September

by Gabrielle Lord

  That’s when I realised that they’d raided Repro’s collection. The place had been trashed. Massive guilt weighed down on me as I looked over at my friend, helpless and tied up, watching his home being destroyed.

  Freddy smirked at me and then pushed his way through the secret door, disappearing outside. Just before Three-O did the same, he turned to me with an evil grin.

  ‘Thanks for the food,’ he said, picking up the parcel of fish and chips from where I’d dropped it in my struggle. Then he turned to Repro. ‘Think you’re pretty tricky with your secret door, hey? Try getting yourself out of this, Freak Show!’

  Repro and I listened to Three-O and Freddy hammering outside, nailing the timber across the back of the filing cabinet, walling us in. I looked around. The lair was hollowed out of rock, without even a window for escape.

  I tussled with my bound wrists, but all the knots held tight. Immobilised like this, all we could do was wait until the cops arrived to arrest me. Repro would be booted out of his home.

  ‘They’ll take me away,’ said Repro. ‘I won’t be able to live here any more. They’ll lock me up with you. I’ve avoided them for years, and now …’

  I’d been feeling really guilty about dragging Repro into this situation so I let him talk. But after he’d been carrying on for a while, I started to panic—every wasted second brought our arrests closer.

  ‘Listen,’ I snapped, ‘you’re not the only one in this mess. You think you have problems? I’ll be spending the rest of my life in maximum security!’

  ‘I was only ever trying to help you!’ he shouted at me.

  Something Dad used to say came into my mind: when you’re in a tight spot, don’t waste energy whingeing about the situation. Instead, use that energy to find a solution.

  ‘Repro, we have to find a way out of this. Now. For both of our sakes.’

  ‘I’ve been outwitting those bluecoats for years,’ he said, twisting his skinny fingers, trying to get at the knots that tied him. ‘It’s humiliating to be trussed up and delivered to them like this.’

  ‘So help me think of a way out of here.’

  ‘You heard them hammering and nailing,’ he said. ‘We’ll need a bulldozer to get out of here when they’re done.’

  ‘We need to get our hands and feet free, first. We can figure the rest out after that.’

  ‘And we can’t even try the emergency tunnel, all tied up like this,’ he said.

  ‘Emergency tunnel? What are you talking about?’

  ‘There was a tunnel that I used to use sometimes to get out of here, but I haven’t tried it in a long time because of the dangerous rockfalls.’

  ‘Right!’ I said, recalling him mentioning it ages ago. I jumped my chair around in a three-point turn to face him. ‘If there is another way out of here, we have a chance. We have to take the risk!’

  ‘You don’t know what you’re saying. There’s no chance. We’re tied up like a pair of Christmas turkeys and the emergency tunnel is practically a death trap.’

  ‘We have to try it!’

  Repro stared intensely at his bookcase. ‘It’s behind there. If you push that aside, you’ll find the entrance of a small tunnel that connects to the underground drainage section of that railway line you nearly got creamed on. Remember?’

  ‘How could I ever forget?’

  ‘There was a rockfall when I was in there a while ago, and I was nearly buried alive. Buried alive!’

  I shivered. I knew what that fear felt like.

  ‘Anyway,’ said Repro, shaking his head, ‘it’s not even an option. Look at us!’ he said, trying unsuccessfully to wriggle his hands and feet free.

  ‘We have to try,’ I urged, jumping my chair a little more. I found that if I did it vigorously enough, I could actually inch myself across the floor. If I could get to Repro and turn myself and the chair around, my fingers might be able to undo the knots that were tying him, or his long, supple fingers might be able to undo mine. ‘We don’t have much time,’ I said. ‘I’m coming over! You’re going to undo my ropes for me.’

  I jumped myself across the dusty floor, squeezing past the table until finally I landed myself beside the bed. With immense effort, I jumped the chair around so that I was facing away from him and my bound wrists were behind me, lined up with Repro’s fingers.

  ‘Start working your magic,’ I ordered. ‘Get my hands free, then I’ll get yours free. Fast!’

