The Night Is for Hunting Read Free Page B

‘No way, it must be birds outside, or water gurgling somewhere.’ I’d been caught out by both those sounds before. But then I heard a high-pitched voice say, ‘It’s my turn,’ and I knew that it was no bird or broken pipe. It was a child.
    The instincts I’d developed during the war gave me a strong message. Strong and unmistakable. ‘Get out!’ was the message, and it yelled at both my ears from the inside. So I couldn’t pretend I didn’t hear it.
    But I went forward. I tiptoed across the room to the far side and crouched next to the door, so if anyone came in they wouldn’t see me straightaway. The voices had faded and I thought they might have moved off, but a minute later I heard them again.
    ‘Put her up here,’ the same voice said, and another child answered, ‘Wait, I’m changing her dress.’
    ‘Hurry up.’
    Then a new voice, quieter, murmured, ‘The pin thing’s broken. Try this one.’
    I still hadn’t heard an adult. The door was half open and I put my left eye to the crack. There was nothing to see, just a long corridor stretching somewhere, quite dark, with the same polished wood.
    I crept around the door and looked down the corridor. At the end was a short flight of steps, only three or four, going up to another half-open door.
    The biggest danger was that my boots would squeak. I started along the corridor, putting my feet down carefully and slowly. I was half-way towards the door when it moved suddenly, swinging towards me. I froze. The blood rushed to my face so fast it seemed to burn the skin. The door had moved maybe twenty centimetres.
    Then it moved the same distance back again, and I relaxed. The draught was shifting it.
    The voices came again, much more clearly. The first child, a girl, said, in a highly aggravated tone, ‘But she has to be lying down.’
    I went another five steps, which took me right to the end of the corridor. I could see the beginning of a carpet, a deep red colour with a green crest stamped on it every ten centimetres or so. The girls were heading into a fight now. I thought there were three separate voices and I was sure they were all girls.
    ‘Put her on the bed,’ one of them said loudly and aggressively.
    ‘No,’ another one answered. ‘We did that last time. Put her on the chair. Then the soldiers can come in through this door.’
    I’d heard enough to know they were playing. The sounds of kids playing are different to any other sounds. You can’t mistake them. They get so absorbed in their game, and I think they actually put on more adult voices. That’s what these kids were doing.
    The argument suddenly flared into a full-on fight. One of the girls, the second one, said, ‘No, don’t touch her, she’s mine!’ and the third one said, ‘Yeah, Brianna, don’t be so bossy.’
    Brianna screamed, ‘Well, you’re not doing it right, you’re so stupid. Why don’t you listen to me for once, you’re always sticking up for Casey.’
    The next minute the door was flung open and Brianna – it had to be her – was standing there. I recognised her from the hold-up in the alley. She’d been one of the noisiest. She was a fiery little thing, all red hair and burning red face. About ten years old and with a haircut that a kid must have given her: some bits too long and some bits too short, and a fringe they might have done with a whipper-snipper. She held a large stupid-looking doll with blonde hair and a dirty bride’s dress.
    She took one look at me and her mouth opened like she’d seen Jack the Ripper. She made a little gulping noise, clutched the doll, and ran back through the door. ‘That girl’s out there,’ she yelled at the others as she ran past them, with me right on her heels. But she was too quick. She had the next door open and was through it and gone, like a mosquito wriggler slipping through your fingers in a cattle trough.
    I turned around. The other two were heading out the first door, just as fast as Brianna. ‘Wait,’ I