The Girl Who Came Out of the Woods by Emily Barr

Author:Emily Barr [Emily Barr]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780241345238
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2019-05-02T00:00:00+00:00

June

I gathered my friends around me and we all gazed at the clicky thing. They sat at my feet and we marvelled that we had done this. She had brought a thing with a tiny spark of a flame inside it into our room, and we had stolen it.

I was feeling better. I would never admit it to her, but in myself I was beginning to feel more grounded. That was why those old demons had become my friends, I supposed.

‘We need to pick a time when we’ll get rescued,’ I said. I was including them even though all of them but the bear, the rabbit and the monkey could fly through walls.

‘We do,’ said the bear. ‘Daytime.’

‘Daytimes,’ said the rabbit, ‘and busytimes.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It needs to be busytime outside, doesn’t it? We need someone to call the police straight away.’

We had to start this fire as far away from the door as possible, and I had to understand that I might not get out.

I was very aware of the fact that I might actually be going to die and that the bear and the rabbit and the monkey might be going to go with me. That was a clear consequence of starting a fire when you are locked into the world’s most secure basement. I was ready for that to happen.

‘We don’t mind,’ the bear said, stroking my knee.

We tried to work out when it was busiest outside. The trouble was it was almost never busy. Still, the morning, when people were going to work, or the afternoon, when they were coming home – those were the times to go for, I thought. I kept the television on because it would occasionally tell me the time, although only on a few of the channels.

‘We must do it,’ said the rabbit, ‘before she notices the fire thing has gone.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘We must.’

It was still light outside. There were people out there, however impossible that seemed, and I knew that some of them might have mobile phones in their pockets and would be able to call for help as soon as they saw the flames.

If they saw the flames. This place was so secure, so fireproof and bombproof, that I knew the window wouldn’t smash. It had been built to keep the danger out, but instead it was going to keep the danger in.

We had a bit of a plan. I filled every container I could find (and there weren’t many of them) with water, and stood them by the door. In reality this amounted to the plastic bucket she’d given me and a few plastic cups and bowls, but it was better than nothing. I would stand by the door, holding the toy box, and if no one came I would try to put the nearest flames out. I had considered standing in the shower and fending the flames off by running the water, but I didn’t think that would work. I had to be by the door. All the same, I left every tap in the little bathroom running just in case.

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