by James Erith
The twins shook their heads.
‘Sorry, Old Man Wood,’ Daisy said sweetly, ‘but it’s up to Isabella. There’s no way you’re going down there.’
And so they waited as a dreadful eerie stillness washed over the twins who sat, heads in hands, alert for any strange noise. But all they could hear was the quiet hush of the cave and the occasional drip-dripping where water had seeped in through the ages, making small pools and streams which disappeared through cracks in the rock.
Shortly, the twins heard a strange noise, a throaty, purring, rhythmic sound that reverberated around the cave.
Archie stood up smartly and swivelled his head, trying to pinpoint where it was coming from, but Daisy pulled at the threads of his loose, tattered shirt and pointed towards the old man who sat sleeping. The twins caught each other’s eye and smiled. Snores. Great big ones like a throbbing motorbike engine.
Archie sat down and closed his eyes.
‘It must be fifteen minutes,’ Daisy said, nudging him. ‘Do you think she’s alright?’
‘Yeah. I’m sure she’s fine,’ he lied.
Daisy stood up and walked over to the stairwell. ‘She’s down there all right – I can hear grunts and scrapes – as if she’s moving a stone or a rock, or something.’
Archie joined her. ‘I can’t hear anything at all,’ he said. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Yep. Quite sure,’ Daisy replied. ‘It’s not right, Archie. Something’s terribly wrong.’
ISABELLA STEPPED BACK into the cavern, took a lungful of air and tried to compose herself.
Why wouldn’t the damn lever move? Perhaps she simply wasn’t strong enough.
She’d spent every last morsel of energy pushing down until her arm and leg muscles cried out, but it hadn’t worked. Why not?
Now she shuffled about, head down. ‘Calm down, Isabella,’ she said out loud, her voice mingling with the soft bubbling tones of the chamber. Isabella’s hands were shaking badly, very badly.
She stretched her arms out, took a couple of long breaths and returned through the hidden door to the step. She stared at the two protruding rocks – the supposed levers.
What if it was stuck? Jammed in some way? She slammed her right foot down on it for the twentieth time, gritted her teeth and pushed as hard as she could. But still it would not yield.
She sat down on the stairs, exhausted. Should she ask the others? Daisy might be able to figure it out with her silly eyes or Archie with his supposed super-strength, but it would make her look such a total failure. She groaned. And then she’d get only endless taunts from the twins about how weedy and hopeless she’d been.
There’s no option, she thought. I’ve got to do it myself, use my brain and work it out logically. She gathered her strength and approached the protruding stone from a fresh angle, positioning herself so that her foot lay directly in line with the angle of the stairs. It didn’t work. In frustration she pulled and pushed and heaved again, each time getting more and more irate until a rage bubbled up inside her.
‘Right, you evil, stubborn, stupid rock,’ she said to the protruding knob. ‘I know what you need: a bloody great whack.’ She marched into the cave and looked around. On the floor lay a variety of good sized stones.
‘If I use a heavy one,’ she said, as she found a nearly square grey lump of rock, ‘and drop it from height, the downward force will be tenfold what I can do with my body mass alone.’ She smiled. Triple that, she thought, as she factored in the speed and mass.
And if that fails, then – and only then – will I let Archie or Daisy have a go.
With considerable effort she rolled the rock across the floor and squeezed it through the narrow entrance. So far, so good. On her knees, she manoeuvred it onto the first step and, wary that it might topple off, quickly heaved it up to the second step, followed by the third. On the fourth it wobbled and she caught it, pushing it back on the ledge. She took a couple of deep breaths.
Four more steps to go and, with the correct aim and allowance for the circular stairs, she’d roll it off and nail the knobby stone.
Her mood lifted.
At the sixth step, she wondered whether it would be enough. Quickly she did another mass and velocity sum in her head and tried to work out if there might be enough momentum and downward force to utterly pulverise it.
Probably not. She cursed.
Up to the seventh step. Now the eighth. She was hot and angry and so utterly fixated on completing her task that she had almost forgotten about her worries. She stretched out her back and flexed her fingers.
