The Plug at the Bottom of the Sea

by Robert Lamb

  They stuck their heads around to look, and there, a few feet away, was a beautiful woman in a pool washing under a fountain of water. She splashed under the shower, which fell over the rocks, and her long hair hung over her shoulders down to the water. ‘Look!’ cried the tiny captain. She turned around, startled, and disappeared beneath the water. Just behind her a green and silver fish’s tail disappeared without a ripple. ‘It’s a mermaid. And she’s shy.’

  ‘They’re all shy,’ added Moses. ‘Sailors sneak up on them and so they learn to disappear. We’d better tell her we’re friends. Oh, Miss Mermaid, we’re friends.’ There was no answer. ‘We’re trying to find the plug.’

  Not a sound. They looked at the pool wondering how she could stay underwater so long. Finally Cindy saw two eyes staring at them from under a seaweed bush like an animal in a cage. Then they watched as the mermaid swam underwater in the clear pool to the edge, her tail splashing slightly, her hair streaming behind. ‘Beautiful,’ muttered the captain. And just as he said this her head appeared above the water. She climbed on a rock and sat up, squeezing her hair.

  ‘We’re friends,’ said Moses for the second time. ‘We’re looking for the plug. Miss Mermaid …’

  ‘Mrs Mermaid,’ she corrected him.

  ‘Mrs?’ repeated Captain Tiny, shocked. ‘You mean you’re married?’

  ‘Yes. But I lost my husband and my ten children in the storm, and when I woke up there was no water. So I crawled to this pool across the mud and rested here all night, till I could go on.’

  ‘You have ten children?’ spluttered the captain, with his mouth open in astonishment. ‘I never heard of a mermaid with children.’

  ‘Ten children,’ whispered Cindy, trying to imagine ten more Craigs and girl mermaids like herself, but she couldn’t. All those tails.

  ‘Well, we’re following this rope over there to the plug and you’re welcome to come along,’ said Moses.

  ‘Yes,’ said the captain, ‘we’d love to have you.’

  The mermaid looked at him but then decided that Moses was good and honest and the children were probably good too and not out to harm her, so she asked, ‘Do you think my husband and children are down in the hole?’

  ‘They may be on the other side of the earth, but we think they went down the hole because we pulled the plug up,’ explained Craig.

  ‘But why would you do a thing like that?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, we didn’t mean to. It was a mistake, really it was.’

  ‘Have you ever heard of this plug before, Mrs Mermaid?’ asked the captain.

  ‘Many times, but I’ve never seen it. It is the famous legend of the King of January, and I was born on the lost islands of January.’

  ‘The lost islands of January?’ cried the captain. ‘I’ve sailed the seven seas for forty years and never heard of the isles of January.’ He saw that everyone was glaring at him, and he added, ‘Well, I didn’t mean any offence, Mrs Mermaid. I just hadn’t heard of the Januarys.’

  ‘Well, then,’ said Moses, ‘we’re all agreed that Mrs Mermaid shall come.’ And everyone nodded their heads. ‘Now since she has no legs and the two sleds are full we will have to carry her.’

  ‘Carry her?’ cried the captain. ‘We’ll I’ll be …’

  ‘You don’t have to come then if it’s too much.’

  ‘I am coming,’ he said. ‘You can’t have all the gold to yourselves and, besides, my ship is down there.’

  ‘Then we can leave your chest full of papers.’ Moses laughed.

  ‘Never,’ the captain shook his head.

  ‘Fine.’ Moses smiled. ‘Then you will help me carry her.’ The captain tried to say something but he only spluttered, and the ends of his moustache dropped after flipping up in the air several times as if on strings.

  So Cindy and Craig pulled the sleds and the two captains carried the beautiful mermaid, picking her up gently by her waist and tail. But as usual, since Moses was very tall and the tiny captain was not, Moses had to do most of the carrying as the others had to do most of everything for the tiny captain.

  But he was happy carrying the tail with her hair falling over his face. The lovely comb in her hair winked in the sun and dazzled the penguin, who waddled along between the two sleds, flipping his flippers at Windmill as he tried to land on his head. But finally Windmill settled and stayed on top.

