Luke pulled a face at Cecilia and they followed Jasper into the other room; it was a cubbyhole and Cecilia noticed that there were more doorways that she assumed led on to other small rooms, a bit like how she imagined the inside of a rabbit warren. The floor was covered in rugs and carpets of all different shapes and sizes, colours and textures. It made the space seem quite welcoming, even if Jasper didn’t. There were lots of jugs and teapots, plastic bottles, cups and glasses, most of which contained water, dotted about the place. Some were covered over with cloth or saucers and there was one with a plastic top that might have even been the lid from a can of Pringles.
“Thirsty?” asked Luke.
“Yes, please,” said Cecilia. The last time she’d had a drink was the tea Kuffi had given her. Luke reached for a small green jar. Jasper piped up.
“You’re giving away our supplies… to a stranger… for free?” Jasper grumbled.
“Jasper.” Luke walked over to where he had parked himself and knelt before him. Tenderly placing both hands on his knees, he whispered softly, “Cecilia is a wanderer just like you. We’re not sure how long she’s been gone but she was really lost when Kuffi found her. He’s helping her—well, he was before the Corvus Community took him away. It won’t be long before he’s sentenced by Jacques d’Or and then, hopefully, he’ll just have to pay a big fine and she’ll be out of our fur.”
“The Corvus Community! Oh dear…” A troubled look came over Jasper’s face and rested there for a while as the news settled in. “Aww, poor Koof, I can’t believe they finally got him!” Jasper’s cheeks were red and his face had changed. He turned his glazed eyes to look accusingly in Cecilia’s direction.
“So, this friend of yours, Cecilia… This wanderer got Kuffi into trouble? How do you know she’s not some sort of spy?”
“Because quite frankly, she looks a bit like you, Jasper, and her story is pretty similar to yours,” Luke said.
Jasper began to calm down a bit, mopping his brow with a filthy old rag. “They’ll never let Kuffi go. He’ll be sent to the Black of Beyond for sure, or worse—you know that, don’t you, Luke?”
Cecilia looked at Jasper. He was hunched over and very fair. His white hair was thin and wispy around the edges of his temples. He was wearing a long coat that seemed to have been cobbled together from pieces of carpet. His skin looked almost translucent and in the dim light of the cubby he looked like a celestial being. But he was, Cecilia concluded, definitely a human.
“I never meant to cause any trouble for anyone. Kuffi is such a nice fellow and he helped me when I was in real pickle. I just want to help. Tell me what I can do and I will do it,” Cecilia said softly. Sensitive not to provoke an outburst she continued, “He was trying to remind me of who I was. But I already know. I’m Cecilia Hudson-Gray and I live at 141 Enders Road with my sister, Hester, and my mum and dad—Alice and Lyle. Today, yesterday or whenever, was my twelfth birthday. I’m going to be a scientist when I grow up and I love nature and birds and trees…”
A bulb of water gathered at the corner of her eye, forming a large tear that rolled down her cheek. She quickly wiped it away.
“What are you doing? Stop it. Don’t waste them, you’ll have nothing left for the lamentations!” Luke said, astonished.
“Stop what?” said Cecilia, wiping away another tear.
“Stop crying!” Luke and Jasper said in unison.
“I can hear you snivelling!” said Jasper.
Cecilia’s eyes were wet with tears and she trembled as she fought to hold them back.
“Yeah, you’ll be all cried out if you do that. And then when you’re supposed to cry your eyes out with the rest of us to help fill the lake at Polaris, you won’t be able to,” said Luke.
“What? You’re trying to fill a lake with tears? But why?” Cecilia felt a bit dizzy and breathless. “Are you insane? That would take for ever!”
“Err, don’t you think we already know that!” said Luke.
“Well then, why are you trying to do it?” Cecilia still couldn’t quite get her head around it.
“So we have power? So we can have light? So we can seeee?” Luke seemed to be getting very frustrated at having to explain everything all the time.
“That doesn’t make sense,” said Cecilia.
“Nothing seems to make sense to you though, does it, Cecilia?” said Luke. He seemed to have become quite fired up.
