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“It’s all your own fault, you know,” Polly said, as she tried to unravel the emergency life line as fast as she could. It looked like thin rope, but felt softer than she expected under her fingers – another new and alien thing. “Well, in a way.”
“Polly!”
She managed to get the cord unwound and the mechanism working and watched it thankfully descend towards where he was hanging about a few feet below her, from the underside of this strange airborne dwelling. “You can’t say it isn’t. Going about like that all day, being gloomy about heights, and asking what happens if somebody falls out the window and all that. Honestly, Ben. Next time the Doctor finds us a real castle in the clouds to explore, you’d better stay behind.”
“Fine by me,” said Ben with an effort, as he made it back up to the open trap door – with the aid of the rope and the mechanism that was now running in reverse.
She helped him scramble up the last few inches, and back into the space-age cloud castle (even if that wasn’t what the Doctor had called it – he’d had some terribly complicated explanation, but that’s what it was to them). And if she hung onto him a bit longer and more tightly than perhaps a person would expect, he didn’t complain. He was holding onto her in return, after all.
“Thanks, Duchess,” he said, when he let go, and then they both inevitably looked back down at the hole and the sky beneath them. “Now, come on – we need to get to the Doctor before that other mad geezer! He ought to know what kind of thing’s really going on here.”
Polly caught at his hand and gave a nod. “Yes, you’re right, Ben. We’d better hurry.”
“Yeah,” said Ben as they ran off together, “don’t want anyone pushing him out, too, do we? Like I said all along, this place isn’t safe.”
Polly wrinkled up her nose. “Oh, you!” she said, but she hung onto his hand even more tightly than before.