The Black Room

by Gillian Cross

  Then he said, “Good girl,” and went through the automated door, feeling in his pocket for coins. He was expecting to be in and out in a couple of minutes. All he wanted was a Coke, and there was a cooler full of cold cans right by the checkout counters.

  But it didn’t work out like that, because as he walked in, he saw Robert up at the far end of the produce section. Looking weird. He was peering down at the brussels sprouts, sorting carefully through them. On both sides of him, other people were shoveling handfuls of sprouts into plastic bags, but Robert was choosing each one separately, as if it mattered which he picked.

  Tom could hardly bear to watch. It was creepy, like seeing a tramp rummage through garbage. For heaven’s sake, Robbo! What’s the big deal? They’re only sprouts!

  At last, Robert dropped a few sprouts into a bag and turned around to hand them to someone else. And that was when Tom saw Emma. He hadn’t noticed her before because she’d been over by the fruit, but as soon as Robert turned, she was there, holding out a basket. Waiting for Robert to put in the sprouts.

  Her long red hair gleamed as she tossed it back over her shoulders, and her finger stabbed the air. Without hesitating, Robert went where she pointed, crossing from the vegetables to the fruit and bending over the bunches of grapes.

  What order was Emma giving him now? Tom wanted to yell down the length of the shop. She’s only your sister, not your boss! Why did he always obey her? He didn’t even try to argue. He just picked something out of the display of grapes and put it into a bag to drop in Emma’s basket.

  And she smiled that smug, superior smile of hers and turned to point at something else.

  Tom couldn’t just stand and watch. Robbo was his best friend—and he needed rescuing. Emma ran her fingers through her hair, and Tom glared as it fell back onto her shoulders in a great cascade of orange-gold.

  Robert handed over the grapes, and the two of them walked past the rest of the fruit and around into the next aisle. Forgetting about his Coke, Tom was drawn after them, hurrying through the produce to put his head around the shelves at the end.

  They were a little way down the next aisle. Emma was still talking, and this time Tom was close enough to catch the words. They took him by surprise. She wasn’t using the chilly, domineering voice he’d expected.

  “What do you want me to do?” she said. “We can’t buy any less than that!” She sounded frazzled and exasperated, as if her patience was running out.

  “OK,” Robert said mildly. “It’s no big deal.”

  Robert turned back, bending down to take something off a low shelf. As he stood up again, Tom waved from the end of the aisle and made the best hag face he could, crossing his eyes and wrenching his bottom jaw sideways.

  It was an old game of theirs. The face meant, Watch out! Watch out! There’s a hag about! And Robert was supposed to answer by blowing out his cheeks and pulling down the corners of his eyes.

  But he didn’t make the face.

  “Hi, Tosher,” he said loudly.

  Emma jumped and whipped around, as if she’d been caught shoplifting. Then she tried to look casual. “Oh,” she said. “It’s you.”

  “Your lucky day.” Tom took a few steps nearer, giving her his most annoying grin.

  Emma looked at him warily, holding her basket behind her back. “What are you doing in here?”

  “They called me in.” Tom smiled again, sarcastically. “To give advice about how to appeal to teenagers.”

  “Very funny.” Emma scowled at him.

  Tom was getting into his stride now. Her scowl inspired him. “I’m getting them to install Game Show Shopping. So everything whizzes past on moving shelves, and you zap what you want with a remote control.” He stepped neatly around Emma and grabbed the edge of the basket. “Just think of it! No more walking up and down. Just—ZAP! And there’s your—”

  He looked into the basket, meaning to reel off a list of her shopping. But the sight of it startled him into silence.

  All she had was a tiny bunch of grapes—four of them—a little packet of mixed nuts, and three brussels sprouts in a plastic bag. There was nothing else, except the bag of colored cotton balls that Robert had just picked off the shelf.

  Tom stopped in mid-sentence, staring.

  “Finished making up stories, then?” Emma twitched the basket away from him and marched off down the aisle, heading for the checkout. “Come on, Rob,” she said over her shoulder.

