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truckle bed, unsure
what to do next. Should she run into the light and beg for succour
or should she escape back up the first staircase? Miley decided to
escape.
      Her shoes clattered
loudly on the wooden steps.
      “ Who’s there?” a
voice called after her.
      Miley did not reply.
She reached the door at the top of the staircase. But, oh no! oh
dear! the door was shut fast.
      Shut fast and
LOCKED!
     

Chapter 5
     
    “ Who’s there?” the voice
called a second time. It was
    a lady’s voice.
      “ To whom are you
speaking?” another voice asked.
    This voice belonged to a
man. He sounded rather
    ruffianly even though his grammar was very
correct.
      “ I heard something,
or someone, in the cellar,” the lady’s voice replied.
      “ Rats, maybe?” the
man’s voice said.
      “ It didn’t sound
like rats to me,” said the lady’s voice.
      “ A ghost under the
stairs, then?” the man replied. “Perhaps some kind of shameful
secret has come to haunt us? In other words, a metaphorical
ghost.”
      “ Where on earth did
you learn the word ‘metaphorical’?” said the lady.
      “ From the newspaper,
of course?” said the man.
      But the lady was not
the least bit interested in ghosts or words, metaphorical or
otherwise.
      “ Whatever or whoever
it is, I think I have it trapped at the top of Inward Goods Only,”
she said.
    Miley heard footsteps
coming towards her, just before the flickering light went out for
the second time.
    Then she heard a ‘rattcch’
sound and the light was back. The light was a match the lady held
in front of her. It was easier for the lady to see Miley than it
was
    for Miley to see the lady.
      Smoke from the match
caught at Miley’s throat. She
    coughed.
      “ It’s only a little
girl,” said the lady.
      “ I’m not a little
girl, I’ve just turned nine,” Miley declared stoutly - once she had
finished coughing, that is.
      “ Are you a burglar,
then?” asked the lady. “Did you come here to rob us?”
      “ Of course I’m not a
burglar!” said Miley. “I came through the door behind me, to
shelter from the dark and stormy night. It’s locked
now.”
      “ Of course it is.
The night watchman locks it. Were you invited in?”
      “ No,” said
Miley.
      “ Neither are
burglars invited,” said the lady.
     

Chapter 6
     
    “ Damnation!”
      The light had gone
out.
      “ That’s three
now!”
      Miley did not have
time to cover her ears. The lady
    had used a swear word. Miley knew it was a
swear word because it was the exact same word she had
    heard her Papa say on more than one
occasion. Mama
    had told Miley and her
sister to cover their ears whenever Papa said the swear word. “Bad
language is not the proper language of girls and ladies,” Mama had
explained to them. That could only mean this lady was not a proper
lady.
      “ What sort of place
is this?” asked Miley. She felt a little tremulous but she did her
best not to show she was afraid.
      “ It’s a factory, my
dear,” said the lady, lighting another match. “Of
sorts.”
      “ Of what sort?”
Miley asked, more out of politeness than really wanting to know.
The Devil’s Element was a funny name for a factory. A sinister
name. Not like the factory she had once visited with her class from
school. That factory had been called Heavenly
    Smells. It made wonderful soaps (not sweets,
as Miley had at first imagined) and the visit had left Miley
with
    pleasant, sweet-scented dreams.
      “ You might call it a
cottage industry,” said the lady. “We do things on a small
scale.”
      “ But this isn’t a
cottage,” said Miley. “Is it?”  
    The lady didn’t answer. She asked Miley a
question
    instead.
    “ Where did you come
from?”
      Then Miley made a
BIG mistake.
      She told the
truth.
     

Chapter 7
     
    “ I don’t remember exactly,”
she said.
      The light went out.
Rattcch! The lady lit match number five and came up even closer.
Now Miley