by David Almond
Yes, it was very dark, but there was a pale light dangling close to her head. It lit steep steps that headed down into the earth. She followed them, twenty crumbling steps or more. Then she was in the tunnel itself, where another bulb dangled, and more bulbs dangled in the distance, showing the tunnel that stretched away to right and left. It was higher than her head. There was rubble on the tunnel floor, and a trickle of water. There was the stench of damp and rot and of what she thought must be death. She thought of the sun shining brightly in the outside world so nearby, and she had to tell herself not to run back up there in fright. She thought of Orpheus and of her father. She thought of the stupid hyena kids. None of them would dare to do something like this! She took a deep breath, and steeled herself, and headed down into the earth. She kept stumbling on the rubble, stretching out to steady herself on the damp walls. She kept expecting her voice to be called but there was nothing.
“My name is Mina,” she kept on whispering, and her words echoed back to her. “My name is Mina. I am very brave.”
There was a dull roaring sound from far away. She stopped and listened. Maybe it was water, or could it be the yelling and groaning of the dead?
“My name is Mina. I am very brave.
My name is …”
Something brushed against her leg. She leapt away and screamed in horror and looked down and it was a black cat, weaving its way around her legs.
“A cat!” she gasped. “A cat!”
She couldn’t stop shuddering as she leaned down to it. She stroked its dense dark fur and felt the heat of its body and she began to be soothed and calmed.
“My name is Mina,” she whispered, and the cat mewed and purred in reply, and Mina knew she’d found a friend down here in the dark.
She moved on with the cat at her side. In places the walls of the tunnel had broken. Stones and bricks lay in untidy heaps. She imagined the world above, and the thickening layer of earth, stones, soil, bones, roots between herself and it. She imagined the whole tunnel collapsing onto her, as the tunnels could collapse onto pitmen long ago.
And then there was a ditch, crossing the route of the tunnels. By the frail light of the dangling bulb, she saw the stream rushing through the ditch. Mina caught her breath. She stroked the cat. This must be the river that Orpheus had to cross, the river between the world of the living and the dead. Suddenly, the cat drew back. There was a growling, and on the other side of the stream two eyes had begun to shine. This, thought Mina, is the monster, the guardian of the Underworld, that Orpheus had to tame. It came closer, and showed itself to be a shaggy, thickset dog that snarled at them across the ditch.
Mina crouched down. She held out a friendly hand towards the dog, and in a trembling voice she started to sing, just like Orpheus did so long ago.
“Lie doon, my dear, and in your ear,
To help you close your eye,
I’ll sing a song, a slumber song,
A miner’s lullaby.
“Coorie doon, Coorie doon, Coorie doon, my darling,
Coorie doon the day.”
The dog growled more softly. The cat came back to Mina’s side. Mina went on singing and the dog lay down, as if it was asleep. Mina looked along the tunnel, which seemed to slope away endlessly. She was about to cross when there came a bellowing.
“Jasper!”
The dog stood up. Its ears twitched. It growled.
“Jasper! Where the hell you got to?”
There was a shadow far down in the tunnel, a deep dark shadow in the shape of a man.
“Jasper!”
The dog turned, and headed down towards the shadow.
“Who’s that?” the shadow called. A deep cruel-sounding voice that boomed and echoed off the tunnel walls. “Is somebody there? Show yourself if you’re there!”
Mina crouched low. She slithered back up the tunnel, keeping low, trying to keep her feet silent. Beyond a pile of fallen stones she stood up and ran.
“Who the hell is it?” yelled the shadow’s voice. “What are you? What do you want down here?”
Mina kept on running, stumbling, reaching out to steady herself on the walls. The dog barked, the shadow called. In Mina’s mind these were the voices of the dead and of a guardian monster. She could hear heavy thudding footsteps coming after her. She came to the foot of the ancient crumbling steps. She climbed them swiftly, slid through the steel gate into the sunlight again. She pushed it shut. The black cat disappeared through the rhododendrons. She went through them herself. The men still lay on the grass verge, still ate sandwiches and read newspapers, as if she’d been gone from the world just a few short moments. Again, they hardly looked at her as she passed close by. Her heart thundered as she tried to stay calm, to stay ordinary, to stop herself from bolting in fright.
And then there came first the screeching voice of Mrs. Malone, followed by Mrs. Malone herself striding through the park gate.
“Mina McKee! Mina McKee! Get yourself here this instant!”
Mr. Henderson was behind her. He was much more calm.
“Come back, Mina,” he said. “Come back and we can all talk about it.”
Mina’s mum was called in, of course. They all stood in Mrs. Malone’s office. It was the kids in the class, said Mina. It was the way they looked at her and the way they spoke to her. What was all the dirt on her? Why were her shoes so scuffed? She didn’t know, she said. She told them that she had just been walking in the park, that she had climbed a tree. How could she tell them that she had gone like Orpheus in search of the Underworld? How could she tell them that she had charmed the guardian of the Underworld with her singing just like he did? How could she tell them that she had failed to bring back her loved one just like he did? How could she tell them that the gates to the Underworld could be found in Heston Park?
