. If the house was facing the wrong way, surely even Mum and Dad wouldn’t be able to help noticing?
‘What on earth …?’ Dad said. ‘Whoa!’
Mum came to a sudden stop in front of Bella, blocking the doorway. Bella couldn’t see past, but she could hear Dad outside. He was making the strangest sound. It was the kind of sound you make when you’re balancing on the edge of something, spinning your arms like a windmill trying desperately not to fall off.
Except it wasn’t the strangest sound because what came next was even stranger.
SPLASH!
Bella wormed her way between Mum and the doorframe, squeezing out onto the veranda.
And then she froze.
There was no path. There were no flowers. There was no yard.
There were just trees and water and lakeweed. And in the middle of it – Dad, coughing and sputtering and soaked to the skin.
Six
‘Legs? And it went to the lake?’
Bella nodded. Grandad knew where she meant. He and Grandma used to take her there when she was little. She had always thought of it as a secret place. The park around it was so wild and scraggly and thick with trees you could almost forget you were in the city. Rabbits lived there, and lizards that stuck their tongue out when they saw you. In the lake, there were turtles and ducks and frogs that made a noise like a drumbeat.
Grandad leaned back in his chair, leaving his vanilla slice untouched on the table. ‘Goodness. And what did your dad do?’
Bella grinned. ‘Well, first he changed his clothes. Then he went home to get the car.’
‘That’s quite a walk.’
Bella shook her head. ‘He took his bike.’
‘Ah.’
Dad kept his bike in a corner of the games room. Mum was always telling him to put it outside but she had been glad of it today. While Dad pedalled off, she and Bella had walked up to the road, where they waited for him to come back and pick them up.
It was so strange, looking down at the house on the shore of the lake. Bella couldn’t shake the feeling that as soon as they were out of sight, it would unfold its legs and stretch them out into the water, squeezing the cool mud through its toes.
‘I suppose it got lost,’ she said.
‘Maybe.’ Grandad looked thoughtful.
‘Or maybe it just ran out of time.’ That was probably it. Maybe the house had wandered further than it meant to and couldn’t make it back before the sun came up.
‘In any case,’ Grandad said, ‘it certainly is strange.’ He leaned toward her across the table. ‘Tell me … what does it feel like?’
Bella told him about the gentle way the house moved. She held out her arms, showing how she kept her balance when she crossed the floor. ‘It’s a bit like being on your boat.’
‘Is it really?’ Grandad raised his eyebrows. He stared past Bella at the photo on the wall.
Bella turned to follow his gaze. It really had been a beautiful old boat. It was made of wood, which Grandad had painted a cheerful blue colour. Across the side, in curly green
letters, he had written its name – the Marianne, after Grandma.
‘My next boat will be named after you,’ he had joked when Bella was little. But there would be no next boat now.
Bella sighed and Grandad did too. Then their eyes met and they smiled at each other. Only it wasn’t the big, cheek-splitting smile they used to do when they were out on the boat, their skin tingling with salt and sea-spray. It was a small, quiet sort of smile, the kind you do when you have that funny mix of sadness and happiness muddled inside you.
Grandad turned away from the window. He took a long drink of water from his glass.
‘I’d love to see it,’ he said finally. ‘The house, I mean. I’d love to feel it. Like being on a boat …’
‘You should come and sleep over,’ Bella said. ‘Like you do on my birthday.’
It was something they did every year. Grandad came for her birthday dinner and then stayed overnight so he didn’t have to drive home late.
‘I should,’ Grandad replied. ‘Actually, that reminds me – I’ve been working on your present.’ He pointed toward his workbench. It was covered in piles of odds and ends – chunks of wood and tiny metal balls, coiled springs in different sizes, small squares of glass. There were tools here and there and a pile of papers in one corner, weighted down with what looked like old pieces of pipe.
‘Plans.’ He frowned slightly. ‘It’s a little tricky, this one. Fingers crossed I can make it work.’
He held up his wrinkled hands, squashing his fingers together so each was crossed over the next. It was stronger that way, he said. Why cross two fingers when you can cross them all?
Then an odd look came over his face. ‘Oh. Maybe I’ll have to bring it with me this year.’
‘What do you mean? Bring what?’
‘The present. I’d better bring it to dinner, in case –’
‘You can’t do that!’ Bella said. ‘A girl should get a present in the post, remember?’
‘Of course,’ Grandad replied. ‘But … what if the post can’t find you?’
Oh. Bella hesitated. Then she shook her head firmly. It had been a big strangeness this time but it was only for one night. Tomorrow she would wake up to the sun on her face and her tree in the window. She would skip a little as she headed down the slightly wonky path.
‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I’m sure we’ll be back home tomorrow.’
Grandad ran his finger through the sugar dusting on his vanilla slice. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘I guess we’ll have to wait and see.’
Seven
‘Oh, no.’
‘Not again!’
The sound of Mum and Dad yelling floated up the stairs.
The sun was on Bella’s face but it was not the gentle light that usually filtered through her window.
This was blinding light, so bright it almost hurt. It angled sharply into her eyes like it was bouncing off something. It reminded Bella of their times on the boat, when Grandma would come at her all day with hats and sunscreen. The sun reflects off the water, she would say. You can’t be too careful.
Bella sighed. Water. So they were at the lake again?
If they were, this must be a different spot to yesterday. It had been so shady there, surrounded by all those scraggly trees. She went over to the window, holding up a hand to shield against the glare.
