The attic was full: old boxes, suitcases with initials stamped on them, tea chests, and old frames. There were skis so ancient they had leather bindings and were made of wood. Carmen blinked and wondered if they had traversed the Antarctic. It was kind of amazing. No sign of any medals, though. She wondered if Mr. McCredie had perhaps sold them years ago and simply forgotten.

Carmen was getting dusty, but she didn’t mind that. Mr. McCredie was bouncing rather awkwardly on his small toes down below.

“Be careful up there.”

Carmen poked her head through the hole. “Doesn’t anyone in your family ever throw anything away?”

Mr. McCredie blinked. “Why would one?”

“I don’t know,” said Carmen, thinking of the backpack that held most of her worldly possessions, for once with a certain amount of fondness. “Doesn’t it ever weigh you down?”

“I don’t know,” he said, his little eyes peering around over his spectacles. “It’s the only home I’ve ever known.”

Carmen smiled, thinking of Mr. McCredie’s chintzy pink drawing room, with the china, the pictures in their silver frames, the old piano desperately needing tuning, the embroidered footrests, and the ornate poker set. Maybe if her parents had expensive antiques rather than odd liquors brought back from Spain and a large Virgin Mary marked “A GIFT FROM LOURDES” that used to light up with fiber optics, which she and Sofia had loved but which hadn’t worked in years, then maybe she might have felt the same way.

But then, it didn’t look like he was enjoying it at all.

“There is so much stuff up here,” she hollered.

Packing case after packing case of books, spooky old teddy bears and hockey sticks, rugby cleats and an entire set of dishes in an elaborate box. Carmen frowned at the latter—surely it would be useful somewhere, for something. But Sofia had trendy mismatched earthenware in deep turquoise and blue that either came from Morocco or was strongly pretending that it did. What could she possibly do with a dozen dainty floral saucers?

She saw something that looked like tinsel coming out of an old box and, in her haste to get over to it, barged her leg hard on a low table she hadn’t noticed.

“Bloody, bloody buggering hell!” she yelped.

“Are you all right?” came the tremulous faraway voice.

“Yes,” said Carmen, not loud enough for him to hear. “That’s the noise I make when everything is going incredibly well.”

She bit her lip and rubbed her leg. That was going to bruise—bugger. She looked at what she’d tripped over, and her mouth dropped open.

In front of her, covered in dust, was an old train set with little fields and trees and stations, working signals, porters on the tiny platforms, and crisscrossing rails. It was huge and complicated and beautiful.

“Wow! Is this your train set?”