Worldshaker 01; Worldshaker

by Richard Harland

“And after Oliver Cromwell,” said Septimus. “Eighteenth or nineteenth century.”

  “So recent?” Professor Twillip rose to his feet. “Well, we can start by looking for any book with eighteenth or nineteenth century in the title.”

  “If we find one book, it might lead us to others,” said Septimus.

  “Exactly, exactly.”

  They were like trackers on a trail. Professor Twillip headed over to a particular row of shelves and started examining book after book. Septimus took another row and did the same.

  “Look for bibliographies at the back,” Professor Twillip advised.

  “What about indexes?”

  “Yes. If they list juggernaut or Filthies.”

  Professor Twillip was in his element – and Septimus too, Col realised. He watched them for a few minutes, not sharing their scholarly instincts. He had to get back for high tea, followed by a game of charades that Ebnolia had arranged with the Postlefrith family.

  “This will take ages, won’t it?” he asked.

  “Ages and ages,” Professor Twillip agreed happily.

  “I’ll leave the two of you to it, shall I?”

  Septimus looked up in sudden alarm. “But I can’t stay if you go.”

  “Why not?” asked Professor Twillip.

  “I don’t have permission to be in the Norfolk Library on my own.”

  “No problem,” said the Professor. “I can give you permission.”

  “What if it takes longer than just today?”

  “Oh, it will, it will. If you want all the facts, it’ll take days. But so long as I’m here, I can give you permission.”

  “That’s settled, then,” said Col.

  Septimus was grinning as though all his Christmases had come at once.

  ∨ Worldshaker ∧

  Twenty-Four

  Next day at school, Col was a little wary of the Squellingham twins. He couldn’t believe they were looking for a chance to drag him down…and yet Septimus had sounded so sure about it. He watched for signs, but saw nothing.

  The day passed by in its usual way until the last lesson of the afternoon. Then there was a knock on the door and Dr Blessamy walked in.

  “Stand up, 4A!” roared Mr Gibber. He made a low bow to the headmaster, then roared again. “Sit down, 4A!”

  “Dear boys.” Dr Blessamy stood in front of the class, while Mr Gibber capered about behind his back. “Tomorrow is Friday and…another day as well. Our Founder’s Day. A day in memory of the very first Dr Blessamy. My great-greatgrandfather…or possibly great-great-great-grandfather.” He seemed to lose track of his thoughts for a moment, then re-discovered them. “The Dr Blessamy who founded this Academy in 1851. Without our Founder, we wouldn’t have this school today.” He gestured expansively. “I wouldn’t be standing here speaking to you and you wouldn’t be listening. I wouldn’t be your headmaster and you wouldn’t be my pupils. And instead, here we all are. Standing. Speaking. Listening. Pupils.”

  He surveyed the class with a benevolent air. Mr Gibber, who had been emphasising every gesture with gestures of his own, surveyed the class with a belligerent air.

  “For tomorrow, dear boys, your thoughtful old headmaster has arranged a very special…er…something. Excursion. Yes, an excursion to the tomb of our Founder in the Graveyard Rooms. We shall meditate and pay our respects to the first Dr Blessamy. Then free time for everyone to go and pay their respects before the tombs of their own forefathers. It will be a day of respects and meditation and…er…more respects…”

  As Dr Blessamy ran out of words, Mr Gibber stepped forward to bawl, “What do we say, 4A? We say Thank you, Headmaster!”

  The class bawled “Thank you, Headmaster!” in perfect imitation of Mr Gibber.

  Dr Blessamy winced, blinked, smiled vaguely and withdrew.

  Col was busy with his own thoughts. The Graveyard Rooms…where he’d gone with Riff, fleeing from the officer and the invisible ghosts. He remembered the soft, crumbling earth, the musty, mouldering smell. And one memory leaped into his mind most vividly of all – the way she’d clutched at his hand in her terror. He could almost feel the touch of her fingers.

  He kept thinking about the Graveyard Rooms for the rest of the lesson, then on the walk back from school, then all through afternoon tea in the Somerset Room. A plan was starting to form in his head.

