Worldshaker 01; Worldshaker

by Richard Harland

  “Go on, Sephaltina,” the others prompted.

  “Tell him.”

  “You’re a Turbot. A Turbot can talk with a Porpentine.”

  Sephaltina was half-reluctant and half-willing as they pushed her forward. She looked at Col, dropped her eyes and blushed furiously.

  The others spoke up for her.

  “Do you know who ST is?”

  “Did you like the chocs and sweets?”

  “She thinks you’re – ”

  “Back off!” roared an ugly, threatening voice.

  It was Lumbridge striding across from the Squellingham group. He shook his fist at the girls, who quailed but stood their ground.

  “You don’t talk to him, understand?” Lumbridge towered over them. “Move away. Or else.”

  “Hey, pick on someone your own size,” said Col.

  Lumbridge whirled to face him, rage burning in his small, piggy eyes. He was obviously itching for revenge over the bloody nose that Col had given him. He barged the girls aside and raised both fists.

  “Wait,” said another voice. “Not on your own. Not now.”

  The Squellingham twins had followed Lumbridge across the yard. Pugh laid a restraining hand on the bully’s shoulder.

  “When the time’s right,” said Hythe. “He knows what’s coming to him.”

  It was all over as quickly as it had started. The girls dispersed, the twins escorted Lumbridge back to the lunch hamper.

  But Lumbridge hadn’t forgotten. Back in the classroom after lunch, he glowered at Col and clenched his fist under his desk. Col shrugged and looked away.

  How long before the twins decided that the time was right? Col could put up a fight against Lumbridge alone, but not against the whole Squellingham group.

  He let the mental pane of glass rise up around him and drifted off into thoughts of Riff again. This time, though, it was her fighting skills he remembered. The way she’d beaten Scarface…how easily she could beat Lumbridge and the rest!

  He imagined Lumbridge taking a swing at her as Scarface had done…and she’d wait until the last second, then deflect the blow and trip him up. Using his own size and weight to send him sprawling on the ground. No problem!

  And when the rest of the group came against her, she’d pick them off one by one. Somersaulting away from Haugh…chopping Fefferley down from behind…kicking Hythe where it hurt…punching Pugh in the throat and Flarrow in the stomach…

  The daydream expanded to include a role for himself as well. Perhaps Lumbridge would attack him first, and he and Riff would work as a team to bring the bully down. Or he could drop back and stop the others from interfering…tackling Haugh to the ground…spinning Hythe around…twisting Pugh’s arm up behind his back-In the end, his daydream included Mr Gibber and half the class. He and Riff could outfight them all. “Watch my back!’ ‘I’ll deal with this one!” Of course, it was impossible; if he ever had a Filthy fighting alongside him, everyone on the Upper Decks would be his enemy. Yet it was so enjoyable, he couldn’t stop fantasising.

  Then a thought came to him that wasn’t fantasy. Riff couldn’t fight alongside him, but she might help in another way. She could teach him her fighting skills. If he could learn how she did it…

  The idea took his breath away. Of course, he would need to bring her up from Below, as he had promised to do four days ago. Suddenly it didn’t seem so difficult to keep his promise.

  He began to calculate. Where could he get a rope to lower down through the food chute? He remembered seeing coils of rope among the repair stores on Fourth Deck. If need be, he could knot several ropes together. Then creep on down to Bottom Deck…

  By the end of the school day, he was ready to put his plan into action. Professor Twillip had once called him a doer not a thinker – well, he was ready to do something now. No more excuses. He would do it tonight.

  ∨ Worldshaker ∧

  Thirty-Seven

  It was well after midnight when he made his way down to Door 17. His main worry was whether he would be able to open the lock. Could they change the combination numbers for the wheels? Would they have changed them?

  His worry proved needless. When he spun the wheels to 4 and 9 and 2, the lock sprang open with the familiar clack. He slipped through and this time remembered to re-lock the door on the inside.

