by Alan Snow
Even Kipper could stand up and move about with ease.
“Fish wants us all to be quiet, and Titus wants us to put our teeth in. Pass it along.” The message passed down the line, and soon all that could be heard was the sound of teeth being put in. Fish and Titus put their candles down and disappeared into the darkness.
“Aat oo ooh iiink aaye rrr oooht ooo?” Kipper whispered.
“Iiierrrt!” snapped Tom.
After a minute or two, they heard voices from somewhere ahead. The voices grew louder, and small green lights appeared. Before long Willbury could make out Fish, Titus, and some other shapes coming toward them.
As they got closer, the candlelight revealed that Fish and Titus had returned with two rabbit women. The women were both dressed in knitted one-piece suits with long ears, and they carried glass jars full of glowworms.
The women were both dressed in knitted one-piece suits with long ears, and they carried glass jars full of glowworms.
The rabbit women bounded up to Willbury and smiled in welcome. The one in a gray suit spoke first. “Your friend Titus has told us that you’d like us to guide you through our tunnels so you can get under Ratbridge?”
Willbury nodded.
The other, who was dressed in brown, answered, “We’ll show you the way but you’ll have to be very careful.”
Willbury nodded again, and the rabbit women beamed. Then the one in brown gave Kipper a funny look.
“You look rather big for a boxtroll.” Then she looked down at Tom. “And you look rather small.”
Titus trotted over to her and whispered.
“What’s he say, Coco?” asked the gray-suited rabbit woman.
“Well, Fen, he says they’re a different type of boxtroll. Just visiting.”
“Well, that explains it!”
“I suppose so. But I think they need to see a dentist.”
Willbury blushed.
“Come this way please, and please remember to be careful!” The rabbit women headed back from where they came.
After a short walk the tunnel became lighter, and Willbury could hear more voices. They rounded a bend and were confronted by a wooden door. In the center of the door was a notice.
A wooden door.
“Mind where you walk!” warned Coco, then she opened the door of a large, low cavern. Hundreds of jam jars filled with glowworms were tied to roots that hung from the ceiling, and a pale green light fell on the scene below. There were small groups of rabbit women working at looms and spinning wheels, and tending raised vegetable beds. All around them were thousands of rabbits. By each group of workers sat a rabbit woman reading aloud.
There were small groups of rabbit women working at looms and spinning wheels, and tending raised vegetable beds.
Fen told the group, “Please be very careful not to step on our parents. They are not very bright, but we do love them.”
Marjorie was grinning from ear to ear despite her vegetable teeth. She was obviously very impressed by the rabbit women, Willbury thought. As Fen closed the door behind them after shooing some rabbits away, Marjorie moved over to Willbury and furtively removed her teeth.
“They’re fantastic,” she whispered. “Just who are they?”
Willbury checked to see that nobody was watching and slipped his own teeth out. “The story I heard was that they were abandoned babies or little girls who fell down rabbit holes. The rabbits took them in and brought them up as their own. I guess as they grew up, they took charge and now look after the rabbits.”
Willbury and Marjorie both quickly put their teeth back in as Coco pointed to the various vegetable plots. “We can grow most things here, but we avoid greens. Sometimes the old folks manage to burrow into the plots, and greens don’t agree with them.”
Fen noticed Willbury looking at the readers.
“We are very fond of books. You can learn nearly everything from them that rabbits can’t teach you.”
“We are very fond of books. You can learn nearly everything from them that rabbits can’t teach you.”
Willbury was dying to take his teeth out again and ask questions, but he didn’t want to give away that he was not a boxtroll. So as they were led through the cavern, he listened and tried to make out what was being read. There were some passages from the Country Housewife’s Garden, some Greek, mathematics, and even bits of Tristram Shandy and Jane Austen.
These rabbit women are very well educated! he thought.
The procession reached a door at the far side of the cavern, and their guides led them through it, then closed it behind them.
“We do have to be so careful as we have a problem with trotting badgers. Last month someone left this door open, and Madeline’s stepparents were eaten. It was very upsetting,” said Coco.
They followed the rabbit women through a maze of passages till finally they reached one that tilted down at a steep angle. The passage emerged in a stone cave and the rabbit women halted. The floor of the cave was awash with water.
