Is by Joan Aiken Page A

landscape were David and Arun? And the two hundred and two children from the Playland Express?
    Is very soon ran down the stairs again, and tapped on Aunt Ishie’s open door.
    ‘Come in, my love,’ called a voice from behind a screen. ‘Sit down and make yourself at home.’
    From the splashing behind the screen, Is concluded that her aunt was taking a bath. In a moment or two she appeared, wrapped in a garment made from a grey blanket like that of Mr Twite.
    ‘Axcuse my asking, Aunt Ishie, but I’m still not quite straight: is the old gent your father or your grandpa?’
    ‘He is my father, love; and an excellent parent he has always been, I am glad to say. Now: did you find all well upstairs? Shall you be comfortable up there?’
    ‘Some kind of bed ’ud be nice,’ said Is. (There had been no furniture of any kind.)
    ‘A bed. Oh dear me, yes. Yes, if you are to sleep in this house, you should certainly have a bed. Dr Lemman may have something suitable; we must see about that.’
    ‘Any old folded rug would do,’ said Is. ‘I ain’t particklar.’
    ‘And you are the daughter of my nephew Abednego,’ said Aunt Ishie reflectively. ‘Are you fond of him?’
    ‘Couldn’t stand him,’ said Is briefly. ‘But he’s dead.’
    ‘A most teasing, unreliable boy,’ recalled Aunt Ishie. ‘But he was able to compose, as I well remember, tunes that found their way into one’s head and stayed there for ever. So he is dead. Ah, then; where are his tunes now?’
    ‘All over everywhere,’ said Is, thinking of the children singing on the train. ‘Aunt Ishie – please tell me, I gotta know – what happens to all the kids hereabouts? And where are all the folks? This is like a dead town. In Lunnon there ain’t any kinchins – here there ain’t no one at all. Looking outa the window up there, I couldn’t see a single soul – not one! Nor even a thread o’ smoke. All the houses ruined – where is everybody? Is there some monster what eats them all?’
    Aunt Ishie, after inviting her niece inside, had vanished again behind the screen; from time to time the sight of a hand or a foot protruding and waving about suggested that she was putting on her clothes; but at this moment her entire head came out from the side of the screen. She looked, thought Is, who was now getting used to her, not unlike an otter. Particularly now with her damp grey hair slicked back; her flat-topped grey head and large friendly wide-set eyes quite powerfully suggested that gentle timid creature.
    ‘Monster!’ said Aunt Ishie. ‘Yes! There is a monster. But not the sort you have in mind. This monster’s name is Greed.’
    Next minute she emerged entirely, robed in another long grey cotton gown which fell about her in folds and was tied round the waist with a cord.
    She sat down on the bed. (Aunt Ishie’s room was furnished very sparsely, with a narrow cot, a box, the stool on which Is was sitting, the screen – behind which presumably there stood a tub – and some hooks on the wall from which clothes hung.)
    ‘You have not yet met your Uncle Roy?’
    ‘No, ma’am – Aunt Ishie. I did wonder if he’d help me find Arun.’
    ‘Most unlikely. Your Uncle Roy,’ said Aunt Ishie, ‘is a very rich man. When he was young he made money, selling old iron off a barrow. He did well, bought the iron foundry, then the pottery, next he bought the coal mine, and by now he owns the whole region. First he was made Mayor, then President, and now he is Moderator of the Regional Council.’
    ‘Fancy!’ said Is. ‘But if he’s so grand, surely he oughta know if his own nevvy’s about the place.’
    ‘I would not depend on that. Not at all,’ said Aunt Ishie. ‘Were you aware that New Blastburn – or Holdernesse, as they call it – is an underground town?’
    ‘ Under ground? Save us! Why?’
    ‘While digging out and enlarging the first coal mine, they discovered a huge natural cavern under Holdernesse Hill and so – at your uncle’s