THE MIRROR IN THE ATTIC
Sharon J. Seider


Anna was an only child who lived with her parents in a big, old Victorian house on the edge of town. They had just moved there from a large apartment in New York City. Mother and Dad decided they were tired of living in a noisy city with too much traffic and rough neighborhoods. So they decided to move to a small out of the way country town, with quiet streets and "room to breathe," as dad would say. Packing all of their belongings, off they went to live in an old rambling Victorian house with rooms upstairs and rooms downstairs. Everywhere you looked there seemed to be another door or stairway that opened somewhere, or so it seemed to Anna. Anna spent most of her time putting away her clothes and dolls and exploring rooms that seemed never ending.

Anna had just turned eight years old, and tomorrow she would go to her new school for the first time. She wondered what her teacher

would be like and if the kids at school would be friendly. She was a little nervous just thinking about that. Anna packed her book bag with her new erasers, pencils, and notepads, and she thought about what she would wear to school the next day.

One rainy afternoon several weeks later, Anna hurried home from school. She opened the door, and called for her mother. Hearing no response, she realized her mother hadn't come home from work. Dropping her book bag by the door, she took off her raincoat, hung it on the coat-rack, and started to walk upstairs. Anna wasn't feeling good about herself that day. The fact of the matter was, she was not adjusting very well to her new school. You see, she was the new girl in her class and some of the girls teased her about her freckles and stringy red hair. Some of the boys called her "chicken legs" because she was so skinny and that hurt her feelings too. Most of the time she didn't feel like going to school.

Slowly Anna walked up the stairs towards her room, dragging her hand along the stair railing. She reached the first flight of stairs and

turned to go down the hall to her room. That was when she noticed a niche in the wall at the end of the hall. She never noticed it before, and decided to see what it was. As she came to the niche, what she thought had been a plain wall with an old dresser in front of it, was a small narrow door. It was only when she stood in front of the dresser that she could see it clearly.

"I don't remember seeing this before," she thought. "Wherever could this lead?"