  His fingers immediately started scrambling, awkwardly prodding and pulling at the knots behind me.

  ‘Hurry!’ I pleaded.

  ‘I’m going as fast as I can! The cavalry will be here any minute now—don’t you think I know that? Pipe down and keep still!’

  I gritted my teeth, trying to stop myself from saying any more. Sweat was running down my forehead and stinging my eyes.

  ‘Almost there,’ he said as I felt the ropes on my hands loosening.

  I twisted my hands, squeezed my fingers together, trying to make them as compact and narrow as possible.

  ‘I’m free!’ I yelled.

  ‘That you are! Now hurry up and free me!’

  I leaned down and began working frantically on the ropes at my feet first. The second I had them out, I jumped up and started pulling at the ropes around Repro’s hands and the bedhead.

  When we were both finally free, Repro threw the ropes to the floor and jumped up, then almost fell over. ‘I’ll have to get the circulation back,’ he said, stomping his feet on the floor, dancing around like a tall, skinny leprechaun.

  ‘Quit prancing around! Let’s get out of here!’

  A lot of time had passed since Three-O and Freddy had barricaded us in, and I was feeling nervous, thinking I could hear the helicopter back again.

  I started shoving the bookshelf aside, and Repro skipped over to help me.

  Outside, it sounded like vehicles were screeching and skidding to a halt. Then came the sounds of thudding feet. I imagined riot police being ordered into position.

  ‘The cops are already here!’ I yelled. ‘They’ll be bashing the door down in seconds! Let’s go, let’s go!’

  Repro started staring up at the ceiling, peering into a dark cavity.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I shouted. ‘Help me with this!’

  He ignored me and kept on staring up above the secret filing cabinet entrance, like he was trying to work something out. He nodded his head and rubbed his hands together.

  ‘Repro, what are you doing? Stop wasting time! We have to get out of here!’

  Finally he snapped out of it and helped me wrench the bookshelf aside, sending tiny boxes and bottles flying, crashing and shattering on the floor. A jar of glass eyes smashed to the ground, and all the coloured eyeballs rolled around, staring up at us.

  A gaping hole, about the size of an old-fashioned fireplace, was now exposed, leading into blackness.

  ‘The collection!’ cried Repro as he watched his treasures scattering. ‘All these years of gathering, down the drain!’

  He picked up a sack and ran around, trying to stash things from his collection into it.

  ‘We don’t have time for that, Repro! Grab the torch,’ I yelled.

  But he wouldn’t stop.

  ‘Where is it? Where is she?’ he wailed, searching frantically through the mess on the floor. ‘I can’t go without her!’

  ‘Who? What are you talking about? Let’s go!’

  ‘Aha!’ he cried triumphantly. ‘Here she is!’

  He raced over to join me, clutching the softly tinted portrait of his mother. He shoved it into his shirt pocket.

  ‘They’re almost through!’ I shouted over the thuds at the door. Repro had reinforced the backs of the cabinet doors, but I knew they couldn’t hold out much longer against the onslaught of the sledgehammers, or whatever they were using to break their way in.

  Repro snatched up a torch from where it was rolling on the ground, and clutching his sack of possessions, scrambled into the emergency tunnel. I followed him,
backpack behind me, crawling quickly, grazing my knees on the way.

  The sound of splintering and shattering broke through the air as the back wall of the filing cabinet started to give way. I raced after Repro through the narrow space, following his outline and the narrow beams of torchlight ahead of him.

  Stones and rocks rattled past me, one hitting me painfully on the head. All of a sudden I collided with Repro’s backside.

  ‘Hold up!’ he said.

  The yells and shouts of our pursuers echoed from behind us.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked, panic-stricken. ‘Have we already came to a block? We’re not even twenty metres in!’

  Repro was reaching into a hole in the roof of the small tunnel we were in. He had a rope handle looped around his hand.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I asked, urgently. ‘We have to keep moving!’

  ‘Survival Falls,’ he whispered back in the same urgent tone. ‘I set this up ages ago when I planned on this being a more reliable thoroughfare. Let’s see if it lives up to its name!’

