The Girl Who Stole the Apple

* * *

Beth was sitting on Maggie’s bed. It was a double bed. She liked double beds. She had loved sneaking into her mum’s in the night, even though her mum had told her she was getting too big for it.

‘You let Sam sleep in it,’ she said one time, ‘and he is much bigger than me.’

‘That’s different,’ she had said. But she had never explained how it was different. Did that mean she loved Sam more than she loved her own daughter? Beth hadn’t dared to ask her that question, but it sat there in her head nevertheless.

She bounced quietly on the bed. It was very soft. She wondered if Maggie would allow her to sleep in it with her.

There was a big wardrobe with mirrors on both doors. She had been going to hide in it, but when she had run back to the house, she had found Sam and the man inside, so there hadn’t been any need. Sam had been really odd. He seemed cross that she was there. He had snapped at her and told her to stay upstairs, but then Maggie had arrived and he had called her down to say “hello” to her and then he had sent her upstairs again.

Maggie had given her a hug and told her not to worry. Beth had wanted the hug to last for ever. She felt safe with Maggie. Maggie wasn’t going to be pushed around by anyone. Maggie wasn’t going to go out one evening and never come home.

The hug hadn’t lasted for ever, but just before Maggie let her go she had whispered some words in her ear. ‘What would you do, Beth?’ Which was exactly what they had been talking about earlier, when they had their picnic in the quarry.

Maggie had told her about the game they’d played when she was small. ‘What would you do?’ her father had asked her when they were staying in a windmill. Maggie had told her how she and her brother had decided that the best way to escape if the windmill caught fire was to climb out of the window onto one of the sails and then wait until they got close to the ground before jumping off.

Obviously this wasn’t a windmill. It was a little cottage. But she was trapped upstairs. She couldn’t go down the stairs because Maggie and Sam and the two other men were right at the bottom. She had looked out of the window at the front and she had seen the man who had chased Maggie limping towards the house. He had looked very cross and she was pretty sure he had seen her. Then there was also the fat man with thick-rimmed glasses who had been sitting in the armchair when she had arrived back at the house. He had spoken with a horrid squeaky voice. ‘Go and wait in your bedroom, little girl. And don’t come down until I say so.’

There was no way out of the front window. She had read a book once in which a girl had climbed into a big old house up the ivy to see if the old lady who lived there had kidnapped her dog, but there was no ivy here.

She picked up her rucksack and slipped it onto her back. She looked around the room. What should she do? Maggie had hung her dressing gown on the back of the door. She went over and pulled its cord out of its loops. Then she opened the door and listened. She could hear someone talking — one of the men. She tiptoed along the little corridor past the bathroom and into her little bedroom. Quiet as a mouse she shut the door behind her. She was good at being quiet as a mouse. Mum used to tell her so. She went over to the window, very carefully pulled the handle down and pushed the window open. She peered out. There was no ivy here either. There was a nice little garden: a lawn which hadn’t been cut recently, three circular beds containing a cheerful mixture of pink, white and blue flowers, and there were various bushes and four trees. It was all enclosed by a wooden fence. It was too tall to climb. She scanned it carefully. Wasn’t there a gate? How would she get out? Then she saw it, half-hidden by the dappled shadows under the two trees at the far end of the garden.

What would you do?

There was no ivy to climb down and no windmill sail to grab hold of, but there was a roof below her. It was the roof of the kitchen and its top wasn’t very far below her window. But what if she fell? But she had already thought of this. There were two pillows on her bed and a duvet. She had laid out her dressing gown for the evening, but she wasn’t sure she would need it now. She pulled the cord out of it and tied it to the one from Maggie’s. All she had to do was put one pillow on her front and one on her back and then tie them on tight with the cords. Then if she fell, she would be protected. But doing that was easier said than done and Beth soon realised she couldn’t do it on her own.

What now? Maggie had told her always have a plan B, in case plan A doesn’t work. Beth grabbed the duvet off the bed and lowered it from the window. If she could get it onto the roof and then lower herself onto it, she could wrap it around herself in case she slipped and maybe she wouldn’t get too hurt. She said a little prayer and let the duvet go. It dropped onto the apex of the roof, but instead of settling there like a blanket of snow it slithered down the roof and onto the ground below.

