by Geoff Palmer
The bag slumped over on the grass like an exhausted athlete after a run.
Resting her hands on her hips she pretended to catch her breath before picking it up again and heading towards the school.
A distant figure emerged from the staff room and hurried towards her. ‘Why ... Gladys ...’ Millicent Millais puffed as they neared each other. ‘Is there ... anything ... I can do ...?’
‘Yes, actually. I thought that since you were having a half-day I’d pop up and discuss Norman, if that’s all right?’
‘Of course ... of course ...’ The principal gestured wildly. ‘My office?’
As they turned toward the administration block, two mice scuttled up the steps of the old building.
* * *
‘That’s the second earthquake in about five minutes,’ Coral said once the ground had stopped moving.
‘Not earthquake, I think,’ Ludokrus said. ‘The displacer is running out of power.’
‘Displacer?’
‘What is it you see before you are fall here?’ he asked. ‘Up above?’
‘A hole in the floor, with stairs going down. Only they weren’t stairs ...’
‘An illusion made by the machine to trap more peoples.’
‘You mean that thing clamped to the side of the hole?’
‘Is called displacer,’ Ludokrus said, going on to explain that they were in a sort of mud bubble underneath the old school building. The bubble was created by the banana-shaped box packing down the atoms beneath the metal hoop, forcing them close together.
‘Imagine they are like wet sand,’ he said. ‘You press in your thumb and it leave a hole.’
‘You mean this is just dirt?’ Coral rapped her knuckles on the glass-like surface.
‘Packed down hard, yes. But it take much energy. As the displacer lose power, so the packing become looser and make mini earthquake just for us.’
‘But what happens when it runs out completely? Won’t we just pop out the top?’
From his silence Coral knew it wasn’t that simple
‘The packing become loose all over,’ he said quietly.
Coral pressed her palm against one glassy wall. Was it her imagination or could she now leave a faint impression in it?
‘Oh my god,’ she gasped. ‘We’ll be buried alive!’
* * *
Tim was amazed at how quickly Norman had adapted to mouseness. His own first experience had been interesting, weird and a little frightening, but Norman had taken to it ... well, like a mouse to cheese.
The jolting trip in Glad’s shoulder bag had made Tim feel a bit car sick, at least until he found a crumpled box of tissues and crawled in the open slot at the top to discover what a gloriously comfortable bed they made..
Norman meanwhile gleefully explored his mother’s handbag. There were new tastes, sounds, sights and smells, and above all there was mouseness itself. He opened a battered compact and gazed in amazement at the image reflected in its mirrored lid. Then the car went over a bump, the lid came down and pushed his nose into the face powder, making him sneeze.
His keen hearing picked up the change in tone as the car slowed and stopped, and he beat a tattoo on the lid of Tim’s tissue box bed to rouse him as the swaying motion of the bag indicated they were heading for the Gap. Tim emerged, blinking and bewildered, his whiskers awry, as Norman handed him the soft lead tip chewed from the stub of an eye liner pencil, indicating he could use it as a marker.
Norman was first out of the bag when Glad said, ‘There you go’, was first to scramble up the three low wooden steps, and first to find a rain-rotten corner in the bottom of the ill-fitting door. With no tools but his teeth and paws he’d gnawed at the decaying wood and within a minute made a hole big enough to squeeze through.
The place was vast. They could move quickly, but how could they be sure they covered all the territory in time?
Norman paused, marking an X on the wainscot. Tim understood immediately and shook his head in admiration. Norman was a natural. He’d picked up mouseness as if he’d been born to it, and had given their expedition some careful thought. The X meant ‘We’ve been past here already, try somewhere else’.
The first classroom they came to was simply that; a forest of chair and table that legs stretched endlessly before them. Norman scuttled around its perimeter, pausing now and then to survey the scene and make his marks.
Back in the gloomy cloakroom they paused at a monstrous circle of timber propped against one wall. They sniffed the edge then glanced at each other knowingly. It was freshly cut — or rather, burned.
