CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

We rattled the handle and banged on the door and yelled as loudly as we could, but it was no good, Maxwell was right – nobody could hear us. We were trapped!

A wave of panic seemed to rush up from my toes, leaving my skin tingling.

“What are we going to do?” Ingrid whispered.

“If we don’t get out of here, he’ll be long gone with the gold!” I exclaimed, trying hard to think straight.

“I hate to say I told you so, but—” Kip stopped when Ingrid and I swivelled around with fire in our eyes. “OK, OK,” he said, holding up his hands, “We need an escape plan.”

We all looked around the room but there were no windows or doors other than the one tiny skylight.

“We have to go up there,” I said, pointing up at it, and looking around for something to climb. “Help me stack those boxes.”

“How will we ever get out that way?” Kip asked.

“We’ll climb over the roof,” I said. Kip and Ingrid looked at me in horror. “OK,” I said, “I’ll climb over the roof and then I’ll come back and let you out.”

It wasn’t the best or clearest plan but it was all that we had. We began stacking boxes until we had a reasonable tower, but it was soon clear it wasn’t going to be enough. “We’ll never get them high enough,” I panted. “Not the ones we can lift, anyway.” I looked at the height, calculating how far off we still were. “Human tower!” I said finally.

“Er, human what now?” Kip asked.

“We’ll have to go up on each other’s shoulders,” I said briskly. “Come on.”

I climbed on top of the boxes. “Who’s going on the bottom?” I asked. “It needs to be the strongest person.”

“I’m going on the bottom,” Kip yelled, striding manfully forward. “I am the strongest. The sprouts won’t fail me now!”

“OK,” I said with a nod. “Ingrid, get on Kip’s shoulders.”

Ingrid began clambering on to Kip’s shoulders, but she looked far from pleased.

“Gah! Ingrid!” Kip exclaimed, swaying beneath her weight. “What have you been eating, rocks?”

“That’s very rude!” murmured Ingrid. “And I don’t think you should be talking about how much people eat!”

“What?” Kip looked puzzled. “I hardly eat anything.”

“OK,” I interrupted, “we’re nearly there. Steady yourselves. Now I just have to climb on to Ingrid’s shoulders.”

“Uggggh!” groaned Kip as I put a foot in his hand. “You’ve definitely been eating rocks, Poppy. It’s a good job I’m really, really strong or this would probably be very difficult.” His voice was getting a bit shaky now.

“You’re doing great,” I said, finally climbing on to Ingrid’s shoulders. I reached up but we were still short of the skylight. “OK, I need to stand up now,” I said.

“What?!” said Ingrid, and for a moment the tower swayed precariously.

“It’s fine,” I said, “I do this all the time. We’re nearly there!” I carefully clambered up so that my feet were on Ingrid’s shoulders and I reached up. “So . . . close!” I gasped. “Everyone stretch!”

“Aaaaaargh!” we all groaned and I reached up again. It was closer but still too far. For a moment the tower wobbled and I thought we would fall, but we regained our balance and I cried down, “One last push!”

Then below me I heard a big intake of breath and a cry of “SPROUT POWER!” and felt myself slowly rising up towards the ceiling. I reached up and pushed the skylight open.

“We’ve got it!” I cried, hooking my hands over the edge as Kip and Ingrid promptly crumpled into a heap on the floor. I hung on, my legs dangling in the air. With a big pull I heaved myself up through the tiny window and found myself up on a flat section of the roof. Kneeling, I stuck my face back through the skylight. “Are you two OK?” I called.

Kip and Ingrid got gingerly to their feet. “I think so,” Ingrid called. “Can you get down somehow?”

I looked around me. I was very high up, on the highest part of the school’s higgledy-piggledy roof. “I think I can see a way,” I shouted. “I’ll get someone to come and let you out in a minute.”

“OK, Poppy,” I heard them call. “Be careful!”

