THE SENTINEL 

By Tessa Harvey

    The nights were now the worst for Theodor. The creatures he loved and watched were mostly asleep. The boy knew the owls. He was not afraid of the tiny bats. One came in the small house by mistake one evening. It settled in his mum's shower cap, but the blue flowers were only plastic. Slowly, carefully his mother wrapped the baby bat inside the shower cap.
    He was very quiet, the little one, and so was Theodor. They went outside. This time his mother closed the door her son had left ajar. Mother and child opened the shower cap and stood back, softly. Theodor was only six, but he heard a high faint squeak, then an answer and the bat was suddenly gone in the cascading darkness.
    His mother could hear the stillness when he was thinking of going out without asking, but she could no longer hear the bats - at least not very much.

    Sylvia could not think straight. I must have had far too much to drink, she thought in a swirl of confusion. Where were the other girls from the office? She seemed to see only males leering at her. One in particular had seemed so very handsome earlier, beautiful dark chocolate-coloured eyes and swept back hair. She couldn't remember the colour.....
    Someone was touching her, but not as a friend. "It's time to grow up, little girl," echoed a strange voice. "Time to grow up, grow up," twirled in her brain. She was drifting on a pleasant wave like an old holiday at the seaside.
    Someone tugged at her, unpleasantly. "Get lost," Sylvia tried to say. It was probably her dumb brother. "Go away, Theo," Sylvie tried to say, impatiently. There was laughter. "She's out to it....."
    "I must go home," Sylvia tried to say, regretting going to this dingy pub. Where were her friends? Suddenly she vomited. Rough hands threw her outside. Disgusted voices. Hide, she thought, hide....

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