Coco held her jar aloft.
Coco held her jar aloft.
“It’s getting higher!” said Fen.
“Yes, but it will have to rise a good deal further before it gets close to our burrows. It’s the cabbageheads and you boxtrolls that I am worried about.” Coco gave them a concerned look. Then she pointed into the darkness.
“At the other end of this cave is a tunnel that takes you under the town. I am sure Titus and your friend Fish can lead you from here.”
Willbury smiled through his vegetable teeth and bowed in thanks. The others followed his lead.
“Our pleasure. And good luck,” said Coco, and she and Fen turned back up the passage. When they had gone, Willbury took out his teeth.
“Fish and Titus, are you all right leading us from here?”
Fish took a very long smell at the air, smiled, and then nodded.
A rabbit woman gardening underground.
Herbert and Arthur.
chapter 37
THE DOLL
“Do you think you could lend me your walloper?”
Back in the dungeon Arthur was determined to find a way to escape.
“Do you think you could lend me your walloper?” he asked through the hole in the wall.
“You! Borrow my walloper! I should think not!” snapped Herbert. “Anyway, what do you want it for?”
Arthur pleaded. “A doll that I need is in the corridor outside the cell and I can’t reach it. I need something long to reach it with.”
“Well, you can’t borrow my walloper,” replied Herbert.
“Have you got anything else I could use?” asked Arthur.
“Might have!” Herbert was not an easy man. “What’s in it for me?”
Arthur thought for a moment. “If I can get the doll, it might help me find a way out of here. And if I get out, I’ll see if I can get you out as well.”
There was silence for a few moments, then Herbert replied, “Is a bit of string any good?”
Arthur looked across at the doll. “It might be. How long is it?”
“About six feet.”
“That ought to do it.”
“Well, how much do you want to borrow?”
“Enough!” snapped Arthur in frustration.
“Well, would two feet do?”
“No!” barked Arthur. “If you want to get out of here, why don’t you just lend me all of it?”
“Oh, all right! But don’t get funny with me. It is my string!” came back a very grudging voice.
There was a scuffling sound and a ball of hairy string appeared.
There was a scuffling sound and a ball of hairy string appeared in the hole. Arthur took it with thanks. Then he unwound it, tied a noose in one end, and swung the lasso through the bars at his doll. After a few attempts he managed to get the lasso around one of the doll’s arms and hoisted it into the cell.
“I’ve got it!” he cried.
After a few attempts he managed to get the lasso aroun
d one of the doll’s arms and hoisted it into the cell.
“Can I have my string back?” Herbert asked, worry in his voice.
Arthur unknotted the lasso, rolled up the string, and held it out toward the hole. Herbert’s hand darted out and snatched it from him.
Arthur sat on the edge of his bed, winding the handle on the doll; he called, “Grandfather! Grandfather! Are you there?”
There was a popping, some static, and then he heard what he was hoping for.
“Arthur, where are you?”
“I am locked up in a cell below the Cheese Hall.”
“WHAT!” cried Grandfather. “They caught you?”
“No,” said Arthur. “I escaped . . . but the police handed me over to Snatcher. He accused me of stealing my wings from him!”
“Archibald Snatcher!” Grandfather sounded angry. “He’s up to his old tricks again.”
“I am sorry, Grandfather.”
“You’re not to blame. With that shyster involved, nobody is safe,” his grandfather said. “We have to get you out of there, and soon. Are you on your own?”
“Well, almost. There is a man called Herbert in the next cell.”
“Pardon? Did you say a man called Herbert?” asked Grandfather, sounding astonished.
“Yes!” said Arthur.
“Ask him if his nickname is Parsley!”
Arthur leaned down to the hole. “Is your nickname Parsley?”
“Don’t you know it’s rude to call your elders by their nicknames?” came the voice from the hole.
“That’s him all right,” said Grandfather. “Arthur, would you let me speak to Herbert?”
Arthur held the doll out close to the hole, and he saw Herbert’s masked eyes staring at it.
Arthur held the doll out close to the hole, and he saw Herbert’s masked eyes staring at it.
“What are you doing there, Parsley?”
There was a silence from the hole, then Herbert’s voice asked in a quizzical tone. “Is that you, William?”
