They were higher up than her, their feet at her eye level, and it took her a moment to realise why. She was still inside her sleeping bag, but it was no longer in the field. She was inside somewhere. One of the barns, she realised, seeing the bales of straw stacked high, blocking her view of the door. And she was in a hole in the ground.

Panicking, she started to scramble out of the sleeping bag.

‘Stop that right now,’ Mrs W demanded and the sharp tone of her voice had Hannah freezing. ‘Don’t you dare move.’

‘Please let me go.’ Shame heated her cheeks as she started to sob.

‘You broke my jar. Ruined my special pickled sauce.’

‘It… was… an… accident.’

‘You’re a clumsy girl. You need to be taught a lesson. How to be more respectful of other people’s things.’ There was a malice to Mrs W’s voice. A cruelty Hannah recognised from the day she had disturbed her with Bill in the bedroom.

‘Please… I’m sorry.’

‘I’m going to give you something to be sorry about. Now stop your crying, girl. You’re thirteen, not five. You take the punishment you deserve.’

What was Mrs W planning to do to her? Hannah didn’t understand. She knew enough to be afraid, having already experienced one of the woman’s punishments. And the nasty grin on Bill’s face suggested he was looking forward to whatever was coming.

She glanced around frantically, seeing through her tears that there was a box in the hole and she was sitting inside it.

Why had they put her in a box?

‘Lie back down, Hannah.’

‘What… what are you going to do to me?’

‘LIE BACK DOWN!’

Hannah jumped at the tone, but didn’t comply. ‘Please,’ she begged.

Mrs W sighed deeply; her tone disappointed when she spoke. ‘Listen to me, young lady. This is going to be a whole lot worse for you if you don’t start doing what you’re told.’

‘Please let me go!’

‘Boohoo. Please let me go,’ Bill mimicked, pretending to wipe tears from his eyes.

‘I’m adding another half an hour to your punishment for insolence. If you don’t lie down by the time I count to five, I’ll make it an hour.’

What were they going to do?

‘One.’

Could she run for it?

‘Two.’

She would have to get out of the sleeping bag and the hole without them catching her.

‘Three.’

And she couldn’t see the door. What if it was locked?

‘Four.’

If she tried to escape, Mrs W would make her punishment worse. It was no good.

She scurried down in her sleeping bag, pulling it up to her chin just as the woman counted, ‘Five.’