  “Come on, Rob!” Tom made a face and tossed his head affectedly, running his fingers through a mane of imaginary hair. He’d always been able to imitate her voice perfectly. It was the one thing that was guaranteed to make Robert laugh.

  Not this time, though. It didn’t even raise a smile. Robert frowned and shook his head impatiently. “I’m sick of all that stuff, Tosh. She’s all right really, you know.”

  “All right?” Tom stared. “The Hag?”

  “Don’t call her that!” Robert said sharply. “She’s OK.”

  “You are joking,” Tom said. “Aren’t you?”

  “No. I’m not.” Robert’s eyes were steady. He turned away and went after Emma, leaving Tom speechless.

  That was the last thing he’d expected. He’d never seen Robert like that before. It was like hearing one of the Three Little Pigs defending the Big Bad Wolf. He’s all right when you get to know him. He’s even invited us over to dinner next week.

  His brain was working overtime as he went back to grab his Coke. What was going on? He’d gone blundering in to cheer Robert up, to try to jolly him out of depression—and he’d found himself facing a new, determined Robert who argued with everything and thought Emma was “OK.”

  What did it mean?

  He went to the nearest register and lined up to pay for his Coke. By the time he left the store, Robert and Emma were already walking out of the parking lot. He untied Helga and set off slowly, being careful not to catch up with them. He assumed they were going to turn right and take the direct route back to their house.

  But they didn’t. They kept straight on down the road. Which meant they were going the long way around.

  Through the park.

  Even then, Tom didn’t really plan to follow them. But his feet seemed to make the decision on their own. He dawdled along behind them, keeping Helga on a short leash and staying out of sight.

  They were a couple of minutes ahead by the time he turned off the road, into the little woods at the end of the park. He could hear them around the next turn in the path, talking in whispers as they walked toward the hedge. When they reached it, they stopped and turned off the path. Tom pulled Helga to a standstill and crouched down with his hand on her muzzle, peering through the bushes.

  He caught a glimpse of the orange supermarket bag that Robert was carrying, and for a second, he saw Emma, picking her way through the undergrowth. She and Robert seemed to be following the ditch along the back of the hedge.

  Helga butted at Tom’s leg, complaining about being held still. He felt around in his pocket for a biscuit and broke it into little pieces, feeding it to her, bit by bit, to keep her quiet. He could hear Robert and Emma muttering softly to each other, but he couldn’t see them anymore. They seemed to have stopped, somewhere along the ditch.

  Helga was getting more and more restless. But just when he thought he would have to let her go, there was a rustle from the hedge and he heard Emma’s voice. The next moment, he saw them both, heading back along the ditch. Robert was screwing up the orange bag and pushing it into his pocket. It looked empty.

  So what had happened to the grapes? And to those three precious sprouts that he’d chosen so carefully?

  Tom tickled Helga’s ears to distract her for a few seconds, while Robert and Emma went out through the hedge and into the park. Then he stood up.

  “Come on,” he whispered. “Let’s see if we can find out what they were doing.”

  Helga swallowed the last of the biscuit and barked twice, excitedly.

  “Shh
h!” Tom tapped her nose to tell her to be quiet. He stepped off the path and turned left along the ditch, looking for something out of place. He didn’t find anything startling, but he did find a place where the plants between the ditch and the hedge were flattened, as though someone had waited there for a while. Had they dumped the groceries into the ditch? He crouched on the edge and squinted down into its muddy, overgrown depths, holding Helga’s collar tightly. But there was nothing except water and mud. Not even a piece of trash.

  OK. So there must be something on the other side of the ditch. He stepped over it and knelt by the hedge bank, keeping Helga next to him. She struggled and whined, trying to get free.

  “Quiet,” Tom said. “Good girl. I’ll let you run in a minute.”

  He bent down to peer under the hedge, but there was nothing there, either, only a thick brown litter of fallen leaves over the cold earth. If this was the place where Robert and Emma had stopped, whatever they’d brought in the shopping bag seemed to have vanished completely.

  What had they done with it?

  It was Helga who found the hole.