  It was so wild that at first it was more like a daydream. Yet the more he mulled over it, the more he fell in love with it. It tied in with another memory of Riff, when she had tried to ‘borrow’ his book on mountains and volcanoes.

  After high tea, there was a piano recital by Gillabeth in the Lancashire Room. Ebnolia had invited guests from many families and the chairs had been set up in rows. Gillabeth’s severe brown frock was softened by flowery bows for the occasion, but nothing could soften her massive Porpentine chin. She played correctly and competently, as she did everything correctly and competently. The audience applauded a succession of pieces by a famous Old Country composer. Still Gillabeth gave the impression that she would sooner have strangled the keys than play them.

  Col had to remind himself to applaud. The elements of his plan were falling into place. He was relying on the fact that Dr Blessamy had promised free time for students to visit the tombs of their forefathers. If he could slip away then, if he could find Door 17, if he could retrace his steps to the food chute on Bottom Deck…

  Gillabeth continued to batter the piano into submission. Several ladies began to whisper among themselves, their voices covered by the crashing chords.

  Yes, a present from him to Riff…Of course, she could hardly learn how to read by herself. Although he no longer thought of her as dumb, nobody could be that smart. But she could look at the pictures and see the words. She would recognise the book and know who had dropped it down the chute…

  A thunderous crescendo concluded the recital. Gillabeth glared at the piano while the audience clapped. Quinnea Porpentine had to be helped from the room, hair hanging in loose strands, face drained of colour.

  “It’s the emotion of the music,” Orris explained. “Too much feeling.”

  Col took the opportunity to go with her. He supported her on one side, while Orris supported her on the other.

  “It was the high notes,” she breathed faintly. “Too many high notes.”

  Missy Jip was waiting inside the door of Quinnea and Orris’s private reception room. While his mother tottered off for a long lie-down, Col told Missy Jip to find him some scissors, some safety pins, a ball of string and a sheet of brown paper. It was all part of the plan. Orris didn’t think to ask why his son needed such things – and Missy Jip couldn’t.

  Back in his own room, he took the book on mountains and volcanoes from his bookcase. He wrapped it in brown paper and used a pencil to address it. Since the Filthies couldn’t read the name Riff, he drew a picture of her with blonde-and-black hair. He couldn’t help grinning at the likeness.

  Then he tied the package round with string. He loved the idea of her pulling off the wrapping and discovering the book inside…

  Still he hadn’t finished. This was what the safety pins were for. With string and pins, he made a kind of sling inside his school jacket and tucked the book into it. When he studied the effect in his mirror, the bulge was scarcely noticeable.

  All prepared for tomorrow! If he’d been asked why he was doing it, he wouldn’t have been able to answer. But he had to go through with it now.

  ∨ Worldshaker ∧

  Twenty-Five

  The Graveyard Rooms were not as Col remembered them. For one thing, the lights had been turned on, so that students looking in from the corridors could see names and dates engraved on every tomb. For another thing, Dr Blessamy had brought them to a much grander section of the Rooms, where tombs were sculpted with scrolls and angels and the ground was covered with green stone chips. Even the mouldering smell was less noticeable.

  The tomb of the first Dr Blessamy was especially sumptuous: a black
marble monument in the shape of Worldshaker itself, with a line of funnels along the top. The students took turns looking in through the window-like openings, while the present Dr Blessamy delivered a rambling fifteen-minute talk.

  The air grew more and more stifling. Col was the only student who kept his jacket buttoned. He was sweating with the heat, but he had to keep the package out of view.

  He had come down with the Squellingham group, marching behind Mr Gibber at the head of 4A. Now, though, he took advantage of the circulating crowd to drift away and lose himself among the younger students of 1A and 1B. He hoped his absence wouldn’t be too obvious.

  At the end of his talk, Dr Blessamy called for a minute’s silence. Then it was time for the students to go and pay their respects before the tombs of their own forefathers.

  “Your teachers have maps,” Dr Blessamy announced. “If you haven’t been to pay your respects before, they can give you directions. Think solemn and serious thoughts, boys and girls. Reassemble here in an hour’s time.”