  He moved silently and secretly through Bottom Deck, dressed in a black jumper and dark breeches. Over his shoulder, he carried a rope made up of three ropes knotted together – surely long enough to reach all the way to the bottom of the food chute.

  He got a shock when he neared the chute. Voices and flashlights! He ducked low and slunk forward in the shadows.

  Half a dozen officers were busy around the open manhole cover. In orderly procession, they lugged sacks of food across and dropped them down the chute. Feeding time in the middle of the night? But all hours of day or night were probably the same Below.

  “Here it comes!” one officer called down the hole. “Garbage for the pigs!”

  “Enjoy your nice muck!”

  “Dirty animals!”

  “Don’t eat it all at once!”

  The last witticism brought on guffaws of laughter. The Filthies were too far below to hear, but the abuse made Col’s blood boil. You make them live like animals, then blame them for it, he thought.

  “Okay, lock it down,” said the officer in charge.

  They slammed down the manhole cover and slid home the bolts. Then they dusted their hands and moved off at a smart marching pace.

  Col guessed they were moving on to repeat the operation at the next chute. He waited until the sound of their footsteps faded and all was quiet. Then he crept out, pulled back the bolts and heaved up the cover. Unslinging his rope, he started paying it out down the hole.

  There would certainly be Filthies underneath the chute, so soon after a delivery of food. He pictured Scarface, Greasy and Toothless standing around the net, lifting the sacks off one by one. He could only hope they’d been told of his deal with the Revolutionary Council and wouldn’t try to climb up themselves.

  The rope flew through his fingers. First length…first knot…second length…second knot…At last he felt a slight lessening of weight, as though the lower end had touched down. Confirmation came a moment later with a sudden sharp tug. Someone was testing the rope. Once. Twice. Three times.

  He signalled back with three tugs of his own. He anchored the rope by looping it round and round the hinges of the manhole cover, then tied it fast.

  The rope remained slack, so nobody was climbing up yet. Good! They must have gone to summon Riff.

  He moved back into the shadows to wait. He kept his eye on the rope and his ears open for any sounds of approaching officers. After a while, his thoughts started to wander.

  They wandered back to his very first memory of Riff…two huge eyes staring out from under his bed. At that time, he hadn’t even known Filthies could speak. And when she’d emerged, he’d been amazed at how quick and agile she was. Only a few weeks ago, yet now it seemed so obvious and natural.

  Then there was their second meeting, when she’d hidden under the very bed on which Quinnea was sitting. He grinned to remember the faces she’d pulled, peering out around his mother’s legs. Afterwards he’d wrestled her for his book…lucky for him she hadn’t used her fighting skills then!

  Lost in such thoughts, he was hardly aware of the minutes passing by, until he noticed a vibration of the rope. He hurried forward to take a look.

  Yes, the rope was taut and thrumming with the weight of a climber. She was on her way up! He stood by the manhole, waiting for the top of her head to appear round the curve in the pipe.

  That was when another memory came back to him. The one memory he’d instinctively steered clear of, even in daydreams…of standing on this very spot, beside the open manhole, when she’d put her arms around his neck and kissed him.

  So strange, so intimate…the sensation of her lips pressing and opening, meltin
g against his. Mingling breath to breath. The memory flooded through him in overpowering flashback.

  And what if he’d given a tiny pressure back? How far could the melting go? His insides churned with nervous excitement at the thought.

  The rope was thrumming more than ever. She must be coming up close already. What a climber! Was there anything she wasn’t good at?

  He bent forward and prepared to reach down an arm to help her out…both arms. And he’d say…

  But she was too quick for him. In one moment, he saw her appear round the curve in the pipe, a vision of blonde-and-black hair, bare shoulders, thin muscular arms moving like pistons. In the next moment, she had planted her hands on the rim of the manhole and was springing up and out. She landed lightly on the other side of the chute.

  He blinked. Her cheeks were streaked with grime and there were sooty smuts on her nose and chin. Yet her teeth gleamed all the whiter, her eyes were all the more brilliant.

