She started the fire in the ashes of the previous one, and told Dee to get the powdered milk packet from the bags. The hot malty drink had been a staple of school camp suppers, drunk around the evening campfire before the whistle blew for bedtime. Sparrow mixed it up and poured it into one of the few enamel cups. She got Zed propped up against the wall, and pressed the cup into his hand. He shivered, "Sparrow? I don't feel so good..."
By this point, Zed had finished emptying tins into the pan and stirred it all up. He pushed it over to Sparrow who balanced it on top of the embers. Jem reached into her coat and pulled out something. She offered it to Sparrow. "It's not much but we can all have a bite if we roast it over the fire."
Sparrow looked down at the dead thing in horror. She recoiled from it like she had from Rat's dead bird and looked at Jem as if she was mad. "We can't eat that!"
Jem shrugged, "All the more for me then." Watched by the children with half disgust, half fascination, she pulled a blunt looking knife from the inside of her coat and began to skin the rat. It was hard going and Sparrow offered her sharper knife to do the job instead. Jem nodded her thanks and wiped her own knife on the side of her coat before stashing it away again.
"We need to be quiet!" Sparrow whispered, gripping her knife tighter as her eyes scanned the inside of the building. The roof had collapsed into the middle, leaving space around the edges. Splintered wooden beams and twisted lengths of metal lay scattered on the floor, while other broken pieces of roof hung precariously overhead. Sparrow inched her way around the outside of the room, listening for any noise that might indicate a further collapse. Bee followed slowly, using the wall to guide her, and sliding her staff across the floor to check for anything that might trip her up.
Sparrow darted into the centre of the room, and tugged a length of wood from underneath some shattered plasterboard. The pile in the middle shifted and she jumped back quickly as more plaster and bricks fell to the floor with a crash and a cloud of dust.
"What was that?" Bee asked, flattening herself against the wall.
"Just...getting some firewood..." Sparrow replied breathlessly, hugging the piece of wood to her chest.
The first step creaked under her feet and she winced. But no one called up from downstairs so she continued, the others following her to the top of the stairs. The room where they had eaten was in darkness; the only light came from the moonlight shining in through the window. She could hear the others fumbling down the wooden steps as she made her way to the door. The door wasn't locked, and she inched it open to glance up and down the road outside. A small brazier of fire was burning down to embers at the top of the road close to the tower.
