Unexpected Turns: The Painted Bear
still twisted and crooked, and lay her head on the pillow. The room was very dark now, and silent. Suddenly, she heard a familiar sound. Yarl was barking again, only this time his voice sounded crisp and clear, like an icicle on a frosty morning. The hole in the window had changed Kasia's world.
Kasia lifted her head and listened. Yarl sounded so close. Fearing her mother's return, she slipped from the bed and went over to the window. She could hear other things now, clearer than she had ever heard them before. A rustling in the leaves, the call of a bird as sharp as a needle of sound, the rattle of a machine passing through the night, voices! Other people were there, far away, through the leaves of the trees, through the cold night and the darkness. Kasia shivered and hugged her thin body as cold air poured through the hole in the glass between the paper and the sill, and down on to the floor. It formed a pool of coldness in her room, as real as treacle around her feet. Her mother was returning. She dashed across the room and jumped into bed before the door swung open.
"You in bed?" said her mother.
A torch beam cut through the air and alighted on Kasia's face. She kept her eyes shut and waited. Her mother satisfied with what she saw, picked up the empty bowl and left.
In the morning. Panda was back.
"Shhh!" whispered Kasia, "We have to keep our voices down. Mummy might be listening!"
"I'll see if she is!" said Panda. He went over to the door and pretended to listen to it. Kasia laughed with amusement at the parody.
"Don't!" she said, "If she knows you're here again, I'll be in lots of trouble!"
"I don't care," said Panda lightly, then he frowned, "Well, I do really. I wouldn't want you to get into trouble. You are, after all, my very best friend."
"And you're my very best friend too!" said Kasia.
Panda danced around the room and stopped by the window.
"Did you hear the noises last night?" he asked.
"Yes" said Kasia.
"Did you know what they were?"
"Some of them I did," said Kasia.