  “You’re…” He had been holding his breath so long that his words disappeared in a gasp.

  “What?”

  He could only stand there stupidly grinning at her. The real Riff was better than any daydream.

  “Let’s get out of here,” she said, and swung away.

  He started to follow, then remembered the rope. “Wait.”

  Instead of waiting, she vanished into the shadows. Still in a state of euphoria, Col untied the rope. He didn’t want to spend time re-coiling it, so he threw it into the chute and let it drop. Then he closed the cover and slid home the bolts.

  By the time he caught up with Riff, she had advanced to within sight of Door 17. Obviously she remembered the way.

  “I did it,” he said. “I kept my promise.”

  “Yeah. Took yer time about it too.”

  He blinked. Why was her tone so cold and unfriendly?

  “I couldn’t do it before,” he said. “My family – ”

  “Just open the door.”

  He’d expected gratitude, he’d expected her to be as glad to see him as he was to see her. This wasn’t working out right at all. He felt clumsy and confused.

  Hardly bothering to check that the coast was clear, he went up to the door and spun the wheels to 4, 9 and 2. He shielded the numbers with his body as Riff darted through.

  On the other side, she went on ahead once more. When Col came up, she was at the top of the steps peering out at the piled stores and dimly lit aisles of First Deck.

  “Here’s where I say goodbye,” she said.

  “What? No. Aren’t you coming with me?”

  She shook her head. “I got more important things to do.”

  Col couldn’t believe it. She was no sooner back in his life than she was leaving again. Suddenly he remembered his original reason for bringing her up from Below.

  “I want you to help me.”

  “Oh?”

  “I want you to train me to fight like you.”

  “Impossible.”

  “Why?”

  “You’re Upper Decks. Too stiff and slow.”

  “I can learn. I can get better.”

  “I don’t have time.”

  “You owe me.”

  “How do you work that out?”

  “I just brought you up from Below.”

  “Huh. That was because you owed me.” She scowled. “Or was it so’s you could ask me a favour?”

  Col could only scowl back at her. Why was she being so unfair? Why couldn’t she understand?

  “Bye,” she said.

  “But…”

  She sprang up the last two steps and flitted away across First Deck. Col stared helplessly after her. He wanted to run and grab her, stop her, hold her, something, anything…

  He still hadn’t moved by the time she swung down an aisle and disappeared from view.

  ∨ Worldshaker ∧

  Thirty-Eight

  Back in his room, he paced the floor for hours. What a fool he’d been! She wasn’t interested in him, she only considered her fellow Filthies. She was on her own spying mission and he had no part in it.

  When he climbed into bed, he still couldn’t sleep. I got more important things to do. He pictured her scouting around the juggernaut, making mental maps of every deck, planning for the Filthies’ revolution. He felt used and betrayed.

  Finally he dropped off…only to wake up next morning with the same thoughts rushing instantly into his head. I got more important things to do. How could he have been so stupid? It was like his first mad act of letting her hide in his cupboard – and now he’d done it again!

  Even at breakfast, he seemed cut off from the world by a pane of glass. He hardly cared what happened to him at school. The Squellingham group would beat him up, if not today then tomorrow, if not tomorrow then in a week’s time. He couldn’t avoid it now.

  In fact, nothing happened all day. He sat in class or stood in the yard wrapped up in his own painful thoughts. The worst thought of all was the thought of Padder with the stubbled chin, the member of the Revolutionary Council who’d exchanged looks with Riff. There was some close connection between them, no doubt of it. The more Col thought back over the scene, the more he felt sure they were partnered. Padder was the one she really kissed.

  Col flushed to remember his feelings from last night. The nervous excitement as he’d waited for her by the food chute, the warm tingle as he’d pictured the kiss she’d given him once before. It was almost as though he’d wanted it to happen again. He had wanted it to happen again.

