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tensed. Please not a rat. What if she stepped on it in the dark? What if itran up her leg? She drew her legs up higher on the railings.
    Come on, Lottie. Please don’t be late tonight.
    A light appeared at the top of the track. Was it a bike light or a torch? The track was a public footpath and people used it to walk their dogs. It could be anyone.
    But then the light started to swerve madly from one side of the road to the other. Hannah relaxed. Definitely Lottie on her bicycle. No one but Lottie would swerve around in that crazy way just to avoid a bit of mud on their clothes.
    Hannah listened to make sure her dad was still in the pigsties and then flashed her torch on and off three times. Lottie braked at the railings.
    “Bring your bike into the field,” whispered Hannah. “Dad might see it if you leave it there.”
    “It’s so dark up here,” whispered Lottie as they lifted her bicycle over the fence. “It’s spooky.”
    “It’s fine,” said Hannah. She felt much braver now she wasn’t alone. “Have you got a torch?”
    Lottie took one out of her pocket and switched it on. “So where’s the shed?” She shone the torch around in every direction.
    Hannah grabbed her arm. “Don’t do that!” she hissed. “Dad’ll see it!”
    “Oops, sorry.”
    Hannah shone her own torch down the field. The beam illuminated a dense black tangle of bushes in the bottom corner of the meadow.
    “See there?”
    “You think the shed’s in there?”
    Hannah reached into her other coat pocket and took out the framed photograph of her mother. She moved the light on to it.
    “See? There’s the orchard railings and there’s the wood behind. And there’s that big oak tree by the bottom fence.”
    Lottie shone her torch beam on to the thicket and shuddered. “No way am I going into those bushes.”
    “Lottie! Don’t be crazy. Imagine how amazing it would be if we found a building in there. Our own secret theatre that no one else even knows exists!”
    “But it’s so dark. Anything might be lurking in the bushes.”
    An image of glinting rodent eyes flashed into Hannah’s head. She forced it out again. “There won’t be anything bad. Come on.”
    Hannah didn’t voice her worst fear, because she didn’t even want to think it.
    What if the shed had been demolished?
    Or blown down in a storm?
    What if there was nothing there at all?
    Lottie stayed close to Hannah as they stumbled down the muddy field. The wind whipped against their faces and made strange noises in the treetops. They kept their torch beams trained on the treacherous ground, where rabbit holes and molehills lay ready to send them sprawling into cowpats at every step.
    Hannah caught a rabbit’s eyes in the beam of her torch. It froze for a second, then bolted away. Something fluttered across their path. Lottiescreamed and jumped backwards.
    “Sssh,” said Hannah. “Do you want Dad to find us? It was only a bat.”
    She hoped Lottie hadn’t noticed how the bat had made her jump. Bats were a little too close to mice for Hannah’s liking.
    “What was your mum doing down here anyway?” asked Lottie.
    Hannah shrugged. “I think she kept chickens once.”
    “Why did she stop?”
    “A monster crawled out of the woods one night – a dark February night, very like this one – and devoured all the chickens.”
    “Stop it!”
    A piercing shriek split the darkness.
    “What was that?” cried Lottie. She grabbed Hannah’s arm so tightly it hurt.
    Hannah was glad of the distraction. She didn’t want to talk about her mother. “It’s a Little Owl. Your dad would love it.”
    Lottie laughed. “Yes, he’d be recording it in his notebook right now.”
    Lottie’s dad was a mad-keen birdwatcher. His monthly Clayhill Bird Survey was the highlight of Hannah’s dad’s life. The two of them would discuss the results for hours – how many species there were that month and whether some exciting new bird had been spotted on the farm.
    They had reached the