Free The Castle by Sophia Bennett

better than the trunk.
    I had to lie on my side and curl my arms around my knees to fit inside, but it wasn’t as bad as before. Trying to ignore the darkness in this room, and memories of every horror movie I’d ever seen involving coffins – which was many, none of which ended well – I focused on controlling the shaking.
    Don’t think about the bad stuff, Peta. Think about something good, something far away from here.
    I tried doing times tables in my head, but the numbers wouldn’t work. According to Dad, captured soldiers learnt to recite long texts from memory to stop themselves going mad. I couldn’t remember anything except nursery rhymes. So, huddled up in my coffin, I quietly hummed ‘Incy Wincy Spider’ to myself.
    Up the water spout . . . washed poor Incy out . . . dried up all the rain . . . up the spout again . . .
    Over and over.

THIRTEEN
    I must have slept. When I woke up I was sore and stiff, but not as badly as before. I decided to risk peeping into the main cabin to see what was happening.
    It was still empty. By now, the beige had turned to pink. Out at sea, the sun was slowly sinking to the horizon.
    My stomach rumbled. On top of being super-scared, furious with myself and freaked-out by all the beigeness, I was also starving. I finished the chocolate and three dead Haribos I found at the bottom of the backpack. They hardly helped. I sat for hours in the closet but nobody came: no princess, not even a cleaner.
    Eventually the outside lights on the boat were turned offand stars filled the sky. I thought about Granny. She must be frantic by now. She’d have called the police. Worse – she had probably called Mum.
    I pictured the scene. Mum would be on her way home, maybe on some emergency flight, clinging to ‘Rupe’ for comfort. Meanwhile, the police would check the CCTV cameras at Rye station to see which train I’d caught, and there would be no sign of me. Even if a Year 7 came forward to say they’d seen me on the coach, they might trace me as far as the Houses of Parliament and then . . .  poof! Gone.
    Back at the inn, there would be the message for Mum on my laptop – I love you. It’s OK. It’s not about you. That had seemed so reassuring when I wrote it, but what would she think when she got back and read ‘It’s not about you’? Rude.
    I desperately racked my brains for something I might have said or done that would lead the police to me. There was my research into the Wahools, and Luke would tell them about the house on Eaton Square, and maybe even about Max. But none of them knew about the van. Would anyone think, ‘Ah – Mr Wahool’s yacht left Southampton this morning, let’s see if she’s secretly on it’?
    No, they wouldn’t. They would think I’d just run away from home, because I’d done it before. And the police didn’t waste too much time looking for runaways.
    Stupid stupid stupid girl.
    I’d run out of chocolate, ideas and hope. All the time, the boat ploughed on through the waves. When I stole a look through the windows again, we were still in the middle of the ocean. It felt as if the journey would never end.
    By 3.15 in the morning, the aching hollow in my stomach became even worse than the terror of being caught. I was ona superyacht , for goodness’ sake. The boat must be groaning with food, and surely everyone would be in their cabins, asleep, by now? I just had to find something to eat. If I got caught, I got caught, but my stomach was close to not caring any more.
    I climbed out of the blanket box, putting on the darkest layers I had, and my windproof jacket, so that from far away I might look like one of the crew. Possibly. From a distance. Well, it was worth a try. Noiselessly, I went into the bedroom and opened the cabin door. All I could hear in the silence was that steady hum of the