‘Right. Here you go – you horrible little, annoying, stubborn, nasty knob of rock.’ Her fingers slid underneath the overhanging stone.
‘You’re going to be smashed into tiny little bits!’
EVER SINCE SHE’D returned to the top, Daisy had been nagged by the thought that she may have misinterpreted the icon – the tiny, delicate picture on the wall. Perhaps the faint round markings above the image represented a touch by something like a pebble or a stone, and now that she thought hard about it, it made complete sense.
She swayed at the top of the stairs, wondering whether to run down and tell Isabella. She tapped Archie on the shoulder. ‘Winkle, I think I know why Isabella’s struggling.’
Archie groaned and opened his eyes.
‘She needs to hit it with a pebble – a stone – something hard. I’ve figured it out. I’ve got to tell her – all it needs is a tap.’
Archie woke up. ‘Whoa, Daisy! Hang on! What if she sets it off while you’re halfway down and the walls start folding in?’
‘Well so what? She’s still got to run up.’
‘But you’ve been up and down like a yo-yo and stretching your legs and stuff – they must be like jelly,’ Archie said.
Daisy ruffled her hair. ‘Tough. Sorry, Winkle, but she needs to know. Otherwise we’re going to turn to dust.’
Archie had a bad feeling about it. ‘OK, but promise you’ll only go down far enough so that she can hear you. The last thing we need is for you two to get in each other’s way.’
Daisy nodded, and for the fourth time headed down the two hundred and twenty-two steps, the noise of her feet scuffing the stones as she descended.
ISABELLA STARTED to lift the mini boulder, her back straining, her fingers raw, when a voice echoed off the walls.
Daisy. It had to be. Isabella stopped as she tried to comprehend the message. ‘I’m – doing – it,’ she yelled back.
Isabella suddenly found the rock unbelievably heavy and, much to her horror, the square lump slipped through her fingers and crashed first onto the step below and then the next, gaining momentum.
Isabella stared in disbelief, helpless to do anything. The stone spun, touched the corner of the next step and launched into the air. Isabella gasped. She hadn’t figured that it would bounce! What if it missed?
It clipped the stair below and, as it passed by the protruding knob, a tiny stone fragment sliced off it before smacking into the wall and shattering over the floor.
Isabella groaned and put her head in her hands. ‘After all that,’ she cried, ‘the rock missed.’ She sank to the floor, defeated.
Idiot – what a fool. What would the others say …
And then it happened.
Suddenly, everything shook.
Chunks of stone sprayed from the ceiling. Isabella wrapped her arms above her head, protecting herself, the shaking throwing her into the wall where she struggled to keep her footing.
Then a grinding noise: the gear mechanisms whirling, groaning and crunching all around her.
For a moment Isabella didn’t understand. The next rumble threw her off her step and she crashed down to the foot of the stairwell. Had she engaged the lever or was it an earthquake? She poked her head into the chamber and gasped.
Water seeped through cracks in the film protecting the cave entrance. Her heart thumped wildly.
My God, she’d done it.
She needed to
move, but another rumble sent her sprawling against the wall. More debris flew. She felt a crack on her head. Dazed, she stood up, disorientated, giddy. Isabella closed her eyes. Her head swam. She leant into the wall.
The water touching her ankle snapped her round. She opened her eyes and retched. It made her feel better instantly.
‘RUN, RUN! WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU?’ she heard.
The water was up to her knees. Isabella swore and started up the stairs, one at a time, then two – onward, upwards.
Then a boom, like a giant wave crashing into the chamber, filled her with a dread she had never believed possible.
The panel.
Isabella ran, faster and faster.
The water gaining. The passage narrowing.
She focused hard and before she knew it her hands and feet sprang off each step like a great cat until she was bounding, round and round the stairwell, faster and faster, up and up, like a blur.
Nearly there, but now the walls on either side were so tight her sides were being scraped like cheese in a grater. A blast of wind caught her now, water rushing beside, overtaking her, carrying her to the peak.
