Portia lay thinking about the club. When they were through with the cleaning, and they almost were, they would decorate it with the things from the Villa Caprice: the painting of a starchily dressed young lady swinging on a crescent moon; the Tiffany glass lamp shade (they had no lamp in the club, but if they turned the shade upside down, it would look like a vase, and it was a beautiful thing: all the colors of the rainbow, melted). They also had been given the cast-iron pug-dog with which Mrs. Brace-Gideon had felled the burglar, and the procession of teakwood elephants, and many other treasures. When everything was in place, Portia would go out and pick a big bouquet of roses and iris, and that would be the finishing touch.
The distant plane made a peaceful, soothing sound. Very, very soothing....
Portia sat up abruptly and looked at her cousin.
"Jule, don't you dare go to sleep!" She began to tickle him mercilessly. "Wake up, wake up; we haven't finished working yet! Wake up this minute, Julian Jarman Frog!"
[9]
The Attic
Fine weather can't last forever. One morning, about a week later, Julian woke to a steady sound of rain.
"A good day to look for safes," he thought. He had spent the night at the Villa Caprice, as he would often do that summer. There were so many rooms in the house that there was also one for him.
"You must consider it your very own," his aunt had said, and this he was glad to do without a moment's hesitation.