Point Blank

wanted this adventure. Now he just wanted out of it. Press Fast Forward three times on his CD player and MI6 would come for him. But he couldn’t do that until he had something to report.
    Alex knew what he had to do. He got up and left the room.
    He had seen the way the night before when he was hiding in the fireplace. The chimney bent and twisted its way to the open air. He had been able to see a chink of light from the bottom. Moonlight. The bricks outside the academy might be too smooth to climb, but inside the chimney they were broken and uneven with plenty of hand- and footholds. Maybe there would be a fireplace on the third or fourth floors. But even if there weren’t, the chimney would still lead him to the roof and—assuming there weren’t any guards waiting for him there—he might be able to find a way down.
    Alex reached the fireplace with the two stone dragons. He looked at his watch. Ten o’clock.
    Classes would continue until lunch, and nobody would wonder where he was. The fire had finally gone out, although the ashes were still warm. Would one of the guards come to clean it?
    He would just have to hope that they would leave it until the afternoon. He looked up the chimney. He could see a narrow slit of bright blue. The sky seemed a very long way away, and the chimney was narrower than he had thought. What if he got stuck? He forced the thought out of his head, reached for a crack in the brickwork, and pulled himself up.
    The inside of the chimney smelled of a thousand fires. Soot hung in the air, and Alex couldn’t breathe without taking it in. He managed to find a foothold and pushed, sliding himself a short way up. Now he was wedged inside, forced into a sitting position with his feet against one wall, his back against the other, and his legs and bottom hanging in the air. He wouldn’t need to use his hands at all. He only had to straighten his legs to push himself up, using the pressure of his feet against the wall to keep himself in place. Push and slide. He had to be careful. Every movement brought more soot trickling down. He could feel it in his hair. He didn’t dare look up. If it went into his eyes he would be blinded. Push and slide again, then again. Not too fast. If his feet slipped he would fall all the way back down. He was already a long way above the fireplace. How far had he gone? At least one floor … meaning that he had to be on his way to the third. If he fell from this height, he would break both his legs.
    The chimney was getting darker and tighter. The light at the top didn’t seem to be getting any nearer. Alex found it difficult to maneuver himself. He could barely breathe. His entire mouth seemed to be coated in soot. He pushed again, and this time his knees banged into brickwork, sending a spasm of pain down to his feet. Pinning himself in place, Alex reached up and tried to feel where he was going. There was an L-shaped wall jutting out above his head.
    His knees had hit the bottom part of it. But his head was behind the upright section. Whatever the obstruction was, it effectively cut the passageway in half, leaving only the narrowest of gaps for Alex’s shoulders and body to pass through.
    Once again, the nightmare prospect of getting stuck flashed into his mind. Nobody would ever find him. He would suffocate in the dark. He gasped for breath and swallowed soot. One last try! He pushed again, his arms stretching out over his head. He felt his back slide up the wall, the rough brickwork tearing at his shirt. Then his hands hooked over what he realized must be the top of the L. He pulled himself up and found himself looking into a second fireplace, sharing the main chimney. That was the obstruction he had just climbed around. Alex raised himself over the top and dived clumsily forward. More logs and ashes broke his fall. He had made it to the third floor!
    He crawled out of the fireplace. Only a few weeks before, at Brookland, he’d been reading about Victorian chimney sweeps, how boys as young as nine had been forced into virtual slave labor. He had never thought he would learn how they felt. He coughed and spat into the palm of his hand. His saliva was black. He wondered what he must look like. He would have to have a bath before he was seen.
    He stood up. The third floor was as silent as the first and second. Soot trickled out of his hair, and for a moment he was blinded. He propped himself against a statue while he wiped his eyes. Then he looked again. He