You’re starting to feel faint. You manage to lie down along the horse’s neck and bury your face in his mane. His body starts to feel as though it’s swaying under you, and you try to grip more tightly with your knees, but there’s no strength left in them.
You look sideways, to the River Thames. The moonlight is shining on the water. You shoulder is throbbing, but you feel an elated sense of peace.
‘This is what freedom tastes like,’ you whisper to the horse. ‘Remember this.’
Then there’s another bang as the gun fires again, and a burning pain in your back, so intense you can barely breathe. The world narrows to a tiny spot of light, and you tumble from the horse’s back into the darkness.
To return to your last choice and try again, go to scene 14.
You’ve decided: you’ve had enough of Nell and her strange ways. You can only hope that Da wasn’t really planning an escape, because the thought of letting him down is devastating.
‘I won’t do it, Nell,’ you say, with more certainty than you really feel. ‘I know you’ve never seen Da – you’re just making it up.’
Nell spits in your face. You turn your back on her. As you furiously wipe the warm slime away, you hear her scuttling down the road, muttering, ‘Little birdie knew Nell lied, even though Nell tried, she tried …’
You feel a weight lift from your chest now that you’re no longer certain that Da will be hanged. It seems Nell was spinning stories, after all.
Sarah was right, you think, fuming. I was mad to even trust her with my twopence, let alone my life.
‘You’ve made the right choice,’ Sarah says kindly the next day when you tell her what happened. ‘She made up your da’s sentence to frighten you. The mad old hunchback’s just cross you aren’t swallowing her lies and supplying her with any more money.’
You hope she’s right. You know no more about Da’s future for certain than you did when you saw him being led to the Old Bailey.
‘Now I’ll have to wait and see, and hope for the best,’ you say. You shrug and smile.
‘I’d like to believe you could start a new life with your da someday,’ Sarah said wistfully. ‘That would make me happy.’
She looks so forlorn. ‘What’s the matter?’ you ask, shaking her shoulder. ‘You’re speaking as if you’ll never be free yourself!’
‘I won’t,’ she says quietly. ‘I’m to be transported for life.’
You feel a sense of dread begin to creep over you. Sarah’s never told you why she’s in here. What could she have done that would be awful enough to get her a life sentence?
‘Sarah?’ you ask. ‘What is it?’
Sarah is pale-faced, her hands clasped in her lap. She won’t look at you. Your stomach starts to hurt a little. How in the world have you not asked Sarah about this before now?
‘I think it’s time I tell you the truth,’ she says softly.
To continue with the story, go to scene 17.
Sarah sighs heavily. ‘I wish my da had loved me as much as yours does,’ she begins. ‘Perhaps he did when I was just a baby. But in all my memories of him, his only love was a bottle of liquor. Every scrap of money we made, it went to the tavern. Six children, he and Ma had together, and all of us hungry from sun-up to sun-down. Half of what he spent on rum could have bought us a meal, but the alcohol had such a spell over him, he’d let his own family starve before he’d give up drinking.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ you say. It feels like a cold wind is blowing through your chest.
‘I used to wish that he’d drink himself to death – that he’d fall into the river in a stupor one night, or that his guts would go bad and kill him. But in the end … I was the one who killed him.’
You gasp. Your mind is reeling. Good, kind Sarah, a murderer?
‘I didn’t mean to,’ she confesses. ‘One night, he came back late, raging like a storm. He started beating Ma, as he often did, but this time he knocked her out cold. The little ones were screaming, and he came towards us next. I had to make him stop. There was a bottle there. I threw it at his head,’ she whispers sadly. ‘I wasn’t trying to kill him – I just wanted him to stop. But they said it was murder.’
You pull Sarah into a tight embrace. You can’t believe that she had to go through something so awful. You feel her hot tears on your shoulder, and you whisper fiercely into her hair, ‘If I’d been there, I’d have killed him for hurting you.’
Sarah draws back, wipes her tears, and manages a wan smile. ‘My family’s not even better off without him – not now that I’ve gone too. I was lucky not to hang for it; in the end, they ruled it was “accidental” – but that was still enough to get me a life sentence. The other children are still too young to work much, so now earning is all up to Ma. She’s all alone. They’re not being beaten, at least, but I just wish I could help.’
‘Most of the prisoners in here only think of themselves,’ you declare, ‘and you’re here wishing you could help others. You’re an angel, Sarah MacBride.’
She gives you another little smile.
‘I think you deserve some good luck at last, and I know just what’s going to happen,’ you tell
