روی سقف

CHAPTER FOUR

On the roof

Dan walked along the corridor. There were some stairs at the end. He ran up the stairs. There was a door at the top. He pushed the door, and it opened. It wasn’t locked! He went through the door, and he was on the roof.

He looked around. A large helicopter was standing on the roof. Dan stopped and looked at it for a moment. The helicopter was a Westing Type 23. He thought for a moment. The Westing Type 23 had twenty seats, two engines and it could fly at 300 kilometres an hour. But how did he know that? He tried to remember.

Of course! He used to work at a helicopter factory. He used to make Westing helicopters. He used to work! But when was that? And where? Why did he stop working? And why did he come to Sunnyvista City? Dan walked across the roof. It was very wide. He walked to the side and looked over the wall at Sunnyvista City. Then he walked across to the other side and looked over that wall. He shook his head.

There was another valley with more buildings. It looked exactly the same as Sunnyvista City. There was a door on the other side with a notice on it, ‘Sortie’. He tried to think. ‘Sortie’, it was French. It meant ‘exit’. But when did he learn French? He turned and ran over to the helicopter. The door was open. There were a lot of boxes inside. They were empty.

Dan climbed in, and hid behind the boxes. There was writing on the boxes. One said ‘Sunnyvista City’, another said ‘Club du Soleil’, a third said ‘Playa del Sol’. He thought about the writing. English, French and Spanish. He looked at some more boxes. Some were German, some were Italian. One was Portuguese. He sat there for about ten minutes, then he heard voices. The door closed. Two men got into the front of the helicopter. Dan listened.

‘Well, that’s it. We’ve delivered everything to the English and French sections.’

‘Yes, we can do the German and Italian sections this afternoon.’