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She ran her hands over the walls enclosing her, searching for a weakness. “Can you fit between the bars?”
“No,” Dewey reported. “Not even a chance. The bad thing about being captured by tiny creatures is that their cells are designed to hold tiny creatures.”
Paige kicked at the bars holding her in the cell. They did not budge.
“Ugh,” she groaned, sinking to sit.
She let her head fall into her hands. Tears formed as she stared down at the large chain clasped around her ankle. Even if she could find a way out of the cell, could she free herself from the chain?
She crinkled her forehead as she studied the rusty chain tethering her to the ground. She stared at the root-like bars, narrowing her eyes.
With renewed determination, she thrust her foot forward between two bars, pulling the chain along with it.
“Paige? What are you doing? You can’t fit between the bars.”
“No, but my leg can. And so can this chain.” She grunted as she shimmied forward and tugged at the chain to tighten it against one of the bars. “And I’m guessing this root will be no match for the iron here.”
Paige sawed back and forth with the chain as taut as possible, inching her leg over as the root began to wear.
“You’re doing it,” Dewey cheered from across the space. “Keep going!”
“Do you have a chain, too?”
“Already on it,” Dewey answered, sliding his little foot through the bars and threading the chain around one.
They worked for a few more minutes until one of Paige’s bars snapped in two.
“Got mine,” Paige reported with a grin.
She moved on to saw another apart. With two fractured, she could contort herself and escape the cell. If she could do something about the chain around her foot, she reminded herself.
Dewey finished sawing through one bar, creating a wide enough gap for him to squeeze out of the cell. “I can get out! Except I can’t. I’m chained to the wall.”
“I know, I know.” Paige hurried to the back of the chamber.
She tugged at the chain, trying to dislodge it from the concrete pad that bolted it to the ground.
“Paige! Paige,” Dewey shouted.
She snapped her gaze at him, finding him on his hands and knees, halfway out of his cell.
He jabbed a finger at the wall next to her cell. “The keys!”
Paige’s eyebrows rose as she hurried forward, diving through the opening she’d created and glancing at the wall.
A set of keys hung from a hook two-thirds of the way up. Paige dug in, trying to push herself farther out of her cell.
“Can you reach them?” Dewey asked.
“I’m trying. Thank goodness these trolls are short. I may be able to do it.”
She yanked on her leg, pulling the chain taut, and stretched her arm toward the keys. Her fingertips grazed the bottom.
“Come on. Reach, Paige!” Dewey encouraged, his paw balling into a fist as he seemed to will her muscles to stretch a few more inches.
Paige’s features contorted into an anguished wince. She bit her lower lip as she strained her muscles to the point of pain to grab the keys. She wrapped her fingers around the bottom of one and clung to it, afraid to let go as she hovered in the air in a crab-like position.
“Don’t let go,” Dewey shouted.
