3
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The hand tightened around his ankle and pulled his leg.
‘No!’ Toby shouted. ‘Get off me!’
It was too late. Having been discovered, he kicked to clear a path and rolled from under the bed.
‘We’ve got you!’ said one attacker.
‘Not yet,’ Toby replied. ‘First, you’ve got to catch me, Belle!’
‘Cheater! That’s not the rules!’ complained the little girl with pigtails now in front of him. She stamped her foot but the noise was cushioned by her clumpy monster-foot slippers.
Splaying her fingers, his sister roared with all the ferocity of a lion cub. Beside her, her twin Violet bounded onto the bed and adopted a similar stance.
‘Oh, no! Bad elves!’ Toby said, lacing over-acted fear into his familiar script.
The game they called freak show chase originated from a bedtime story he