“Right, you two, that’s enough. Calm down, the both of you. Arguing isn’t going to get us anywhere. What we need is a plan!” Jasper said, intervening before things got too heated.
Jasper’s milky eyes wandered over to Cecilia, and then he moved towards her. When he reached her, he handed her a small rusty jug of water.
“Here, have this,” he said. “We’re sorry. I can imagine you’ve been through an awful lot.” Cecilia noticed that when Jasper smiled he looked sad. It was strange and made Cecilia want to hug him.
“Drink it slowly now,” said Jasper.
“Thank you, Jasper,” said Cecilia, cupping the jug with both hands.
“We will be back in a minute. We’ll just give you a moment to collect yourself. There are some things I need to talk to Luke about in private if you don’t mind,” said Jasper. He seemed much kinder now.
“OK,” she mumbled.
Luke pulled the door to as they left Cecilia alone in the room.
She perfunctorily sipped from the rusty jug Jasper had handed her…
“YUCK!” she exclaimed, swallowing the first sip of metallic, eggy water. She held her nose and gulped down the rest—after all, she was thirsty. There was a fair amount of sediment that seemed to glitter as she tilted the jug in the light. It pleased her.
She felt better and searching for somewhere to rest the rusty jug, she drifted around the room, picking up bits and pieces. Boy-oh-boy, was it a weird place! There were lots of lanterns dotted about, filled with fireflies like the one she’d seen on the way in. She walked up to one and tapped the glass, finding that when she did the creatures clumped together into a round bulb, which created a lovely warm glow—just about enough light to read a book by. She marvelled at the fireflies a while, feeling sort of sorry for them.
Beside the lantern were many more receptacles used for holding water. One was an old boot with a blue corner-shop-style carrier bag lining it. The boot had a rather bedraggled-looking weed flopped over the edge. It was placed on a mantle over the fireplace, almost identical to the one in the cavern next door, but this one housed a small pile of warm, glowing embers. It had a very ordinary-looking fork next to it, used to poke at the coals, Cecilia supposed. Surrounding the fireplace were lots of tiny pieces of mirror joined together like a mosaic, and each and every one picked up even the faintest light and multiplied it, thus generating more light.
She cast her eyes back to the embers and the scientist in her awoke. Cecilia wondered what the oxygen supply was like down where they were and where it was coming from. She supposed, knowing that an above world did exist, that air filtered through cracks in the rock, but surely they’d need a supplementary supply so far down? Looking at the weed struggling over the boot, she thought about how hard it is to grow things with so little light. Then her brain flipped into worry mode as she considered that the water she had just drunk was most likely full of microbes and had probably been resting stagnant somewhere for quite some time. What if she got sick? Who would look after her?
Trying to take her mind off her worries, she began to make her way towards the door to find the others. But something stopped her. She gasped and recoiled a moment in shock at the figure standing before her. Staring in a mirror, Cecilia tried to make sense of what she was seeing. There in the reflection was a grubby, worn-out little thing, a dishevelled version of the person she had been when she had left the house. She pointed at herself in the mirror and laughed at the state she was in. Perhaps this new look of hers had become her disguise. It felt good to laugh. She collected herself, licking her finger and wip
ing off some of the dirt. Then she gave up—she didn’t even attempt to tidy the nest that was forming on her head.
As Cecilia went to join the others next door, she paused to listen to the muffled voices coming from the other side. It all sounded pretty covert. She leant closer, peering through the gap.
Luke was describing something. “…It’s round and heavy but it’s not very big. It fits in her pocket,” he said. “Jasper, do you really think it could be what you say it is?”
“Don’t let your imagination go running away now, Luke. Details, I need details. What else can you tell me about it?”
“Oh, Jasper, it has a splendid way of catching the light and when it does, it looks like something misty is moving inside it. It’s magical!”
“Go on…” Jasper said.
“Well, I noticed that it has etchings on it, but I don’t know what they mean. They look like some sort of circuit. It could be worth quite a bit!”
