Lottie couldn't understand why Sara didn't wear pretty dresses anymore.
Or why Sara had to work now.
"There's a new girl in your room," Lottie said to Sara.
"Where do you sleep?"
"Don't worry. I have a room," said Sara.
But she wouldn't tell Lottie where it was.
Lottie was determined to find out.
She listened to the older girls talking, and then she knew.
Late one afternoon she climbed the stairs to the attic. She opened a door.
There was Sara, standing on a table and looking out the skylight.
"Sara!" Lottie looked horrified at the bare and empty attic.
"This room is so ugly!"
"Shh, Lottie!" Sara said quickly. "Don't cry or make any noise.
You'll get us both in trouble. This isn't such a bad room."
Lottie bit her lip as she looked around again. "Why not, Sara?"
Sara hugged Lottie and forced herself to smile even though it had been a hard day.
Then she helped Lottie to climb on top of the table so they could look out the skylight.
"You can see all sorts of things from here," said Sara.
"Things that you can't see from downstairs.
I wish someone lived in the house next door, but it's empty.
If a person looked out the skylight in that house, we could talk."
Two sparrows twittered and hopped about on the roof.
"I see birds!" exclaimed Lottie.
"I wish we could feed them," said Sara.
"I have a bun from lunch!" Lottie shrieked.
She pulled a bun from her pocket.
The two girls broke the bun into pieces and fed the birds.
"Oh, I like it here!" said Lottie. "It's much nicer than downstairs."
Sara nodded. "It's so little, and high above everything, it's like a nest in a tree," she said.
"In the morning I can lie in bed and look right up at the sky.
And if there are stars at night, I can lie here and count them."
"I'd like to live here too!" Lottie declared.
Sara laughed. "It's time for you to go, Lottie.
I don't want anyone to find you here."
Sara helped Lottie off the table and out the door.
Then she sat and looked around the room.
Without Lottie, it was much harder to pretend her room was nice.
The bed was hard and covered with a dingy blanket.
The floor was cold and bare, and the footstool with the injured leg was the only seat in the room.
"Sometimes this is the loneliest place in the world," she said.
Just then she heard a little noise.
A large rat stood quite close to her, sniffing the air.
Another child might have jumped back, but Sara stayed still.
The rat could smell some crumbs that Lottie had dropped.
The rat looked odd and strange, like a gnome with gray whiskers.
"I won't hurt you," Sara said quietly.
"Prisoners in the Bastille made friends with rats. I could be your friend."
The rat came closer and ate a small crumb.
Then he snatched a bigger crumb and ran into his hole.
"He probably took that home to his family!"
Sara was delighted with her new friend. "I think I'll call him Mel."
Over the next week Mel gradually grew to trust Sara.
She gave him food and never frightened him.
One night Ermengarde came to visit.
She sat on Sara's bed while Sara sat on the footstool.
"I have a new friend," said Sara.
"But you must promise not to be frightened by him. He's a rat."
"A rat!" Ermengarde cried and pulled her shawl tightly around her.
"He's very nice," Sara went on. "I call him Mel. Watch this, Ermengarde."
Sara gave a low whistle, and Mel came out of his hole.
She dropped some crumbs on the floor. Mel gobbled them up.
"He always saves a few for his wife and children," said Sara.
"They live in a cozy nest in the wall."
Ermengarde was delighted by this story. "Tell me more."
But before Sara could say anything, someone knocked twice on the wall.
"What's that?" Ermengarde's eyes were wide with fear.
"Just the prisoner in the next cell," Sara said.
"Becky!" Ermengarde exclaimed.
"Two knocks mean 'Are you there?'" Sara explained.
Then she rapped three times on the wall.
"And three knocks mean 'Yes, all is well.'"
Becky knocked four times.
"That means 'Good night. Sleep well,'" said Sara.
Ermengarde beamed. "It's just like a story!"
"Yes. You can be an escaped prisoner in the story," Sara told her.
"But now it's time to sneak to your bed downstairs."