The Tunnels of Ferdinand

by James Moloney

‘No, you won’t,’ snapped Dorian. ‘If they end up driving like you, we won’t have any Dodgems left.’

  She did let Quinn show them some of the special features of the Dodgems, though. ‘They can’t turn around, even in the biggest tunnels,’ he pointed out. ‘So the seats turn around instead. See?’ He demonstrated how it was done. ‘The light and the steering wheel come off and you fit them on at the other end, like this.’ He attached them to a couple of small brackets at the other end of the Dodgem. ‘Then it’s ready. Goes just as fast in both directions.’

  They were certainly ingenious machines. ‘Who invented them?’ Berrin asked.

  ‘Ferdinand, of course. He works out most things for us down here.’

  ‘At least, he did before he left,’ added Dorian sharply.

  Berrin was surprised at how quickly Dorian had corrected Quinn’s mistake, but he was too intrigued by the Dodgem to think much about it.

  ‘Come on, time to go for a spin,’ said Dorian.

  ‘A spin?’

  ‘Drive it!’

  Olanda looked particularly keen, but Berrin beat her into the front seat. Dorian climbed in the back. ‘Take it slowly at first, won’t you.’

  He pushed on the lever and the Dodgem shot forward. ‘Not so fast,’ Dorian cried. He slackened off … well, just a little. The light mounted in front of him illuminated just enough of the tunnel ahead. His hair flapped madly against his forehead again. Was there anything more fun in the world? He banked into a corner, rising just a little way up the side.

  ‘That’s it, you’ve got the idea.’

  Soon Dorian called a halt and ordered him to rig the Dodgem for the opposite direction. He had it going again in seconds, in the other seat now, facing the other way. ‘You’re a natural,’ she called from behind him. ‘You should be giving lessons to Quinn.’

  This opinion was almost shattered, though, when they returned to where Quinn and Olanda were waiting. ‘Back it up a bit, would you,’ Dorian asked.

  Eagerly, Berrin pulled the lever for reverse. A little too eagerly. The Dodgem jumped backwards, scattering Quinn and Olanda to one side in a desperate effort to save themselves.

  ‘Humph,’ was all Dorian offered. Quinn was laughing too hard to say anything.

  Olanda didn’t have to be asked twice when it was her turn. She just about threw Berrin out of the driver’s seat.

  ‘Right, press that lever forward,’ Dorian instructed.

  Olanda wasn’t one for doing things by halves. She wrenched it all the way forward at once, and immediately the Dodgem scooted away. In the blink of an eye, they shot along the tunnel and around a bend.

  A brief silence followed, then there came a screech of metal and the yellow light of sputtering sparks reflected along the tunnel.

  Quinn was already running, with Berrin hard on his heels, along with three more Rats who had appeared to see what had made that sudden noise. Halfway round the corner, the light of their helmets picked out the upturned Dodgem with Olanda and Dorian clambering out.

  ‘Guess I overdid it,’ said Olanda without a hint of apology.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Quinn said to Dorian as he helped her to her feet, ‘she’ll be as good as me in no time.’

  This thought didn’t seem to please Dorian.

  They all gave a hand to get the Dodgem back onto its wheels, then Dorian set about teaching Olanda to drive with a little more restraint. It was clearly going to take a while.

  The pipe branched off in two directions a little way ahead, and with nothing much to do, Berrin wandered off to explore. There was little to see, just the curved walls of concrete as far as his helmet light extended.

  So silent. All he could hear was the crunch of his own shoes on the gravel that seemed to collect on the bottom of the pipes.

  He was about to turn around when he caught another sound, a soft squeaking. He set off again, interested to know what it was. He walked for many minutes before he saw anything at all.

  Sounds must travel a long way in these tunnels, he decided. At least he could see something now that wasn’t just bare, cold concrete. Some vines were growing from the top of the tunnel and all the way down one side. He hadn’t thought anything could grow down here. They weren’t green, he noticed, but a deep red.

  The noise was coming from within the vines. There it was. A rat, a real rat, pale brown with a tuft of white fur on top of its head. It seemed to be caught among the vines near the curve of the floor.