“Luke. This doesn’t sound like something to be bought and sold. It sounds like the stuff of dreams… but, oh dear me, if it were to get into the wrong hands… I don’t know, maybe Cecilia has been sent here for some other purpose that she’s not telling us about.”
“Or maybe she doesn’t even know,” said Luke.
Jasper fell silent and stopped the conversation, tilting his head towards the door that Cecilia was standing behind.
“Hello there… I can hear you, Cecilia… Don’t just stand there, come in.”
“I was just about to come and get you,” Luke said, fiddling with his left antler. It was losing some of its fuzz.
Cecilia pushed the door open properly and walked in.
“What are you up to?” Cecilia said, knowing full well. She walked over, continuing to try to fill the silence. “Looks serious to me,” she said jovially. Her mood had lifted since she’d had some water. She knew they were talking about her marble and even though she wanted to know why, she dared not ask.
“We were just catching up,” Jasper said awkwardly.
“Yeah, we were trying to work out what to do about Kuffi,” said Luke.
“Did you come up with any good ideas?”
“Not yet but we will,” said Jasper.
“Yeah, Jasper is brilliant at coming up with plans!” added Luke.
11
A Man with a Plan
Jasper leant on an elaborately carved black walking stick bedecked with gemstones that looked like little beetles as he shuffled up and down slowly, thinking up ways they could get Kuffi back.
“We could ambush Julius and Marvin and disguise ourselves as them and sneak in and bust Kuffi out.”
“They would have to be pretty serious disguises.” Cecilia said, surveying the adorned walls of the space around her. “I don’t think we have the time or the materials to pull that one off.”
“Not to mention that we’d need a key,” Luke added.
“Poison… we could use poison!”
“For what?” mumbled Luke.
Jasper paused a moment and Cecilia absent-mindedly filled the silence. “I’m so glad you found me at the juice station; who knows where I would be if you hadn’t turned up. I was hoping Rosie would be there but when I arrived but she’d already shut up and gone.”
“Yeah, it’s usually open much later than that,” said Luke.
“Rosie?” said Jasper. “The fruitolin player?”
“Yes. I suppose it’s because she is performing at El Porto Fino tonight.”
“Is she? That’s the first I’ve heard of it,” said Luke.
“Cecilia?”
“Yes?”
“Do you know who she is performing with by any chance?” Jasper’s eyes narrowed; she could almost see an idea dawning on his face.
“Yes, I remember her saying it was with someone called Lady-Bird.”
“That’s it!”
“What?” said Cecilia and Luke at the same time.
“Kuffi and Lady-Bird grew up together. They are very dear old friends.”
“Yeah, childhood sweethearts—until Jacques d’Or came along,” said Luke.
“Yes, you could put it like that. Anyway, if we could get you an audience with Lady-Bird we may be able to convince her to help get Kuffi released.”
“So, could she persuade Jacques d’Or that Kuffi is innocent?”
“I’m afraid, Cecilia, that he will need a lot more than just persuading. But Lady-Bird is one of Jacques d’Or’s prized possessions.”
“Urgh, possession? A living thing shouldn’t be a possession.”
“That’s true, but Jacques d’Or sees everything in terms of what it’s worth and Lady-Bird has the gift of song and the power to move a person to tears; for a guy who’s trying to fill a lake with tears she’s pretty hot property. He keeps her at the Nest with the rest of the Corvus Community, which is on top of a tower of egg cells, so he can keep all the delinquent dwellers captive beneath him. Each night she sings evening song to send everyone to sleep and calm the captives who no doubt weep into their pillows. At the end of it she’s the only one still awake. So, once everyone else is asleep she could, if she were brave enough, pinch the keys from Jacques d’Or and set Kuffi free. She could then return the keys and go back to sleep like she knew nothing of it and he’d had a lucky escape.”
“But where could he go? He can’t go back to his cabin—that’s the first place they’d look, and they’d kill him for sure!”
“Well, I guess if it’s OK with you, Luke, he could stay with us. We have plenty of room and lots of disguises.”
“I’m cool with that. The more the merrier,” Luke replied.
