“I’m right behind you,” she told him, grabbing for the edge of the roof. “I won’t leave you.”
“Am I going to be stuck here until Christmas?” he asked her. “Is my mom going to be mad at me?”
“You’ll be out very soon, I promise. And your mom won’t be mad at you, she’ll be worried.”
“She gets angry when I worry her.”
Ember didn’t have an answer for that one. She was too busy leveraging her body upward, until she reached the apex of the roof. From her vantage point at the top of the playhouse, she could see all the children in the cafeteria. They were standing at the double height windows, watching her progress. A couple of them had their mouths open and were licking the glass. Ugh. Somebody was going to have some cleaning to do later.
The playhouse was taller than she’d realized. As she slowly crawled along the roofline, she could feel herself start to shake. She took another deep breath as she moved her hands and knees forward, until she finally reached the chimney.
Carter grasped for her, as if he was desperate for some body contact. “Miss Kennedy. You’ve saved me.”
She took his hand and he squeezed her palm tightly. She guessed he was afraid she’d leave him, the way all the children had disappeared.
“Okay, let me take a look at you. Check that everything’s okay.”
“Don’t let go of my hand,” he said, his voice panicked.
“I won’t. I’m still holding it, see?” Very slowly she looked him over, checking there were no injuries, and then she brought her gaze to the chimney. It was only a couple of feet wide, just enough for a small boy to crawl into and get stuck. Like the rest of the house, it was made of thick molded metal, not as easy to pull apart as wooden planks would have been.
She looked around the chimney for a weak point, hoping she could pull it out. But the thing had been made to last. She could tug and tug at Carter all day, and he still wouldn’t have moved.
“Sweetie, I think we’re going to need a bit of help to get you out,” she told him, trying to keep her voice calm.
Carter started to cry. Long, deep wails that cut Ember to the quick. Yes, he could drive his teachers crazy, and sure, he never knew when to stop. But he had a good heart, and was a lovely little boy, and his sobs made her chest hurt.
“Ember?” the principal called up from the bottom of the house. She must have been rattled – she rarely called her teachers by their first names in front of the children.
“Yes?”
“Do you think you can get him out of there?”
Ember took another look at the chimney before looking back down at Principal Sawyer. “I don’t think so.” And she didn’t want to risk him falling down inside the playhouse without anybody to help him. He could easily break a leg.
“Okay. I guess we’ll wait for the fire department then.”
Carter’s wails increased in volume, and Ember found herself kneeling up so she could hold him in her arms. “It’s okay, Carter. Everything’s going to be okay.”
Her knees already hurt from digging into the metal roof, and her stomach was starting to protest at the way she had to clench it to keep herself balanced. To top it all off, Carter wrapped his arms around her neck as tig
htly as a boa constrictor, sobbing into her white blouse.
One thing was for sure; it was going to be a long afternoon.
6
It only took eight minutes to get from the fire station to the school. Such a difference to the kind of traffic Lucas encountered in the big city and on the freeways that surrounded it. Matt Greyson, the driver, pulled the quad up at the curb beside the school entrance, right behind the ambulance that had just arrived, and the crew climbed out.
The quad – so called because the truck had a combination of a fire pump, hoses, water tank, and ground ladders – wasn’t much different to the trucks they had in White City. Everything else felt different though; different crew, different town, and a completely different level of call out.
At least he was on a call out, regardless of what it was for.
Lucas followed the crew through the glass double door entrance, an older lady with wiry grey hair waiting for them.
“Thank you for coming,” she called out to them. “I’m Principal Sawyer.”
Lucas nodded at her. “I’m Lieutenant Russell. Can you tell us what’s happened?”