The toasted timber smell came strongly through the gap beneath the second door, but that was as close as they could get. This door was shut tight and its lower edge was solid, not rotten, the gap beneath it little more than a paws-width wide.
Tim slumped back, defeated. There was no way in. He stared up at the distant handle that seemed as high as Mt Everest, but Norman nudged him, nodded in the direction of the first classroom and scuttled away. Puzzled, Tim followed.
They backtracked the way they’d come, running along under what Tim realised was the old classroom’s blackboard, pausing just before they reached the next corner. As well as his usual X Norman had also marked a ? on the wall and Tim suddenly realised why. What he’d missed — what Norman hadn’t — was that there was another closed door here.
A mental picture of the old building suddenly popped into his mind; two classrooms separated by a shared entrance for the pupils and a shared storeroom for the teachers! He’d missed the tell-tale gap between the door and floor, but good old Norman hadn’t.
The gap was too narrow to squeeze under and the timber was solid. Then Tim was distracted by a scuffling sound and glanced up to see Norman’s backside and tail disappearing over the edge of a desk. A second later, his mousey snout appeared along with a beckoning paw.
‘What now?’ Tim wondered, scrambling up the battered wooden leg of a chair, marvelling at the strength and flexibility of the little mouse’s body while also managing to worry about the time. How much had elapsed since they’d started their reconnaissance? Glad couldn’t wait for them all day. And they had more than one reason to be mindful of the passing minutes. Ludokrus had warned about the range of Switch, and Tim didn’t want to push it.
He leapt from chair back to desktop, skidding on the smooth surface, but Norman had disappeared again. The rustle of a mouldy curtain gave him away. A second later he appeared on the window ledge above, waving.
The curtain was an easy climb, its sagging threads plenty strong enough to support a mouse.
On the windowsill he finally caught up with his friend and saw below them the object of their quest. Some time in the past a teacher had lost the key to the storeroom and some grumpy caretaker had removed the lock. It had never been replaced. Above the door handle was a neat, circular, mouse-sized hole.
Tim gaped in amazement. How had Norman spotted that? Before he could ask, his friend launched himself into space. The sprung handle absorbed the impact of his jump and he turned to give Tim a mousey thumbs-up before vanishing through the hole.
Tim looked down. It was quite a drop. But if Norman could do it ... He took a breath and jumped.
35 : Sneaky Rats
‘You wanted to discuss little Norman.’ Millicent Millais beamed at Glad from behind her desk.
Glad nodded.
‘Well, he seems to be doing splendidly,’ the principal said. ‘I’d say he was a credit to you, Gladys.’
‘It’s not so much his school work,’ Glad said, ‘it’s ... other things ...’
She recalled what Norman had said about Tyler and Amber and told the principal that she’d been getting a little worried about him lately. He’d always been a quiet boy but he’d recently got quieter still. As if he was worried about something. Or frightened.
Millicent Millais leaned forward, fixing Glad with her most concerned look. ‘Oh dear!’ she said. ‘Oh goodness. You don’t think he’s be
ing bullied, do you? Let me call his teacher.’ With that she got to her feet and called, ‘Rrrod-erick!’ from the office door. A few seconds later Roderick Millais face appeared around the door.
‘Yes, dear ... er, principal?’ he corrected himself on seeing Glad.
Millicent Millais explained the situation as her husband brushed cake crumbs from his moustache.
‘I’m not aware of any problems in class,’ he said.
‘There have of course been one or two disruptions to our usual routine this year,’ Mrs Millais said.
‘You mean Townsend kids? Actually Norman’s quite friendly with them, I think.’
‘I meant our latest arrivals ...’
‘Those foreign kids? Have they been a problem?’
‘Not exactly,’ she glanced at her husband. ‘They were dear children of course, but their English wasn’t the best and ... well, we’re not really equipped to give them the extra instruction they needed.’
‘Were? Needed? You mean they’ve gone?’
‘Yes. Their uncle took them out of school this morning.’
