Charlie's Gang by Scilla James

Author:Scilla James
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780992715434
Publisher: Swift Publishing
Published: 2015-02-25T16:00:00+00:00

And over in Rat Hall that same evening, as darkness fell, Beattie shivered on her window ledge waiting for Darren to come and collect her. When he failed to turn up, she knew he’d gone to the pub and forgotten all about her.

10

Beattie

Beattie’s fear kept her awake all night. She hadn’t known how much livelier rats became in the evenings. They came and went, some bringing food in, some squabbling, others rushing about as if they had a train to catch. She was starving hungry but there was nothing to eat, and to drink she had to risk jumping from the window ledge to reach the frying pan. She took care not to look directly at a single rat because she did NOT want to look as if she was asking for a fight.

Somehow the night passed, and she dozed off as the rats went to their nests to sleep. She dreamed of Brian coming to find her and taking her home to their cosy flat. When she woke again, she knew she would have to make a plan or starve.

She was too high up to jump - that much was clear. Therefore she needed to get herself lower down in the building - probably as far down as the ground floor. Then she thought, she could search every inch of every room, in case there was even the smallest gap she could work on or make bigger, or squeeze through. The rats were obviously coming in and out with ease, so even if the space they needed was smaller, anything would be a start. She had spent hours feeling afraid of them. But perhaps by now they had become used to her. She’d done nothing to threaten them, after all. She hoped she was right.

What she feared most was Darren. She didn’t trust him one bit. If he came for her at all it would only be because he’d agreed a price with the Feather man and she guessed that in that case he would simply shut her back in the house again, until the work he wanted to be paid for was done. He would certainly not care that she’d not eaten. She determined to escape from him, and somehow find her way back to Brian.

It was raining still. The drips from the ceiling of the room she was in had become a steady stream. In patches the water was rotting the floorboards. Outside she could hear tiles falling in the wind, sliding down and landing with a thud on the ground.

Taking a deep breath, Beattie slipped down from the window ledge. Looking as casual and unconcerned as she could, she strolled over to the frying pan to take a drink. Then without glancing at the possibly 50 or so rats that shared the top floor with her, she walked over to the staircase, and down. One floor, then the next. She stopped at the heavy old front door. She’d forgotten how gloomy everything was down there, with the boards on the windows keeping out the light.

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