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called out softly into the space beneath; Homily heard a muffled thud, a scraping sound, the clap of wood on wood, and light below went out.
    "He's pushed back the log box," Arrietty whispered across the sudden darkness. "Here, give me your hand.... Don't worry," she beseeched in a whisper, "and don't take on! I was going to tell you anyway." And supporting her shaking mother by the elbow, she helped her up the laths.

    Pod looked up startled. "What's the matter?" he said as Homily sank down on the bed.
    "Let me get her feet up first," said Arrietty. She did so gently and covered her mother's legs with a folded silk handkerchief, yellowed with washing and stained with marking ink, which Lupy had given them for a bedcover.

    Homily lay with her eyes closed and spoke through pale lips. "She's been at it again," she said.
    "At what?" asked Pod. He had laid down his boot and had risen to his feet.
    "Talking to humans," said Homily.
    Pod moved across and sat on the end of the bed. Homily opened her eyes. They both stared at Arrietty.
    "Which ones?" asked Pod.
    "Young Tom, of course," said Homily. "I caught her in the act. That's where she's been most evenings, I shouldn't wonder. Downstairs, they think she's up, and upstairs, we think she's down."
    "Well, you know where that gets us," said Pod. He became very grave. "That, my girl, back at Firbank was the start of all our troubles."
    "Talking to humans..." moaned Homily, and a quiver passed over her face. Suddenly she sat up on one elbow and glared at Arrietty. "You wicked, thoughtless girl, how could you do it again!"
    Arrietty stared back at them, not defiantly exactly, but as though she were unimpressed. "But with this one downstairs," she protested, "I can't see why it matters. He knows we're here anyway, because he put us here himself! He could get at us any minute if he really wanted to...."
    "How could he get at us," said Homily, "right up here?"
    "By breaking down the wall; it's only plaster."
    "Don't say such things, Arrietty," shuddered Homily.
    "But they're true," said Arrietty. "Anyway," she added, "he's going."
    "Going?" said Pod sharply.
    "They're both going," said Arrietty, "he and his grandfather; the grandfather's going to a place called Hospital, and the boy is going to a place called Leighton Buzzard to stay with his uncle who is an ostler. What's an ostler?" she asked.
    But neither of her parents replied: they were staring blankly, struck dumb by a sudden thought.
    "We've got to tell Hendreary," said Pod at last, "and quickly."
    Homily nodded. She had swung her legs down from the bed.
    "No good waking them now," said Pod. "I'll go down first thing in the morning."
    "Oh, my goodness," breathed Homily, "all those poor children..."
    "What's the matter?" asked Arrietty. "What have I said?" She felt scared suddenly and gazed uncertainly from one parent to the other.
    "Arrietty," said Pod, turning toward her. His face had become very grave. "All we've told you about human beings is true; but what we haven't told you, or haven't stressed enough, is that we, the borrowers, cannot survive without them." He drew a long deep breath. "When they close up a house and go away, it usually means we're done for...."
    "No food, no fire, no clothes, no heat, no water..." chanted Homily, almost as though she were quoting.
    "Famine..." said Pod.

Chapter Five
    Next morning, when Hendreary heard the news, a conference was called around the doorplate. They all filed in, nervous and grave, and places were allotted them by Lupy. Arrietty was questioned again.
    "Are you sure of your dates, Arrietty?"
    Yes, Arrietty was sure.
    "And of your facts?" Quite sure. Young Tom and his grandfather would leave in three days' time in a gig drawn by a gray pony called Duchess and driven by Tom's uncle, the ostler, whose name was Fred Tarabody and who lived in Leighton Buzzard and worked at the Swan Hotel—what was an ostler she wondered again—and young Tom was worried because he had lost his ferret