Borribles Go For Broke, The (14 page)
Read Borribles Go For Broke, The Online
Authors: Michael de Larrabeiti
The noise of the manhole cover slamming shut sounded terrifyingly loud below ground. Chalotte hung from the iron ladder just under the floor of Ben’s palace and listened. She heard a long mumble of voices and she thought she heard someone hitting Ben. Later there came the crashing of furniture and crockery and she felt the earth around her shake with the shock of it. Then there was silence.
Clinging to the ladder still, Chalotte half turned and looked down into the dark. The air was thick about her body and her nose wrinkled at the smell of the sewers. She knew from past experience that it took several days of living underground to get used to it.
‘Sounds like they’ve smashed the place up,’ she said, ‘pushing Ben about as well.’
‘Have they gone?’ asked Bingo.
‘Seems like,’ Chalotte answered.
From further down the tunnel came Spiff’s voice: ‘Leave it a bit longer.’
They waited a good half-hour, knowing they were near each other but feeling as if miles separated them because they could not see. At last Spiff said, ‘Try it now.’
Chalotte placed her ear against the cool metal of the manhole cover. She could hear nothing. She bent her shoulder and pushed, gently at first, then with all her strength. The cover wouldn’t budge. Bingo climbed up the ladder and joined his efforts to hers.
‘One, two, three,’ he said, ‘and heave.’ They shoved until their eyes bulged white with the effort but the round lump of cast iron
would not move. In the end Chalotte made way for Stonks but even he, for all his force and stamina, had no success.
would not move. In the end Chalotte made way for Stonks but even he, for all his force and stamina, had no success.
‘We need more help,’ he said, his breath coming in gasps.
‘I know that,’ said Bingo, ‘but there’s only room for two on this top rung.’
Twilight came up then and tried to push Bingo from below in one last despairing attempt but it made no difference. What the runaways. did not realize was that Ben’s kitchen cabinet, his armchairs and his table lay shattered in a heap over the top of the manhole. There would be no getting out that way. The Borribles were entombed right where they had not wanted to be: in the territory of the Wendles. Slowly Stonks, Bingo and Twilight clambered to the bottom of the ladder and huddled together with their companions in a sad and silent group. They had escaped the men of the SBG, certainly, but they had landed themselves in a predicament that might become far, far worse.
‘Oh, hell,’ said Sydney, ‘I never meant all this to happen.’
‘Well it has,’ said Vulge, ‘and there’s no point in moaning. We’ve got to decide what we’re going to do … Any ideas?’
‘There’s nothing we can do, except try to get out some other way,’ said Spiff. His voice came from the dark, low and steady. It sounded like he was several yards away in a tunnel. ‘The manhole cover is obviously locked or Sussworth has put some effin’ great weight on it. We have to go on.’
‘Oh, yeah,’ said Chalotte, ‘and how much food have we got? None. We haven’t even got a torch and we don’t know where we are. For all we know there are Wendles around us already.’
‘That’s right,’ said Stonks. ‘We don’t even have a catapult or a Rumble-stick, nothing; our goose is cooked to a cinder.’
After Stonks had spoken there was another long silence as each Borrible considered his fate, but then, when enough time had gone by, Spiff cleared his throat and began to speak, slowly, as if he knew, and had known for a long time, exactly what he was going to say.
‘I can get you out of here,’ he said, and waited to let the importance of the remark sink in. ‘I can see pretty well in the dark,’ he added, ‘almost like a Wendle.’
‘What do you mean?’ snapped Chalotte, instantly suspicious. She had never distrusted Spiff more than now and she was convinced that there was a note of triumph in his voice, as if he’d taken a chance on something and it was working out the way he had hoped.
Spiff sighed. ‘I have a long, long past,’ he said, ‘and some of it was here, because, years ago, before any of you were Borribles, I lived here. To cut a long story short, I am a Wendle.’
‘I might have known,’ said Chalotte, and the words hissed through her teeth. ‘I might have known.’
Spiff ignored her. ‘I fought against the Rumbles and won more names than I can remember, not many Borribles do that, but I ran away from Wandsworth, ended up in Battersea, been there ever since.’
