I opened a box and pulled out some magazines. The paper was brown, and brittle like autumn leaves. It crumbled away in my hands and dropped to the floor. I felt very sad, and guilty. To think, those words and pictures were gone now.

I looked at the coats. They were strange. Light, with sequins and sewn-on flowers, and strips of fur. Real fur, from animals. It smelled bad, like very old food. I left the coats and clambered further along through the piles of things.

That's when I found the mirror.

It was tall, and oval, with a wooden frame made of curls and scrolls. Someone had carved it. They must have really cared a lot for that mirror to go to all that trouble. I rubbed the dust off the wood and polished a patch of the glass. When I shone the torch at it, I saw myself with another torch looking back at me.

I thought of my bedroom. It needed a mirror. I decided to take this old mirror and drag it to the trapdoor, then lower it down to the floor and get it into my bedroom. Mum would be impressed. She would say "My word you were a clever boy, carrying that big, heavy mirror all the way to your room!" I would pretend it was easy to do things like that.

But the mirror was very heavy. When I tried to lift it, I had to use all my strength. It seemed to be stuck to the floor, it was so heavy.

But I hate giving up on things, so I heaved a bit more and shifted it slowly across the top of the boxes, and bags, and furniture, then I sat for a while to rest. There was a lot of dust in the attic now. It swirled and curled, like smoke. It made the white beam from the torch look solid and hard.

Now I had a problem. I had to get the mirror through the trap-door and down to the floor below without breaking it. This was going to be very difficult.

I cleared the things away first, then I pulled the trap-door wide. Far below was the floor, and up the wall close by was the ladder. I sat and thought for a while, then I had an idea. I would use the ladder, and slide the mirror down it, at an angle.

I climbed down and pushed the ladder through the hole, then I slipped the mirror onto the ladder and let go.

The mirror went like a rocket. Whizz crash! It went too fast and landed on the floor with a loud bang. Good thing Mum was out. She would have roasted me for making