The Winter Freak Show (Book One of The Twisted Christmas Trilogy)

3

Toby was three storeys up, too high to jump, trapped between a vicious brute and a deadly fall. He was staring out of a dormer window. Below, the gutters were old and rickety. It was unlikely that they would hold his weight if he tried to climb down the drainpipe to the forecourt below. What he really needed was another escape route. Something safer. Maybe he should take his chances back inside the chimney. Once he scurried back through the hole, the adults couldn't follow and he would have time to re-evaluate his options. The problem, though, was getting there in the first place. Mr Snarky, stood between him and the hearth.

'Get 'ere, boy. You had a good run,' gnashed Snarky, his voice deep and sadistic.

'Not a chance, Snarky. I won't let you take me back.' Toby laughed out loud. He had always feared Mr Snarky but the rush of potential freedom gave him confidence.

'Don't be a fool, boy, or I'll have to bring Mr Sparrow up here.'

'What's wrong, Snarky?' Toby mocked, showing a brave face. 'Can't catch me yourself so you're getting help from a real man?'

Toby shuddered at the name of The Beadle – the tyrannical officer of the parish that ran the workhouse. If there was one person he feared more than Mr Snarky, it was the heavy-handed Beadle, Mr Sparrow.

Toby climbed up onto the windowsill, and crouched, looking back over his shoulder at Mr Snarky. Snarky edged forward, his hands splayed, ready to catch the runaway. There was a hint of concern on his face. The workhouse was used to drawing controversy, but a child jumping from a third floor window would be a scandal too far. The whole place could be closed down. Snarky couldn't risk that.

Mr Snarky gritted his teeth. 'I always knew you was a wilful one, boy, but I didn't know you was stupid, too.'

Snarky took a swipe at Toby. Too slow. Toby darted into action. Tumbling out of the window, he slipped down the tiles of the pitched roof that the dormer window faced out of and stopped just in time at the edge of the roof. Balancing near the guttering, he clung to the tiles, shaking as the shock of vertigo took over his limbs.

Immediately below him, in the open workhouse courtyard, a crumbling single-storey lean-to was being repaired. A tree had worked its roots through the extension's roof making it unstable. The tree had been allowed to grow for some time, and they had tied the top off to the second floor window, so they could cut it without it toppling over and taking the whole extension with it. That meant there was an escape route just a few feet below Toby's current position. All he had to do was jump for the rope, shimmy down the tree, and get onto the roof of the extension. Not much to ask.

Toby shot a glance over his shoulder, and up to the window. Snarky's face looked like a lion, wild and dishevelled. He practically glowed with anger as he swung his own leg out of the window to follow the runaway. It was clear that he was out of shape.

Without a choice, Toby grabbed hold of the gutter and swivelled his body so he hung over the side of the roof. It was a rash decision and he regretted it instantly. What started out as an ingenious plan to shimmy from the gutter to the rope turned bad when he felt the old guttering crack under his weight. A sharp jolt caused his fingers to slip. For a moment, time stopped and Toby's stomached churned. He was freefalling. Releasing a breath he didn't know he'd been holding, he yelped. He had misjudged it completely and found himself plummeting towards the ground.

He stretched as far as he could, but he was falling too fast to grab the rope. Somehow he just managed to grab a branch.

The tree that mushroomed out of the top of the lean-to stretched almost to the top of the workhouse's second floor. Feeling the sinewy wood slap into his palm, Toby gripped it tightly. It wasn't enough. Simply slowing him down, it bent then slipped away and he flipped between the branches, cartwheeling through the air.