She took a last gasp of air, stretched her arms in front of her and pointed her toes like a ballerina.
When she smashed into the ceiling, her hands padded her impact but she felt herself crumple in a heap.
Her arms ached. Water sprayed everywhere.
She landed on something soft.
Then a big black veil swept over her and she felt no more.
DAISY WAS a quarter of the way down when she heard the gears shift. Isabella had done it! But instead of rushing off she waited until she heard her sister’s scream, for while the passageway was rumbling and shaking it was otherwise silent.
And it remained silent.
Something must have happened. She ran down as far as she dared and screamed.
Daisy knew what was coming, she could hear it.
She waited as long as possible then fled up the stairs, taking them two or three at a time, urging her exhausted body on, praying that Isabella was not far behind. She feared the worst.
Near the top she could hear a noise like a dam bursting, water flashing out, gaining, chasing her. She missed a narrowing step and fell, the hard stair-lip cracking her shin. She howled but limped upwards, the rock ripping, tearing her sides.
If this was what it was like at the top, Isabella had no chance.
A massive gust of air blasted up through the stairwell blowing her on. She knew it heralded the arrival of the water. When the water hit her she had only a few steps to go and, using its momentum, she flung her body out of its path and into the cave.
She stood up and gasped. Water poured from the ceiling, spraying the cavern like a fire-fighter’s hose. Seconds later, she was flattened by an object that rebounded off the ceiling like a rubber ball.
Isabella’s blood-soaked body.
FORTY-NINE
SUE AND GUS AT SEA
Sue scanned the endless horizon and whistled. ‘Sublime and ridiculous.’
‘What do you mean?’ Gus said as he wrestled with a penknife and the lid of a can of tuna.
‘We survive a monsoon in a geriatric rowing boat – with a ridiculous name—’
‘There’s nothing wrong with calling a boat The Joan Of,’ Gus said, smiling.
Sue raised her eyebrows. ‘Anyway, thanks to your sublime woodworking skills we’re still alive, but like fools we wake up in an ocean possibly miles from anywhere in another perilous situation. Therefore, ridiculous.’
Gus flashed a toothy smile and poured the brine off the tuna and into a cup. ‘Well, if you hadn’t fallen asleep at your post, none of this would have happened.’
‘Gus, are you blaming me?’
‘Of course,’ he mocked. ‘I entirely blame you. You should have woken me up rather than snuggle up.’
‘But you looked so sweet.’ Sue couldn’t believe she’d said that and her face instantly turned bright red.
Gus didn’t know if he should read anything into her comment. He’d never had a girlfriend – he’d never given girls any serious thought before, but here he was, nearly thirteen and mature for his age, and most of his friends had dallied in some form of relationship. He thought about his interaction with girls and found that although he was friendly with many, like Daisy ‘delicious’ de Lowe and Poppy in his class, Sue was the first girl he’d ever really properly talked to about stuff. Stuff like life and parents and feelings. Up till now, girls could have been aliens; they did different things – odd things – and even talked in a strange way.
Gus offered Sue first go at the brine liquid that lay on top of the chopped fish.
‘Oh really, do we have to?’
‘Yes. Everything that can be eaten must be eaten and that’s an order. No wastage allowed.’
Although she was starving, the idea of drinking raw brine didn’t fill her with joy. She rolled her eyes and pinched her nose, sipping the tangy bitter juice. It stuck to her gums.
She handed the rest over to Gus.
‘You know, I’ve never had a proper boyfriend,’ she said, moving next to him and leaning on his shoulder.
‘And I’ve never had a girlfriend,’ Gus said, cringing. He felt himself tense. God she smelt wonderful, like fresh fruit. And seated so close to one another there was no way of denying it; she was fabulous, even if her breath smelled a bit … fishy.
He sipped on the brine and spluttered.
She stared into his eyes. Gus was the most amazing person she’d ever come across. He’d saved her life. Not only that but he’d kept her smiling and it had given her a whole new perspective on life. If they didn’t make it, he’d smile right to the bitter end, she thought. Wasn’t that amazing? For some reason, she’d felt safer just being with him than anyone else she could think of.
