Chapter 4

Chapter 4

With her left hand running along the wall, fumbling the ice cold dirt, and her right hand pulling the sledge along behind her, Lyla-Mae cautiously made her way towards the orange glow at the end of the long corridor.  As she got closer, she noticed it got warmer, and her little nose started to tingle.  She rubbed at it with her left hand, taking it off the dirt wall, and instantly caught her boots on a half-buried tree root and fell over with a loud crump that echoed loudly down the strange hallway. 

As she lay face down in the dirt, she thought she heard a noise echoing back towards her from the other end of the tunnel, it sounded like snoring, or at least heavy breathing, but this was . . . louder, and deeper.  She furrowed her forehead in puzzlement; it sounded like someone was ripping bed-sheets behind a closed door. 

Little Lyla-Mae noticed two more things once she was upright, for she was an inquisitive little creature.  The first thing was that the strange orange glow flickered and danced against the dark stage of the earthen wall; with the warmth coming from where the source was, it could only be a fire!  Now that was a happy thought. 

The second thing she noticed, however, was not a happy thought . . . dusting herself off as best she could, even the limited light in the tunnel could not hide the muddy patches on her knees - mommy is going to be even more mad, now; she began to re-think how nice it would be to be sat with her teddies and a nice cup of bubble tea by the fire, because she would be told off first.  Still, it could have been worse, Lyla-Mae mused; at least she hadn’t got Esther and Teddy Radson dirty. That would mean one smacked bottom! But that would have to wait, because she could still be sat in front of a fire, even if not the one in her own house.

Reaching out into the gloom with her left hand, her fingers lightly rested against the icy cold earth.  Taking up the reigns of the sledge, she walked on, her knees as sore as her bottom, towards the light, heat, and the very peculiar noise.