  I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. All I was thinking about was the cops closing in on us.

  Repro suddenly tugged on the rope, with a determined look in his eyes.

  At first there was a loud, creaking noise, coming from behind us.

  I looked at Repro, confused. He nodded, a barely visible grin appearing on his face.

  ‘Three, two, one!’ he counted before a wild rumbling and crashing thundered into our ears!

  I started freaking out, thinking the avalanche meant we were doomed—about to be buried alive—but we were OK, aside from a cloud of dust in the air.

  Then I saw Repro’s face.

  He was beaming!

  ‘It worked!’ he shouted.

  By tugging on the rope looped around his hand, he had released a huge pile of pent-up rocks, held in place above the lair opening by some sort of timber loft. That was what he’d been staring at earlier!

  ‘They have no chance of getting through now!’ he cheered.

  Survival Falls had worked!

  ‘Awesome, Repro,’ I said as I looked through the slowly settling dust to the rocky mountain barricade behind us. The filing cabinet entrance was now completely blocked.

  His satisfied look soon vanished. ‘We still have to get through the rest of this, my boy,’ he said, ‘and it’s not going to be pretty.’

  As if in response to his words, another rumble, this time further ahead in the tunnel, shook the ground we were crawling on.

  I gasped, my throat filled with grit.

  ‘I warned you,’ said Repro. ‘This tunnel is unstable. But now we have no choice but to keep going.’

  We continued crawling through the narrow cutting. Repro grunted ahead.

  Another rumble shook us. More stones fell on us.

  ‘Move as quickly as you can,’ came Repro’s muffled voice. ‘That sounds like the beginning of another rockfall.’

  I scrambled along faster to keep up with him. I didn’t care that rocks were cutting and bruising my hands and knees. I just kept following Repro, hoping that any serious rockfall would hold off until we’d reached a safe spot.

  We’d been crawling for what felt like an hour, but was probably only about ten or fifteen minutes, when a loud grinding and rumbling started. The earth was growling, shaking under my hands and knees.

  My heart stopped.

  Something hit me hard.

  When I opened my eyes again I realised something heavy was pressing on me. My face was flattened to the ground and it was almost impossible to turn my head. I could see a splinter of light through some cracks and wondered where I was for a few seconds.

  Nearby, I could hear someone moaning. I tried again to move, but couldn’t. Repro and I had been caught in a rockfall that was pinning us to the ground. The light I could see was the beam of the torch, which was also trapped somewhere in the rubble.

  ‘Repro?’ I called. ‘Are you OK?’

  I could hear the rattling of loose stones as he tried to move.

  ‘Repro?’ I called again. ‘Can you move?’

  ‘A bit,’ came his voice, strained and weak.

  Again came the rattle and rumble of loose stones and a lot of huffing and puffing.

  ‘There’s a rock trapping my left leg. I’m just trying to—,’ he paused, heaving, ‘—to lift it off.’ He grunted as he forced the rock from his body. ‘There,’ he said, panting, ‘it’s off. I’m free now.’

  ‘I think I need you to lift some rocks off me. I’m afraid to move,’ I admitted, fearful that too much movement on my part could dislodge another avalanche that would completely bury me.

  I saw the torchlight swing around as Repro grabbed it, lighting up the narrow black tomb in which we were imprisoned. Dust filled the air and the stench of dampness filled my nostrils. From far away came the distant shuddering of a train.

  Repro swore loudly.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked.

  He swore again.

  ‘Just get me out of here! All you need to do is move a few rocks off me. OK?’

  ‘Whatever you do just don’t move!’

  The panic in his voice worried me. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Do you remember a game called “Pick-up Sticks”? Where you had to shake these long, thin plastic sticks onto the floor and then start picking them up, one by one, without dislodging any of the others?’

  ‘Please, just get to your point,’ I begged.

  ‘I’m trying to explain it,’ said Repro, in a hurt voice. ‘You see, if I start moving the rocks that are on top of you, even though they’re quite small, some of them are supporting a great big boulder that’s just balancing on the pointy end of another rock. If I make one wrong move that huge boulder will fall and … Let’s just say you don’t want to know what would happen next.’

