Through the Attic Window: Intro to Story #2

Mara lived in the attic of an old Victorian on Divinity Road, just west of Oxford. She had three sisters: Elena, Sofia, and Olivia. Since they come into this story a little, I should tell you that Elena, age eleven, had her own room above the kitchen and Sofia and Olivia, who were nine and eight, shared a room next to the steps, and these four girls did everything together. Now when you live in an old house you can never really know all its secrets, and this old house was no exception. No matter how many times Mara and her sisters tried to explore they always seemed to find something new they hadn’t noticed the last time. Mara loved her attic bedroom as long as she didn’t have to look out the window. Now you may wonder why her parents put her there when she wouldn’t look out the window, because when you have three sisters like Mara did it would have been easy to put one of them in the attic room. But you see, Mara never told her parents she didn’t like looking out the window, because she never told her parents she was afraid of heights. So we can forgive them for putting her in the attic room because they honestly didn’t know about her fear and because Mara really wanted to be in the attic, even though it was at the top of the house. One reason was that the attic was bigger than Elena’s room, which had been Mara’s room before, and the other reason was because she didn’t have to share it unless she absolutely wanted to. This was definitely a perk of being almost thirteen, and the oldest, and Mara knew it. So she covered her window with pretty curtains that let the light in and kept the view out and she went about her life.