For a moment, Beth thought she was going to cry, but then she heard one of the men shouting downstairs. She had to escape. She grab

bed both pillows. Suppose she put both arms in them? She tried it, slipping her hands deep into the pillow cases, but immediately realised that she wouldn’t be able to hold onto anything. She threw them down.

What now? All she had was her rucksack and the dressing gown cords. And the bed! What would you do? It was as if Maggie was there with her. Quickly she knotted one end of the cord around the brass end of the bed and tugged at it. It seemed firm. She clambered up onto the window ledge and sat down on it, her legs dangling outside. She looked down at the roof. It wasn’t far. She counted to three, eased herself round, tightened the cord and began to lower herself. She had done rope climbing at school. She could do this. She knew she could. Unless she had miscalculated. The cord wasn’t that long. She felt a moment of panic, a moment when she almost cried out and then her feet felt the safety of the roof below her. Except, of course, she wasn’t safe yet.

She held onto the cord, not letting go until she was perched astride the apex of the roof. She turned round and began to edge forwards. She tried not to think of the men in the house. If they saw her, they would shout, but they weren’t shouting so she was OK. She got to the end of the roof and peered down. She had hoped there would be a big soft bush to fall into at the end of the kitchen, but there wasn’t. Just a patio with a rusty barbecue. She would have to slide down the roof and hope for the best. On one side was the lawn, and she was pretty sure they would be able to see her if she fell there, and on the other side there was a wheelie bin.

She paused, counted to one, and slid towards the wheelie bin.

She landed right on top of it. It was a bit like gymnastics except that the bin was no vaulting horse. She felt it wobble beneath her, but she twisted with her hips and pushed with her hands and, just as Miss Grant had taught her, she landed four-square on the ground, flexing her legs as she did so. The wheelie bin stayed upright. She paused and held her breath. There was no noise from the house, no shouting. Crouching low, she ran along the side of the garden and up to the back gate. There was a bolt on it. It was coated with rust. She tried to slide it open, but it wouldn’t budge. She pulled with all her might, but it remained jammed tight. She turned round, scouring the garden. No one was coming out of the house. And there was another gate! She ran back down the garden, past the wheelie bin and tried the bolt on that gate. This time it slid easily. She opened the gate carefully, edged forward and looked round the corner of the house. No one. Crouching even lower she ran under the front windows and then down the lane towards the village. She knew only one person in the village, Mrs Sidebottom. She remembered the funny name and that she had been nice. She ran a shop out of the back of the pub. She wasn’t quite sure what that meant but she would go there and get her to help. Mrs Sidebottom would ring the police and then everything would be alright.

She ran like the wind. She ran like a jaguar, the fastest animal in the world. She ran like a lamplighter. That was what her mum had said after sports day, ‘You ran like a lamplighter, love. I’m proud of you.’ Beth reached the pub, pushed the door open and stumbled in. ‘Mrs Sidebottom!’ she cried and hurled herself at the woman. ‘There are bad men trying to kill us! Call the police.’

She felt Mrs Sidebottom’s arms around her, warm and comforting and safe. She wished they were Ellie’s or Maggie’s, but Mrs Sidebottom was the next best thing.

Then she heard a man’s voice. ‘You must be Beth.’

She turned round. There were two men and she didn’t know who either of them was.

‘Don’t worry,’ the other man said. He was a big man with a very short haircut and a deep voice. His face was red and shiny with sweat. ‘We’re policemen. We’ll look after you.’

Beth screamed.

* * *

Elgar was perched on his chair, trying not to fall off it. The excruciating flashes of pain in his foot had given way a deep throbbing which reverberated halfway up his leg. He was feeling faint, so faint that if he tried to stand up he was pretty sure he would fall. He shut his eyes, trying to combat the feelings of dizziness and nausea which were threatening to engulf him. He wondered if the others had noticed. Or if they had, whether they cared.

He tried to tune back into the conversation. Maggie was talking, very definite and much louder than necessary. ‘I haven’t got whatever it is you think I’ve got.’