[your name here],
I escaped. Writing this to you from a chocolate box-car. The country outside is all caramel fields and broad, white horizon. Sorry for the small print, but I have a lot to tell you.
I locked the old man and woman in the garden shed. They called feebly for help, but the beautiful-eyed zebra was waiting. We rode for three days and nights, scotching our followers, until we arrived at the train line. Then there was nothing to do but wait.
But soon the searchers found us and there was a terrible battle. I climbed a tree and they set about cutting it down; I leapt through the boughs to another, but they lit a fire at its base. The zebra was wounded as it reared and kicked at them, and it fled. I was alone in the trees and the darkness. And still thinking of you.
The fire crept higher; so did I. I was at the very top of the tree when the flames began to warm my toes.
And then? And then I gave up hope -- of home, of you, even of myself. All was lost. I dropped from the treetop and landed on a bed of pine needles. Then, above the voices of my captors: the bleak scream of the train's horn in the darkness. I thought I was dead -- dreaming -- but I was running, and the zebra was beside me. I caught his mane, clamboured to his back. He broached the train and I leapt into the chocolate-box car. I left the zebra on the edge of the forest some distance from the crowd. I still don't know what they wanted from me. What could I give them?
The zebra reared and kicked and vanished in the dark. Both of us are homeward-bound now.
Very soon.
Alida xo
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