Page 39 of Break Out the Girl

Uh-oh. Trouble in paradise.

“Listen, boys,” I say, because sometimes people just need a little wisdom. “It’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey. The fantastic journey.”

I guess they heed me, because after a beat, Burt nods. “Fine.”

Rory bounces on her toes, ready to rock and roll. “Let’s do this. Which way, London?”

All eyes lock onto me.

Kitten looks fierce.

Shane looks analytical.

Burt looks burly.

And now I have to take them all down the rabbit-hole and not let us get lost.

Here we go.

I rub my hands on my hairy thighs then shake them out. “So, there’s a real posh staircase. We go up, then up again another set of stairs. A landing with door after door. You know that Shining movie? That’s where we lived, behind the doors.”

“So, the third floor?” Wolfy stares so hard it’s like he’s trying to crawl into my brain.

Third floor? Righhhht.

Only Brits do ground floor, then first floor, then second. It makes way more sense than calling the ground floor the first floor. Or does it? I guess it’s the first floor and the ground floor. Which means the second floor really is the third floor?

Oh no!

Have I been going to the wrong floors all my life? Is that why I keep stepping into places that don’t feel right for me? This place was the place that felt the wrongest of all.

Every kind of wrong.

It never made sense that I ended up here.

I was sixteen and wily as a fox. I’d already escaped from the immigration brutes, hopped out of their van, and was making a clean getaway, when the man with the scarred face zapped me.

Buzz, buzz, conked-out.

Woke up on a boat, trussed up like a turkey.

They locked me in the corridor of doom, like I was in the worst waiting room in the world.

And by the time I’d been taken to my fourth ‘party’, I knew I had to flick-flack to freedom.

So I did. For a while.

“London?” Aurora’s soft hand touches my arm, snapping the worms out of my head. “Stay with us. You’re safe.”

Right. The mission.

I give my horns a little comforting stroke then put on my captain's hat, which is sadly metaphorical, because I’m not currently in possession of such an admirable headpiece.

“Let’s go.”

I give Burt a wave as he shifts back to Wolfie, then me, Kitten and Shane sneak through a side door.

Somehow, Kitten seems to know which way to go. “These kind of McMansions always have the same kind of layout,” she whispers.