In the end she just said,
“All I did was to run away for a few minutes! All I wanted was to be free!”
Her mum took her home that afternoon.
“Maybe there’s another way,” Mum murmured as they sat together on the sofa. Mum stroked her head. They listened to the birds singing outside.
Mina thought of telling her mum exactly what she’d done. She knew her mum would understand, or would be able to imagine. But she knew that what she’d done was very scary. And she didn’t want to frighten her mum, to make her think that Mina would do something so dangerous.
Afterwards, Mina tried to think of ways to tell the tale. Then she thought that maybe it’d be best to write it down, which is what she did.
EXTRAORDINARY ACTIVITY
(THIRD-PERSON VERSION)
Write a story about yourself as if you’re writing about somebody else.
(FIRST-PERSON VERSION)
Write a story about somebody else as if you’re writing about yourself.
Did I really believe that the tunnel would lead to the Underworld? Did I really think that I could bring Dad home again? I’m the one who did it and even I don’t know. I was a little girl. Awful things had happened and I was confused. Sometimes I wish I could go back there as if I was a big sister, and hug myself and say, “Don’t worry, Mina. I promise that things will get better and you will feel stronger.”
The tunnel still hasn’t been opened to the public. Mum said that they discovered it would cost a fortune to make it safe. In places the tunnel had collapsed into unknown caverns. There were side tunnels that ended in rock falls or seemed to go nowhere. I never tried to go back again, of course. I never found out who the shadow in the shape of a man was, or what the dog was. I tried to tell myself that they were just part of the team trying to fix up the tunnel. But why would there be a dog? I tried to think that maybe it was just an ordinary man walking an ordinary dog and they’d gone into the tunnel just to see what it was like. But that seemed pretty unlikely. They haunted my dreams for weeks afterward. I still look out for them whenever we go to the park. Sometimes I think that Heston, the place where we live, is like ancient Greece, and that the Underw
orld is in the earth beneath us. I think of the King of the Underworld, Pluto, sitting on his throne deep down below. I think of his queen, the kind Persephone. Sometimes I think that I really did see something down there, something deep and ancient, and I wonder what would have happened if I’d kept on going, if I’d crossed the stream, if I’d walked toward the shadow in the shape of a man, if I’d said,
“My name is Mina McKee and I’m searching for my dad.”
The best thing to come out of it all is the cat. I see him everywhere. His fur is even blacker than my hair. I call him Whisper. He is lovely. He is Whisper.
* * *
* This makes me think about how some people say that “modern” art can’t be much good because it doesn’t much look like anything in the world. But maybe it’s not trying to look like the world. Maybe it’s trying to be like the world. Or maybe trying to do a kind of impossible thing – to look like something that’s in the world but can’t really be seen at all.
Ever since I made that model of the archaeopteryx, I’ve been holding it and swinging it through the air like it’s flying. And I think about how it was the dinosaur that survived the disaster that wiped out all the other dinosaurs. And it didn’t just survive. It evolved and became more elegant and skillful and powerful. It started the line of evolution that led to birds! And I look how the birds fly and soar over everything. I think of how they manage to inhabit the whole world, from the frozen poles to the steamy equator. And I’ve been thinking: if the human race manages to destroy itself, as it often seems to want to do, or if some great disaster comes, as it did for the dinosaurs, then the birds will still manage to survive. When our gardens and fields and farms and woods have turned wild, when the park at the end of Falconer Road has turned into a wilderness, when our cities are in ruins, the birds will go on flying and singing and making their nests and laying their eggs and raising their young. It could be that the birds will exist forever and forever until the earth itself comes to an end, no matter what might happen to the other creatures. They’ll sing until the end of time. So here’s my thought: If there is a God, could it be that he’s chosen the birds to speak for him? Could it be true?
I’m in the tree again. The buds of the leaves open more each day. The light that falls on me is dappled, and has a greenish tinge to it. The sky beyond is very blue. The blackbirds are very quiet. I wonder if the eggs are laid. I start to climb but the male bird suddenly flaps in the top branches and squawks and squawks.
“OK,” I whisper. “I’ll stay still.”
I used to write on this tree, like it was some kind of secret notebook. I used to carve the letters into the bark with a little penknife and make sure that they couldn’t be seen from below. Then I decided it was wrong to deface a wonderful thing like a tree, so I stopped. But I can still see them and touch them. My name, “Mina” (many times), and “Mum” and “Dad” (many times). “I hate EVERYTHING!” is carved onto one branch. “I LOVE everything!” is on another. “The World Is a Place of Wonder” is in elegant letters high up on the trunk. “Mina is lonely” is on a narrow branch, in very very tiny writing. The words are healing over now as time passes and the spring comes back. In a few years’ time they won’t be able to be seen at all. I used to write on my arms as well, but I stopped that, too, except when I want to make a quick note to myself about something I’ve seen or heard.
