Page 26 of Sad Girl Hours
I tug Saffron’s hand and pull her back round one of the grey brick walls. “Do you think we’re good?”
Her chest rises and falls (but much more steadily than mine, probably thanks to her Athletics Club and my general aversion to any activity that can’t be described as ‘sedentary’ or ‘stomping around woods’) as she answers.
“I think we’re good. What would the penalty for apple thievery be, do you think?”
Chapter Eleven
Saffron
Nell’s breathless, her dark hair dishevelled as she answers. “We are at a castle. Who knows what kind of medieval devices they have strung up on their walls?”
Her eyes flick to the side to meet mine and then it’s too late – we’re laughing laughs imbued with just a smidge of hysteria. Once we’ve managed to get hold of ourselves, I say, “Should we get out of here? While I don’t think the penalty for apple crimes would be getting handcuffed in a dungeon—”
“Kinky.”
I ignore that as best I can. “I’d rather not risk it.”
“All right, fine. Location number two?” Nell offers me her arm.
I link my left arm through hers. “Location number two.”
We’re walking (quite hastily) back down the hill towards the road when I realise that I’m still holding my phone, the camera still rolling. I press stop and untangle myself from Nell so that I can look at the video as we walk. It starts innocently enough, just an aesthetic shot of the branch bending down under my hand towards Nell so that she can pick the apple, but quickly descends into chaos after the abrupt ‘EXCUSE ME!’. There’s a minute of footage of shoes flashing in and out of frame over earth and gravel, hysterical giggling breaths and the sound of pounding feet against the ground.
Nell laughs so hard at the clip that she almost fully drops to the floor, and I have to drag her up, also laughing harder than I have in a while.
“Well? You wanted to make a TikTok of the day. That’s award-winning footage right there.”
“I’ll make sure I dedicate the award to you.”
“You’d better,” she says. “And I want a director’s credit too.”
“Your ambitions really know no bounds, do they?”
“Nope!”
We pass the next ten minutes or so chatting amiably about our adventures so far as we walk away from Sizergh and towards…
“TA-DA!” Nell gestures with jazz hands at a giant sign for a maize maze.
“Ohhh.” I nod my head. “I get the ‘amazed’ thing now.”
“Took you long enough.”
“HELLO, DAREDEVILS!”
Nell nearly jumps out of her skin as a bespectacled youth with a lanyard lunges towards us.
“Are you ready to take on –” they pause for very well-rehearsed dramatic effect – “THE MAZE?”
“I regret everything and I would like to leave,” Nell mutters to me as she shows them our tickets on her phone.
“What was that?” the bespectacled youth asks, looking buoyant and inquisitive.
“Absolutelywe are,” I say. It’s not this poor person’s fault that they’ve had extensive ‘interacting with the general public’ training.
“EXCELLENT!” they yell. “Well, daredevils, my name’s Sunny and I’m going to be your maze guardian today!”
Nell throws me a pleading glance like a puppy begging for cheese.
