Alice, the knife in her hand, was in time to spot a figure in green wellingtons and a dark hooded raincoat leaving by the garden gate. She heard the now-familiar squeak and crash as the gate closed. She had only one thought in her head: it was her!
it was her"Hey," she yelled, "you were told to keep away!"
She wrenched open the gate and rushed into the middle of the lane. She looked both ways, but there was no sign of the hooded figure in either direction. She ran a little way up the lane, looking over hedges and gates into fields.
Nothing. Just pastureland dotted with hawthorns and a few startled sheep that galloped away from her sudden appearance. She found footprints in the mud at the side of the lane, then realised they were her own.
She spotted two woodsmen stacking logs in the wo
