Prize Stock - pg. 12

Straining to catch a sound, we watched an orange light go on inside the long, narrow skylight window that ran between the floor of the storehouse and the ground. We could not find the courage to peek through the skylight. The short, anxious wait exhausted us. But no gunshot rang out. Instead, thhe village headman's shadowed face appeared beneath the partly opened trapdoor and we were yelled at and had to abandon even keeping watch at a distance from the skylight; the children, carrying with them expectations that would fill the night hours with bad dreams, ran off down the cobblestone road without a word of disappointment. Fear, awakened by their pounding feet, pursued them from behind.