“I can’t,” Stella wailed. “I’ll fall.”

“No you won’t. Remember how we used to do that balance beam routine? You were good. Come on, ducks, or we’ll both burn.”

Stella inched herself out of the window. The fire was right above them now. Painfully slowly they made their way along the ledge, past a window, then another. At last they reached the section of wall where Bella had climbed up. Bella went first, talking her sister down, showing her where to put her hands and feet. Charlie, Craig and Ronnie rushed over to them, standing ready to break a fall, then helping them down the last few feet to the ground. Bella took her sister’s hand and dragged her into the pool just as flames erupted from Stella’s window.

The heat became unbearable as fire engulfed the house. Burning embers and flying bits of timber rained onto us. On the far side of the house the garage caught on fire and we heard terrifying explosions as the petrol tanks blew up. A palm tree behind the pool ignited and went up in flames. Animals stampeded around in blind panic, not knowing where to go. A couple of antelopes leaped into the pool with us, and in the forest others burned and screamed as they died. It was truly horrible, and it seemed to go on forever.

It wasn’t until the fire in the parkland below finally burned itself out that we heard the sound of approaching fire engines.

“Better late than never, I suppose,” Mummy said and began to remove her hair curlers.

We hauled ourselves out of the pool as the first of the fire engines came through the blackened forest toward us.

“Let’s get you out of here,” the fire captain said. “Can’t do anything to save the house, I’m afraid. It’s gone.” He started to assist us up onto the truck. This wasn’t a simple process as embers were still flying out from the burning house.

“My suitcase,” Belinda exclaimed and ran to retrieve it.

“No space for that, ma’am,” the fireman said. “We’ll bring it down later if we can. At the moment my priority is to get you away from here.”

“But I can’t leave my things behind,” Mummy said. “Look how tiny I am, Captain. I really don’t take up much space and I could sit on my suitcase. . . .”