The girl’s weeping and pleas for help are very loud now, and Pete can actually see her sitting at the bottom of the leaf-lined slope.
The girl’s weeping and pleas for help are very loud now, and Pete can actually see her sitting at the bottom of the leaf-lined slope. She’s peering up at them, her face a smudged white circle in the gloom.
They stretch their chain farther, being as careful as they can despite their excitement. Jonesy has got his feet braced against a huge chunk of fallen concrete. Josie reaches up . . . gropes . . . cannot quite touch Pete’s outstretched hand. At last, when it seems they must admit defeat, she scrambles a little way up. Pete grabs her scratched and filthy wrist.
“Yeah!” he screams triumphantly. “Gotcha!”
They pull her carefully back up the pipe toward where Duddits is waiting, holding up her purse in one hand and the two dolls in the other, shouting in to Josie not to worry, not to worry because he’s got BarbieKen. There’s sunlight, fresh air, and as they help her out of the pipe—
