Rescue On Nim's Island (10 page)

‘The cavern has so many tunnels, there must be another way out,’ said Nim. ‘We can take Ollie somewhere safe and then I’ll come back to …’

‘I’ll come back with you,’ Edmund interrupted.

‘So will I,’ said Tris.

‘I would if I could,’ said Tiff.

‘We need you to be safe outside with Ollie,’ said Nim, ‘because, just in case … if anything happened … you could go for help when Jack and your parents get back.’

That was the scariest thing of all. Saying out loud that something could go wrong meant it really could.

Nim led the others back through the fossil tunnel and back into the main cave. Silently, they tiptoed beneath the dangling, sleeping bats, around the maze of stalagmites, deeper and deeper into the heart of the mountain. The glow-worms disappeared: the dark was darker, the air was danker, and the musty bat smell wasn’t getting any weaker.

Maybe there isn’t another way out,
a voice whispered in Nim’s head.
Maybe you’ll be trapped here forever.

We’re not trapped,
she told it.
If we can’t find another
tunnel we’ll just go back. Lance and Leonora are scientists.
They’re not going to hurt us.

The dim glow from her headlamp shone into a different darkness. She’d found another tunnel.

The floor was moist and slippery. It sloped downhill more steeply than the cave, and was deeper in the middle than the sides, as if it had been neatly hollowed out.
By
water,
Nim thought.
This is the watercourse that comes out
above Waterfall Cliffs!

She was about to whisper the good news when the nasty little voice in her head said,
Or it’s an underground
creek that runs into an underground pool
–
and you’ll never
get out!

Nim decided she wouldn’t say anything yet.

‘At least we can’t get lost now,’ Edmund whispered in her ear.

It was true. The tunnel was narrow and the only other openings were small nooks or alcoves, as if someone had thought about making a window or a door and then remembered that there was nowhere for it to go. All Nim had to do was keep on going, and all the others had to do was follow.

That didn’t stop her stomach squirming with fear. Because even if they weren’t exactly lost, they didn’t know where they were, and they didn’t know where Lance and Leonora were or what they were doing. And even though they were going as quickly as they could, it wasn’t very fast because the tunnel was dark and the ceiling was low. Nim had to walk with her head bowed, and Edmund had to crouch. Ollie was the only one who could walk normally. He was still tied to Tiffany by the sleeping sheet, but he kept rushing ahead, sliding and bumping into Edmund.

Then they were all slipping, skidding down the tunnel. The floor was as slimy as a hungry slug, and so were the walls. They slid down as if they were going down the rainforest waterslide. It would have been fun if it hadn’t been so dark and they hadn’t been so scared of Leonora and Lance hearing them. But it was dark, and they were scared – all except Ollie.

‘I’m going fast!’ he squealed. ‘Fast, fast, FAST!’

‘SHH!’ everyone else hissed.

But Ollie squealed and skidded again, passing Edmund and Nim, and Tiffany skidded behind him. Then his squeal changed to a screech, and there was a slithery crashing noise and a splash of pebbles into water, and then more crashing and a scream from Tiffany.

‘Tiff!’ Tristan shouted.

Tiffany and Ollie had disappeared.

Chapter 10

I
N HER RAINFOREST STUDIO
, Alex blinked and shook her head as if she was waking up from a nightmare. The hairs on her arms were prickling with her Hero’s fear, because just as he was about to cut the fuse on the dynamite, he’d realised he didn’t have a knife. He’d broken it cutting the Lady Hero free from the rock the Bad Guys had tied her to. So now he’d have to move the dynamite, and Alex wouldn’t know for sure that he’d escape until she’d worked out exactly how long it would take him to run from the temple. She couldn’t do that until she’d timed Nim running.

And she couldn’t do that till Nim got away from the visiting scientists.

Alex shook her head again, and as if the last piece in a jigsaw puzzle had been shaken into the right space, she knew what had been bothering her. When Nim and Jack had told her about Selina Ashburn and Peter Husterstone becoming ill and Leonora and Lance stepping into their places, she’d thought it sounded like a plot from one of her stories.

Sometimes make-believe stories turn out to be a little bit true.

Leonora and Lance Bijou,
Alex typed into her search engine.

The screen filled with a long list of articles.

As Alex read each heading, the hairs on her arms prickled harder. When she opened the first one, the hairs stood straight up.

Questions Surround Mystery Disappearance of Scientist A geological expedition has come to a murky end after one of the scientists disappeared without trace. George Brown, a geologist, was working with palaeontologist Dr Leonora Bijou and her engineer husband Lance, when the team unearthed what was thought to be the biggest ruby ever found.

‘Palaeontologist and engineer!’ Alex exclaimed. ‘They told Jack they were a biologist and geologist.’

Dr Brown disappeared two nights after the rare gem was discovered and hasn’t been seen since. The ruby has also vanished.

‘It’s tragic,’ Leonora Bijou said. ‘We trusted this man, and it appears that he’s betrayed us and run away with the jewel.’