GUS STARED BACK into her eyes which shone like jewels. He took a sharp intake of breath. Oh my goodness. His heart raced, blood pumping fiercely through his veins. A strange kind of electrical current passed through him. What was going on?
She leaned in and kissed him – just a peck on his cheek and she held her mouth close. He felt her breath on his cheek. It felt so perfect, so timely. Gus felt his head swim, stood up and cracked his head on the wooden frame of the canopy above them.
‘Blimey,’ Sue said, chuckling. ‘You’ve never kissed anyone before, have you?’
Gus rubbed his head. Now it was his turn to turn beetroot. ‘Yeah, of course I have,’ he lied, badly.
The corners of Sue’s mouth turned up mischievously. ‘Who?’
Gus couldn’t think fast enough. His head was in a muddle. ‘Oh God. Do you really have to know?’
‘Yeah! Absolutely! Come on!’
Gus played for time and rubbed his head. ‘Er, no … I can’t—’
‘Go on!’ Sue demanded. ‘I insist!’
‘OK. It was, er, Daisy,’ he said, not knowing why he’d said it.
Sue reeled. ‘Daisy de Lowe, Daisy Chubb or Daisy Martin,’ she fired back.
‘Oh, ah, um, the first one,’ he mumbled.
‘Well now, you’re a sneaky devil, aren’t you?’ she said. He was lying through his teeth like most boys his age. ‘Daisy de Lowe, huh?’
Gus reddened. ‘Er, yeah. Didn’t last for long,’ Gus said, trying to sound casual while busying himself in the food box.
Sue frowned. Boys loved Daisy because she was beautiful and cool and sensational at football. But she was aloof, off in her own little world half the time. And anyway, she knew Isabella and the de Lowes better than she knew her own family and the whole thing seemed … unlikely. She reckoned Gus might have had a crush on her.
‘Now, Gus,’ she said. ‘Let’s be honest, that wasn’t a great start. We could give it another go if you’d like?’
Gus drooled. His speech deserted him. He nodded like a puppy dog.
Very gently they leaned in.
The moment their lips came together, Gus smiled and
tried very hard not to snicker. He lurched forward and bashed his teeth on hers. There was a clank which sounded a great deal louder to both of them than it really was.
He pulled away. ‘God, sorry. That was rubbish, wasn’t it?’
Sue smiled. Before he could move again, she looked deeply into his eyes, put a finger over his lips and slowly replaced her fingers with her lips.
GUS WAS SO SHOCKED that it took him a while before he joined in. Was it revolting or nice? It was most definitely slippery, he thought, and a bit fishy. His tongue appeared to be battling a mini eel.
Either way, he couldn’t decide, but all of a sudden a strange shot of energy passed straight through him, like a stab of electricity. An electric eel, he thought.
He broke it off – a smile on his face. ‘Tuna?’
Sue looked confused. ‘Tuna?’
‘Er. Yup.’ Gus couldn’t think why he’d suddenly blurted it out. Maybe it was because he felt a bit out of control, getting aroused on a boat – or more likely because he’d just opened a tin of their prized food and he was famished. Kissing could wait.
He noted her disappointed face. ‘Oh no. I ruined it, didn’t I?’
‘No,’ she said, looking a little embarrassed. ‘Well, yes, you did a bit.’
‘Sorry. It’s just … you, er, surprised me and … I’d just opened—’
‘Don’t say a word,’ she said. ‘I’m utterly starving. Let’s eat.’ She prodded him gently on the arm. ‘Plenty of time for practice!’
Gus divided the tuna onto the two paint pot lids they used for plates and handed out two biscuits and half an apple. It wasn’t really enough, but it was better than nothing. Gus realised that running out of food was a real possibility so he divided their foodstuff into meals that might stretch to two weeks. Realistically, he doubted they could hold out that long. If he could work out how to catch fish, it would, as their sports coach said, be a “game changer”.