  There was more milling around in all directions. Col strode off along the corridor as if he already knew exactly where to find the tombs of the Porpentines.

  In fact, he had only a rough idea of where he was in relation to where he needed to arrive. He suspected that the route he’d followed with Drummel and then Riff had been further back in the juggernaut.

  He walked on and on without finding anywhere familiar. When he came to empty rooms where the earth was unturned, without tombs or headstones, he realised he had come too far. He gritted his teeth and retraced his steps. This was going to be harder than he’d thought.

  Now he encountered gaggles of wandering, chattering students. They seemed to be making a social occasion of it, visiting one another’s family tombs. Col still strode along as if he knew exactly where he was going – until he ran into the Squellingham group.

  “We lost you,” said Fefferley.

  “Where have you been?” asked Flarrow.

  Col avoided a straight answer. “I’m heading for the Porpentine rooms.”

  “Oh?” Hythe seemed to be studying him. “Where are they?”

  Col waved an arm in a vague gesture. “That way.”

  “Not back there?” Pugh pointed in the direction from which Col had just come.

  “No, that way.”

  “Well, okay. So…”

  Col guessed what was coming next. They expected him to rejoin the group and visit one another’s family tombs together.

  “Bye, then,” he said, and walked on, leaving them standing.

  He felt their eyes burning into the back of his neck, but he didn’t look round. Had Hythe been studying the faint bulge of the package under his jacket?

  He turned off into the next corridor to the side. Ahead was a flight of stairs going down to the level below. Yes, safer to try and pick up his old route on Fifth Deck, where there were no students to run into.

  On Fifth Deck, his luck changed. He walked through racks of plaster statuettes and came out into a corridor he recognised. At last!

  He went on at a fast jog. Dr Blessamy had allowed an hour of free time, but Col had already wasted fifteen or twenty minutes.

  His heart was pounding, yet he felt reckless and lightheaded. He remembered Riffs words: I like taking risks. Now he understood what she meant!

  Down he went through Fourth Deck, with its piles of timber, wire and rope.

  Down through Third Deck, with its penned animals.

  Down through the two food storage decks…on to the steps that descended to Door 17.

  For the first time in a fortnight, he seemed to have come fully alive. After all the mind-numbing hours in Mr Gibber’s classroom, he felt the same thrill of adrenaline he’d experienced with Riff. This was what he’d been missing!

  The numbers for the lock flashed up before his mind. 4-9-2. He spun the wheels and slipped inside.

  He slowed down then, moving almost as soundlessly as Riff. He took the same way as before, flitting behind iron piers and mounds of coal, hiding in the exact same shadows. It was as though some fate had hold of him.

  In the last shadow of the last black mound, he stopped to unbutton his jacket. He unpinned the sling and brought out the brown-paper package.

  All going to plan…except one thing. Suddenly he remembered the wheels on the inside of Door 17. Had he locked them?

  He considered going back to check. But no, it would take only a minute to open the manhole and deliver his package. Then he’d be back at the door anyway.

  Again he looked round at the nearest pools of light and made sure no officer could see him. He was alert to every tiny sound. A creak of coal settling in the bunkers over there…and that must be a faint hiss of escaping steam…

  He darted out to the food chute. Putting his package down beside the manhole, he began working the bolts free. One…two…three…four…He swung the cover up and over, and lowered it to the floor.

  A thunder of deep-down hammering rose from Below, a red glow reflected on the chute’s shiny surfaces.

  He tried not to think about the last time he had stood here, when Riff had reached up with her arms and… “You’re okay, Col-bert Porping-tine.”

  It was an unconscious reflex to wipe the back of his hand across his mouth. Then he picked up the package and dropped it down the chute.

  “From me to you,” he said.

  There was another hiss, sharper and louder. Was that really the sound of escaping steam? He stared into the shadows all around.

  The next sound wasn’t a hiss but an unmistakable whisper.

