She must have something to push with--a shoe would do, only she must remember to put it on again before she stepped down upon the broken glass strewing the floor.
Joey unlaced one of her strong shoes, not without upsetting another bottle in the process, and, standing on tiptoe on the top shelf, began a violent assault upon the breach in the roof. If she could only make a hole large enough to get her head through, she thought, she would shout and shout and shout till somebody heard and came to let her out.
It is very tiring to stand on tiptoe, especially when one foot has no shoe on, and bang at something above you. Joey's arms ached and her toes ached, and her back; the height at which Calgarloch had stood amazed was hardly enough for her purpose; she had to stretch to her utmost capacity. "Lucky it wasn't Gabrielle who got shut up," she thought to herself, and then, through all her anxiety and struggling, came the thought of her two friends, Noreen and Gabrielle, and the plans they had made together for the afternoon. What were they doing now? Joey wondered. Were they remembering to look out for her? Yes, she felt sure they would do that; they were the kind of friends who stood by you. If only she had them to stand by her now!
Her attack on the roof did not appear to have any effect but that of bringing down unwanted showers of plaster that made her choke and sneeze and, more than once, gave her a nasty knock. But she kept on doggedly at her task--she had to do it somehow. English people couldn't wait to ask whether the job was do-able when your country wanted it done. And all the time she was imprisoned here the Professor was free to do what harm he liked, because nobody knew about him but herself.
Joey redoubled her efforts, and a tile went at last. She could hear it fall on to the ground below. One gone--perhaps the next would be easier. She dropped her tired arms for a moment to rest them, and in that moment the big clock struck two. Only half an hour to the time the match would start--that gave her a fresh sense of urgent need of haste. She smashed furiously at the roof, and her shoe went through it and stuck so fast that she nearly came off the narrow shelf in her effort to dislodge it. In spite of her anxiety and her aching arms, she had to giggle at the thought of how absurd a shoe must look from below, sticking up through a hole in the roof.