As soon as she heard the other children run down the stairs and into the living room, Mercedes carefully opened the window. She'd broken the child lock ages ago, so she pushed it all the way open and stared down at the backyard. It wasn't much of a drop, there were only two floors at the orphanage, and there was a patch for flowers she could land on– if she fell right.
Going back over to her bed, she stuffed an extra pair of clothes into the bag on top of the money she had been saving, and tightened the drawstring. She slipped the bag on and crept back over to the window. Taking a deep breath, she climbed onto the ledge, then jumped.
The fall was terrifying, but short, and she managed to land on her back in the patch of flowers. Quickly, she scrambled to her feet, brushed off the dirt and ran across the backyard. The grass was damp from the morning's rain, making it slippery when she went down the small embankment to the trees lining the back of the yard. A wire fence behind the trees had been put up to stop the kids running away, but Mercedes had been planning her escape for a while. She pulled out a pair of wire cutters and made a hole in the corner just big enough to squeeze through.
And then she was on the streets of Dunsfold, walking quickly away from the orphanage with her head down. She didn't really know the area, but she knew where she was heading. A place called Dunsfold Aerodrome. Someone had told her it was an abandoned airfield and it was supposedly haunted. She didn't believe in ghosts, though, so figured an abandoned airfield was a great place to hide until she found somewhere to go.
It took her four hours of walking around and asking friendly looking people for directions to finally find the airfield. The sun had long gone down and it ceraintly looked abandoned. She walked around until she found the entrance to the place, sneaking in, and heading across the gravel. She could see a building, the aircraft hangar, looming in the dark and she hurried towards it. An icy wind had picked up, and she had a feeling it might rain soon.
The door was locked, but she managed to break it with the wire cutters and some force. She dragged the door open, squinting to try and make anything out. There were a bunch of shadowy objects, but nothing moved so she guessed it was safe and went inside. Once she had dragged the door back, leaving it open just a crack, she pulled her winter jacket out of her bag. She found somewhere to curl up, using the jacket as a blanket and her bag a pillow. It didn't take long for her to fall asleep.