They stopped. I could picture them looking round, wondering which way to run next.
Just keep quiet, I thought. In a minute they’ll move on. I prayed for them to move on.
And that’s when I heard the scuttling sound.
It was coming from above my head, from inside one of the overflowing bins. Wizzie heard it too. We looked at each other. Her eyes were wide.
I looked up.
And there at the top of a bin, staring down at me, nose twitching, was a rat.
Chapter Fifty-Six
I’ve never known fear like it. Never been that close to a rat. It was huge and ugly with razor-sharp teeth, and it was watching me. I began to shake. I thought for a minute I was going to faint. I wanted to scream, but one cry would alert the Black Widows. I didn’t know what was terrifying me more. The rats outside, or the rat inside.
More than one.
I suddenly saw the tip of a nose appear above one of the other bins. I gripped Wizzie’s hand. She saw it too. She squeezed back. She was trembling.
I imagined one jumping on my head, and tried to stop from screaming. ‘Wizzie …’ I said it through gritted teeth. Too afraid to open my mouth in case one of them leapt inside. No! Don’t think like that!
Please, God, I prayed, let them move on. Please …
‘Hey, what about here?’ Nasal voice was heading for the shed.
One of the others laughed. ‘Bet we’ve got them. Bet that’s where they are.’
She tugged at the door. It sprung open.
Streetlight flooded in. Rats erupted from the bins, looking for a way out – not one rat, not two, but loads of them, legions of them.
The Black Widows screamed.
‘Rats!’
‘Rats!’
And they ran, with an army of rats at their heels.
It was over in a moment. One minute they were there, the next they were gone, their screams echoing through the night air – and we were forgotten, by the rats and by the Black Widows.
Wizzie and I ran from the shed, still holding hands.
Out in the open air – in the clear moonlight, I went crazy brushing myself down, expecting any minute for a rat to creep from my pocket, land on my hair.
Wizzie was the same, slapping herself frantically as if the rats were climbing all over her.
‘I hate this place!’ she screamed. ‘I hate it.’
Was Wizzie crying? I was almost sure she was.
We ran, hardly knowing where we were running. Anywhere to get away from the rats. Finally, we stopped at a bus shelter.
‘I never thought I’d be grateful for rats,’ Wizzie said.
I was still shaking, didn’t want to think about that. ‘They started the fire, didn’t they? The Black Widows. I heard them tell you.’
‘I was angry at you. It was my fault, Hannah, bragging about how you didn’t know how to get revenge. I was always trying to show off to them. They said, “We’ll show you how to get revenge, honey.” That’s what they called me, “honey”, as if they were fond of me.’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘I didn’t expect them to do that. They even bragged to me about it. I tried to tell them, I couldn’t let my mates take the blame. But you heard them. If I opened my mouth I’d be for it.’ Wizzie was breathless, stopped for a moment. ‘I thought they were my mates as well. I thought I wanted to be like them. But I couldn’t have done anything like that, Hannah.’
‘You could never be like them, Wizzie. They are scum of the earth, and you’re decent.’
Wizzie let out a long sigh. In the streetlight I saw her scars. ‘Did they do that?’ I asked. I was suddenly sure I knew where Wizzie’s scars had come from.
I had always imagined her standing with the Black Widows, fighting alongside them. Now I remembered the knife, pictured that girl slashing it against Wizzie’s skin.
She turned away from me, as if she didn’t want to look at me. All I could see was the side of her face. How tiny she seemed to be. Tough and tiny, that was Wizzie.
‘You can tell me, Wizzie. Did she do that to you?’
When she looked back at me, I thought I saw her eyes well up with tears, but she sniffed and they were gone. Might have just been a trick of the light. She shook her head.
‘Then who did?’
‘You won’t tell anybody?’ She smiled. ‘Don’t answer that. No more secrets. I trust you. You won’t tell anybody.’
‘On my life,’ I said. ‘So, Wizzie, who did it?’
I thought at first she wasn’t going to answer.
‘Me,’ she said.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
I couldn’t understand at first what she meant. ‘You did it …? To yourself? But … I don’t understand. Why would you do that to yourself?’