All for one. One for all.

You must go for help.

Le-an and Olivia watched, completely horrified, but only for a fraction of a second before leaping into action to help Sarah.

Panties and nightdresses flew in all directions onto the roof, landing in all of the dirt and wet, as Le-an and Olivia threw themselves on to the flat roof, reaching out to help Sarah if they could, landing on their fronts at the edge of the drop-off, heedless of the pain, the dirt, or the coarse and abrasive grit contacting their tender bodies.

The impact of their bodies on the roof knocked the wind out of them, and left bruising and scrapes upon their naked bodies. Forgotten, for the moment, were their discarded night-clothes.

They saw Sarah begin to disappear from view, and then she was gone from their sight into the darkness.

They could hear her struggling to get a grip on something, all the way down. Ten seconds of life-changing horror. They could hear the fear in Sarah’s anguished voice, her finger-nails scraping on the hard surface, and on anything she could reach, as she floundered around in a desperate struggle to stop herself before she went over the edge, but the slate tiles were hard as iron, and offered no grip for anything.

Over the edge of the roof was a forty-foot drop to the ground, and unbelievable pain from broken legs, or worse, even if she landed in the thick bushes.

With suddenly heightened senses, they waited for the scream as she went over the edge, their hearts in their throats, and the adrenaline rush making it all so much more vivid.

There was no scream.

They lay there and waited for the crash into the bushes below.

That did not occur either.

They were all of them scraped and scratched on their fronts and their breasts by doing what they had done, and they were bruised. All three of them were now as naked as the day they had been born, having dropped everything to get to Sarah, yet none of them gave it a second’s thought.

“Sarah? Sarah? Can you hear me?” Le-an called out.

“Yes.” Sarah’s faint voice sailed up to them.

She’d not fallen, thank the Lord!

Her pale face could just be made out at the edge below them. She was caught up somewhere, somehow, but they couldn’t reach far enough to get to her, and it would be foolish to make a chain of their bodies to reach her. One of them, could not pull two others up on that flat roof with nothing to hang on to. If they tried that, they could all be in the same boat.

“I’m hung up at the edge.” Sarah’s voice sailed weakly up to them. And I hurt.”

Of course she hurt. They all did.

“Can you stay there, Sarah? Are you secure?”

“I don’t know. The fear in her voice was obvious. I’ve got my toes hooked into the gutter, but it’s bouncy, and there’s nothing to hold onto up here. I can’t get any purchase on the wet tiles to climb up.”

“Hang on, Sarah, I’ll toss one end of my nightdress down to you and I’ll hold on to the other.”

Le-an found her nightdress and tossed the end down to Sarah to hold. Olivia did the same with hers, both of them leaning farther out over the roof slope to reach their sister. They could not see where Sarah’s nightdress had landed. It might have gone sailing over the edge of the roof or been carried off by the freshening wind.

Le-an and Olivia dangled their nightdresses down the roof into the darkness. “Can you reach them?” They wriggled closer to the edge, not even feeling the coarse grit of the flat area they were lying on digging into their breasts or their abdomens, and scraping their elbows and arms.

“I’ve got one, just, but the other is out of reach.” There were a few moments of silence.

“Got it. But don’t pull. I don’t have that good a grip, but at least I won’t fall now. I hope.”

Le-an felt the slack being taken up and some tension in her nightdress, and then Olivia felt the same.

Once Sarah had a fairly secure hold of their nightdresses, they slowly inched their bodies back onto the flat roof, heedless of the additional hurt they did to themselves.

They stayed there, lying flat on the roof with their shoulders and arms reaching down, striving to pull their sister up, but not trying too hard, taking their cue from Sarah and listening to her.

“Do you have a good hold of them?”

“Not a good hold. Can you let them out any farther so I can take a turn around them?” They gave her another few inches.

“That’s at the limit, Sarah. Can you pull yourself up? I’m not sure we can pull you. We have nothing to hold on to up here, and we are right at the edge ourselves.”

“They might be strong enough to hold me, but I don’t have a good enough grip to do anything but hold them. My hands hurt from coming down that roof. I think I can hold myself here, but I can’t pull myself up, and I hurt everywhere, my knees, my front, and my feet. I had the wind knocked out of me when I hit that tiling. I can support myself here for a while. One of you will have to go for help. I’m not sure how long I can hang on.” They could hear the fear in her voice.

They looked at each other. What Sarah said was true. One of them would have to go for help.

The two of them, lying on their fronts at the edge of the roof arms extended down, taking the strain without pulling too hard, could do too little to help her, and Sarah, several feet down, with her toes hooked into the gutter at the edge of the roof, could do nothing to pull herself up.