  Mrs Mermaid found the sea horse whom Cindy called Tex bobbing up and down in the bottle hanging from Moses’ back. ‘His colours are the same as mine, green and silver,’ she said.

  ‘Ah, but you are much more beautiful,’ said Captain Tiny from under her long hair, stumbling on rocks of seaweed underfoot.

  ‘How did you learn to speak?’ Cindy asked, remembering that the sea horse could not speak, and the penguin and Windmill could not speak.

  ‘From sailors when I was young. I speak many languages, for I swim in many seas.’

  ‘Many languages?’ asked Cindy, wishing that she was a mermaid.

  ‘When you are older you will travel and learn many languages.’ The mermaid smiled at Cindy.

  ‘Oh, never as many as you.’

  ‘You will. You need to know them to find out where it is dangerous to swim, or eat, or sleep. We mermaids must be careful, for sailors are always trying to take us home with them. They try to put us to sleep with food or drink or poison.’

  ‘Really?’ asked Cindy, amazed at the life of a mermaid.

  ‘And what happens?’ asked the tiny captain, laughing.

  ‘We’re too clever for them.’

  ‘Nonsense.’

  ‘Have you ever seen a mermaid in your cities?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No, of course not, because we’re not meant to be put in cages or in glass boxes. Would you like to be put in a box, Captain—to swim around all day?’

  ‘This is preposterous. I am a captain.’

  ‘And I am a mermaid and will not let my children or myself be put in a box. They tried to put me in one once, when I was young, but I flipped out before they could put the top on. No, we are too clever for the sailors.’

  ‘Clever. Humph. It would do you good to come up on land to see our cities and farms. By Jove, I’ll bet not one of you has ever seen the Houses of Parliament.’

  ‘Only from a distance.’ The mermaid laughed. ‘My father took me up the Thames once. That’s when they tried to catch us and put us in a box. Since then Father has always said stay away from shores and rivers, except sometimes at night.’

  ‘At night?’

  ‘Yes, that’s when our friends would come down to the docks and shores to see us when we were visiting.’

  ‘You mean you go on visits?’ asked Cindy.

  ‘Why yes, of course. Don’t you?’ asked the mermaid.

  ‘Well yes, but …’

  ‘Yes, I know, you didn’t think mermaids did. Humans always think other animals are so stupid. It makes me mad. Did you ever see a human swim under the ocean? Or fly without an aeroplane through the sky?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Of course not. That’s what I tell my children when they want legs like humans.’

  Cindy was now silent, thinking over the strange life of a mermaid.

  ‘This is the last part of our trip to the plug.’ Moses comforted the captain, who was groaning under the weight of their extra passenger.

  As they climbed down the valley they saw that everything was dying without water. The seaweed stuck to the rocks like fur, not flowing out as when it was wet. The leaves were dry and the stems and stalks were tight knots bunched like fists. Sagging vines were turning white with salt.

  Salt was also on their faces and even the red beard of Moses was now white. He looked something like Father Christmas. They were sitting on jagged cliffs and Craig noticed that they all looked older. Were they growing old faster down here? The penguin looked the oldest of all, since his black markings were all gone.

  They had been going down, down, and further down from one v
alley to another. ‘It’s like being in the mountains with cliffs and valleys,’ said Captain Tiny, who looked tired and could hardly keep himself awake.

  ‘My ears just popped,’ said Moses. ‘Must be the depth, the pressure. Everyone hold your noses and blow, very lightly. We’ll be going even deeper so you’d better do it every so often to adjust.’

  ‘It’s just like the mountains when you go very high,’ said Cindy, stretching her mouth.

  The shadows of great cliffs and mountains were all around and above them, and when Craig called, his voice echoed.

  ‘I still can’t see the plug or the hole,’ complained Captain Tiny very tiredly. He had been complaining for hours.

  ‘No,’ said Moses, ‘but remember the plug is at the bottom of the ocean and that’s a very deep place.’

  There were all kinds of dark places, shadows lower down in the valley which might be the hole, but each one they came to was not it. The great rope zigzagged down the valley.

  Going downhill hurt Cindy’s legs and she kept slipping on the mud. Suddenly she fell and sat down quickly. Her mud feet did not hold and she began to slide as if she were on a sled.

