Lampie has been wandering around the garden for an hour now. Everyone thinks she is upstairs, but she is not. Not today. Not tomorrow either. She kicks at the nettles as she walks through them. Never again. She is so tired of this place. There is the tree she was looking for.
She is abandoning everyone, of course. And Martha is not going to like it. Lenny… Lenny certainly isn’t. Oh well. They’ll find someone else. Someone who is better suited to that horrible boy upstairs. Someone who does not mind being yelled at. Someone who can read and write, not an idiot like her.
The tree has lots of handy side branches. She perches on one of them before carefully climbing up to the branch that grows close to the fence, almost up to the high metal points at the top. If she is careful, she should be able to get over it without hurting herself.
Lampie slides to the point where the branch is almost too thin, and then takes a deep breath, grips the fence and tries to swing herself over it.
She can tell right away that it is not going well. Instead of swinging over the top of the fence, she finds herself hanging down on the inside, and all she can do is hold on tightly to the flaking iron rails beneath the points. She kicks her feet, but finds nothing to stand on.
So she just hangs there. If she lets go, she will fall. If she does not let go, she will dangle here for a while – and then she will fall. She does not need to look to know how big the drop is and how spiky and thorny the bushes on the ground far below are. And she is still not even on the right side of the fence.
She tries again, uttering a furious cry to give herself strength and reaching her foot up as high as she can, but it is not high enough, nowhere near.
“Emilia? Emilia Waterman! For goodness’ sake! What are you doing up there?”
Lampie can’t believe her ears. She recognizes that voice, doesn’t she? Surely it can’t be? But then she hears rapidly approaching footsteps and she sees, far below, the tall figure of Miss Amalia, who is running up to the other side of the fence.
“Have you gone insane? Come down here! At once!” she shouts. “Wait, no! Stay there! You’re going to break something!”
Lampie really has no other choice than to stay hanging there.
“Hello, Miss Amalia,” she mutters. Her fingers are cramping. She will not be able to keep this up for much longer.
With her long arms, Miss Amalia attempts to grab Lampie’s foot through the bars. The girl yelps as she feels herself being pulled down. Miss Amalia quickly lets go.
“Hello!” She anxiously rattles the gate. “Can someone come and help? Can anyone hear me? You stupid, ungrateful child. And I was coming to bring you something too. I should really take it straight back home.” She is pacing up and down on the other side of the bars, like a tiger in a cage. “What is the matter with the staff here? Appalling! So lax! As I have previously noted. Oh, I would really like to give you a good hiding – do you know that, Emilia? Why is no one coming? Hello?”
Lampie’s fingers are hurting so much that she cannot hold on any longer. She looks down. There is nothing to break her fall.
Well, here I go, she thinks. Catch me, Mother! She squeezes her eyes shut.
“Go on,” says a voice, just behind her. “Just let go.”
She falls, just a little way, before her feet land on the shoulders of a big brown leather coat. Nick takes hold of her ankles and, when she lowers herself, her arms shaking and her hands now painful red claws, he takes hold of her, climbs down the ladder that has suddenly appeared against the fence and gently sets her on her feet. Lampie looks in surprise at Nick and then at the ladder. Where did he appear from?
“Well, that wasn’t a minute too soon!” Miss Amalia says, rattling the gate impatiently. “I’ve been calling for half an hour. Were you asleep?”
“Are you all right?” asks Nick quietly.
Lampie nods, wiping her hands on her dress. They leave behind rust and flakes of paint – and even some blood.
“You have been luckier than you deserve, Emilia. Perhaps it would have been a better lesson if you had indeed broken something. You have thanked the man nicely, haven’t you?”
“Thank you,” mumbles Lampie, as she is indeed very happy to be in one piece.
“Oh, don’t mention it,” says Nick. Then he takes a bunch of keys from his pocket and dangles it in front of Lampie’s face. “If you ever want to leave again,” he says quietly in her ear, “just come and get these from the carpenter’s hut.”
From the what? thinks Lampie.
“Hello?” Miss Amalia is shaking the gate again. “So are you actually going to come and open this gate, or not?”