Beyond the Deepwoods (12 page)

She laid the paddle down and heaved her massive bulk over to a shadowy recess at the back of the kitchen. There, looking out of place next to the cupboards and table, Twig saw a well. The Grossmother seized the wooden handle and began turning. When the end of the rope suddenly popped up into view, she looked perplexed.

‘Where's the blooming bucket got to?’ she muttered.

Then she remembered.

‘Unnh!’ she grunted with surprise a moment later, as she unhooked the bucket and glanced inside. ‘I did forget to put the rubbish out.’

Twig stared out of the bucket nervously as the Grossmother lumbered back to the sink. What exactly did ‘putting the rubbish out’ involve? He discovered all too soon as a powerful jet of water – so cold it took his breath away – thundered down onto him. He felt himself spinning round and round as the Grossmother swilled the bucket.

‘Whooaaah!’ he cried out dizzily.

The next moment, the Grossmother tipped the bucket up and sloshed the whole lot – Twig and all – down the disposal chute.

‘Aaaarrgh!’ he screamed as he tumbled, over and over, helter-skelter all the way down to the bottom of the long chute, out and –
PLATTSH
– onto a warm, soft, soggy mound.

Twig sat up and looked round. The long, flexible tube he'd fallen down was only one of many. All of them were swaying gently this way and that, illuminated by the roof of waxy pink which glowed far, far above his head. He would never be able to climb back up that high. What was he to do now?

‘First things first,’ Twig thought, his eye catching sight of a woodsap, still intact, lying on the rotting pile to his right. He picked it up and wiped it on his hammelhornskin waistcoat till the red skin gleamed. He bit into the fruit hungrily. Red juice dribbled down his chin.

Twig smiled happily. ‘Scrumptious!’ he slurped.

· CHAPTER SEVEN ·
S
PINDLEBUGS AND
M
ILCHGRUBS

T
wig finished the woodsap and tossed the core away. The painful gnawing in his stomach had gone. He climbed to his feet, wiped his hands on his jacket and looked round. He was standing at the centre of a huge compost heap in an underground cavern as colossal as the colony above it.

Gritting his teeth and trying hard not to breathe in, Twig squelched across to the far side of the rotting vegetation and climbed up onto the enclosing bank. He stared up at the ceiling far above his head. ‘If there's a way in,’ he muttered grimly, ‘there
must
be a way out.’

‘Not necessarily,’ came a voice.

Twig started. Who had spoken? It was only when the creature moved towards him, and the light glinted on its translucent body and wedge-shaped head, that Twig realized how close it was.

Tall and angular, it looked like some kind of giant glass insect. Twig had never seen anything like it before. He knew nothing of the underground swarms of spindlebugs, nor of the lumbering milchgrubs they tended.

Suddenly, the insect lunged forwards and seized Twig's collar in its claws. Twig cried out as he found himself face to face with the twitching head, all waving feelers and huge multi-faceted eyes, which gleamed green and orange in the dim light.

‘I got another one over here,’ the creature called. There was the sound of approaching scurrying, and the spindlebug was joined by three others.

‘I don't know what's the matter with her upstairs,’ said the first.

‘Downright sloppy, I call it,’ said the second.

‘She'd be the first one to complain if the honey was off,’ said the third. ‘We'll
have
to have a word with her.’

‘Fat lot of good that'll do,’ said the first. ‘If I've told her once, I've told her a thousand times…’

‘
VEGETABLE, NOT ANIMAL!
’ they all cried together, and trilled with irritation.

The insect holding Twig stared at him closely. ‘Not like the usual pests we get,’ it observed. ‘This one's got hair.’ Then, without any warning, it lurched to one side and bit savagely into Twig's arm.

‘
YOUCH!
’ Twig screamed.

‘Eeeeyuk!’ squealed the spindlebug. ‘It's
sour
!’

‘What did you do that for?’ Twig demanded.

‘
And
it can talk!’ said another in surprise. ‘You'd best get it into the incinerator before it can cause any trouble.’

Twig gasped. The
incinerator
? He wrenched himself free of the insect's pincer-grip, and dashed off along the criss-cross of raised walkways. A shrill buzz of alarm immediately went up as the four furious insects gave chase.

