Shining On by Lois Lowry Page B

ele-phant. I've reached a decision. I can't bear to part with all this stuff yet after all. I'm not quite ready. But I do want it out of sight. I'd like to put it all in bags and take it upstairs to the loft. Could you manage to climb up there with the stepladder?”
    “Of course!” said Jess. She was relieved that Granny had decided to shelve this project. Quickly she bundled all Grandpa's old clothes into the bin liners. Then she fetched the stepladder from downstairs. It hardly weighed anything at all. Granny kind of faffed around saying things like “Oh, you're so strong, lovey, you're so wonderful,” which made Jess feel like some kind of Olympic athlete (for the one and only time in her life, no doubt).
    They set up the stepladder under the access to the loft space—a sort of hatch thing in the landing ceiling. Jess reached up and gingerly raised the cover, then climbed up to the very top of the ladder and groped around in the dark. Her head and shoulders were now actually in the attic.
    “There's a light switch somewhere on your left,” saidGranny. Jess found it and switched on the light. The attic was full of stuff: books, cardboard boxes, old toys, china, general junk … and clothes.
    “This is amazing!” Jess called down to Granny. “I haven't been up here since I was little.”
    “If you come back down, dear,” said Granny, “I'll pass these bags up to you.”
    Jess descended a few steps down the ladder, took the bin liners from Granny and hauled them one by one into the attic.
    Then Jess looked around more carefully. Some dress-up clothes were hanging from a rail. She remembered them from when she was little. Psychedelic sixties dresses, suede jackets with cowboy fringe … all sorts of weird stuff.
    “Do you mind if I stay up here for five minutes, Granny?” called Jess. “It's like Aladdin's cave up here and I might find some treasures.”
    “OK, dear,” called Granny. “I'll go and put the kettle on. Be very careful when you come back down.”
    Jess looked at the clothes again. Was there anything here that could inspire her new wild look? There was a Chinese dressing gown with embroidered dragons on it. Jess tried it on. Unfortunately there wasn't a mirror in the attic, but Jess could tell that she looked fabulously charis-matic and could probably charge ten quid for a tarot reading in this gear. However, it wasn't exactly what she was looking for.
    She tried on the fringed suede jacket. She felt a bit like an idiot cowgirl and besides, it had started to smell rather manky. In fact, as Jess went through all the other clothes, she noticed that a lot of stuff had been nibbled by mice and moths. And so much of it was in fabrics that were too flashy: gold lurex and pink Lycra. It was a shame.
    Then she saw a stack of magazines. Wonderful old maga-zines from forty years ago! Jess blew the dust off them and sat down on a little old stool to leaf through them. She found miniskirts galore, men with floral ties and hair down to their shoulders, models wearing purple velvet pants and shiny green platform-heeled boots. It was all quite wonder-ful, but totally useless. Far too pantomime.
    She looked round the dusty loft and sighed. Maybe she should go downstairs now and have a cuppa with Granny. She got up and, as she clambered her way back towards the hatch, something caught her eye. It was the front page of an old newspaper, lying on the floor. The headline was:
Mods and rockers clash in Brighton.
    And right below the headline was a photo of a magnificent girl. She was wearing a leather jacket, a denim miniskirt, fishnet tights and motorcycle boots. Her hair was wild and tousled, her lips were set in a sneery pout and her eyes were lined in heavy black.
    “Wow!” said Jess aloud. “Jackpot! This is it!” Carefully she picked up the newspaper and blew the dust off it. Now she could see more detail. The girl was wrestling withpolice officers. In the background was a rather tasty young man, also in