The Castle in the Attic

“He cried a little. She pushed the dark hair off his forehead, swaying back and forth as she hugged him. William held back his tears with his parents, with the boys at school, even with Jason, his best friend, but never with her. ‘You have a gentle heart,’ she once told him, as if that were a good enough reason for a ten-year-old boy to cry.”

Mrs. Phillips lets William cry on her shoulder. Theirs is the close, mother-child relationship of the nanny to her charge, and it’s hard on both of them when they part. William learns, during his adventures with the toy castle, what Mrs. Phillips means by his gentle heart. It’s that gentleness that qualifies him to own the castle.

“The question of her leaving hung between them. It took up as much room at the table as he did. ‘Afterward,’ he started, his voice almost choking on the word, ‘will I have dinner alone on a night like this?’ ‘Oh, William,’ she said quietly. When he looked up, he saw tears in her eyes. ‘Of course not. Don’t you see, if I go now, your mother and father will spend more time with you. You and I, we’re almost too close. It leaves other people out.’”

In some ways, William is losing the most important adult in his life, and it’s no wonder he wants desperately for her to stay. Mrs. Phillips, though, understands that, as William gets older, he needs less of her and more of his mother and father. That may be true, but it doesn’t make things any easier for either of them.

“William listened to the sounds his mother made as she moved through the house. ‘Let’s pretend we’re asleep,’ he whispered to Bear. He lay still as she pulled the blankets up to his shoulder and tucked them under his chin. She leaned over and kissed him on the right temple. The smell of her perfume hung in the air after she’d left. The headlights of the second car swept across the ceiling as Dad pulled into the driveway. ‘Number two,’ William mumbled into the pillow. More doors and running water and some whispering in the hall, and then the big house was quiet.”

Though his plan is to sneak past his mom and dad and spent late-night hours playing with his toy castle, William also knows that his parents aren’t very involved in his life and are fairly easy to evade. His interest in the castle replaces, to some degree, his dependency on Mrs. Phillips, but it also shows that his relationship to his parents is distant, and that he’d rather play with the toy than say goodnight to them.