  It was no bigger than Tom’s thumbnail—the kind of hole that a shrew might make. There were dozens of others like it, all along the bank, but this hole was right in front of the place where the plants were flattened. When Helga leaned forward to sniff it, she dislodged some of the leaves that shielded the entrance.

  And there was something underneath one of the leaves.

  “Who-oa!” Tom hauled her back, wrapping an arm around her wriggling body to keep her still. “Hang on there. Let me see.” With his free hand, very gently, he lifted the other leaves away.

  Underneath them was a miniature wood stack. There were dozens and dozens of pieces of broken twig—maybe a hundred—piled neatly one on top of the other, in rows.

  Tom stared. He hadn’t been looking for anything like that, but it was too odd to be a coincidence. He inspected the hole next to the stack.

  It was much the same as all the other holes. But when he looked closer, he could see that the earth around it was smoother than the rest of the bank. It was only a tiny patch, but when he touched it with one finger, he could feel the difference. The little clods of earth had been broken down into a fine, soft dust.

  Helga began to whine, pushing at his hand so that it knocked against the little stack of twigs, dislodging two of them. Tom knew he ought to take her home and come back later on his own. But he couldn’t wait. That little hole in the hedge bank was the key to all Robert’s weird behavior. Helga would have to put up with being tied to a bush.

  She didn’t like it. As soon as she realized what he was going to do, she started to whine and complain. But Tom hardened his heart and tied the leash to a strong bush a safe distance away. Then he went back to the hedge bank.

  The light was just starting to fail, and the woods had an edgy, dangerous feel. He crouched down and peered at the bank, running his fingers very lightly over the cold, damp earth. It took him a few moments to find the telltale patch of smooth earth around the hole, but once his fingers had recognized it, his eyes found it, too. He bent over and ran his forefinger around it again. Then he slid the finger in as far as it would go.

  He couldn’t feel anything except the sides of a narrow tunnel, worn smooth like the earth around its entrance. Standing up, he hunted along the hedge for a strong, straight twig. The one he found was twice as long as his finger, with a little jagged stump near its base, like a rough hook. He snapped it off the hedge and sank back onto his heels, pushing the twig into the hole, hooked end first.

  Three quarters of it went in easily. Then it hit some kind of obstacle. He moved it around, probing gently at whatever was in the way. When he pressed, it gave way slightly, with an unexpected springiness. When he pushed harder, the hooked end snagged suddenly, catching in something. Tom began to pull, steadily and very, very gently, and the obstacle moved toward him, dragging at the sides of the tunnel. He bent down, with his nose close to the earth, to see what he had discovered.

  It was a bit of dead plant. A little clump of dry, scratchy shoots twisted together into a dense knot. Peering closely, Tom could see that the ends of the shoots had been threaded back into the knot, very cleverly, to hold it together in a ball. He couldn’t imagine how anyone had made something so small and intricate. His own fingers were much too thick and clumsy.

  And anyway—why bother? Unless ...

  Unless the knotted stalks were just a stopper. Something to block up the hole and hide the real secret inside. If they’d really put anything precious in the tunnel, it would be a good idea to plug it. And it made sense to use something that looked like rubbish.

  Putting the woven ball carefully on one side, Tom felt around in the shadows for the twig he’d been using. He slid it back into the hole, running the hook down one side of the tunnel and closing his eyes so that he could concentrate on feeling the shape of it.

  The tunnel was smooth and regular, with a flat surface at the bottom and an even, arching roof. The stick went straight in, almost to its full length, and Tom was expecting it to hit another obstruction—whatever Robert and Emma were keeping down there. But that didn’t happen. Instead, he felt the tunnel open out. The floor stayed solid, but when he wiggled the twig around, its tip moved through empty air.

  He closed his eyes, struggling to imagine what the space looked like. He hardly noticed Helga’s sudden, friendly yap because his mind was completely focused on the tunnel and the messages coming through his fingers. He was deaf to everything else until, suddenly—

  WHAM!