  Berrin reached down and, with more difficulty than he expected, freed the little thing. It scampered away into the darkness, then stopped to look back at him rather fretfully.

  ‘Go on, there’s nothing to be worried about now,’ urged Berrin.

  He shook one of the vines he still held in his hand at the rat. Before he knew it, he wasn’t holding the vine any more — it was holding him.

  He used his other hand to pull it off, but this was a mistake. Now both hands were caught. Next his legs and then his body were encircled by a thin tentacle, which pulled him into the curved wall of the pipe.

  He was about to call out to Quinn for help when the light of his helmet flickered onto the opposite wall. There were no vines here, only an opening into a much smaller pipe. Painted on the concrete close by was a circle with a slash through the centre.

  The rule, the first rule he had been told. The only one so far. If you’re near one of these marks, don’t make a sound.

  The vines continued to thread themselves rapidly around Berrin’s body. He kicked and strained with his knees, loosening them a little. But as soon as he stopped for a moment to recover, they held him fast again.

  With a mighty effort he pulled one arm free and tugged desperately at the vines that encircled his neck. They wouldn’t budge and he could feel them tightening. If he didn’t do something soon, they would strangle him.

  Should he call out anyway? The vines had obscured the light on his helmet and he couldn’t see that symbol now. All the same, he knew it was there and he knew what it meant. His cries for help might be heard on the surface. Whoever heard them would know they came from the pipes below ground. He wouldn’t let himself be the one who gave away the Rats’ most precious secret.

  The cords around his neck and chest were tightening even further. He could barely breathe. It was too late now. He couldn’t fill his lungs with enough air to call out, even if he wanted to. He struggled desperately, using every scrap of energy he had left.

  It was hopeless. He was going to die.

  SEVEN

  Following the Wire

  BERRIN’S LAST BREATH WAS gone. He could feel his head spinning and his chest ready to burst. Then, suddenly, the strain was gone. He dragged in a greedy breath.

  Now the vines fell away from his head. When the heavy red leaves cleared from his eyes, he found Dorian less than a metre in front of him. His helmet light picked her out as she hacked and slashed with her sword. The blade glinted in the light from other helmets. They were all here: Olanda, Quinn, Ruben and Vindy.

  At last he was free!

  Quinn came forward to help him throw off the last of the deadly vines. ‘Why didn’t you call —’

  That was as much as he said before Dorian slapped her hand over his mouth. ‘Shh,’ she whispered in his ear, and with her hand still in place over his mouth, she dragged Quinn a good twenty metres along the tunnel. With Ruben and Vindy on either side, in case he was unsteady on his feet, Berrin followed on behind. Olanda brought up the rear, once she had lingered a moment or two to inspect the blood-red vine.

  ‘What did you do that for?’ Quinn demanded hotly when Dorian finally removed her hand from his mouth. ‘I was only asking Berrin why he didn’t call for help.’

  ‘Because of the warning sign, you idiot,’ Dorian replied, shoving him hard in the shoulder. ‘You didn’t see it, but he did. He was ready to die rather than make a sound.’

  Quinn looked around and saw that the others were well ahead of him. ‘Is that right, Berrin? You di
dn’t want to give us away?’

  What could Berrin say? Embarrassed, he nodded briefly to show it was true. ‘What did you call them? The Gadges. They might have heard me.’

  Quinn came forward and reached for his hand to shake it. ‘I’ve known some brave Rats in my time, but none quite like you.’

  ‘What was that red stuff, anyway?’ Olanda asked.

  ‘We call it Gunge,’ Dorian explained. ‘It was one of Malig Tumora’s early experiments, a plant crossed with an animal. The horrible thing lives on blood. That’s why it’s red. When it didn’t turn out the way he expected, he must have flushed it down the drain. That’s how it ended up here.’

  ‘It’s not a problem for us really,’ said Ruben. ‘Not if you look out for it …’

  ‘And not if you’ve got a sword,’ Berrin added hotly. He was sick of being rescued. First Wendell had snatched him from the jaws of death, now Dorian. ‘I want to fight my own battles,’ he insisted.

  ‘He’s right,’ said Quinn, staring towards Dorian, who was still moved by the courage Berrin had shown.

