by Anna Dale
Shamefacedly, Athene informed him that they hadn’t.
‘No sign, eh?’ said the badger, with a sympathetic shake of his head. ‘But you’re still on the lookout? You haven’t given up the search?’
‘Actually, we have,’ said Huffkin, ‘yes.’
‘What?’ exclaimed Shoveller. ‘Shame on you! We badgers are made of sterner stuff, it seems. You wouldn’t catch one of my lot giving up so quickly.’
‘We tried,’ said Athene plaintively, ‘but nobody seems to have seen him.’
‘Is that so?’ said Shoveller, his voice full of scorn. ‘Did you ask Midget the beetle? He may be half the size of my shortest claw, but he doesn’t miss a trick. And what about the weasels, Gab and Blather? They’re the biggest gossips down here. And I hope you had the sense to grill that otter. I heard that one was caught two nights ago and that’s near enough when your boy arrived, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ said Athene. ‘But …’
‘Goats butt,’ said the badger sharply. ‘The rest of us show a bit of ruddy backbone and get on with the job in hand.’
‘Perhaps, I should keep looking,’ said Athene. She had not yet been able to erase the possibility that Zach had taken shelter inside the tree and fallen down the shaft.
‘I’ll do it!’ she said. ‘I will!’
The badger had made her feel hopeful again.
‘Good for you, Athene,’ said Shoveller, and winked at her as he left.
Athene left the hole to find the creatures that Shoveller had named, but did so on her own. Her two Gloam friends had failed to be persuaded that the hunt for Zach was worth resuming. Neither of them had said as much (in fact Humdudgeon had said nothing at all), but Athene could tell that they believed that she was wasting her time.
The two weasels, Gab and Blather, were easy enough to track down. She found the long-bodied creatures curled up together in a messy hole in the Squattings. It was full of bones and twigs and animal hair. When Athene spoke their names, the tiny creatures lifted up their heads and slipped out of their hole with serpentine grace.
Athene knelt upon the ground and the weasels darted up to her. ‘I’m sorry to interrupt your nap,’ she said.
‘’S all right,’ said one.
‘What’s up?’ said the other, putting his paws on her knees.
‘I’ve lost someone who’s just arrived down here,’ Athene said. ‘A boy. He’s young and pasty-faced. Shoveller thought you might know where he could be.’
‘Like to help you, wouldn’t we, Gab?’ said the first weasel.
‘’Course,’ said Gab, ‘but we can’t, can we, Blather? We haven’t heard a whisper about a lad who looks like that.’
‘Not even a rumour,’ said Blather. They both shook their heads, then nipped back to their hole.
‘Thanks anyway,’ said Athene, getting up from the ground. She was disappointed, but not yet ready to give up. She still had two more creatures left to question.
Athene made her way along the Squattings, peeping into every hole. Some inhabitants smiled and waved at her, but others took objection to a stranger peering in at them and told her to clear off in no uncertain terms. Eventually she stumbled across Midget the beetle, inspecting his wing-casings under a stone.
‘Hi, Midget,’ she said, crouching down to speak to him.
‘How do you do,’ replied the beetle in a cut glass accent.
‘May I ask you something?’ she said humbly.
‘By all means, young lady,’ said the beetle. ‘Ask away.’
‘I’ve been trying to find a little boy,’ said Athene. ‘He’s blind and weird-looking. His ears are really small and he hasn’t got any marks on his skin. Have you seen a boy like that down here?’
‘Regrettably not,’ said the beetle.
Athene sighed. ‘Well, thank you for your time,’ she said.
‘Not at all. It was my pleasure,’ Midget said, waving a microscopic leg at her before retreating under his stone.
The otter proved to be a lot more difficult to find. After half an hour of scouring the Squattings, Athene was no closer to locating him. Many of those that she questioned, as she ducked in and out of the myriad of holes, seemed to have heard that an otter had arrived underground, but none of them could claim to have met him. Athene refused to curtail her search. The weasels and the beetle might not have seen her brother, but she felt that the otter would have had the best chance of bumping into Zach and it was important to seek him out. He was more or less her last hope.