‘Once a Wendle, always a Wendle,’ quoted Chalotte.
‘The fact remains,’ continued Spiff, ‘that I can get you out of here easy, if you do as I say. A Wendle never forgets the Wendle ways.’
‘That’s just what I’m frightened of,’ said Chalotte.
‘What does it matter?’ said Twilight, interrupting the conversation to stop it becoming a quarrel. ‘A Wendle’s a Borrible after all. If Spiff can get us out then so much the better.’
‘Has anyone got any other suggestion?’ asked Bingo, ‘because I haven’t.’
There was no answer, not even from Chalotte.
‘Okay,’ said Spiff. ‘First things first. I reckon Sussworth will block off as many exits from the sewers as he can. We’ll have to lie low for twenty-four hours at least, maybe more.’
‘But the Wendles will have us,’ said Vulge. ‘We aren’t even dressed like they are.’
‘Exactly,’ agreed Spiff, ‘so the first thing we got to do is find a Wendle storeroom and nick some of their gear, catapults and ammunition too. And we’ll need some food.’
‘Oh boy, oh boy,’ said Twilight, ‘this is an adventure at last, just what I wanted.’
‘Don’t be stupid, Stupid,’ said Vulge. ‘If I could see you I’d knock your block off.’
‘Once we get some Wendle clothes and some weapons,’ Spiff went on, ‘we’ll be able to merge in with the Wendles; they’ll never even notice us. We’ll watch ’em, see if they go in and out through the various manholes and, if they do, when the time comes we slip out into the streets and back home we go. Does everyone agree?’
‘Okay by me,’ said Twilight.
‘Yes,’ said Bingo, ‘there’s no other way.’
And so the others gave their vote for the plan, even Chalotte, but in her heart she knew that Spiff was up to no good. The triumph in his voice had grown more pronounced, had even developed into a note of pleasure. It seemed to her that Spiff had brought them to Wandsworth Bridge with a purpose, as if he were glad to be back underground where the green slime slid incessantly down the curving walls. She shuddered; there were great dangers ahead. Out there in the darkness some vile horror was uncoiling itself and getting ready to swallow her and her companions one by one. She determined to watch Spiff very closely. He spoke again and she listened.
‘Until we get out of here,’ he continued, ‘you’ll have to do as I say, even if it ain’t very Borrible. Everyone grab hold of the person in front for now, and don’t let go. You get lost down here and the rats’ll chew you to nothing, right down to the toenails.’
As they followed Spiff away from the ladder, sightless into the back tunnels, Chalotte found that she was the last in line, clinging on to Bingo’s shirt tail. She drew up beside him as she walked.
‘I don’t like it,’ she whispered. ‘Spiff’s too happy down here. I bet you he’s got some scheme up his sleeve. He’s so crafty, that one, his right hand’s never even seen the left one.’
Spiff suddenly interrupted her, his words curling back along the sewer, brittle with anger. ‘Whoever that is, shuddup! Do you want every Wendle in Wandsworth to know where we are? Keep your mouth shut or Flinthead will shut it for you, with mud.’
No one answered Spiff and Chalotte felt her face flush in the gloom. Without another word the little band of Adventurers marched on.
Spiff led the way with a cheerful confidence. Stonks, who was behind him, said later, when it was all over, that he was sure he’d heard Spiff quietly whistling between his teeth while he walked—as if he were daring the whole world to come and attack him.
Chalotte of course could hear none of this and her thoughts were taken up with wondering what kind of person it was that could remember the tunnels of his early days with such ease. Had Spiff been back to Wandsworth since his escape all those years ago? Did he have a map in Battersea which he studied secretly in his room at night? She could find no satisfactory answer. Spiff was devious and cunning, even for a Wendle.
All at once the marching stopped and Spiff whispered from the front of the column, ‘I can see a light, it might just be the first Wendle crossroads, it might be a guard. You lot stay here and I’ll creep up and have a look.’
