“Then I’m coming with you,” Emma said.
“You ain’t serious,” replied Bronwyn.
“I am.”
“What you are is three-quarters stupid,” said Enoch. “You’ll turn into a wrinkled old prune, and for what? Him?”
“I won’t,” said Emma. “You’ve got to be out of the loop for hours and hours before time starts to catch up with you, and it won’t take nearly that long, will it, Jacob?”
“It’s a bad idea,” I said.
“What’s a bad idea?” said Enoch. “She don’t even know what she’s risking her life to do.”
“Headmistress won’t like it,” said Bronwyn, stating the obvious. “She’ll kill us, Em.”
Emma stood up and shut the door. “She won’t kill us,” she said, “those things will. And if they don’t, living like this might just be worse than dying. The Bird’s got us cooped up so tight we can hardly breathe, and all because she doesn’t have the spleen to face whatever’s out there!”
“Or not out there,” said Millard, who I hadn’t realized was in the room with us.
“But she won’t like it,” Bronwyn repeated.
Emma took a combative step toward her friend. “How long can you hide under the hem of that woman’s skirt?”
“Have you already forgotten what happened to Miss Avocet?” said Millard. “It was only when her wards left the loop that they were killed and Miss Bunting kidnapped. If they’d only stayed put, nothing bad would’ve happened.”
“Nothing bad?” Emma said dubiously. “Yes, it’s true that hollows can’t go through loops. But wights can, which is just how those kids were tricked into leaving. Should we sit on our bums and wait for them to come through our front door? What if rather than clever disguises, this time they bring guns?”
“That’s what I’d do,” Enoch said. “Wait till everyone’s asleep and then slide down the chimney like Santa Claus and BLAM!” He fired an imaginary pistol at Emma’s pillow. “Brains on the wall.”
“Thank you for that,” Millard said, sighing.
“We’ve got to hit them before they know we know they’re there,” said Emma, “while we’ve still got the element of surprise.”
“But we don’t know they’re there!” said Millard.
“We’ll find out.”
“And how do you propose to do that? Wander around until you see a hollow? What then? ‘Excuse me, we were wondering what your intentions might be, vis à vis eating us.’ ”
“We’ve got Jacob,” said Bronwyn. “He can see them.”
I felt my throat tighten, aware that if this hunting party formed, I would be in some way responsible for everyone’s safety.
“I’ve only ever seen one,” I warned them. “So I wouldn’t exactly call myself an expert.”
“And if he shouldn’t happen to see one?” said Millard. “It could either mean that there are none to be seen or that they’re hiding. You’d still be clueless, as you so clearly are now.”
Furrowed brows all around. Millard had a point.
“Well, it appears that logic has prevailed yet again,” he said. “I’m off to fetch some porridge for supper, if any of you would-be mutineers would like to join me.”
The bedsprings creaked as he got up and moved toward the door. But before he could leave, Enoch leapt to his feet and cried, “I’ve got it!”
Millard stopped. “Got what?”
Enoch turned to me. “The bloke who may or may not have been eaten by a hollow—do you know where they’re keeping him?”
“At the fishmonger’s.”
He rubbed his hands together. “Then I know how we can be sure.”
“And how’s that?” said Millard.
“We’ll ask him.”
* * *
An expeditionary team was assembled. Joining me would be Emma, who flatly refused to let me go alone, Bronwyn, who was loath to anger Miss Peregrine but insisted that we needed her protection, and Enoch, whose plan we were to carry out. Millard, whose invisibility might have come in handy, would have no part of it, and he had to be bribed just to keep from ratting us out.
“If we all go,” Emma reasoned, “the Bird won’t be able to banish Jacob. She’ll have to banish all four of us.”
“But I don’t want to be banished!” said Bronwyn.
“She’d never do it, Wyn. That’s the point. And if we can make it back before lights-out, she may not even realize we were gone.”
I had my doubts about that, but we all agreed it was worth a shot.
It went down like a jailbreak. After dinner, when the house was at its most chaotic and Miss Peregrine at her most distracted, Emma pretended to head for the sitting room and I for the study. We met a few minutes later at the end of the upstairs hallway, where a rectangle of ceiling pulled down to reveal a ladder. Emma climbed it and I followed, pulling it closed after us, and we found ourselves in a tiny, dark attic space. At one end was a vent, easily unscrewed, that led out onto a flat section of roof.
We stepped into the night air to find the others already waiting. Bronwyn gave us each a crushing hug and handed out black rain slickers she’d snagged, which I’d suggested we wear to provide some measure of protection from the storm raging outside the loop. I was about to ask how we were planning to reach the ground when I saw Olive float into view past the edge of the roof.
“Who’s keen for a game of parachute?” she said, smiling broadly. She was barefoot and wore a rope knotted around her waist. Curious what she was attached to, I peeked over the roof to see Fiona, rope in hand, hanging out a window and waving up at me. Apparently, we had accomplices.
“You first,” Enoch barked.
“Me?” I said, backing nervously away from the edge.
“Grab hold of Olive and jump,” Emma said.
“I don’t remember this plan involving me shattering my pelvis.”
“You won’t, dummy, if you just hang on to Olive. It’s great fun. We’ve done it loads of times.” She thought for a moment, “Well, one time.”
There seemed to be no alternative, so I steeled myself and approached the roof’s edge. “Don’t be frightened!” Olive said.
“Easy for you to say,” I replied. “You can’t fall.”