The four children got on to what was left of the carpet. Very careful they were not to leave a leg or a hand hanging over one of the holes. It was very hot—the theatre was a pit of fire. Every one else had got out.
Jane had to sit on Anthea’s lap.
‘Home!’ said Cyril, and instantly the cool draught from under the nursery door played upon their legs as they sat. They were all on the carpet still, and the carpet was lying in its proper place on the nursery floor, as calm and unmoved as though it had never been to the theatre or taken part in a fire in its life.
Four long breaths of deep relief were instantly breathed. The draught which they had never liked before was for the moment quite pleasant. And they were safe. And every one else was safe. The theatre had been quite empty when they left. Every one was sure of that.
They presently found themselves all talking at once. Somehow none of their adventures had given them so much to talk about. None other had seemed so real.
‘Did you notice—?’ they said, and ‘Do you remember—?’
When suddenly Anthea’s face turned pale under the dirt which it had collected on it during the fire.
‘Oh,’ she cried, ‘mother and father! Oh, how awful! They’ll think we’re burned to cinders. Oh, let’s go this minute and tell them we aren’t.’
‘We should only miss them,’ said the sensible Cyril.
‘Well—YOU go then,’ said Anthea, ‘or I will. Only do wash your face first. Mother will be sure to think you are burnt to a cinder if she sees you as black as that, and she’ll faint or be ill or something. Oh, I wish we’d never got to know that Phoenix.’