They took a firm hold of the other ends of their nightdresses, while lying along the roof and taking the strain, balancing the force needed to stop her going over the edge, against too much pull, which would possibly pull them from her grasp, and put them back to having no way to help her.

They couldn’t stay like this for long with the rain coming down harder. They would get cold as well as wet, and then...?

Le-an and Olivia looked at each other.

“She’s right. One of us will have to go for help.”

Like this?

Olivia reached over and took hold of Le-an’s nightdress to leave her free.

“I can hold these. You go. I can hold her. Get help, Le-an. Get some of the girls from the dorm.”

Le-an thought about that. More girls would be able to do nothing, and there might be others go over the edge the same way with too many foolish girls milling around in the dark, bumping into each other in their foolishness, and then everyone would know what had happened, including Miss Dixon as the bodies piled up.

She made up her mind.

“No, that would be asking for trouble. And it will soon be time for the principal to do her bed check, if she does it. We don’t need any more girls up here. This is our problem, and ours alone. No one in school should know anything about this.”

“Then the ground's-man. Go and get him. He’s an older man, and harmless. I saw his lights on earlier. And hurry.” She dropped her voice. “Please hurry. I’m not sure how long either of us can hang on.”

Le-an backed off and got to her feet.

“I’ll be as quick as I can.”

She moved to the end of the roof, feeling with her feet in the dark, dropping to her knees as she reached out, feeling for the edge of the building, looking down into the blackness, but could see nothing. There was the beginning of the metal ladder set into the edge of the building somewhere there. Somewhere.

She found the start of it.

“Got it. I’ll be as quick as I can, Olivia. Hang on. Please hang on.” She grabbed hold of the top rung, swung herself out over the abyss beneath her, putting her fears to one side, and began the long climb down, hoping she did not get lost on all of the roofs still below her.

As she went down the ladders, she spoke to herself.

“Please, lord, I am sorry, do not take out my failings on Sarah for me being so shamelessly rebellious and suggesting we stand up to pee, and talking about circumcision and thinking those things about convents, even though they were once true. I am the eldest, and I should have known better. Let me fall and break a leg, not her. Let me die in place of her.”

She never gave more than a fleeting thought to her nakedness, or what sort of an appearance she would make when she arrived at the ground's-man’s house.

So she would shock someone! She needed help for Sarah, that was the only thing she needed to consider and damn the rest of it, or what anyone might think about her revealing condition.

And what if his wife answered the door, or his daughter, to find a naked girl from the school enquiring for him? Better than the other possibility, except a woman or a girl would be unlikely to be able to help her.

What if the grounds-man himself answered the door to see her like this? How would he respond? And what about after that?

This would be all around the school by morning and they would be sure to be expelled, but at least Sarah would be rescued. She’d deal with those other problems when she came to them.

There were more important things on her mind to consider, and Sarah’s dangerous predicament was uppermost.

Their entire future and their ambitious plans were about to come crashing down if their sister fell. That was all that was on her mind; that, and guilt, believing that she’d brought this down upon all of them in some divine way for being rebellious, and entertaining such difficult and rebellious thoughts.

On her way down to the ground, Le-an’s hands and feet were scraped sore, and might even be bleeding. She’d skinned her elbows, legs, and knuckles in her reckless, urgent haste, but dare not stop. Her heart was beating like a drum and her breath caught in her throat with fear and the urgency of getting help. This was not the time for tears, but they would not be held back.

It was an interminable climb down. Le-an counted the rungs, but forgot where she was, after fifty, and then felt the next level, beneath her feet. She inched deeper across the lower roof. After about twelve feet, she felt the side of a building and another ladder going up. She climbed, counting rungs. After twelve rungs she was onto another flat expanse of roof.

There were skylights through which weak lights from somewhere in the school below her, gave her enough light to see; toilets, with their lights always on, and she walked across to the next ladder going down, threading her way between the illuminated domes. After this, she was not sure where the ladders were.

She stubbed her toes against projections, skinned her elbows and knees even more on ladders and brickwork, falling twice, but not far, when she misjudged where she was, and then she saw some of the lights along the driveway, and the lights from the cottage across the lawns. She was at the edge of the last roof.

The last stretch of ladder to the ground, was the worst. The rung spacings were all wrong, as though rungs were missing, and the final rung, with nothing to feel beneath her feet no matter how far she reached down, left her hanging above the ground.

Praying, she let go and fell the last few inches to the ground.

Once on the ground, she ran to the lights of the cottage a few hundred feet away, her breath catching in her throat. She ran, her arm holding close under her breasts to hold them from bouncing around without a supporting bra to hold them still.

She muttered under her breath. “Please, Lord, do not let Sarah fall before I return.”