“But we will need to get to Lady-Bird first,” said Jasper, returning to the plan. “We’re going to need to get you into El Porto Fino and that could take some doing… For a start they will never let you in looking like that!”
“Hey!” said Luke. “What’s wrong with my clothes?”
“Well, they hardly turn heads, do they? And if you don’t turn heads when you arrive, you simply won’t get in. That’s how it works. You’re going to need to look exquisite and I don’t exactly have a wardrobe full of evening gowns, so we’re going to need to get you some. I happen to be friends with Mrs Hoots, who owns the haberdashery, but she’ll never lend them to us and she certainly won’t give them to us for free.”
Cecilia was a bit lost. “So are you saying all we need to get into El Porto Fino is to dress up?”
“More than dress up—you’ll need to dazzle everyone’s socks off. Jacques d’Or is a lover of all things shiny.”
“OK, well, let’s just pop down to Mrs Hoots and buy something to wear that will get us in tonight.” Cecilia reached into her pocket and pulled out some buttons and began counting them. Jasper and Luke couldn’t help themselves and began to chuckle, throwing each other amused glances.
“What?”
“We’re going to need a lot more than that,” said Luke. “I know! Why don’t we pool our buttons together and bet them on the Ride or Sigh competition?”
“Gamble, are you crazy?”
“What’s life without a little bit of risk, Cecilia?”
“Have you got a better idea?” Jasper added.
She sat there thinking quietly for a moment then shook her head.
“But what if we do get to Lady-Bird and she refuses to help? We will have gone to all this trouble and be back at square one. Kuffi hasn’t done anything wrong, he just made a mistake and it wasn’t even his fault!”
“For Jacques d’Or it makes no difference. If we’ve got a chance to make it right, we have to try. Kuffi’s life depends on it! And on top of that, you’re also going to need to be extra careful. Wherever Lady-Bird is, Jacques d’Or and his heavies are bound to follow. He likes to show up and show off, so no doubt he’ll be making an appearance and giving some grand speech about how wonderful he is and how much light he has generated.”
“Jacques d’Or is out of control, man,” said Luke flippantly.
; “That’s beside the point. Look, I think if we can get you in to see Lady-Bird, she’ll help. She’ll be heartbroken that her oldest, dearest friend has met with trouble and that she’s the only one who can save his life.”
“But won’t she just think we’re crazy fans like everyone else?” said Luke.
“Not if you’re not fans at all!” said Jasper. “You’re going to pretend to be trainee reporters. She loves giving interviews and she’ll be expecting one after she’s performed. Once you’ve gained an audience with her—you can reveal the real reason you’re there!”
“Well, Cecilia is going to need ID papers, Jasper, and it’s not long before the Ride or Sigh competition starts,” said Luke.
Jasper inhaled and let out a big blue sigh. Cecilia gasped as the miniature cloud floated up to the ceiling and disappeared. Cecilia poked Luke in the shin with her foot. “Luke! What was that?”
“Ouch, you doofus, that hurt!” He didn’t look at all pleased. Luke pulled in a deep breath and huffed out a deep groan that released a puff of hot orange.
“Oh, that!” he said, smiling mischievously. He waved his hand back and forth through the orange mist until it was gone. “That’s a sigh and it means it’s almost time for the Ride or Sigh competition!” His voice was getting louder with excitement.
“Yes, we’d better gather ourselves together!” said Jasper, and with that he got up and moved back over to the little desk in the corner and beckoned Cecilia over to him.
“Now then, Miss Cecilia, you’re going to need some ID papers.”
Jasper asked Cecilia to sit in front of him on the floor. He reached out his hands and felt the contours of her face and eyebrows, lips and nose. It was a new experience to have someone analyse her face in such a way. As he did so she noticed the deep grooves etched into the palms of his hands like ancient rivers.
“You thought I couldn’t see you, didn’t you?” he said eerily. “But I see things you don’t. There’s much more to a picture than just paint on a canvas.” His expression and movements seemed to have taken on an animalistic style, as had his temperament—no wonder he didn’t find it difficult to fit in in this mysterious underground world.
The Tunnels Below Page 6