Desperation made her bold. With as much confidence as she could muster, she marched up the tunnel and attempted to squeeze through the huddle of Low Gloam sentries who were patrolling the entrance to the Squattings.
They grouped together and blocked her path. ‘Where do you think you’re off to?’ said one, smirking at her.
‘I need to go to the Stints,’ she said. ‘It’s urgent.’
The rest of the Low Gloam sniggered and surged forward like a rugby scrum, forcing her to take a few steps back. Athene glared at them defiantly. ‘You’d better let me pass,’ she said, ‘or it will be the worse for you.’
‘Hark at her,’ said another of the Low Gloam, prodding her shoulder with his finger. ‘Do you dare to think that you can threaten us? Go back to your hovel, pipsqueak. There’s a curfew in case you hadn’t noticed. You’ve got to stay in the Squattings until we say otherwise.’
‘I must go to the Stints,’ Athene said. ‘I simply must. I’ve got to … er … get some ink. That’s right. I need some ink. I’ve got Lodestar’s permission. In fact, she’s insisted that I go. I’m a scribe. I’m doing an important job for her, and if I go to work this evening without a new bottle of ink, she’ll be really miffed. She’ll hit the roof in fact … and when I tell her why I couldn’t get some … gosh, I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes.’
‘But we don’t wear any shoes,’ said one Gloam stupidly, wiggling his hairy toes.
‘Shut up, Wenzil,’ said another. ‘I think we’d better let her pass. If our leader has ordered it then we should bow to her wishes.’
Athene could not believe her luck when the band of Low Gloam stood aside and allowed her to walk through. She held her head high as she strolled between them. Only when she had turned a corner, did she hide her face in her hands and allow her knees to tremble. Once she had pulled herself together she breathed in deeply and set out for the Stints to track down the one person who was bound to know where the otter could be found. She had heard that Tippitilda often worked late, but if the Low Gloam woman had gone home, Athene planned to go to the Digs and the Snuggeries and find her. Then she would ask her where the otter was.
Roaming outside the Squattings during the Curfew was a privilege that was rarely granted. She was bound to be stopped and questioned by any Low Gloam that she did not manage to avoid. However, Athene reckoned that if she kept calm and exuded enough confidence she would be able to convince them that she had permission to be where she was. If they saw through her deception she might receive a punishment, but she was prepared to take that risk. Finding her brother was all that mattered.
As if she were starting out on a crusade, Athene pounded down the tunnel.
She tired quickly and her lengthy strides had shrunk to dwarfish paces by the time that Athene reached the Stints. Every hole that she trudged past was empty. The cooking pots in the kitchens had been scrubbed clean and the wooden ladles had been hung up on their hooks. In another hole, newly-made furniture had been abandoned in a half-finished state and in the laundry room clothes had been pegged to washing lines and left to dry.
It was deathly quiet. The only sounds were the drip-drip-drip of water as it fell from the sopping clothes on to the ground and a gentle, rhythmic grunt coming from Tippitilda’s office.
Athene neared the woman’s chamber and felt elated when she glimpsed the desktop and saw a pair of stockinged legs splayed underneath it. Tippitilda was sitting at a curious angle in her chair with her head tilted back and he
r large antique locket askew on her chest. Gentle snores were escaping from between her parted lips.
‘Tippitilda!’ hissed Athene. ‘Tippitilda, wake up, please!’
The snoring stopped first and then her nose twitched. Tippitilda’s head rolled forward and finally she opened her eyes. She took a few seconds to recognise Athene and when she did, she smiled. ‘Ah, it’s Athene, isn’t it?’ she said, blinking dazedly. ‘You’re fortunate to have caught me. I was just about to wend my way home.’
Her dreamy smile faded as the last remnants of drowsiness left her. A look of tight-lipped disapproval appeared in its place.
‘Suppose you tell me what you’re doing here at this hour?’ snapped Tippitilda, rising from her chair. ‘I take it you have permission. Breaking the Curfew is a serious offence. Don’t dither about in the tunnel, you foolish child! Somebody might see you. You’d better come in and explain yourself.’
