It was close in the tower room, and the smell of oil and
dead air began to be oppressive. She had no wish to shout, even if she
could be heard, a doubtful probability, for she had no mind to be rescued
before the curious eyes of the entire school.
"I'll get out of it somehow, if I have to stay here all night," she told
herself pluckily. "Oh, my goodness, what was that?"
A tiny sawing noise in one corner of the room sent Betty scurrying to
the other side. She would have indignantly denied any fear of mice or
rats, but the bravest girl might be excused from a too close
acquaintance thrust upon her in the dark. Betty had no wish to put her
fingers on a mouse.
"How can I get out?" she cried aloud, a little wildly. "I can't breathe!"
In the uncanny silence that followed the sound of her voice, the sawing
noise sounded regularly, rhythmically. In desperation Betty seized an
iron crowbar she had backed into on the wall, and hurled it in the
direction of the industrious rodents.
"Now I've done it," she admitted, as with a clatter and a bang that, she
was sure, could be heard a mile away, an evident avalanche of tools
tumbled to the floor.
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