  Mad! Warped! Monstrous! He hated himself but he couldn’t deny it. He’d wanted Riff to train him, but that wasn’t why his heart had leaped at the prospect of seeing her once more. He’d had another motive all along…

  He stabbed the back of his hand with the nib of his pen. Shameful! He stabbed harder and brought forth a bead of blood. He was hurting and he deserved to hurt. Shameful, shameful, shameful!

  The rest of the day passed in a dreary blankness. He had no daydreams left to dream. After school, he headed home along Thirty-Seventh Deck, automatically following his usual route.

  Septimus Trant was walking ahead of him, an unmistakable spring in his step. He must be on his way to the Norfolk Library. Was he still researching the history of Filthies and juggernauts with Professor Twillip? Col had no interest in any of that any more.

  He turned and went up towards Forty-Second Deck by way of the Westmoreland Gallery. The Gallery was a long hall lined with oil paintings on one side, potted hydrangea bushes on the other.

  He was halfway along when a female Menial emerged from a side door and shuffled across in front of him. He should have ordered her out of the way, but instead he halted to let her pass. Strangely, she halted too.

  Even more strangely, she turned to face him. This was unheard of!

  “Didn’t recognise me, did yer?” she said, and poked her tongue out at him.

  She stood in the hunched manner of all Menials, wearing the usual sack-like, pyjama-like uniform. Her hair was grey and pulled back in a bun. It was Riff in disguise.

  “Over here,” she said, and stepped in among the hydrangeas.

  Col followed and found himself hidden behind luxuriant foliage. “How do you do that?”

  “Good, ain’t it?”

  She must have bulked out the uniform with padding and put some kind of powder through her hair. She performed a full rotation in front of him, letting her shoulders slump and her face go slack.

  Col shuddered to see her looking so much like a Menial. “Stop it.”

  “Yeah, well.” Her face went back to its normal animation. “I can go all over the Upper Decks like this.”

  “Where did you get the uniform?”

  “Plenty of ‘em hangin’ up in my new dormitory.”

  “Dormitory?”

  “Menials’ dormitory on Twenty-First Deck. That’s my sleepin’ place now.”

  “You’ll never get away with it.”

  “Sure I will. I can act anyone. Doin’ a
Menial’s easy.”

  “What about supervisors?”

  “They never bother to check. There’s always empty beds. And the real Menials…”

  She shrugged and left the rest of the sentence unspoken.

  Col couldn’t think what else to say, his emotions were so jumbled up.

  Riff snapped her fingers. “Anyway, I’ve been thinkin’. You want me to teach you fightin’. I’ll do it if you teach me too.”

  “Teach you what?”

  “Readin’.”

  “Reading books?”

  “Of course books! What else?” Her eyes flashed. “Don’t you think I can do it? I’m a fast learner.”

  “Why do you want to learn reading?”

  “Why do you want to learn fightin’?”

  Col shook his head. He didn’t want to explain that he was in danger of getting beaten up at school. “That’s my business.”

  “So’s mine. Decide.”

  Col hardly needed to think about it. “It’s a deal. When?”

  “Tonight. I’ll come to your room. Right?”

  “Right.”

  Her jaw sagged, her eyes went blank and mindless. She was putting on her Menial act again. She stepped away and checked the Gallery in both directions. Then, with a rustle of foliage, she was gone.

  Col hung back a minute and waited for his pulse to slow. He could have hugged himself. His world had turned upside-down for the second time.

  ∨ Worldshaker ∧

  Thirty-Nine

  Col wasn’t sure what to wear for training, but obviously not his best clothes or his nightgown. In the end, he changed into an old pair of knickerbockers and a sleeveless jumper. He lay down on top of his bedspread, planning to stay awake until Riff appeared.

  Instead, he drifted off into a pleasant drowse. The next thing he knew was that someone was shaking him by the arm.

  “Wakey-wakey!”

  A Menial bent over his bed, looking down at him. No – Riff in her disguise as a Menial.