Together, they peeked out. Linta had found a few beans on the floor. She stood holding them in her hand, staring up at the wall and the ceiling, then, still muttering to herself, walking back to her table.

Instantly, she saw that her notebooks were missing. She froze, grabbing a knife that lay on the table, glaring out across the stalls. As Hava pressed Lovisa down, Linta’s footsteps neared. Hava crouched over her, covering her with her own body.

Lovisa closed her eyes, needing not to see Hava’s transformation, not to move, not to breathe. Linta’s footsteps grew closer, padding toward their stall. Continued past it and receded; turned back and approached again. The footsteps returned to the table, where Linta could be heard swearing under her breath. Then the big front doors slammed and Linta’s voice rose, shouting in the yard about stolen notebooks.

Hava moved, grabbed Lovisa’s arm. “We need to find a better hiding place, quick,” she whispered.

“There’s no place to hide in here. They’ll tear it apart,” said Lovisa.

“What about that trapdoor?”

“I don’t know what it leads to.”

“Let’s try it,” Hava said, pulling Lovisa out of their stall—then, when the big doors burst open again, pushing her into a different stall. It was mostly empty, not packed tight with supplies as the others were. Terrible for hiding, containing only three wooden chests, stacked one behind the other. The chests were locked with padlocks.

At the front of the room, Linta was loudly explaining to someone what had happened.

“We have to get out of here!” Lovisa whispered.

“We’re stuck in this stall for now,” Hava muttered, reaching into her pockets and extracting some long metal sticks that attached to a ring. Lovisa watched in amazement as she began to insert various sticks into one of the padlocks and fiddle around. Lock picks? Now?