As Twig ran, so the underground landscape began to change. He passed field after field being hoed and raked by more of the gardening insects. Further on, and the soil was dotted with the pink spots of something beginning to sprout. Further still, and the fields were full of glistening pink fungus that grew up like spongy antlers.

‘Now we've got you,’ came a voice.

Twig skidded to a halt. Two of the spindlebugs were in front of him. He turned. The other two were advancing from behind. There was nothing else for it. Twig leapt
down from the walkway and raced across the field, crushing a swathe through the pink fungus as he ran.

‘
HE'S IN THE FUNGUS BEDS
,’ the insects screeched. ‘
HE MUST BE STOPPED
!’

Twig's heart sank when he realized he was not the only one amongst the pink toadstools. The whole field was full of huge, lumbering creatures, as transparent as the insects, and all busy grazing on the fungus.

Twig saw the chewed food coursing through tubes inside the bodies, down into the stomach, and along the tail to a huge, bulbous sac filled with a pink liquid. One of the beasts glanced up and let out a low growl. Others joined in. Before long the air was throbbing with the sound of roaring.

‘
DETAIN THE PEST!
’ came the shrill cry of the gardener
insects. The milchgrubs began to advance.

Twig darted this way, that way, dodging between the massive animals as they blundered towards him. Slipping and sliding on the crushed fungus, he made it to the far side only just in time. Even as he was scrambling up the bank, he felt the warm breath of one of the milchgrubs, as the beast snapped at his ankles.

Twig looked around him anxiously. To his left and right was the walkway, but both directions were blocked. Behind him were the milchgrubs, trundling ever closer. In front was a grooved slope which disappeared down into the shadows.

‘Now what?’ he panted. There was no choice. He
had
to go down the slope. He spun round and hurtled headlong into the shadowy darkness.

‘
NOW HE'S HEADING FOR THE HONEY PIT!
’ the spindlebugs screeched. ‘
CUT HIM OFF.
NOW
!
’

But with their massive honey sacs which they dragged carefully behind them, the milchgrubs were slow. Twig soon left them far behind as he raced down the slope. If I can just … Twig thought. Suddenly the ground opened up before him. Twig cried out. He was running too fast to stop.

‘
NO!
’ His legs pedalled desperately in mid-air. ‘
AAAARGH
!’ he screamed, and plummeted down.

PLOP!

He landed in the middle of a deep pool and sank. A moment later, he resurfaced, coughing and spluttering, and splashed about frantically.

The clear pink liquid was warm and sweet. It filled Twig's ears and eyes, his mouth; some of it slipped down his throat.

He stared up at the sheer sides of the pit and groaned. Things had gone from bad to worse. He'd
never
be able to climb out.

Far above him the spindlebugs and milchgrubs were coming to the same conclusion. ‘Nothing to be done,’ Twig heard them saying. ‘
She'll
have to sort it out.
We've
got work to do.’

And with that – as Twig struggled to tread water in the sticky liquid – the spindlebugs crouched down and began tugging at teats on the milchgrubs’ honey sacs. Pink jets squirted down into the pit.

‘They're milking them,’ Twig gasped in amazement. The sticky pink honey landed all round him. ‘
GET ME OUT!
’ he roared. ‘You
can't
leave me here … blobber blobber blob blob…’

Twig had begun to sink. The hammelhornskin waistcoat which before had saved his life, now threatened to take it. Its thick fleece had soaked up the sticky liquid and become heavy. Down, down, down Twig was dragged, eyes open, down into the viscous pinkness. He tried to swim back to the surface, but his arms and legs had turned to wood. He was at the end of his strength.

Drowndead in rosy honey, he thought miserably.

And as if
that
wasn't bad enough, he realized that he wasn't alone. Something was disturbing the calmness of the pool. It was a long snake-like creature with a massive
head which was thrashing through the pink liquid. Twig's heart pounded in his ears. Drowndead or devoured. What a choice! He squirmed round and kicked out wildly.

But the beast was too quick for him. Its body snaked round behind him, and the wide gaping jaws came up from underneath – and swallowed him whole.