nineteen Anything.
twenty N
twenty-one E
twenty-two thing.
twenty-three A mistake.
twenty-four A chance.
twenty-five An oversight.
twenty-six The
twenty-seven tiniest
twenty-eight error
twenty-nine by the
thirty White
thirty-one Witch
thirty-two from
thirty-three Hell.
thirty-four Cos she makes
thirty-five mistakes.
thirty-six Oh yes.
thirty-seven And if that mistake
thirty-eight comes to
thirty-nine nothing
forty you wait
forty-one for the next one
forty-two and the next one
forty-three and the next one.
forty-four Until
forty-five you
forty-six succeed.
forty-seven Until
forty-eight you’re
forty-nine free.
You get up. She will have been counting but never letting up is another tactic.
She doesn’t say anything but steps towards you and backhands you across the face.
fifty ‘Fifty.’
After press-ups it’s just standing and waiting. Best look at the ground. You’re by the cage on the path. The path’s muddy, but you won’t be sweeping it, not today, not with this plan. It’s rained a lot in the last few days. Autumn’s coming on fast. Still, today it’s not raining; already it’s going well.
‘Do the outer circuit.’ Again she’s quiet. No need to raise her voice.
And off you jog … but not yet. You’ve got to keep her thinking you’re being your usual difficult-yet-basically-compliant self and so you knock mud off your boots, left boot-heel on right toe followed by right boot-heel on left toe. You raise a hand and look up and around as if you’re assessing the wind direction, spit on the potato plants, look left and right like you’re waiting for a gap in the traffic and … let the bus go past … and then you’re off.
You take the drystone wall with a leap to the top and over, then across the moorland, heading to the trees.
Freedom.
As if!
But you’ve got the plan and you’ve learnt a lot in four months. The fastest that you’ve done the outer circuit for her is forty-five minutes. You can do it in less than that, forty maybe, cos you stop by the stream at the far end and rest and drink and listen and look and one time you managed to get to the ridge and see over to more hills, more trees and a loch (it might be a lake but something about the heather and the length of summer days says loch).
Today the plan is to speed up when you’re out of sight. That’s easy. Easy. The diet you’re on is great. You have to give her some credit, cos you are super healthy, super fit. Meat, veg, more meat, more veg, and don’t forget plenty of fresh air. Oh this is the life.
You’re doing OK. Keeping up a good pace. Your top pace.
And you’re buzzing, self-healing from her little slap; it’s giving you a little buzz, buzz, buzz.
You’re already at the far end, where you could cut back to do the inner circuit which is really half the outer circuit. But she didn’t want the inner circuit and you were going to do the outer whatever she said.
That’s got to be the fastest yet.
Then up to the ridge.
And let gravity take you down in long strides to the stream that leads to the loch.
Now it gets tricky. Now you are just outside the area of the circuit and soon you will be well outside it. She won’t know that you’ve gone until you’re late. That gives you twenty-five minutes from leaving the circuit – maybe thirty, maybe thirty-five, but call it twenty-five before she’s after you.
But she’s not the problem; the wristband is the problem. It will break open when you go too far. How it works, witchcraft or science or both, you don’t know, but it will break open. She told you that on Day One and she told you the wristband contains a liquid, an acid. The liquid will be released if you stray too far and this liquid will burn right through your wrist.
‘It’ll take your hand off,’ was how she put it.
Going downhill now. There’s a click … and the burning starts.
But you’ve got the plan.
You stop and submerge your wrist in the stream. The stream hisses. The water helps, although it’s a strange sort of gloopy, sticky potion and won’t wash away easily. And more will come out. And you have to keep going.
You pad the band out with wet moss and peat. Dunk it under again. Stuff more padding in. It’s taking too long. Get going.
Downhill.
Follow the stream.