  At first she did not go very fast. She was enjoying the feeling and even pushed herself along. Suddenly the sled she was pulling bumped her from behind and gave her a push. She started to move faster and faster down the valley like a toboggan, bumping over rocks and whipping around corners. Craig, who had been laughing at her and thought of trying to slide himself, now was running after her.

  Cindy tried to steer by leaning to one side or the other as she saw large rocks coming up. Suddenly she saw herself coming towards a great cliff. She could see another valley below that was coming towards her faster and faster. She could see rivers and more hills in the shadows below. The mud splattered to either side. What could she do? She must get off her mud feet, she thought, and with a great leap she threw herself to the side. It did no good. She was still going towards the cliff. Again …she must try again, and, taking care to jump just when she went over a small bump, she felt herself going sideways.

  She closed her eyes. Would she go over the cliff sideways? Was there any way to stop? ‘Craig!’ she called, and she heard screams far behind her from Moses.

  ‘Jump, Cindy, jump!’ Hadn’t she jumped? Was she still going towards the cliff? Should she open her eyes?

  Oh no, she was falling. Down. Down. Suddenly she felt a brush, then a tremendous crash. She wasn’t moving. Around her she heard the swish of dry seaweed. She could not move her arms or legs. Still she did not dare to open her eyes. She poked her fingers underneath her. There was nothing there. She was hanging. She slowly opened her eyes.

  All around her she saw crisscrosses of string and she realized she was in a large fish net.

  There, straight down, was the dark valley. And gleaming in the single ray of sunlight at the bottom, was a giant circle of gold.

  Chapter 8

  Farewell Sun!

  The others saw the plug at the same moment as Cindy. By climbing down the rope along the cliff surface they soon reached Cindy and cut her out of the net. It was not long before they reached the bottom of the cliff without accident. All their energy seemed restored. Their tiredness disappeared with the magnificent sight of the shining metal.

  They saw it standing on its side at an angle, high up in the air, glistening, still bright and gigantic as it must have been thousands of years ago. Some green was in the cracks of the carving across its surface. It was a huge wheel design with a different drawing in each opening between the spokes.

  ‘By jove, it’s real,’ called out the tiny captain, who ran over to it and began scraping the gold. ‘And it’s solid gold. It must be three hundred yards high.’

  ‘Three hundred yards exactly,’ called Moses, putting down Mrs Mermaid on a rock. Craig and Cindy just stood looking at this gigantic plug. But Captain Tiny kept running around in circles, getting things out of his chest on the sled.

  ‘Knife, sack, weight, and balance,’ he said out loud to himself. He took out these things and ran over to the plug with the penguin chasing after him. There he set up his scales and began to scrape furiously at the plug’s surface, digging into the foot of a warrior carved on it. Each little flake he scraped off he put on the scales and measured very carefully. Then he shoved it into the little bag, looked around at the others suspiciously, and began scraping again. He scraped harder and harder, but no more little pieces would come.

  ‘Now see here, Captain Moses, you said it was all gold and gold it had better be.’

  ‘Now you see here, Captain Tiny—’ Moses’ beard was bright red as he became angry and his pipe was pointing straight at Captain Tiny, but they both stopped when Mrs Mermaid called out.

  ‘Look, look,’ she called, ‘the hole!’

  The hole was still further down on the other side of the plug, but all the way back, there was a wall of mud piled up on either side of the rut in the earth where the plug had come out.

  ‘So that’s it,’ said Moses to himself.

  ‘That’s the hole you spoke of and that’s where my husband and children are,’ said Mrs Mermaid.

  ‘Yes, that’s it, the hole to the centre of the earth,’ Moses replied slowly.

  ‘And that’s where the water and the fish and the ships and the fishermen are,’ said Cindy.

  ‘And that’s where we have to go,’ said Craig. Everyone agreed except Captain Tiny, who looked at him and then kept on scraping. He was getting madder and madder because the gold wouldn’t come off.

  ‘Now,’ said Moses, ‘we’ll need rope. Lots of rope.’ From his bag of things under the sail, he pulled out an axe and walked back with it up the hill. ‘Craig! I’m going to cut off pieces of this rope and you and Cindy bring it down to Mrs Mermaid, who can unravel it and tie it together at the ends.’

