over to hug Michael. “And you’re here, too! This is wonderful! I’d nearly given up hope. Where have you been?”
The poom-poom-poom of an anti-aircraft gun started up, so close it rattled the windows, and Michael said, “We can discuss that later. Right now we’ve got to get out of here.”
“There’s a shelter here,” Merope said. “In the basement—”
“No, we must get out of the store,” Polly said.
“Oh. Then I’ll get my coat and—”
“There isn’t time. Come on!” Michael shouted over the deafening sound of the planes. “Where’s the closest way down?”
“There’s a stairway over there,” Merope said, pointing.
“The elevator will be quicker,” Mike said and started back across the floor.
Polly opened her mouth to say, “But the raid’s begun. Wouldn’t the stairs be safer?” but it was four flights, and with that limp, he clearly couldn’t move that fast. She followed him, dragging Merope along with her. “Hurry.”
Merope was limping, too. “Is your foot injured?” Polly shouted as they ran.
“No. A perfectly horrid child trod on my instep.”
“The ones you were telling me about in Oxford?”
“Alf and Binnie? No, they’re amateurs compared to this little wretch. I hope one of these bombs falls on him,” she said, glancing anxiously up at the ceiling. The planes were very near. Another anti-aircraft gun roared into action, and the windows lit up with a garish green. A flare. “I don’t think there’s time to go to a shelter. We’ll have to use Padgett’s. It’s all right. It’s been reinforced.”
Polly shook her head. “Padgett’s is going to be bombed.”
“It is?” Merope turned frightened eyes to her. “But you said… When?”
“I don’t know,” Polly said. “Any minute.”
“But you said Padgett’s hadn’t been bombed.”
“I did not. Hurry! We can talk about this later.”
But Merope continued to chatter as Polly dragged her, hobbling, to the lift. “That’s why I took the job here, because you said it was safe. You said you were going to work in a department store, Selfridges or Padgett’s or—”
Oh, God. I said those were the ones Mr. Dunworthy forbade me to work in, Polly thought, but this was no time to go into it. Or into why Merope hadn’t come back to Townsend Brothers that Monday. Or what she was still doing here. “We’ll sort it all out later,” she said.
Merope nodded. “After we’re back in Oxford. When I found out you’d already gone, I was afraid I’d never see Oxford again. I didn’t know what to do—”
Michael was already inside the lift. “Come on!” he yelled.
There was a loud crump, half a mile away, and a bright flash. Polly pushed Merope into the lift ahead of her, and pulled the brass gate across for Michael. “Go,” she said.
He yanked the lever all the way back, and the lift began to descend. “I still can’t believe you’re here,” Merope chattered to Michael. “I heard voices, but I thought Mrs. Sadler and her horrid son Roland had come back, so I hid in the storeroom, and then I heard someone calling Polly’s name. When I think I nearly didn’t come out—”
There was a loud boom, and then a leaden thunk, and the lift jerked to a stop. They weren’t at a floor. Beyond the metal gate there was only blank wall.
We’re trapped, Polly thought, and then, There were three casualties. We rescued Merope only to trap her here.
“What happened?” Merope asked, but Michael didn’t answer. He pushed hard on the lever, then pulled it back. The lift began to ascend. Michael let it go up for a moment and then reversed the lever. The lift started down.
Polly held her breath. Second floor, that’s it, she thought, willing it to descend, and now first—
The lift jerked to a stop again, and this time it sounded final. Michael yanked with both hands, but the lever wouldn’t budge. He pulled the gate open and looked up. The floor was three feet above them. “Polly, I need you to climb up and open the door,” he said, bracing his body against the side wall. He laced his fingers together. “Climb onto my hands,” he ordered.
Polly nodded and stepped up, reaching for the edge of the floor above. He hoisted her up, Merope giving support, and she got one knee onto it.
“Now stretch your hand over to the door handles,” Michael ordered. “That’s it. Now slide them apart,” which was easier said than done. She had almost no leverage. She managed to pull the doors a few inches apart, but her knee slipped, and she nearly fell.