And then she stared. Because this was not the lake. This was nowhere she had seen before. They were perched high on the edge of an enormous dam; below, steep walls curved down toward the water like the sides of a giant bowl. The land around them was hilly and carpeted with low scrubby bushes. Nearby, a dirt road snaked away toward the left. Beyond that were more roads, cars crawling along them like ants. They were all headed in the same direction – toward a place where trees gave way to houses and a cluster of grey buildings at their centre stood straight and tall, like rocket ships aiming at the sky.
The city? All the way over there?
Bella stared. They were in the hills on the very edge of the city. And their house … no, she corrected herself. Their house was here. But their yard was all the way on the other side. Miles away. An hour or more, probably, and that was in a car. Which they didn’t have.
Downstairs, Mum and Dad were wild-eyed.
‘How am I going to get to work?’
‘I have a meeting this morning!’
Bella stared out the window. ‘I think I can see the railway line. Maybe you could ride your bike there and –’
Dad shook his head. ‘That’ll take too long. I’ll call a taxi.’ He picked up the phone, then frowned. ‘The line’s dead. I’ll have to use the mobile.’
While he was talking, Bella got ready. Muesli with banana. Lunchbox.
Oh. It was Wednesday. Library bag. And sports uniform. She ran back up to her room.
The bag was on its peg by the door but where was her sports gear? It wasn’t in her drawers or the back of her chair, or even in a crumpled pile on the floor where she sometimes left it accidentally.
She hadn’t done that this time, though. She was sure she had put it in the basket.
Of course. It would be in the laundry, in the ironing pile Mum never quite reached the bottom of.
Bella looped her library bag over her shoulder and hurried downstairs.
Dad was on the phone, exasperation in his voice. ‘There isn’t really an address. It’s the big dam in the hills … a wooden house with a number 6.’ He sighed. ‘I told you – there’s no street name. Just a number. But it’s the only house here. You can’t miss it.’
In the laundry, Bella flicked through the pile, all the way to the bottom. She found a T-shirt she’d been missing since last year but no sports uniform.
‘Mum!’ she called out. ‘Have you seen my sports stuff?’
Footsteps came down the hall. Mum appeared in the doorway. ‘It should be there somewhere. Unless it’s … oh.’ She stared past Bella out the window. ‘I left it on the line.’
Bella followed Mum’s gaze. There should have been a yard out there. A yard with a washing line. Where a sports uniform hung, flapping in the breeze.
Instead there were trees and dirt and a big, muddy dam.
Mum sighed. ‘I guess I’ll have to write you a note.’
Bella supposed that would have to do. At least she wouldn’t get into trouble, even if she did have to sit under a tree keeping score while everyone else played kickball.
She did wonder what Mum would write, though. Washing line too far away? Couldn’t find yard?
And what if the house didn’t go home tonight? It was so far this time. Would they even be able to go back and get the car and the washing and all the other things that were stuck there? And what about the things they couldn’t get at all – like her cubbyhouse and the trampoline?
Bella pictured them in the yard, all huddled around a big empty space where the house should be.
It had only been for one night but now it was two. What if it was three and then four and then a week and then …
It couldn’t be, could it? But what if it was?
What if the house never went home again?
Eight
‘Faster!’
‘Harder!’
‘No pain, no gain!’
There was more yelling the next morning, but this time it wasn’t Mum and Dad.
The house had settled on a grassy oval next to a sports centre. Outside, people ran up and down, doing exercises and lifting weights; others swam laps in a pool. Whistles blew and timers buzzed. The sharp smell of chlorine drifted in on the breeze.
The day after that, they were in another park. A fountain bubbled in a nearby pond; fat orange fish flashed back and forth, rippling the surface.
Every day, Bella woke up to strangeness, and every day it seemed to get bigger and bigger. One morning, they were on a sandbar in the middle of the river. Seagulls squawked outside her window, swooping past her circle of sky to skim low across the water. Early morning kayakers paddled past in the mist and f
ishermen cast lines from a jetty on the far shore.
They had to stay home that day. There was water all around them and no way across it. The house must have waded here like a stork, Bella thought. Until it decided to go back, there was nothing they could do.
Even worse, they couldn’t call to let people know where they were. No matter how unsensibly far Mum leaned out of Bella’s window, she couldn’t get a signal on her phone.
‘This is ridiculous!’ she said. ‘I can’t just not show up for work!’
Dad helped her down from the window. He stared out at the river with a sigh. ‘I think this has gone far enough, don’t you?’
‘Definitely.’ Mum nodded. ‘I’ll call the movers as soon as we get back into range.’
Bella frowned. ‘What movers?’
‘The house movers,’ said Dad. ‘If the house won’t go home we’ll just have to take it there.’
‘But how can you move a house?’
‘They’ll put it on a truck,’ Mum said. ‘People do it sometimes. They buy a house in one place and move it to where they want to live.’
Bella stared at her. ‘They must be big trucks.’
‘They are,’ Dad said. ‘Of course they can’t usually do the whole house at once. They have to do two trips.’
‘Two trips?’ Something unsettling niggled at the edge of Bella’s thoughts. ‘But how …?’
‘They cut them in half,’ Dad said. ‘With a chainsaw. Sometimes they take the roof off, too. They might have to do that for ours, because of the second storey. Otherwise they’ll get stuck going under bridges and –’
‘Cut them?’ Bella gasped. ‘But you can’t cut the house! It –’
She didn’t finish. The house lurched suddenly, pitching forward. Bella tumbled against Mum and had to grab for the windowsill.
Mum put an arm out to steady her. ‘Good heavens! What on earth …?’
Behind them, the door slammed loudly.