‘And you think they might have had something to do with Norman being bullied?’
Mrs Millais shrugged and held out her hands. ‘I really don’t know, Gladys. They were a ... disruption, that’s all I can say. We can only wait and see, I suppose. And Roderick and I will most certainly keep an eye on things next week.’
‘Thanks,’ Glad said. The pinkness of the principal’s office was beginning to give her a headache. ‘And I’ll tell Norman about the new kids going and see how he reacts.’
‘Excellent!’ the principal beamed. ‘I think that may well be the answer. We do so value little Norman, don’t we Roderick?’
* * *
Alkemy, Ludokrus and Coral lapsed into silence. No one wanted to consider the consequences of the failing displacer.
Eventually Alkemy said, ‘Tim will help us.’
‘How?’ Coral exclaimed. ‘He doesn’t even know where we are.’
She felt the others stiffen in surprise then realised she hadn’t yet told them the full story of how she’d come to discover their whereabouts.
‘I left him at the nature hike,’ she concluded. ‘He won’t have a clue.’
No one breathed a word.
‘I’m a complete idiot,’ she moaned.
‘Is not your fault,’ Ludokrus said, hugging her tighter. ‘Is ours. We are too confident. All the time we are not enough careful. We should not have involved you. I am sorry.’
Coral shook her head. ‘I’m glad I got involved. I just wish I’d ...’
‘You say you see my backpack?’ Alkemy interrupted.
‘It was wedged behind some stacked-up seats. That was the big clue ...’
Realisation suddenly dawned. Alkemy’s backpack! It contained their precious calculator, the thing that generated nanomachines. Nanomachines that might have made them a rope out of spare clothes or a ladder out of dirt. And she’d left it behind!
‘On no!’ she wailed. ‘I’m such an idiot!’
The ground shook again and she fell silent.
* * *
The storeroom was much darker than the classroom. Someone had drawn curtains over the windows and the only light that entered came through a few ragged tears in the fabric.
Norman, as usual, had gone ahead and was scrambling down a rack of empty shelves set against the wall. Tim took a breath and followed.
The room smelled musty and the shelves were thick with dust. One held a battered row of Pocket Oxford Dictionaries. He passed boxes of chalk and crayons and glanced at the dates on the yellow spines of a collection of ancient National Geographics: 1973.
Suddenly, below him, Norman squealed.
Tim peered over the edge and picked out his friend cowering in the corner by the second door. For a moment he thought he was larking about, but then he spied a much larger shape looming in the darkness. A rat!
It was five times Norman’s size with a broad charcoal-coloured back, a scaly tail that looked as thick as a fire hose and cold black eyes that glinted menacingly.
For a moment Tim was too stunned to move.
The rat eyed Norman coldly, intent on making him its next meal. Suddenly it bared its teeth and lunged.
Norman side-stepped and scuttled away only to find himself cornered by an empty rubbish bin. As the rat readied for a second attack, Tim got his shoulder behind a box of chalk and shoved with all his might.
The carton clipped the shelf below and burst open, showering the rat with a rain of multicoloured chalk. The distraction was enough for Norman. He raced away, leaping to the first of the shelves in a single bound and scrambling up the second. But the rat wasn’t to be deterred from its dinner and carefully watched Norman’s ascent.
Peering up at them, its front paws on the lower shelf, the rat now spied two nice dinners huddling together just a few shelves away.
Tim made a quick calculation and concluded there was no escape. Though the rat was too big to fit through the hole in the door, they couldn’t possibly reach it before it caught one or the other of them. They’d have to think of something else.
He prodded Norman to get his attention then made a rapid series of paw gestures. Norman gave him the mouse equivalent of a thumbs-up and scuttled after him, peering over the edge from time to time so the rat could follow their progress from below.
Tim leapt on top of a Pocket Oxford Dictionary and squirmed behind it. He wedged his back against the wall and kicked. The book moved one whole centimetre. Norman joined him, counting them down with waves of his paw. One, two, three — heave! Two centimetres this time. Tim kept pushing. Norman ducked out again to wave and jeer at the rat.