  ‘Yes, it’s time you two had swords of your own,’ she agreed. ‘Quinn, give yours to Olanda.’

  ‘What!’

  ‘You can get another one from the armoury.’

  Quinn wasn’t happy, but he unbuckled the straps that kept the sword on his back. With Vindy’s help, it was fitted in place, one strap around her waist, the other over one shoulder.

  As soon as it was secure, Olanda drew the sword free and held it before her, using both hands. ‘No more sharp sticks. I could have cut that Dfx’s whole leg off with this.’

  ‘Be careful, we don’t want you cutting any legs off down here,’ Dorian warned, with the hint of a smile. ‘If you use that sword like you drive the Dodgem you’ll cut us all to ribbons.’

  Quinn felt naked without his sword and a little disgruntled. ‘What about Berrin, then?’

  Dorian still held her own sword by her side. Raising it carefully until the blade lay horizontal across her hands, she offered it to Berrin. ‘This sword was given to me by Ferdinand himself,’ she said solemnly. ‘Now it’s yours. You’ve earned it.’

  THERE WAS SO MUCH for Berrin and Olanda to learn. Mastering the deadly swords took up the rest of the day. But this seemed easy compared with their lessons in electricity.

  Their instructor this time was Ruben. ‘There is no natural light down here,’ he explained. ‘Candles would use up the oxygen, and besides, the smell of burning wax would drift up to the surface.’

  The solution was electricity. ‘We don’t make it ourselves. We steal it. But you have to know how to do it or you’ll fry yourself to a crisp.’

  He showed them where they tapped into the power supply from a thick wire in the basement of an abandoned building. ‘See these smaller wires?’ he said, resting on his haunches and showing off his dirty knees through the holes in his worn trousers. ‘These wires are ours. This one goes to the chamber where we sleep. This one goes to where we recharge all the batteries.’

  Berrin recognised the word. ‘They’re what make the Dodgems move.’

  ‘Yes, and there are much smaller batteries for the light in your helmet.’ Ruben took his own off and showed them.

  There were other wires heading off to different parts of the tunnel system, each of them coated in a different coloured plastic. One by one, Ruben listed where they went and what they were for.

  ‘What about this one?’ Olanda asked, pointing to the only strand he hadn’t mentioned.

  ‘Oh, that one,’ said Ruben, looking caught out. ‘It … er … it’s a spare, yes, it’s a spare in case one of the others doesn’t work.’

  Berrin was sure he was lying. And it wasn’t the first time he had detected some kind of deceit. Dorian had said a couple of things that didn’t add up. Earlier that day she had said her sword had been given to her by the great Ferdinand, but by Berrin’s calculations he must have been gone from the tunnels long before Dorian arrived. And yesterday she had hastily corrected something Quinn had told them.

  Berrin liked being with these odd children and was desperate to be a useful part of the team. But he suspected they were hiding something and it niggled at him.

  When Ruben was called away, leaving the two of them alone, he said to Olanda, ‘I’m going to follow this wire.’

  She didn’t hesitate for a moment. ‘I’m coming with you.’

  ‘Don’t you want to know why?’

  ‘I don’t care, really, but if it leads to trouble, two swords are better than one.’

  He liked Olanda even more than he liked Quinn. There were no tricks about her, none of the airs that some girls had used to make themselves seem special back in his dormitory. Yet she was special, and as brave as any of the other Rats he had encountered in these tunnels. In fact, he envied the way she had driven the Dodgem yesterday. A touch of recklessness could be a good thing. If anyone was coming along to watch his back, he was glad it was her.

  The electrical wire snaked along some pipes they hadn’t seen before. There were plenty of those still, Berrin had to admit. When the wire turned into a narrower pipe, they were forced to crawl. He knew now why the Rats all seemed to wear away the knees of their pants.

  Zooming along a tunnel in the Dodgems left no time to take a closer look. Now, with his nose only inches from the concrete, there was plenty of time to take it all in.

  He shivered as a cockroach scurried across the tunnel in front of him. There were beetles as well, all black and disgusting. He would have to get used to it.

