Madame la Directeur had spent most of her jail days sitting on her cot in her tiny concrete cell thinking about how much she hated Homer Pudding and about how much she wanted revenge. She imagined feeding him to her tortoise. She imagined pushing him into a hole filled with venomous cobras or dumping a bag of pinching scorpions into his bed. But these fantasies did not soothe her. Each day, her hatred grew. Each night, she screamed his name in her sleep. “Homer Pudding, I’m going to get you!” This nocturnal meltdown, naturally, disturbed the other prisoners.

“I wish that Pudding kid had never been born,” Prisoner #75 complained. “Then at least I’d be able to get some sleep.”

Hatred is a strange and powerful thing. It does not exist in nature as air and water or people and trees do. It must be created. But because it can be created, it can also be destroyed. All it takes is a bit of positive thinking. Madame la Directeur didn’t realize this, however, and so hatred filled her body like sand filling a vase, until there was no room for anything else. “I hate you, Homer Pudding!”

“That Homer Pudding kid sounds like a real brat,” Prisoner #82 told Prisoner #83.

Prisoner #83 yawned. “It’s so rude of him to keep waking us up.”

In the mornings, when Madame put on her daytime prison pajamas, she remembered how she used to wear expensive designer suits made of silk and virgin wool. As she sat on a bench in the cold prison cafeteria, she remembered how she’d once owned a glorious lair. As she ate her lumpy prison porridge, she thought about how she used to eat Belgian chocolate mousse and pomegranate parfaits.

Things were supposed to be different. Fame and fortune had been so close. But the Pudding kid and that homeless girl had ruined everything. They’d turned her in to the police with proof that she’d been stealing gemstones from the Museum of Natural History.

The sands of hatred filled Madame to the brim.

And so it was that she decided to escape. She’d made sure that Homer’s precious map was taken from him, but she wanted more. She wanted to be there to see the look on his face when the treasure was found—by someone else! She laughed wickedly as she imagined this moment. Then he’d know how it felt to have all his hopes and dreams ripped from his heart and shredded.

How can I get out of here? she thought as she stirred a particularly lumpy bowl of porridge. Soupwater Prison, her current address, was set deep in the swamps of Soupwater County, a region thick with alligators and water snakes. Tall concrete walls surrounded the prison, and the entrance was heavily guarded.

But Madame knew that escape was always possible. Rumpold Smeller had proven this when he’d been trapped in the Pit of Eternity. He fell in while exploring a deserted island. The tribe that once ruled the island had built the pit to capture intruders. The large pile of skeletons at the bottom would have dashed the hopes of most, but not Rumpold. He knew that whoever had dug the pit would have created a way to get himself out.

As Rumpold sat there, contemplating his escape, a mouse scurried through a tiny hole in the wall. After clearing the hole of the mouse’s nest, Rumpold found a release mechanism that opened one of the walls. He was free.

Escape is always possible, Madame told herself. Not even the Pit of Eternity. Not even Soupwater Prison.

I need to explore every room in this place, she thought. She took her porridge bowl to the dishwashing station. “How did you get this job?” Madame asked the prisoner who was washing dishes.

“I volunteered,” Prisoner #41 replied.

“Volunteered?” Madame wasn’t familiar with the term.

“Yeah. It means you work but you don’t get paid.”

“Why would anyone work and not get paid?” Madame asked.

“ ’Cause it’s better than sitting on my cot all day,” Prisoner #41 said with a shrug. “There’s a list of jobs over there on the bulletin board.”

Madame read the list: POTATO PEELER (KITCHEN), TOILET SCRUBBER (MAIN FLOOR), GARBAGE SORTER (BASEMENT), HALLWAY SWEEPER (SECOND FLOOR), and TOWEL WASHER (LAUNDRY ROOM). By volunteering, she’d be able to explore every inch of the prison. She grabbed the pen that hung from a chain and signed her name to each job: PRISONER #90. Surely one of these places would become her escape route.

Homer W. Pudding, I’m coming to get you.