“It seems safe,” Amy agreed, “but I wouldn’t exactly call it comfortable. It’s too low to stand in, and I hate the thought of sitting down on the dirt that’s collected here. There’s a box out there in the courtyard. Why don’t we bring it in to sit on?”
“Better not,” Peggy answered. “Someone may remember having seen it there, and if it’s missing, it might give them the idea that somebody’s been here. And we don’t want anyone to get ideas like that.”
Amy agreed reluctantly with the sense of Peggy’s argument, and shifted her position. “No wonder Pip was so tired,” she whispered. “A whole twelve hours of crouching like this must be a terrible thing to go through! We’ve only been here for about fifteen minutes, and I’m beginning to get pins and needles already.”
The next hour and a half, spent mostly in silence, and in trying to get used to the cramped position beneath the stairs, passed by with terrible slowness. Every so often, the roar of a truck would be heard in the street, and the girls would grow tense, waiting for it to turn into the alley. But it always went by, leaving an even deeper silence behind it.
“It’s almost time for Randy and Mal to come,” Peggy whispered. “I don’t envy them their night, but I’ll sure be glad to get out of here!”
“So will—quiet! I hear another truck,” Amy said.
Quietly shifting into new positions of comparative comfort, the girls held their breath and waited to hear the sound of the truck passing the alley. But this one didn’t pass.
A bright beam of headlights swept down the alley and lighted up the court as the truck turned in off the street.
“Those headlights!” Peggy whispered. “When they turn the corner into the court, they’re bound to light up this whole stairway!”
“Just hope the driver doesn’t look this way!” Amy whispered in return.