She walked up the stairs. “What happened here? It looks like an earthquake hit.”
“Yeah?”
“Why are you just sitting in the dark?” She went to open the curtains.
“Don’t do that! Just keep them closed.”
“What are you scared of?” asked Rosie.
Spider looked out of the window. “Birds,” he said, eventually.
“But birds are our friends,” said Rosie, as if addressing a small child.
“Birds,” Spider said, “are the last of the dinosaurs. Tiny velociraptors with wings. Devouring defenseless wiggly things and, and nuts, and fish, and, and other birds. They get the early worms. And have you ever watched a chicken eat? They may look innocent, but birds are, well, they’re vicious.”
“There was a thing on the news the other day,” said Rosie, “about a bird who saved a man’s life.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that—”
“It was a raven, or a crow. One of those big black ones. The man was lying on the lawn in his home in California, reading a magazine, and he hears this cawing and cawing, and it’s a raven, trying to attract his attention. So he gets up and goes over to the tree it’s perched on, and down beneath it is a mountain lion, that had been getting all ready to pounce on him. So he went inside. If that raven hadn’t warned him, he would have been lion-food.”
“I don’t think that’s usual raven behavior,” said Spider. “But whether one raven once saved someone’s life or not, it doesn’t change anything. Birds are still out to get me.”
“Right,” said Rosie, trying to sound as if she wasn’t humoring him. “Birds are out to get you.”
“Yes.”
“And this is because…?”
“Um.”
“There must be a reason. You can’t tell me the great plurality of birds has just decided to treat you as an enormous early worm for no particular reason.”
He said, “I don’t think you’d believe me,” and he meant it.
“Charlie. You’ve always been really honest. I mean, I’ve trusted you. If you tell me something, I’ll do my best to believe it. I’ll try really hard. I love you and I believe in you. So why don’t you let me find out if I believe you or not?”
Spider thought about this. Then he reached out for her hand, and he squeezed it.
“I think I ought to show you something,” he said.
He led her to the end of the corridor. They stopped outside the door to Fat Charlie’s spare room. “There’s something in here,” he said. “I think it’ll explain it a bit better than I can.”
“You’re a superhero,” she said, “and this is where you keep the batpoles?”
“No.”
“Is it something kinky? You like to dress up in a twinset and pearls and call yourself Dora?”
“No.”
“It’s not…a model train set, is it?”
Spider pushed open the door to Fat Charlie’s spare room, and at the same time he opened the door to his bedroom. The picture windows at the end of the room showed a waterfall, which crashed down into a jungle pool far below. The sky though the windows was bluer than sapphires.
Rosie made a small noise.
She turned around, walked back down the hall, into the kitchen, and looked out of the window at the gray London sky, doughy and unwelcoming. She came back. “I don’t understand,” she said. “Charlie? What’s happening?”