“Come on!” Kate urged, panting for breath. “Can’t you move any faster? Honestly, I can’t carry you and the ladder both.”
“Just leave me then! You don’t want me along, anyway.”
“We don’t have time for this,” Kate muttered, banging the door open at the end of the corridor and hauling the ladder out into the early morning light. Constance came tottering after her, struggling to keep up as Kate rounded the classroom building and charged onto the empty plaza.
The horn still sounded from across the water, insistently repeating its urgent message.
Kate was just thinking, I wish they’d knock it off now, someone else is sure to catch on, when the horn abruptly stopped. Unfortunately, even as it did so, two Executives emerged from behind the boulders on the hill to stare curiously toward the mainland. (One of them was S.Q., whose gangly frame Kate recognized even from this distance. The other, judging by the size of her head, was a tall-haired Executive named Regina.) They were too distracted at the moment to notice the girls. Still, this would never do. Constance was dragging behind. If the Executives spotted them, she was sure to be caught.
“Listen,” Kate puffed as they crossed the plaza, “if the sashes come after us, I’ll slow them down. You keep going. Head straight up the hill behind the Institute Control Building — to that stone wall below the brook. I’ll catch up with you there.”
Constance stopped. “All the way up there? But I can’t walk that far! I’m exhausted! My feet are killing me!”
Kate skidded to a halt. “You can’t make anything easy, can you? Not even now, the most important moment of your life?” She dropped the ladder and reached into her bucket for the rope.
“What are you doing?” said Constance. “I thought we were in some huge hurry.”
“Put a lid on it,” Kate said.
Before Constance could think of a grumpy reply, Kate had tied the ladder to her belt and hoisted the smaller girl upon her back. “I’ll just have to drag the stupid thing. It’s going to make an awful racket, though, so hang on.”
With that, Kate was off, faster than she would have thought possible herself, perhaps spurred on by the tremendous bang and clatter and scrape of the ladder dragging behind her. In the distance Regina began to shout — the ruckus had caught her attention. Kate glanced up the hill to see S.Q. tripping over his feet, and Regina tripping over S.Q., as they started out after the girls. “Bless those size fifteens,” she thought. “Now we may just make it.”
Kate made her way to the back of the Institute Control Building, hustled past the boulders and the drapeweed trap, and started up the hill. It was a difficult ascent. There was no path here, the slope was steep and slippery with gravel, and Kate — unlike her pursuers — was dragging a ladder and carrying someone on her back. Even so, Kate was halfway up before S.Q. and Regina even arrived at the bottom. She was just about to feel encouraged when Martina, Jackson, and Jillson came swarming out the back of the Institute Control Building.
“Well, that’s unfortunate,” Kate said. She smiled and waved.
“Unfortunate?” cried Constance. “Unfortunate?”
“Don’t you think so?” Kate asked, panting under her burden. Jackson sent S.Q. and Regina scurrying away — probably to notify Mr. Curtain — and started up the hill with Jillson and Martina close behind.
They were moving very fast.
Kate stopped glancing back and pressed on, hard, until she and Constance came to the stone wall. From below them they heard the rapid scraping of boots on gravel. Quickly Kate worked to untie the ladder from her belt — but after the long drag uphill, the knot had grown too tight. Come on, come on, she thought, unfastening her belt to slip the knot free. In her haste she missed her grip on the bucket and, to her horror, it slipped loose and tumbled several yards down the hill behind her.
“Leave it!” Constance cried, seeing her look of dismay. “There’s no time!”
Constance was right. They would lose their narrow head-start. But even worse was to lose her bucket. And so, to the mocking laughs of Martina from halfway down the hill (“Fat lot of good that bucket will do you when we catch up with you!”) she handed her rope to Constance and scampered back to retrieve it. Everything had spilled out, including her precious spyglass, but here Kate drew the line — she snatched up the bucket and left the rest behind.
“You lost your lead!” Jackson called. “You might as well wait for us there.”
“Just wanted to give you a fighting chance!” Kate called back. With the ladder in place and Constance (fuming with disapproval) on her back, she began to climb. She was really sweating under her load now. The wearier she grew, the heavier Constance seemed. In a final determined burst, she scaled the last few rungs just as Jackson reached the ladder. She scrambled forward onto the high, sloping ground above the wall.
A few paces ahead, just above the rock wall, ran the brook Kate had spotted their first day on the island. It streamed along a shallow gully for some distance before finally spilling over the wall and running downhill. Kate stumbled quickly toward it. By the time she’d dumped Constance — rather unceremoniously — next to the brook, Jackson and Jillson were both on the ladder, and Martina was preparing to climb.
“What good is your bucket doing you now?” Jackson jeered.
“I’m glad you asked!” Kate said, bending over the brook to scoop the bucket full of water. Instantly it was as heavy as a bowling ball. Returning to look down into Jackson’s icy blue eyes — he was only a few rungs from the top — she gave him a friendly wink.
And dropped the bucket.
Surprised though he was, Jackson resisted the urge to let go and catch the bucket. It didn’t matter. The bucket caught him. It landed squarely on top of his head and sent him tumbling backward down the ladder, in the process knocking Jillson down as well. They landed in a wet, moaning heap at Martina’s feet.
“Instant ton of bricks,” Kate said with satisfaction. “Just add water.”
There wasn’t time to reflect upon the pleasing scene. Martina had been quick-witted enough to grab the ladder before Kate could haul it out of reach, and was waiting only for her dazed companions to climb to their feet again. Slinging Constance over her shoulder, Kate splashed across the brook (too tired now to leap it) and made her way up the last, steep stretch of ground to the tower wall.
“Ugh!” Constance cried. “Get your shoulder out of my belly, you big —”
“Listen,” Kate said, setting her down and hastily forming a lasso with her rope. “I need to concentrate, so keep quiet, will you? We have to reach that window as quick as we can.” As she spoke, she swung her lasso round and round, eyeing the flagpole that jutted out from the tower wall high above them, the Institute’s red flag rippling gently beneath it.
Careful, Kate warned herself. Don’t let the lasso get fouled up with that flag. It was essential she didn’t miss — there’d be no time for a second attempt.
Kate concentrated, took aim, said a prayer, and . . .
“You don’t really think you can lasso that flagpole, do you?” Constance blurted just as Kate flung the lasso upward.
The outburst nearly broke Kate’s concentration, but her throw was true enough — with a perfectly timed twitch of the rope, she adjusted its path. The lasso dropped neatly over the end of the flagpole. Kate heaved a sigh of relief. “You call that quiet?” she asked, tightening the loop with a tug.
“It could have been louder,” Constance replied.
“Thanks ever so much,” said Kate, already tying the rope around the smaller girl’s waist. “Now don’t argue. I’m doing this so I can haul you up after me. I can climb faster this way.”