I must have drifted off to sleep, because the next thing I knew was that someone was rattling the door and I had the crazy idea that I was supposed to shout, “Come in!” The pain from my leg hit me like a bolt of lightning, and my chest felt as if someone had jumped on it.
“Wills?” I called.
There was no reply.
I heard a scuffling sound, and a dog barked.
“Wills?” I called again. There was still no answer and I guessed he must be asleep.
I heard voices and the noise of wood snapping. The door scraped on the ground. The dog barked again. Heavy boots thudded on the steps. The pigeons flapped.
“Christopher?” a man called. I saw a light dart around the room above and hover over the hole. The dog barked excitedly.
“I’m down here,” I called.
“It’s all right, son, it’s the police,” the man said. “Stay where you are, just stay there.”
I’m not going anywhere, I thought to myself.
A woman’s voice continued, “There’s nothing to be frightened of. We just want to get you back home. Are you on your own?”
“Wills is in the corner up there,” I called. “You have to be kind to him, it wasn’t his fault.”
“Wills is safe and sound outside with your parents,” the woman said. “He told us you were here.”
What did she mean? How could Wills have told them? He didn’t have his cell phone with him.
Someone began to shuffle slowly across the floorboards. They creaked loudly, sending down showers of dust.
“It’s too dangerous,” the man’s voice said. “Christopher? Are you all right?”
I tried to answer, but it was like my voice had been banged out of me. A loud groan was as much as I could produce.
“We’ll have to break in downstairs, son. Just hold on tight, all right?”
I nodded in the dark and let my head flop back on the ground. I felt so relieved. It was over. Someone else was taking charge. I could hear the police talking up above, making arrangements to get me out. I would see Mom and Dad again soon. I bet Wills was glad that it wasn’t his horrible friends who had found him, even if he was scared stiff that the police would lock him away. And then I realized that it wasn’t all over for Wills. It had only just begun. When they broke through to where I was lying, I wanted to be awake enough to tell them that it wasn’t his fault.
The rest was a blur. There was a lot of banging and sirens and more voices and walkie-talkies and waves of dust and cobwebs and great gasps of air, when the doors gave way, and paramedics lifting me and Mom hugging me and Dad saying all right son and Wills leaning over me, saying, “I did it, Chris, I went and got help,” and the bright light in the ambulance and the IV in my arm and Mom holding my hand, while Dad listened to Wills talking and realized that it wasn’t all over.