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I wasn’t sure how many hours passed before I heard voices on the other side of the door. They seemed to be discussing me, though there was nothing of sympathy or concern. My life, my future, were simply part of the day’s business.
“… you have a young girl in there for transfer to the train station,” the voice said. “I’m here to collect her.”
To collect me. Was there anything more I needed to know about what was about to happen?
Whoever was standing guard unlocked the door. I’d hoped to see a friendly face when the door opened, or at least someone who looked like he’d accept a bribe, or be swayed by a girl who could pour out some tears at a vital moment—which I absolutely could. Instead, it was a stern-faced guard who frowned at me and only said, “Let’s go.”
My stomach was already in knots, and I hadn’t thought it could get any worse, but I’d been wrong about that too. I stood on unsteady feet, exhausted, half-starved, and certain the walk from here to the prison wagon would be the last time I’d see the world without looking through bars.
The door of the wagon was held open for me and I climbed in, sitting alone near the back. Just before closing the door, the guard said, “You must keep track of your own things on the way there.” Then he tossed in my father’s shoulder bag.
My father’s shoulder bag that was supposed to have been thrown into a burn pile back in Venska! How was this possible? My heart began racing with anticipation.
Even if the bag had escaped the fire, surely it was a violation of rules to give a prisoner their possessions during a transport. It would be far too likely that the prisoner had items that could be useful for escape.
Such as I did, if I could be clever enough.
This guard must have been bribed. Had Ben done that? He must have, because I couldn’t imagine anyone else working such a miracle. I wondered what Ben might have placed inside the bag to help me escape.
I waited for the door to shut before I darted for the bag, but once it was in my hands, I immediately began digging through it. Almost instantly, my hopes were dashed for an easy escape. Ben had ensured that I received this bag, but how was it supposed to help? All that I saw in here was what had been in here before. My father’s stack of cards, some cups, a bag of pops—
Pops!
If they had another name, I didn’t know it. I’d named them when I was very young by the sound they made. Thrown against a hard object, the pop would make an exploding sound, loud enough to make me wince each time. My mother hated them because they spooked our cow, but they had always entertained me.
Now they might save my life.
I threw the first one against the solid side wall of the prison wagon. Its pop echoed like a small cannon in this little metal space. That should get the driver’s attention.
It did. The wagon stopped. I threw another on the cobble-stone road beneath me, and had another in my fist when the driver came running around. “Did you see anything?”
“I think we’re under fire,” I cried, and if he wanted to interpret my nervousness as panic, then that was perfectly fine.
“That’s not gunfire.” But the driver withdrew a pistol anyway and began waving it around wildly with his back toward me. As he did, I threw a third pop on a stone near his feet. He jumped, then quickly unlocked my door and dragged me out. “Come with me.”
By then I had a fourth pop ready, my last one, and while he pushed me ahead of him to run away, I tried to throw the final pop, but instead, it slipped from my fingers. The mistake couldn’t have worked out better for me. The driver stepped on it and it gave a small explosion beneath his foot. He jumped in the air, then shoved me to the ground in his hurry to run for his life.
When he raced in one direction, I ran in the other. I heard him call after me, but I rounded the first corner I saw, my senses on high alert for any possible hiding place. I knew he’d follow me.
Distraction.
That was always the key for success. You could do any trick out in the open as long as you got the audience to look in the wrong place.
I needed a good distraction.
At the next bend, someone had left laundry hanging from a line. I yanked a dress off the lines and pulled it over my head as I ran, placing the shoulder bag beneath the new dress, then joined a group of kids my age gathered for a game of marbles. Pushing into their center, I said, “Did you see which way that girl ran?”
“What girl?” someone asked.
I pointed down the street. “I think she went that way, running faster than I’ve ever seen anyone go. Did any of you see her?”
The kids stood, all of them craning their heads to get a look at this girl whose legs apparently moved at the speed of lightning.
And just in time, for the driver who had been chasing me ran by, and noticed the group of us. I stayed to the rear of the group with my head down as he asked, “Have any of you seen a girl run by?”
“That way!” a boy said, and all the kids pointed in the same direction I’d suggested to them with another boy near me adding, “She was faster than anyone we’ve ever seen.”
By the time they turned around, I had left the group. I returned the dress, then looked toward the forests. I wasn’t entirely sure where I was, though I knew how long it had taken to drive me here, so I had a guess for how long it would take to return to Milda’s home. If Milda’s home was still there at all.