Athene entered the chamber and sat down in a chair on the other side of Tippitilda’s desk. She noticed that the Low Gloam woman looked dishevelled and exhausted. Her long black hair was dull and tangled and she had dark circles under her eyes.
‘Well?’ said Tippitilda, sitting down again. She rested her clasped hands on the desk in front of her. ‘I’d be very interested to hear what you’ve got to say.’
Athene squirmed in her seat. Her courage failed her. She had convinced herself that Tippitilda was a kindly, approachable person underneath her bossy demeanour. She had thought that she could trust the Low Gloam woman, but what if she was wrong?
‘I’m waiting,’ said Tippitilda icily.
Athene decided to throw caution to the wind. She had taken risks and put herself in jeopardy so that she could find Tippitilda. It would be a waste of all that effort if she baulked now. ‘I’m supposed to be fetching some ink,’ she said. ‘That’s the story I told to get past the sentries, but the truth is that I’m looking for the otter and I thought you might know where I could find him.’
Tippitilda’s mouth fell open. She seemed immensely shocked. ‘Do you know how much trouble you’re in?’ she said. ‘If I chose to report you, you would be severely punished. You’d probably be put on a diet of bedbugs and water for a week. What do you want with the otter?’ she said, her outrage turning to curiosity.
‘You deal with all the newcomers, don’t you?’ Athene said. ‘All I want to do is ask the otter a question. I thought he’d be in the Squattings, but I’ve been hunting high and low and I can’t find him anywhere.’ She gave a heartfelt sigh, which was more self-controlled than screaming with frustration which is what she would have preferred to do. Athene had already failed to find her brother and the runaway Gloam girl and now she had been on a third fruitless search for an otter whose existence she was starting to doubt. What could have happened to them all?
‘If you don’t know where the otter is, perhaps I should ask your chief,’ said Athene, beginning to lose heart. ‘She might know what’s become of him.’
‘No!’ said Tippitilda, almost falling off her chair. ‘Don’t do that,’ she said, ‘please.’ Athene could not have startled the woman so much if she had jabbed her with a pin. ‘You mustn’t speak to Lodestar,’ said Tippitilda beseechingly. ‘Promise me you won’t.’
‘All right then, I won’t,’ said Athene, astonished and a little irked that Tippitilda had responded in such a panic-stricken way to a harmless throwaway comment. ‘There’s no need to get in a flap about it, Tippitilda. Do stop that awful whining.’
A mournful whimpering had started up. At first, Athene thought that Tippitilda was behind the noise, but when she glanced at the woman’s face, she realised that she had quietened down. The woeful cries were being made by someone else. Athene got up from her chair and began to search around the room. She soon discovered that the noise was coming from the cupboard. Athene was thinking of opening the doors when Tippitilda jumped to her feet.
‘He’s woken up again,’ she wailed, wringing her hands and pacing up and down the room. ‘He’s so very fretful at the moment. He won’t talk; and he wouldn’t eat a morsel until I offered him some of your strange, puffy, powdery food.’
‘So that’s why you took my packet of crisps,’ said Athene. ‘Could you tell me who you’re talking about, because you’ve lost me totally.’
‘The otter, of course,’ said Tippitilda in an anguished sob. ‘I’ve been keeping him in my cupboard. All he does is sniffle and shake. There’s no work that he’d be able to do. He’s utterly useless, you see, and if Lodestar found out about him, she’d be really unsympathetic. She can’t abide wastrels and she won’t stand for laziness. She’d throw him in the Coop, I’m sure of it – and, Athene, I’m awfully afraid that a week or two in that terrible place would be the end of him.’
‘So, you’ve been looking after the otter?’ said Athene, touched by the woman’s kindness. ‘Is that why you’ve been working late every night?’
Tippitilda nodded. ‘I didn’t want to leave him alone for very long. I thought that if I gave him some loving attention he might feel better, but he’s hardly improved at all.’
‘He’s probably missing his home,’ Athene told her. ‘Otters live on riverbanks and in the sea and their diet isn’t much like yours. They eat fish and crabs and things like that. I guess that’s why he liked my crisps. They’re prawn-flavoured,’ she said.
