HEROES

The sixth window? Lampie slowly turns around. The room has only five windows – that is as clear as can be.

But maybe… Maybe on a day when you could think clearly and were not in such a panic and there was no one rattling at the door who wanted to knock it down and come in and do terrible things to you – yes, maybe on a day like that you might just happen to notice that there had indeed once been a sixth window. Over there, behind that sheet of wood that someone has screwed to the wall, and not very neatly. She has never seen it before, but suddenly she spots it – and it is perfectly obvious. And so is what she needs to do.

“Lenny,” she says. “Get up. Time to help.”

Lenny stands up with a grin on his face. Time to help!

It would be a lot easier with a crowbar, but Lenny forces his shears between the wood and the wall, until he can squeeze his fingers into the gap, and then he starts to pull. It makes a terrible cracking sound.

The door begins to creak and crack as well, as the lieutenant throws his shoulder against it.

“I think he’s in here, sir,” he shouts downstairs. “With the door locked. But I’ll have it open in a jiffy!”

Fish looks from the window to the door and then back at the window. “What are you doing? What are you all doing?” he whispers.

Lenny pulls one more time; the wood splinters and cracks and comes free of the wall. And there it is. The sixth window – it was there all along! Lampie gives it a push and it swings open.

The wind gusts right into the room and the smell of the sea is so strong. From this window you really can see such a long way: not just the part of the bay with the lighthouse, but the whole wide expanse of ocean, where the sea meets the sky. On the horizon, dark clouds are gathering.

Lenny picks up Fish and together they look down below. There, beneath the tower, at the foot of the cliff that the house stands on, there, all the way down below on the dark water, there is a green rowing boat. Someone has tied it with a rope to the steep cliff, and it is bobbing gently on the waves.

“I don’t understand,” says Fish. “How did you know there was a window there? And how come there’s a boat down there? There’s no way to reach it.”

“I think… I think that it’s my boat,” says Lampie slowly.

“Your boat? What do you mean? What are you talking about?”

Outside the room, Flint throws his heavy body at the door once again. Then he curses and gives it a kick, but that does not help either.

Fish looks at Lampie, his face completely white. “No,” he shivers. “We don’t have to… We’ll just stay here. That door’s strong, it’ll keep him out. All we have to do is wait until… Until he goes away again, and… Or… or until my father comes. I need to talk to my father, if I could only…”

Lampie looks at him and shakes her head. Then she looks out of the window again.

“Yes, I do,” says Fish. “Honestly, if I could just tell him, just show him that…”

“I’m scared too,” says Lampie quietly. “But I think we have to do it.”

The door is cracking now. With every kick, the cracking grows louder.

 

Lampie feels the fear shooting through her, from the soles of her feet to the top of her head. Do they really have to do this? How far down is it? She would have to keep her body very rigid and go into the water like a spear – that way it wouldn’t hurt as much. And she would have to take a good jump, so that she would land as far as possible out in the sea, where the water is deeper. She would have to… she would have to… she would have to be completely mad!

 

And Fish looks around, at the room where he has lived his entire life. The books, the maps, the bath and the bed – and there is the photograph that Martha gave him only yesterday, with Joseph in it and his mother. The mother you can hardly see anything of, the mother who once lived here and looked out at the sea, longing for the water. Suddenly he can feel his tail, which is limp and dry and which is eager to get going again. He hears the water quietly splashing at the foot of the cliff, so deep, so green, so cold.

*

“Shoes off,” says Lampie, and she starts untying her other lace. “You too, Lenny.”

The boy makes no attempt to move, just stays where he is. Even when she says it again.

“Lenny…” she says. “You can swim, can’t you?”

Lenny looks at her and shakes his head.

“Really?”

Lenny shrugs a bit and looks sadly at the girl. Really.

“Not even for a short way? Just as far as the boat? It’s not all that far, and if we…”

The big boy keeps shaking his head.

“If Fish holds onto you, and I do too? We won’t let go of you. Will we, Fish?”

Slowly, Lenny puts Fish on the floor. Lampie wraps her arms around Lenny’s neck.

“Piss and puke and bile,” she curses and she pinches the big boy very hard, as hard as she can, but it does not help.

 

Another huge kick. The lieutenant roars, the door shakes in its frame. And now there are other feet coming up the stairs.

“We have to go,” says Lampie. “Now. There’s no other way.” She lets go of Lenny and climbs onto the window sill, without looking down. Keep your body rigid. Take a good jump.

“Fish? Are you coming?” She opens up her arms and Lenny lifts the boy off the floor and gives him to her.

“Lenny, if you sink, I’ll dive to get you,” Fish says quietly in Lenny’s ear. “I can do it. I really can!”

But Lenny keeps shaking his head: no way, no way. He hardly even dares to look out of the window.

Fish puts his arms around Lampie’s neck and wraps his tail around her.

“You’re the one with legs,” he says. “You need to make it a good jump.”

“Yes.”

“And keep your body rigid, so it won’t hurt as much.”

“Yes.”

“And fill your lungs first.”

“Fish, I’m frightened. I don’t think I can do it.”

“Yes, you can,” says Fish. “You’re made of the right stuff. The good stuff.”

“Stuff?” shivers Lampie. “What kind of stuff?”

“The stuff of heroes.” He clings extra tightly around her neck. They briefly look at each other.

Then Lampie squeezes her eyes shut. Takes a deep breath.

And jumps.