The rat hesitated, curious but uncertain, then it set its front paws on the first shelf and began to scramble up.
Norman raced back and slithered in beside Tim, gesturing that the rat was within range. They pushed and shoved with all their might. At last the book slipped from their paws, teetered and fell off the edge.
There was a second’s silence followed by a soft thump.
They ran to the edge and peered down.
The falling book had caught the rat edge-on, neatly snapping its neck and imprisoning the still twitching body underneath.
Tim sighed with relief, his racing heartbeat only now beginning to slow while Norman danced about on his hind legs, waving a clenched paw in victory.
36 : Mouse Droppings
The floor of the storeroom smelled strongly of rat; a soft, sour smell like unwashed laundry. At some point in the old building’s long history a length of floorboard had been replaced with a piece of cheap timber that, over the years, had turned to the consistency of soggy cardboard. It was through this that the rat had found its way inside, and from the shredded paper and straw nearby it had evidently been making a nest.
The unreachable room’s storeroom door was also firmly shut and there was no drilled-out lock in it, but the rotten board ran right underneath, providing a bowed channel deep enough for Tim and Norman to squeeze through.
The second classroom was very different from the first. Instead of facing a sea of chair and table legs there was nothing but a vast empty space. All the furniture had been shoved back against the rear wall and a large section of the floor was missing.
Tim followed Norman who, after a quick glance around the room, scuttled over to the hole. It was cut in a perfect circle with a neatly angled edge and smelled of charcoal, the same as the piece of wood in the cloakroom. Tim suddenly made the connection. The piece outside could be dropped into place like an oversized manhole cover. With the desks and chairs replaced, the hole would be virtually invisible.
That thought, added to his natural caution, made him hesitate. There was something clipped on the opposite side of the hole and from this low angle he could see a stout hoop extending from it, running just below the floorboards. He trotted round to investigate while Norman signalled impatiently, pointing to the black pit below.
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br /> The thing clipped on the side hummed quietly and as Tim peered round at it the ends of his whiskers trembled and were drawn downward.
He hesitated. Something wasn’t right. He squeaked a warning to Norman but as he did so a light flicked on revealing a series of spiral steps. As he stared at them he noticed how his trembling whiskers seemed to make the stairs flicker. He tried again. Yes, definitely. It was as if the box was some sort of projector and the image in its centre was no more solid than the picture on a movie screen. He stepped back to warn his friend, then watched in horror as Norman jumped on to what he thought was the first step, and plunged straight through.
* * *
Glad rubbed her temple as she walked back towards the prefab. That odd pink room had given her a headache. Something about the colour seemed to worm its way behind her eyelids and soften her brain. She could almost taste it; bitter and metallic.
The metal pin that connected the strap to her shoulder bag had been coming loose for some time. She worked it carefully with her free hand as she neared the prefab and with perfect timing it gave out as she passed the steps, dumping the bag’s contents before sliding off her shoulder. She turned in pretend annoyance in time to see a tail vanish inside it.
Stooping, gathering up her possessions and repacking them, she was careful not to hurry. But as soon as she was out of sight of the school she tore the bag open crying, ‘Are you guys all right?’
A single mousey face appeared, looked up at her and shook its head.
* * *
‘Wah!’ Ludokrus leapt back. ‘Something land on my shoulder!’
‘Ooo!’ Coral screamed as she felt the brush of a tail flick against her face.
‘Wait, wait!’ Alkemy cried. ‘I think is mouse!’
They stopped moving, frozen to the spot in case an unwary foot flattened it.
‘A mouse?’ Coral said.
‘It feel like. It brush my hand.’
‘Could it be?’ Ludokrus said.
‘Ah!’ Coral screamed. ‘Something’s scratching my shoe.’
‘Wait. Hold.’ Ludokrus felt for Coral’s shoe. ‘You are friend, little mousey? You understand the English? Come, climb on board my hand.’ A second later he hissed ‘Yes!’