Looks like they’ve finished clearing out Mr. Myers’s house. The last of the junk’s been carried out. There’s been rubbish heaped up in the front garden for the last few days – broken furniture, boxes of old clothes, crockery, cutlery, ancient books and magazines. I see people pausing there. A couple of them have sifted through it all to see if there’s anything of value or use. But there seems to be nothing. They throw it all back, take nothing away.
It’s already been put up for sale. There’s already been people eyeing it up. A man stared through the front window. He looked up at the roof. He scribbled notes in a notebook. Then a woman and a man climbed over the junk and stared into the front window. They turned and looked along the street as if they were inspecting it, checking whether it was up to their standard. They didn’t see me. They looked very dull, very boring. “Don’t you buy it!” I said inside myself. They said a few words to each other, then they shook their heads and walked away without a backward look.
“Good riddance!” I said inside myself.
Then a huge refuse wagon drove into the street. It stopped outside Mr. Myers’s house with a great sighing of brakes. A man jumped down from the cab. He was dressed in orange overalls. He pulled on a pair of gloves and put a mask across his mouth, like he was dealing with something lethal. He lifted all the rubbish and threw it into the back of the wagon. He saw me watching. He laughed and waved. As he passed by my tree, he slowed right down and wound his window down.
“Hello, young’n!” he called.
His eyes were merry and bright.
“Hello,” I answered.
“Looks like you’re having a grand time up there in your tree!”
“I am,” I said.
“Good lass!” He grinned, and shrugged, like he wanted to say something but didn’t know what to say. Then he just called out, “Live your life, young’n!”
And he was gone, carrying the remnants of Mr. Myers’s life to the town dump.
What else can I do but live my life? But of course he meant, Live it well. Live it to the full. Which is a very nice thing to say to anybody, and which is exactly what I intend to do!
Suddenly the street was quiet and empty. I jumped down from the tree and went to Mr. Myers’s house. I went to the front window, cupped my hands against the glass and peered inside. There was nothing, just dirty floorboards and lots of dust and beige wallpaper with faded flowers on it peeling from the walls. The ceiling was damp and cracked and a whole section of it had broken away. The door to the room was ajar. I imagined Mr. Myers shuffling through it with his zimmer frame into the corridor beyond. Mum had told me he’d been living downstairs for months. There was a bed and a toilet in what used to be the dining room.
Funny how somebody can just disappear from the world. Mr. Myers used to be a runner and a long jumper. He even had trials for England. He flew fighter planes in World War 2. He was married three times, Mum had told me. And now it was all over. But it wasn’t, really, and he hasn’t completely disappeared. Some of Ernie Myers must remain inside the house – flakes of his skin, for instance.*
And his smell must remain as well. And maybe they were the stains of his pee on the floorboards. Maybe there were molecules of Mr. Myers’s breath still mingling with the air inside the house. Maybe his soul was still inside the house.
In some places, people believe that a person’s soul stays near their home for many days after death before it flies away. In some places people believe that the soul never leaves this world, but takes the form of a bird. Imagine if that were true – that the birds we see around us are people’s souls. I looked up to the roof, where a blackbird was calling. I held my hands against the brightness of the sky. Much higher up, I saw the tiny black dots of distant singing larks.
Then Mum was there, behind me. She put her hand on my shoulder.
“Wish I’d known him when he was young,” I said.
Mum laughed.
“If you had, you’d be well on the way to being an old woman yourself.” I pondered that fact. “He was a nice bloke,” Mum said. “I always remember pushing you along in the buggy and he opened the door and came out. He put a pound coin into your hand. A bit of treasure for the baby, he said.”
“Was Dad there?”
“Yes. Yes, he was.” Then Mum flinched. “What’s that?” she said.
“What’s what?”
“That. Inside the house, Mina.”
We both peered in through our hands, and we saw the black cat slinking out of the room through the open door.
“Oh,” she breathed. “It’s just a cat.”
I smiled at the image of
my little savage friend. I was certain there’d be mice aplenty for him in Mr. Myers’s empty house.
“There’s been people looking at the house already,” I said.
“Good. Be nice to have new neighbors soon.”
“But they might be boring,” I said. “They looked very boring.”
“You know you can’t tell what somebody’s like just by looking at them, Mina.”
“Yes, I know that. But they did look boring, and …”
She laughed.
“Maybe you should put a notice on the door. Only interesting people are allowed to buy this house!”
“Maybe I should.”
“Anyway, buying a house is very complicated, and whoever buys this one will need to do lots of work, and that’ll put people off, so just because somebody’s looking at it doesn’t mean anything.”
“I know.”
A blue car drove slowly past. The man driving it peered out. He stopped the car. The woman beside him leaned right down so she could see it too. She soon sat up again. They said a few words, he drove away.
“Be nice if a family bought it, wouldn’t it?” said Mum.
I shrugged.
“Be nice if they had somebody round about your age, wouldn’t it?”
“Don’t care,” I said.
She smiled gently.