The Zanzibar Chest

The old blanket box held generations of memories...

I'D never seen the big trunk in Grandma's attic before, but now that she and Grandad were moving to a bungalow we were all pitching in to help them sort things out.

Grandma was happily arranging to give away all sorts of things, from her old saggy sofa to her collection of horse brasses.

I was taking the old pine table with all its scrapes and scuffs and memories.

Grandma had her eye on a beautiful new dining set, a smart sofa and reclining chairs for her new home.

Her head popped up through the loft hatch.

"Why on earth did I accumulate so much junk?" she asked.

"Look at it! All that dressmaker's dummy has ever worn is cobwebs.

"Would you like it, Amy?" she offered.

"No, thanks, Grandma," I replied, and with a shiver I remembered my textiles teacher at school telling me not to choose the subject.

I loved sewing, but I was just so useless at it.

I couldn't sew a straight line if my life depended on it.

"There's my sewing machine downstairs as well," she added. "It seems a shame to throw it out.

"You could take it even if you only use it to run up curtains or something." "Thanks, Grandma.

Maybe I will. What's in this trunk?" I asked.

"Oh, I'd forgotten about that," she said. "It's full of old clothes. I'll get the boys to help get it down." The boys were my dad, who was fifty, and my cousin, Adam, thirty-five.

"I remember this trunk!" Dad exclaimed once they were in the attic.

"Sara, Jimmy and I used to come up here, empty it out and play in it.

"That trunk has been a stagecoach, a spaceship and a submarine in its lifetime." Grandma was poking her head up through the hatch again.