  I didn’t dare move. I held my breath, suddenly intensely aware of the pain and the pressure of the weight that was on my body.

  Repro slowly began pulling at stones. I could just see him out of the corner of my eye—he’d carefully remove one from the mass on top of me, and then place it behind him. I could hear him cracking his fingers and muttering to himself about danger and rockfalls and pesky kids who brought nothing but trouble into his quiet little life, in between mournful laments about losing his collection. ‘Don’t move,’ he kept repeating.

  I remained silent, too scared to even move my mouth.

  ‘Patience, patience,’ he panted, continuing his delicate work. The pressure on one of my legs eased. ‘We can’t send you back to your mother all battered and bruised.’

  ‘My mother?’ I whispered. ‘What made you say that?’

  ‘I was thinking of mine, I suppose,’ he said, sadly. ‘Did I tell you that I broke her heart? I went off the rails, acting like a complete hooligan. Didn’t care what I was doing to her. Or to Dad. By the time I’d cleaned up my act, and made a new beginning, I’d lost touch with her. She’d given up on me.’

  ‘Do you think you’ll ever see her again?’ I asked, carefully, feeling tears sting the back of my eyes as I thought of my lost family, my lost home.

  ‘She wouldn’t want to know me,’ he said sadly.

  Repro lifted another rock, freeing my left arm and left side.

  ‘This is the tricky bit,’ he said, sitting back and studying the remaining rock pile.

  ‘I think I’m going numb,’ I said.

  ‘I’ve worked out the engineering of this last obstacle,’ said Repro. ‘I’m going to start pulling the higher rocks away and then when I come to the big balancing one, I’ll have to lie on my back and use my legs to push it—hard—behind you. If you roll to the side and pull your legs up at the same time, I’m hoping that it will hit the ground back there, missing you.’

  I lay there helpless, still unable to move, as Repro picked away at the high rocks.

  I heard Repro shoving himself around in the narrow confines of the low tunnel until he was in the best posit
ion to use the full force of his body to shift the big stone.

  ‘OK, my boy. I’m about to give this rock everything I have in the opposite direction from you. But you can never predict these sorts of things. I’m going to count to three and on the count of three, I’ll rock, you roll. Got it?’

  ‘Got it,’ I said, my body tensing with anticipation. I hoped both of my legs would obey me, once the pressure was off them.

  He sat back, legs up, ready to kick. ‘Right, here goes! One, two, three!’

  The weight lifted and with all the strength I could muster I rolled over, snapping my legs up tight.

  The huge rock crashed down, just missing my feet. It landed with a massive thud, the shock sending a cluster of smaller rocks tumbling down on top of both of us.

  But I was free! We’d both made it!

  We crawled along the dark, crumbly passage until finally we were hauling ourselves through a square-cut hole into a water collection area under the railway line. I looked at the drain cover above us and heard the roaring of a train rattling over the top of it. That was where Repro had saved me the first time.

  ‘If you keep going through the tunnel over there,’ he said, ‘you’ll end up in the park about half a kilometre from here. The opening is well hidden with bushes and shrubs. You should be OK emerging there. Should be OK.’

  ‘Thanks Repro,’ I said, simultaneously grateful I was alive, but also feeling incredibly guilty about the trouble I’d caused for him. ‘Where will you go? What will you do?’

  He sat down on the hard cement floor of the pump area. ‘I’ll have to find another place,’ he said sadly, ‘and start again. I may venture back to the lair, one day, to see if anything’s salvageable. All those musical instruments, my books, my paintings …’ He kicked at the ground dejectedly. ‘What about Mr and Mrs Bones?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ was all I could offer. I couldn’t help him. I didn’t have a clue where I should go either. ‘Is there anything I can do for you?’

  ‘Nah, look, the Reprobate will be just fine,’ he said with a wave of his hands. ‘He always is. Setbacks will only set you back as far as you allow them. I’ll be fine. You, my boy, should get out of here before someone finds you. Get on your way. Get back to business. Forget about me.’