I took a deep breath and began to climb down the sloping shingles until I came to a section of the roof where a big gap was linked only by a long, thin pipe. I bent down and felt the pipe to see if it would hold my weight and then telling myself Don’t look down, I stepped out, my arms held out either side for balance, and inched across to the other side. Now I was down level with the second floor windows. I stepped on to the first ledge and peered inside, but all that I could see was a dark classroom and the window would not open. Another classroom lay over to my left and I saw with a jolt that the window was slightly open. But to get to the next window ledge I would have to somehow clamber across the big gap between the windows with nothing to stand on. I looked at the stonework and saw only a sheer drop, down, down, down to the hard ground below.

My heart beat faster. What could I do? The criminal was getting away! I knew what I had to do, I just wasn’t sure if I could do it without getting splattered. I could feel panic rising inside me and my breath was coming in short, sharp bursts but I had to get inside the school somehow. I gripped the stonework as best as I could with my hands and stepped off the window ledge. I started moving painfully slowly, hand over hand, towards the open window to my left. My hands hurt as I clung to the rough stonework, my feet continually slipped as I tried to find a foothold between the stones. I was halfway across the gap when things started to go very wrong.

“Poppy!” I heard someone shriek far below me.

Craning my neck I saw Miss Baxter standing below me, with a growing crowd.

“Inspector Hartley!” I shouted. He was standing next to Miss Baxter, looking up at me. “Maxwell Dangerfield! He started the fire! He’s in the great hall!” I shouted as loudly as I could, but I could feel my left hand was starting to slip. In agonizing slow motion one finger after another was peeling away from the wall.

“Poppy!” I heard my name again, but this time it was Pym’s voice.

“Pym!” I screamed, feeling my hand losing its grip completely. I was hanging on now by the fingers of my right hand, scrabbling with the other to find something to hold on to. All my muscles were burning and I realized that this time I had gone too far. My toe found a tiny hole in the stonework and I clung as tightly as I could, but I felt the fingers on my right hand start to slip as well.

Suddenly, Tina and Tawna sprang forward from the group and their acrobatic skills were dazzling as they leapt up the walls, throwing Pym, tumbling, between them. Before I even really knew what was happening they were up level with me. Tina was hanging upside down, on my right, her legs hooked over a drainpipe, her hands holding on to Tawna’s feet.

Across from her, on my left, Pym was also hanging from the window sill, reaching out her hand for me. I stretched out with the fingers of the hand not holding on to the wall, but it was no use. I couldn’t reach her. I whimpered in fright.

“Poppy,” Pym’s voice reached me. “Don’t be scared. I’m going to get you, OK?” She said it in her firm voice, the one you can’t argue with. I nodded, but I could feel my one-handed grasp on the wall slipping.

“Tina is going to swing Tawna towards you, and you’re going to grab her hand with your free hand. And then Tawna’s going to swing you to me and I’m going to catch you. Just like we’ve done a hundred times before, OK?” she asked, and we all nodded.

“Go!” she shouted, and Tawna swung forward and grabbed my free hand. “Now let go, Poppy. I’ve got you!” Pym shouted as my hand began to slip through Tawna’s fingers. Tawna flung me forward as hard as she could. I sailed across the gap, reaching out my hands towards Pym, and the crowd below us gasped.

I knew with a horrible certainty that the trick would fail, just as it had in my nightmare, and I closed my eyes as I tumbled through the air.

Then I felt Pym’s fingers closing tightly around mine and I heard her voice in my ear. “I’ve got you, lovey,” she said.

The world seemed to wobble a bit around me and the next thing I knew Pym was pulling me up on to the windowsill and into a shaky hug.

Below us the sound of cheering filled the air, and I heard the creaking sound of a window being pushed open.

“And what mess have you got yourself into now, Poppy?” A voice drifted through the window and a familiar face appeared. I didn’t think I’d ever be so happy to see Miss Susan.