Leave the stairway and enter a dark hallway

I eased the door open as if it might explode if I hurried, yet some lady's high heels were growing louder as they approached. I slipped into the dark hallway and heard a woman speaking in the next room well lit compared to my dim area. I eased the door shut and prayed the lady in the stairway was not going to burst through to see me.

The high heel clomped past and grew faint as they progressed along the stairway. I inched my way toward the light and the lady who sounded like she was giving a lecture. I remained in the shadow but could peek around the corner to see the back of a few ladies sitting at a table listening to the speaker. I eased back and was glad my eyes adjusted to the dimness to make out a lot of coats hanging on a wall within reach. I quietly rejoiced that I would have something to cover myself, yet I would have to wait until the ladies left the room. Then it dawned on me that the coats probably belonged to the ladies and I had to wait for them all to leave and with luck a coat would be left behind.

Then I heard the door to the room of ladies open and someone said, "Sorry I'm late. "

Footsteps made their way in my direction and I had to find something to hide behind. Luckily my eyes had adjusted enough that I found a desk near the back so I crawled on hands and knees into the more inky blackness of the back of the hallway. I only hoped I did not crash into something and cause a stir from the ladies. I was almost to the desk when the ceiling light snapped on and I felt like a roach on the kitchen floor. I scurried behind the desk and heard someone removing their coat and hanging it on the knobs pocking out from the wall. Then the light cut out and I was bathed in comforting darkness again, feeling secure I had not been seen.

I tied to ease the stairway door open but it was locked from my side. I was trapped until the ladies left. After about twenty minutes, the meeting ended and all the ladies headed in my direction so I got back behind the desk again. The light sprang on again, and I heard many women chatting away. One moved closer and set something on the desktop above me. She was showing another lady something she had bought when she dropped it and it rolled along the floor until he appear in my vision behind the desk. A female hand and then arm was grasping for it and only making it roll my way................