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difficult … the most important task that I had ever had to perform … I couldn’t do it.
    My hands were bleeding. I did not know how to prize open this frightful thing. I was putting all my strength into it and I couldn’t do it. There must be another way. One person alone could not open a mantrap. I must get help. Granny must come back with me. But Granny for all her wisdom was an old woman. Would she be able to open the trap? She could do anything, I assured myself. Yes, I mustn’t waste any more time. I must go back to Granny.
    Squab was looking up at me with expectant eyes. I touched him and said: “Stay by him.” Then I sped away.
    I ran more quickly than I ever had before and yet how long it seemed to take me to reach the road! All the time I was listening for the sound of voices. If Sir Justin’s gamekeepers found Joe before I could save him it would be disastrous. I imagined my brother cruelly treated, whipped, enslaved.
    My breathing sounded as though I were sobbing as I flung myself across the road; perhaps that was why I was not aware of the ring of footsteps until they were almost upon me.
    “Hi,” said a voice. “What’s wrong?”
    I knew the voice; it was that of an enemy, the one they had called Kim.
    He mustn’t catch me; he mustn’t know, I told myself; but he had started to run and he had longer legs than I.
    He caught my arm and pulled me round to look at him.
    He whistled. “Kerensa of the well!”
    “Let me go.”
    “Why do you fly through the countryside at midnight? Are you a witch? Yes, you are. You threw away your broomstick when you heard me coming.”
    I tried to twist my arm free, but he wouldn’t let me go. He brought his face close to mine.
    “You’re frightened,” he said. “Of me?”
    I tried to kick him. “I’m not frightened of you.”
    Then I thought of Joe lying in that trap and I was so miserable and felt so helpless that the tears came into my eyes.
    His manner changed suddenly. He said: “Look, I’m not going to hurt you.” And I felt there must be something kind about someone who could speak in a voice like that.
    He was young, strong, and towered above me; and in that moment a thought came to me: he might know how to open the trap.
    I hesitated. I knew we had to act quickly. I wanted Joe to live more than anything; if he was going to live he had to be rescued quickly.
    I took a chance and the moment I had taken it, regretted it; but it was done and there was no turning back.
    “It’s my little brother,” I said.
    “Where?”
    I looked towards the woods. “In … a trap.”
    “Good God!” he cried. Then: “Show me.”
    When I led him there, Squab came running to meet us. Kim was very serious now. But he knew how to set about opening the trap.
    “Though I don’t know if we can manage it,” he warned me.
    “We must.” I spoke fiercely and his mouth turned up slightly at the corners.
    “We will,” he assured me; and I knew then that we could.
    He told me what to do and we worked together but the cruel spring was reluctant to release its prisoner. I was glad — so glad — that I had asked his help because I knew that Granny and I could never have done it.
    “Press with all your might,” he commanded. I put all my weight on the wicked steel, as, slowly, Kim released the spring. He gave a deep sigh of triumph. We had freed Joe.
    “Joey,” I whispered, just as I used to when he was a baby. “Don’t be dead. You mustn’t be.”
    A dead pheasant had fallen to the ground as we had pulled my brother out of the trap. I saw Kim’s quick glance at it but he did not comment on it.
    “I think his leg’s broken,” he said. “We’ll have to be careful. It’ll be easier if I carry him.” He lifted Joe gently in his arms and I loved Kim at that moment, because he was quiet and gentle and he seemed to care what became of us.
    Squab and I walked beside him while he carried Joe, and I felt triumphant. But when we reached the road I remembered that, as