  At last they emerged into a larger space, another straight-sided chamber, where they could stand up and stretch. Berrin was getting used to the way these tunnels were formed now. Often, three or four pipes would converge, with their opening near the top of one wall in a space like this. A much larger pipe would then take away the water, starting lower down on the opposite side. Sure enough, he looked down and there was a large round opening in the wall near his feet.

  But the wire didn’t thread in that direction. In fact, it seemed to disappear into a crack in the concrete.

  ‘Which way now, then?’ Olanda asked.

  ‘We’ll have to check each of these pipes.’ Berrin didn’t fancy that. They might end up crawling for hours among the cockroaches and the dirt and still not find that wire again.

  ‘Yuck, look at that,’ said Olanda. ‘Rats.’

  Berrin cringed. Cockroaches and beetles were bad enough, but if there was a horde of rats prowling these pipes, he would have to think twice about going any further.

  He followed her eye to the opening of one of the pipes. Yes, there was a rat staring out at them. But not just any rat.

  ‘That’s the one I saved!’ he cried. ‘See the white mark on its head?’

  He went closer. The little creature showed no fear, and when Berrin reached out his hand, it came to him. Before he knew it, the rat had climbed onto his hand and scampered all the way up to his shoulder.

  ‘He thinks he owns you,’ said Olanda, glad that it was Berrin with a rat sitting so close to his ear and not her.

  ‘We might as well try the pipe this little guy came from,’ Berrin suggested. ‘It’s as good a choice as any.’

  As they scrambled inside, the rat jumped free and nosed its way ahead, while they took their time on hands and knees.

  After ten or so metres, Berrin spotted the wire again. ‘This is the way.’

  But what were they going to find at the end of this wire? The rat scampered round a corner. When the pipe straightened out again there was no sign of him. The tunnel was silent except for their own breathing. Berrin’s flesh began to crawl.

  A little further and they veered into another narrow pipe, and for about ten metres they had to hunch their shoulders and pull them in. Even then, it was an uncomfortable squeeze. But the wire kept going and Berrin was determined to find out where it ended. Finally, the narrow pipe joined a 170, the largest size of tunnel, and they could stand up again.
>
  ‘Berrin,’ Olanda called from behind him, ‘my light is going dim.’

  Soon it died altogether. That left only the one on Berrin’s helmet. ‘Hope this one doesn’t fail too.’

  Then they heard a noise just along the tunnel. It wasn’t the noise a rat would make. Something much larger had made a movement. There it was again, just ahead.

  This pipe joined another at a sharp angle. The noise had come from around the corner.

  If Olanda hadn’t been there, Berrin might have gone back. But no, there was the wire running along the floor until it rounded the corner. There was a faint light. He was sure of it now. He took another step.

  Then a cough, definitely a cough. They froze, waiting to see what would emerge from around the corner.

  Moments later they knew. In the middle of the tunnel, staring at them with equal surprise, stood a ghost.

  EIGHT

  A Man with Skin Like a Ghost

  IN THE DORMITORY LATE at night, the Dfx had whispered dark stories about ghosts and strange phantoms. It was not simply a cruel trick meant to frighten the younger boys. No, their voices had trembled with fear. Many of Berrin’s friends had buried their heads under the blankets to block out the words. Not one of those boys had doubted that ghosts were real.

  This one was just as the Dfx had described them. He was tall, too tall even for this large pipe, so he was stooped over. Painfully thin, too. The bones of his hands and fingers were easily seen beneath the flesh. His clothes were more ragged than those of any of the Rats. But if there was one thing that settled the matter, it was his deathly white skin.

  He did not back away, but he showed the quick anger of someone startled by the unexpected. ‘Who are you? How did you get here?’ he demanded, in a deep voice that sounded human.

  ‘We followed the wire,’ said Berrin, pointing at it nervously. ‘That one, the electricity. And when we lost sight of it, we followed the rat.’

  This rat had made its way calmly to the ghost’s feet. He stooped suddenly to pick it up, making the children jump back in fright.

  The ghost, if that was what he was, stroked the rat gently. When he spoke a second time, his anger had given way to a mocking tone. ‘You led them here, Jasper. Let’s hope I don’t come to regret your carelessness.’