  He was frozen with indecision. Someone had seen him, someone hiding behind the sacks and bags of food for the Filthies. Should he close the manhole, or leave it open and run?

  “We’re on to you, Porpentine.”

  “You’ve been found out.”

  He recognised the second voice. “Lumbridge? Is that you?”

  Lumbridge stepped out, followed by Flarrow, Fefferley, Haugh and the Squellingham twins. Their faces were ugly, threatening, triumphant.

  “You followed me?” Col couldn’t believe it.

  “Got it in one,” said Pugh. “We guessed you were up to no good.”

  Col tried to go on the attack. “You’re not authorised personnel. You’re not allowed down here.”

  Hythe sneered. “And you are?”

  “Yes.” Even as he said it, Col knew it sounded unconvincing. He was too poor a liar to bluff.

  “Tell it to the officers,” said Hythe.

  “We’re going to call them,” said Pugh.

  “And we’ll tell them what we saw,” said Haugh. “You dropping stuff to the Filthies.”

  “What was in that package?” asked Flarrow.

  “You must be some kind of Filthy-lover,” said Lumbridge.

  All at once, they began chanting. “Filthy-lover! Filthy-lover! Filthy-lover! Filthy-lover!”

  From another part of the deck, an adult voice shouted, “Who’s there?”

  “Come and see!” Pugh shouted back.

  The others joined in. “Over here! Over here!”

  Col was desperate. “I’ll get you into more trouble than me. I’ll say you opened the food chute. I followed you down to see what you were doing.”

  “They’ll never believe you,” said Hythe.

  “Six against one,” said Pugh.

  “But I’m a Porpentine,” said Col.

  Hythe and Pugh exchanged glances.

  “You’re the one standing over the food chute,” Hythe pointed out.

  Col went to move away, but Lumbridge moved to block him. “Stay where you are, Filthy-lover.”

  A tramp of many boots approaching! It wasn’t a single officer but a whole group of them!

  Col made a bid to dodge past Lumbridge’s outspread arms. Lumbridge seized hold of his school jacket and swung him back towards the food chute.

  “Don’t let him escape,” urged Pugh.

  Col tried to wriggle out of his ja
cket. Lumbridge switched his grip to Col’s hair. Agony tearing at his scalp, Col drove his fist into the bully’s face.

  Blood spurted from Lumbridge’s nose. His smirk vanished, replaced by an expression of sheer disbelief. His eyes crossed as he tried to look at his nose.

  The leading officer strode into view around the sacks and bags.

  “Stop that!” He clapped his hands.

  But Lumbridge lunged for Col again. Taken by surprise, Col took a backwards step. His foot hung over empty space – the open manhole!

  He tried to grip onto Lumbridge, who staggered. For one second, he stared into Lumbridge’s small, piggy eyes and nostrils trickling blood. He never knew what went on in that second behind those eyes. Was it deliberate or accidental?

  Both of Col’s feet now hung over empty space. Lumbridge raised his arms, broke Col’s grip and dropped him down into the hole.

  ∨ Worldshaker ∧

  Twenty-Six

  Down, down, down. His very worst childhood nightmare had come true. Utter helplessness, nothing to clutch onto. Scrabbling at the smooth metal of the chute, he only added a corkscrew twist to his fall.

  By the time he hit bottom, he was travelling at tremendous speed. All he knew was that something caught him under the feet and bounced him back up. For a moment he was spinning, over and over. Then he landed once more, this time on his back.

  He lay winded. There was a rotten-egg smell and a dull pounding of machinery. He tried to open his eyes, then discovered they were already open. The world was a blur of hellish red and black.

  “Somethin’ else come down!” roared a voice nearby.

  “Food!” cried another.

  The red and black separated out into a band of red sky between towering cliffs. The cliffs were actually walls of iron; the red sky was a glow reflected on smoke.

  Then faces appeared, hideous faces with glinting eyes. One was disfigured by crinkled scar tissue, another lacked teeth, a third was clotted with yellow grease. As they loomed over him, Col had an impression of bare, sweating shoulders and chests. Surely they were hairy and dark as beasts!