There was a bowl of Frau Wenzel’s thickest soup, two slices of bread, an apple, and a glass of water. I ate ravenously and quite without manners; I even spoke with my mouth full. To the wooden man, of course. He didn’t mind.

But I had not finished the soup before I made an Astonishing Discovery. Something hard clinked as I dipped my spoon into the bowl; I pushed it to the side—it fell back into the soup, but not before I had seen that it was a key! With the help of a slice of bread, I got it out and sucked it dry. Hildi—no one else could have done it! I blessed her, and I blessed Herr Woodenkopf, too, for the luck he’d brought.

Being Prudent, I finished the soup before I escaped. (No sense in wasting it.) Being trained by Miss Davenport to anticipate emergencies, I refrained from eating the bread and the apple, dried (on a corner of one of the old dresses) the bread I had fished the key out of the soup with, and put bread and apple into my pocket for later. Then, as there was nothing to keep me there any longer, I left.

But it was not as easy as that. I thought that I had better take something warm or else I should freeze to death in the forest, so I wrapped the thickest of the dresses around me. And I could not—though from a Practical Point of View, I knew I should—leave Herr Woodenkopf. He had brought me luck. And he cheered me up. And if everything else failed, I could at least throw him at Uncle Heinrich. So I picked him up, complete with wig, and we unlocked the door—very quietly; listened—very carefully; shut the door behind us—very nervously; and went downstairs.

It was the longest walk of my life.

Uncle Heinrich’s study was upstairs, and he or Herr Snivelwurst might come up or down at any minute; Frau Muller might come up to retrieve the tray; any of the other servants might cross the hall. I reached the stone archway at the bottom, and my heart was beating at least as loudly as the drum of the Red Indians in Martha, or The Maid of the Woods. I could hear it very clearly. Herr Woodenkopf, who was pressed against my chest with his wig over one eye, could hear it more clearly still, but that did not stop him protecting me, for the hall was empty. The fire was blazing, but otherwise it was dark.