Lance Bijou stated, ‘Our interest was in the science of how this ruby could have formed, but it was also an extremely valuable gem. It seems that Dr Brown was more interested in the money than the science.’

The story was from a year ago. Below it was another article from the year before that.

Doubts about New Fossil Discovery

A week ago palaeontologist Dr Leonora Bijou discovered a rare fossil fish in an area where no fossils have been discovered before.

‘This is a very exciting discovery,’ a university spokesman said at the time. ‘This species of fish live in fresh water, and this is the first proof that there was fresh water in this area in the Palaeozoic Era.’

The fossil has been named the Leonora Lungfish in Dr Bijou’s honour.

However, Professor Maguire, from the university’s palaeontology department, claims that the fossil had been stolen from his office two weeks earlier. ‘I discovered this fossil myself, many years ago, in a well-known lungfish fossil site,’ he stated.

Dr Bijou was highly indignant at these charges and has vehemently denied their truth. ‘Professor Maguire is lying because he’s jealous,’ she said.

‘My wife has proved that she’s the best palaeontologist in the world,’ Lance Bijou claimed. ‘It’s not surprising that other scientists resent her discoveries.’

We tried to interview Professor Maguire again, but unfortunately he was unable to speak to us due to a sudden illness.

There were lots more stories, but when Alex saw the words
sudden illness
, she knew she’d read enough.

‘I was right,’ she said out loud. ‘This time the bad guys
are
real.’

She remembered how excited Nim had been this morning when they met on the trail, as if she was buzzing with a brand-new secret. Alex had a terrible feeling that the secret was something that could make Leonora Bijou very happy.

Nim was in danger.

‘H
ELP!
W
E’RE DOWN
here!’ Tiffany’s voice echoed up, high and quivery, from a hole in the tunnel floor.

Tristan had already thrown himself down beside it, wiggling so far into the shaft that Nim thought he was going to fall in too. She grabbed his right leg and Edmund grabbed the other.

The hole was shaped like a funnel and dropped straight down into the mountain. The mouth was wide, and the walls were slippery and smooth, polished by centuries of running water. Tiffany was jammed halfway down, where the walls narrowed so that she could brace one foot against each side of the wall. Ollie was hanging below her.

‘Want to get out now!’ they heard him whimper.

‘We’ll get you out,’ Nim promised. She didn’t know how, but they had to – they would!

Tristan slid further down into the funnel’s mouth.

‘We’ve got to get Ollie out first,’ Tiffany hissed. ‘He can’t reach the sides – if the sheet tears …’

Nim and Edmund pulled Tristan back up. He was heavier than he looked.

‘I can’t see!’ Tiffany shouted. ‘I’ve lost my torch!’

Tristan leaned in again and dropped his down to her. It thumped against the wall, clattered and banged.

‘Ouch!’ Tiffany squeaked, and then there was a splash.

‘Sorry!’ said Tristan. His voice choked.

‘Are you in water?’ Nim called.

‘It’s below us,’ Tiffany shouted.

‘Wet toes,’ Ollie sobbed.

Nim leaned over the hole so that her headlamp shone onto Tiffany. Edmund did the same.

With her legs jammed against the walls, Tiffany was hauling Ollie up by the sheet that tied them together. ‘Climb like a monkey,’ she was telling him, and Ollie stopped whimpering.

‘Come on, Monkey Ollie!’ Tristan called, and Ollie grabbed the sheet above his head.

Tiffany squatted, caught her little brother by the hands, and hauled him up between her knees. Tears glistened on her cheeks as she hugged him.

‘You’ve still got to be a baby monkey,’ she told him. ‘Hold on tight while I untie my end of the sheet.’

‘Don’t untie it!’ everyone shouted at once.

‘I have to,’ said Tiffany. Something in her voice stopped them from arguing.

But the knot around her waist had pulled tight. She tugged at the knot; her hand slipped and whacked hard against the rock. Ollie whimpered as if he was the one who’d been hurt, but Tiffany hardly seemed to notice. ‘I can’t untie it!’ she grunted.

Nim felt as if she was going to burst. She wanted to climb down the shaft and do something, but all she could do was to angle her headlamp for the best light, holding her head still while her mind whirled.
If I could just lower
her my pocketknife
…
But the cord’s too short; it’ll fall down
past her like Tristan’s torch.

She pushed back from the edge and slipped the three cords off her neck. They’d never been untied, not since Jack gave her each one when she was a little girl – the shell whistle, then the spyglass, and finally, when she was old enough to be careful and strong enough to use it, the fat red pocketknife. The knots were like rock now; she opened the knife, sliced through each knot and pulled out the cords. She tied the ends of the first two together in a reef knot, hearing Jack’s voice in her ears:
right over
left and under, left over right and under
– and then tied the third cord onto the end the same way. Finally she closed the knife, slipped the cord through its ring and tied that too.

It seemed to take a long time, but when she finished, Tiffany was still struggling and the sheet was still knotted.

‘I’m dropping you a knife!’ Nim called. She leaned deep into the funnel the way Tristan had before. Tristan and Edmund grabbed her ankles.