  Something thudded into him, fast and fierce, without any warning. It knocked the breath out of him, and he sprawled over, falling sideways and backward, into the ditch.

  4

  WHEN THE ATTACK CAME, EVERYONE WAS WORKING HARD. The whole cavern was full of food—nuts and grains, seeds and dried fruits, fresh green leaves and wedges of orange—all heaped together on the floor. They still didn’t know where it came from, but if they didn’t organize it, it would spoil. Some things had to be eaten quickly, but others could be stored and kept for later, when it was too cold to go out hunting.

  Lorn stood in the middle of the chaos, trying to sort and separate. Figuring out how to make sure that nothing was wasted. And all the time people kept asking her questions.

  “How can we keep these off the floor?”

  “Are there any more hanging nets?”

  “Where shall we put these grains?”

  Why me? she kept thinking. Why does it have to be me? Couldn’t they puzzle it out for themselves? All they had to do was see the pattern—and that was simple. First you looked at the food and sorted it in your mind. Then you thought about the space, and how things could move and fit together. It was easy.

  But somehow the others couldn’t do it. So she was standing in the center, telling them what to do, and they were going back and forth with armfuls of food, heaping it in the corners or hanging it from the roof in nets. Gradually, bit by bit, the orderly pattern in Lorn’s head was becoming real.

  And then the scratching started again. Scratch. Scra-a-a-atch. Scratch.

  “Not more!” Perdew said desperately. “Isn’t this enough for one day?”

  There was a noisy groan from Dess, and Annet wiped a tired hand across her face.

  “We’ll never manage,” Annet said.

  Scratch. Scra-a-a-atch.

  “Shhh!” Lorn said sharply. “Listen!”

  There was something different about the scratching this time. It was hesitant and erratic, coming toward them very slowly. There was no sign of the knot of branches coming into the cavern. Just the scratching, going on and on and on.

  “What’s the problem?” Perdew muttered. “Shall I go and pull the branches out myself?”

  No! Lorn shook her head fiercely, flapping her hand to keep him quiet. Couldn’t he hear that this noise was different?

  Scra-a-a-atch. Scra-a-a-atch. Scratch.

  She wa
sn’t sure what was wrong, but her skin prickled and the hairs stood up on her arms as a wave of cold air flooded into the cavern. The knot of branches had been taken away, and the entrance tunnel was wide open. She felt the temperature drop and saw long shadows leap against the walls as the flames in the brazier bobbed and flickered.

  “Something’s coming!” Bando whispered fearfully. “A monster!” He stepped sideways, moving closer to Lorn.

  “Shhh!” hissed Perdew. “Keep your mouth shut!”

  Scratch. Scratch. Scra-atch.

  The noise was still jerky, but it was faster this time, working its way steadily toward them. Perdew slid out of the circle and fetched the blades, but before he could hand them around, Annet gave a muffled shriek. She pointed at the entrance.

  “Look!”

  A huge, jagged beam of wood came thrusting out of the tunnel, thick as a tree, heavy enough to knock them all off their feet. It swung left and right, almost catching Lorn’s shoulder. Bando grabbed her arm, pulling her out of the way just in time, and the beam scraped past them, gouging a groove in the floor.

  Everyone ran.

  There was no time to think, no time to speak. They had to get out of range as fast as they could. Frantically they crowded toward the brazier at the back of the cavern. And as the great beam swept closer, they squeezed past the brazier, into the dark space behind it. On that side, there were no holes in the metal to let out the light of the fire. But the scorching heat was almost unbearable.

  They huddled together, flattened against the back wall, peering out at the cruel wood. It moved nearer, sweeping left and right and left and right and left—

  Not the brazier! Lorn was screaming silently, inside her head. Not the brazier! Don’t let it hit the brazier! If that went over, there was no hope for any of them. The burning logs would fall straight into the blankets and the new white floss. Don’t let it hit the brazier—

  It didn’t. It swept across once more, only a hand’s breadth away from the brazier’s metal side—and then it stopped. All of a sudden, the force went out of it, and it fell to the ground, rolling sideways and coming to rest against the wall of the cavern.