‘I’m sure you’re right,’ said Tippitilda, ‘but I’ve come to the end of my tether. I just don’t know what to do with him. I’d take him to my home in the Digs. He’d be happier there, I’m sure, but I’d never make it to my front door without somebody seeing us.’
‘If I help you to smuggle him to the Digs, would you let me ask him my question?’ said Athene cunningly.
To her delight, Tippitilda agreed. ‘You may try,’ said the woman, ‘but you’ll be very lucky if you get one word out of him.’
Athene did not intend to be overheard when she put her question to the otter. If Tippitilda discovered that a Glare boy was on the loose underground, she would be incensed. It was easy enough for Athene to persuade Tippitilda that the otter would be less anxious if he was questioned by one person rather than two.
‘Don’t make him cry, whatever you do,’ urged Tippitilda worriedly.
‘Cry?’ Athene muttered as she leaned forward and prepared to pull open the heavy cupboard doors. ‘The woman’s got a screw loose, surely. Otters don’t shed tears.’
As Athene yanked the doors open, her derisive snigger turned into a loud gasp and her hands flew straight to her mouth. The strength drained from her body and she fell to her knees, overwhelmed by the sight that met her eyes.
Huddled in one corner of the cupboard, wrapped up in a blanket with a ring of glowing stones placed protectively around him, was someone whom she had been longing to see; not the otter, but her little brother, Zach.
Chapter Twelve
Humdudgeon Confesses
He looked in bad shape. His hair, which was normally a bit of a mess, was so matted and grimy, that it seemed more like fur than human hair and his eyes were all puffy and bloodshot as if he had been crying for a very long time. Although it was comfortably warm in the cupboard, Zach was hunched with his knees against his chest, the way you might sit if you were bracing yourself against a bitter wind. The blanket that he clutched about his shoulders was too small to cover him completely, and beneath it, Athene could see his pyjamas which were encrusted with dirt.
She could see him, but it was more than obvious that he could not see her. Although his neck was straining in Athene’s direction, his eyes were unable to settle on her face. With only the pitifully weak light from the cluster of glowing stones to make the darkness more bearable, Zach had no way of knowing that his sister had just opened the cupboard doors. Her reluctance to speak seemed to frighten him. He gave a little wail of fear and his chin began to tremble.
‘Don’t!’ said Athene. One word was all that her tightening throat would allow her to utter. It was a horrendo
us shock to see her happy-go-lucky, high-spirited brother reduced to a cringing, miserable heap. It disturbed her to remember all the moments in the past when she had taken pleasure in seeing her brother disappointed or upset. She did not feel remotely cheerful now. In fact she felt nothing but shame and disgust.
And guilt. Immobilising guilt. It was her fault he was down here. It was all her fault.
The wretchedness that seized her turned to nausea and, for a moment, she thought that she might be sick. Then, quite suddenly, she felt all right again, and with this feeling of well-being came a bold determination and an air of calm.
She had done a despicable thing to Zach and she couldn’t undo it, but she could try to put things right again. Whatever it took and however hard the struggle, she would see to it that he was safely spirited out of the Low Gloam’s world.
‘Zach,’ said Athene. ‘Don’t be scared. It’s me.’
‘Eeny?’ he answered. ‘Eeny, is that really you?’ Throwing off the blanket he crawled towards her, a smile lighting up his tear-streaked face.
Athene had held her brother in a headlock more than once, but she had never given him a hug before. She leaned forward and, without any hesitation, drew him into her arms.
‘It’s going to be all right,’ she told him, pressing her dry cheek against his teary one. ‘Humdudgeon and Huffkin are down here as well and we’re all going to work as hard as we can to find a way to escape from this place.’
‘What’s that?’ said Tippitilda’s enraged voice. ‘Athene, what are you doing? What did you just say?’
The drama and excitement of finding her brother had caused Athene to forget to keep her voice sufficiently hushed. With angry strides, Tippitilda advanced on Athene and Zach. She threw the cupboard doors wide open and wrested the two children apart. ‘Are you and this otter in cahoots?’ she said.