  ‘O.K.’

  ‘Better bring the two sleds to carry the rope. It’s mighty heavy. Captain Tiny, you clean off the seaweed and the mud and unravel the rope so that Mrs Mermaid can tie it.’

  This proved a very clever move by Moses. Captain Tiny, who wanted to stay and scrape off gold, looked at Mrs Mermaid and thought, if I help them to hurry then there will be more of the gold left for me, so he smiled and said, ‘I would love to help.’

  Everyone had expected him to say, ‘I’ve got what I want right here. I don’t need to go down any hole to look,’ but he had been very polite. Moses understood, stopped, and said. ‘There’s no point in your staying up here to get the gold off the plug. It would take all year.’

  ‘I can wait.’ Captain Tiny smiled.

  ‘But you’re ruining a work of art,’ said Mrs Mermaid. Captain Tiny shook his head.

  ‘Down in the hole there are diamonds by the chestful, rubies by the shipload,’ said Mrs Mermaid.

  ‘Diamonds? Rubies?’ asked Captain Tiny, his eyes blinking, his mouth watering. ‘Well … I see. Well, maybe I’ll come along to help you out.’ And he hurried to put his little bag of gold in his pocket. ‘Many hands make light work,’ he called out. ‘Now what needs doing?’

  ‘Just the same as they’re doing,’ said Moses, lifting the axe up over his head. He brought it down into the large rope. ‘This old rope it wet and rotten, but it should hold.’

  After a few minutes, Captain Tiny was tired of the messy job of cleaning the rope and he asked if he might do the chopping.

  ‘It’s being done,’ said Moses.

  ‘Then why don’t I supervise?’ said Captain Tiny.

  ‘Because you’re always supervising and never doing anything,’ said Cindy. ‘What’s wrong with tying the ends like Mrs Mermaid?’

  ‘It’s just messy, that’s all. Muddy, dirty.’ The penguin waddled over and poked the captain in the stomach. They all laughed for he was all covered with mud from the rope and the cliff.

  ‘Faster!’ Moses called a few minutes later, for he had cut the rope in many places and was hurrying to another spot. He chopped all the way up and ar
ound a small rock so that he did not see something the others saw.

  In a small stream, the long black arms of an octopus were sliding and slithering over the rocks. The stream went over the rocks and then down into the hole.

  ‘Look in that stream,’ pointed Craig. ‘It’s the octopus! He’s going down the stream and into the hole.’

  ‘Yes, but he’s only the baby octopus you climbed over before,’ Cindy said.

  ‘Nonsense. He’s the biggest octopus I’ve ever seen,’ said the captain, shivering. ‘Why, in all my years on the sea …’

  ‘Ever since I climbed over him and he didn’t hurt me, I’ve been sure that he’s a friendly octopus,’ said Cindy.

  ‘Octopuses are never friendly,’ whispered Captain Tiny. ‘Never.’

  They all began to work much faster and dragged the piles of rope, now tied together, over the mud the plug had smoothed. One end of their rope was tied to the plug, but the other end lay in an enormous pile of coils taller even than Moses. ‘Now, all together,’ he grunted, as they put their shoulders to the pile. The coils rolled over themselves down the hill slowly at first, then faster, till they fell into the dark hole.

  The hole was more than three hundred yards across and the mud sloped down gradually until there was a straight drop, like the inside of a funnel. The small stream went down the rocks in a crack and fell into the hole next to the rope.

  ‘Now, come on,’ called Moses as he helped to drag the sleds to the edge of the hole, while carrying Mrs Mermaid. Then he set Mrs Mermaid down and took a large metal pulley out of his pocket. He attached the pulley to the big rope. Then he took a smaller rope from his sack, threaded it through the pulley, and tied each end to a sled.

  ‘What are those for?’ asked Captain Tiny.

  ‘For letting down the sleds and the penguin. But we don’t have enough rope to let them down the whole way so …’

  ‘Do you mean, Captain Moses, we don’t have enough rope to get to the bottom?’

  Moses scratched his beard. ‘Well, the map says a thousand fathoms so we should have enough.’