Spiff left them, and as the Borribles waited they heard only the persistent dripping of the slime all around them and the faraway rush of sludge in the main sewers. They stared at the distant light, watching Spiff’s silhouette moving between them and it. At last they saw the tiny figure clasp both arms above its head. That was the signal which meant it was safe to go on.
They found Spiff standing in an open space where three corridors met. In the ceiling, in a recess protected by small metal bars, was a pale electric light.
‘This is the beginning,’ he said. ‘From here on you can expect electric lights at almost every junction, so follow me and be twice as careful.’ And he spun on his heel and plunged into another tunnel with no hesitation at all.
On and on went the Borribles and as they marched their eyes became more and more accustomed to the gloom in which they moved. Tunnel after tunnel joined theirs and the sound of sluggish waters came from both right and left. The Adventurers were wending their way across a gigantic maze and those who had been on the Great Rumble Hunt recognized none of it. Spiff was taking them by a roundabout route, purposely avoiding the more populated centres of the underground citadel.
Occasionally they heard the distant voices of Wendle patrols calling to one another, and sometimes Spiff halted, cupping his ear with a hand so that he could listen more intently. Once or twice he stopped by mysterious chalk marks that had been scribbled on the brick walls, studying them and moving his lips soundlessly as if he were reading secret messages left by a friend to guide him in the right direction.
Eventually, after tramping for an hour or so, Spiff brought his companions to an open area where five or six large tunnels met. The arches of the ceiling were high and graceful, built in Victorian times. A main culvert passed here, deep and wide with a ledge on each side of it for the sewer men to walk on. In this channel flowed a solid stream of filth, an oily water that looked as thick as molten lava with strange shapes in it that writhed and struggled just below the surface. Grey chiffons of steam escaped from large and lazy bubbles and smell rose through smell. The air felt rotten and crawled over the skin.
Spiff crouched by the bank and picked up half a brick that had fallen from the roof. ‘Care for a swim, Twilight,’ he said, and threw the bit of brick into the water. There was no splash, no noise. The brick simply disappeared, hypnotized into the mud like a mouse into a snake.
Twilight did not answer but stared at the sewer and swallowed hard. He began to understand what it was to live in Wendle country.
‘Enough of jokes,’ said Vulge. ‘Why have we walked so far only to get here?’
Before Spiff could answer there came the scrape of a foot scuffing over uneven ground. Spiff looked beyond his friends and smiled. Slowly the Borribles turned, their scalps prickling with fear. In the entrance to one of the tunnels stood two Wendles, one armed with a glinting spear or Rumble-stick, the other with a catapult, its elastic stretched, the stone aimed at Stonks’s head.
‘Don’t move anyone,’ said the Wendle with the spear. His voice was as friendly as a broken bottle.
In spite of the warning Chalotte glanced at Spiff, still squatting by the bank of the sewer. He was chuckling, an expression of
pleasure on his face. Slowly, very slowly, and showing his hands, he rose to his feet and the Wendles saw him.
pleasure on his face. Slowly, very slowly, and showing his hands, he rose to his feet and the Wendles saw him.
‘Spiff,’ said one of them. ‘At last.’
Spiff pushed a way through the group of motionless Borribles and stepped towards his Wandsworth brethren.
‘What about this lot?’ asked the Wendle with the spear. ‘Are they armed?’
Spiff stood between the two Wendles and grinned. ‘They’re all right,’ he said, ‘and they are not armed.’ Then he explained a little: ‘These Wendles are old friends of mine. The one with the spear is called Norrarf, the one with the catapult is called Skug; when the time comes they will tell you how they won their names. They have come to help us.’
Norrarf and Skug lowered their weapons but they didn’t take their eyes from the Borribles, weighing them in the balance, wondering, in spite of Spiff’s assurances, whether to welcome them.
‘What’s all this about?’ said Vulge. ‘What’s your game?’
‘No talking here,’ said Skug, his voice rough and mannerless, ‘we’ve got to get you lot out of sight.’ Skug had a square chin that was full of aggression and a right shoulder that jerked every few seconds as if he were dying to throw a punch at someone, or even anyone. His eyes looked into the corners of the world all the time and there wasn’t the slightest spark of trust within them.
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