Six Little Wanderers
The little Swede had the bad habit of being right when he should have been wrong; it tended to throw Sigrun off her game. Now, the others were all looking to her to work something out of this mess.
“First, no one is alone, ever.” Oh, good. Her brain had worked something out. She’d wait and listen to what it had to say, and only step in if it got too crazy. “They want us apart; we should stick together. Next, we need to tear this place apart--” she looked at Emil “--metaphorically for now, Fire-bug; we still need the walls up tonight--but everything else gets moved, examined, probed and tested so it won’t give us any surprises.”
Sigrun paused to assess their reactions. It had to be particularly long for the translating to get done, but once they were all up to speed, she could see the agreement on her crew’s faces, so she concluded, “We’ll start in here so we can make it our base camp. After we check everything, we’ll need to set it up so we can sack out in here. Oh, and reserve supplies: we’ll need to gather a cache in here.”
She looked around the room again. “This will be our redoubt until we get out of here; but we will get out of here, even if we have to build a boat ourselves. Well, let’s get to it.”
*
The room was large, running directly below the six bedrooms as it did, so checking and rechecking every nook and cranny took a considerable amount of time. Once they had completed this monumental task, however, Mikkel took Tuuri into the kitchen and the two returned in short order with enough dishes of various types to make for a small but genuine smorgasbord.
Exercise had, naturally, restored their appetites, and so all six set in with a will. As they ate, Sigrun laid out more plans and rules, culminating with, “When we’re done here, we’ll go up and strip the rooms of anything usable. We may even be able to cobble a makeshift raft together with, like, the bed-frames or something. We’ll see when we’ve got it all lumped in here.”
*
Sigrun and Tuuri were clearing out Tuuri’s room, Sigrun grabbing stuff from the wardrobe as Tuuri gathered everything from her desk, Tuuri chattering all the while, as was her wont.
“I’m really glad we’re all in this together, you know, Sigrun? I mean, I wouldn’t feel nearly as safe if you or Mikkel or Emil, or even Reynir weren’t here. It’s like, as long as we’re together, nothing can touch us, isn’t it, Sigrun? Sigrun?”
Tuuri turned to the wardrobe. It was totally empty. “S-s-s-sigrun?” she whispered. Then, as was their prearranged signal, she screamed.
In less than a heartbeat, Lalli was there, followed closely by Emil, Reynir, and Mikkel.
“Sigrun’s gone,” Tuuri nearly wept.
Mikkel looked grim. “Stand back,” he ordered, ripping one of the bedposts away as though it were balsa wood and brandishing it like a club. Without another word, he beat at the back of the wardrobe until it splintered to reveal the wall behind it. Then Mikkel tried the sides, without luck.
*
Down in the bowels of the island, a whisper sounded, unheard by any of those above.
“...And then there were five.”
