We were in the hallway of the house opposite, where the girl who waved at me lived, still in Connaught Place. There was someone upstairs, someone calling, ‘Help! Help me!’
‘Hullo,’ I whispered up the stairway. ‘Where are you?’
‘Lucy. Lucy,’ said Binadit, tears in his eyes.
Police whistles all up and down the street, sounds of people running. They were at the old place, they were inside it, blowing their whistles, calling out. There was a gunshot.
‘Hullo,’ I said. ‘Call again.’
‘Where have you led us?’ said Pinalippy. ‘To our deaths?’
‘Hullo!’ I called in my loudest whisper.
‘Help,’ at last came the response. ‘Help me! I’m up here!’
It was the girl, the girl that waved, crying somewhere upstairs. I went up the stairs, following the sound, I was at her door, it was locked. I thought hard on the lock, but though the lock itself withered and blackened and the handle spat out, still the door would not yield.
‘Open up!’ I called. ‘We’ll help you.’
‘Can’t open it,’ she cried. ‘It locked of its own accord. I can’t do anything. Please help. I can’t get it away from me, it won’t listen.’
‘What won’t?’ I asked. ‘Tell me what is troubling you.’
‘It is! Oh please make it go away.’
‘What is it?’ I asked.
‘The fire extinguisher!’ she said. ‘It doesn’t listen, it’s moving of its own accord, grown so tall, and the bed and the carpet, everything, I think, is in league with it. They mean to crush me!’
‘Quick, Clod,’ said Pinalippy, ‘the police, finding nothing in that house, shall surely search all the others.’
‘It’s coming!’ the girl cried. ‘Oh go away! Go away!’
‘Don’t come up,’ I said to Pinalippy and Binadit. ‘It’s not the lock, it’s the door. It is growing and shifting shape, the whole room beyond, I do think, is quite thoroughly awake and full of life!’
This should take such special effort.
I put my hands on the door; it was hot, so hot!
‘It’s certainly the room!’ I said. ‘The whole room wants life. It’s all sealed up like any living thing, and to get inside it, like any surgeon, you must make a hole! However did a room get such an idea? A whole room, seeking life!’
Downstairs the doorbell rang.
‘The police! It must be the police!’ cried Pinalippy.
‘Please help me!’ called the girl in the nursery.
‘Lucy, Lucy,’ moaned Binadit as the contents of a wastepaper basket found its way all over him.
‘This house is possessed!’ said Pinalippy.
‘Pinalippy, quickly and quietly, look through the keyhole, see if it is the police. It may be the house itself, trying to talk. If it’s not the police you must quieten the bell, for I think if the whole house is coming to life it may start screaming any moment, just as we do when we are born!’
Pinalippy approached the door.
‘Dear room,’ I said, calling through the twisted keyhole. ‘Dear room, how do, how do ye do?’
A great creaking then from the other side of the door.
‘Oh! Oh!’ came the girl.
‘What is it?’ I called. ‘What is happening in there?’
‘The floorboards! They’re shifting underfoot! All my books! All the furniture!’
The doorbell rang again.
‘It must be the house!’ I told her. ‘It’s trying to come alive.’
All about the house now, the floorboards were creaking and groaning, the windows were rattling, doors opening and closing, objects darting about.
‘It’s not the house ringing,’ said Pinalippy at the front door.
‘Then the police?’ I asked.
‘It’s not the police either,’ said Pinalippy. ‘It’s a little girl.’
‘Perhaps,’ I said, ‘it is a friend of the one trapped inside. Whatever she wants, you’d best let her in and shut the door after her, or she’ll have all the police in with her in a moment. Binadit, go hide yourself in a room, for you are too much the spectacle.’
I heard Pinalippy open the door, the girl stepping in.
‘Hullo!’ said the girl in the hall. ‘Thanks awfully!’
‘Who are you?’ asked Pinalippy. ‘What do you want?’
I knew that girl, I’d heard her voice.
‘I’m Irene Tintype,’ she said.
‘She’s a leather!’ Pinalippy called.
‘Irene as in genie,’ the newcomer said, ‘not Irene as in queen.’
‘Lucy, Lucy!’ went Binadit from some chamber within.
‘Please, please get me out,’ cried the girl in the nursery.
‘Don’t let Binadit anywhere near Irene Tintype. There’ll be an explosion if you do.’
‘Help!’ called the girl trapped in her nursery.
‘I’m Irene Tintype.’
‘Oh Lucy, Clod, Lucy,’ groaned Binadit.
‘Help NOW!’ cried the girl.
I pressed my whole body against the door. How hot the room. The girl had become silent now, no human sounds from inside any more, but noise, great noise. It was coming to life, it was so close to living.
‘Be still room, old room,’ I said.
The room moaned, it screamed.
‘Be still, be quiet. Be asleep once more.’
A terrible cracking from inside, like all the floorboards were pulling up from their places, like the walls were breathing and bursting their slats, some were snapping in half, in terrible cracks – as if they were the room’s answer, ‘NO, NO, NO, NO!’ It wanted to live, whoever could blame a thing for wanting to live?
‘Knock, knock,’ I said.
Bang, bang, came the response of something very heavy, thumping on the floor.
‘Clod,’ I said. ‘It’s Clod here and I mean to come in.’
BANG. BANG.
Police whistles.
‘I’m coming in now.’
Crash!
The Last Rats of Foulsham Regarding the Burning of Their Home