“Yes!”
“What are you doing talking out of a doll?”
“I will tell you later, but you . . . Oh, Herbert, I can’t believe it’s you. Are you all right? Have you been in that dungeon for all these years?”
“I . . .” Herbert’s voice trailed off. “I . . . can’t remember . . . I am not even sure where I know you from . . . William . . .”
“Oh, Herbert. Don’t you remember what happened?”
“No. Not really. My mind is so fuzzy.”
“Don’t you remember the fight?”
“No . . . just something vaguely about you, me, and . . . Archibald Snatcher . . . . It’s all very confused.”
“Maybe if I remind you?” came Grandfather’s voice.
“Maybe . . . ,” muttered Herbert.
Arthur’s grandfather paused for a moment. “Arthur, you should listen to this too. It’s time you heard the truth about why we live underground.”
“My mind is so fuzzy.”
Something was wrong.
chapter 38
WET!
Fish and the other real boxtrolls had a way of walking with their feet a few inches up either wall to avoid the water.
Several inches of water ran through the tunnels as the procession made their way under the town. Fish and the other real boxtrolls had a way of walking with their feet a few inches up either wall to avoid the water, but even so, it dripped down from the ceiling onto their boxes. Willbury and the others were getting very, very wet, and the rats were complaining that the water came up well over the bottom of their boxes.
Tom came to a stop and took out his teeth. “It’s not the water that I hate,” said Tom. “It’s the feeling of the soggy cardboard rubbing on my legs. It feels really horrid, like old wellies.”
“It’s the feeling of the soggy cardboard rubbing on my legs.”
Rats with dripping boxes were lifted and carried aloft.
“We can do something about that,” said Willbury, taking his teeth out. Then he shouted the order: “Large boxtrolls, please pick up small boxtrolls and carry them till it gets drier. And you can remove your teeth till further notice.”
All down the line teeth were removed, and rats with dripping boxes were lifted and carried aloft.
“Thanks!” said Tom to Willbury.
The tunnels slowly rose up toward the town but remained wet. The real boxtrolls were now in familiar territory, and they didn’t need their candles. Fish kept rushing ahead into the darkness and returning excitedly. After a few of these forays he seemed to grow pensive.
“Have you noticed the pipes along the tunnel tops?” asked Tom.
Willbury held up his candle to look. There were pipes . . . and most of them were leaking.
The tunnel leveled out, and Fish led them to an area of what looked like very old cellars. They went in, and turning a corner, saw an iron ladder fixed to a wall in front of them. The ladder disappeared up into darkness. Fish signaled to them to wait, then went up the ladder followed by the other real boxtrolls. After a few minutes a distressed-looking Fish returned alone.
“What is it, Fish?” Willbury asked him.
Fish signaled to them to follow him up the ladder.
The group silently followed Fish up the ladder and through a hole onto a dry floor. There was a loud click, and above them a light came on. Shoe was standing on top of a huge pile of nuts and bolts, holding a chain fixed to some kind of glass ball, the light from which flooded the cavern. Everywhere there were machine tools, half-built pumps, broken bicycles, bits of wire, and pieces of metal of every shape, color, and description. The place was an Aladdin’s cave of engineering scrap.
Shoe was standing on top of a huge pile of nuts and bolts, and holding a chain fixed to some kind of glass ball.
“This is the boxtrolls’ nest!” exclaimed Willbury.
The boxtrolls nodded.
Marjorie was staring up at the glowing glass ball. “They’ve got electric light! Fancy that. I thought it might be possible one day.”
Willbury looked about. “Where are the other boxtrolls?”
The real boxtrolls looked very sad.
The place was an Aladdin’s cave of engineering scrap.
Kipper whispered. “I think Snatcher has taken them . . . .”
Willbury took this in, then replied, “That may be it. But it would mean that he must have been capturing them some-how . . . down here!”
Fish turned to the boxtrolls. They nodded glumly.
Willbury spoke to them very gently. “You were captured down here?”
The boxtrolls nodded again, pointed back down the hole, and started burbling.
“Could you show us the way up to the Cheese Hall?” Willbury then asked.
They shook their heads and mumbled.
Titus whispered to Willbury, then Willbury turned to the others. “Snatcher and his mob put them in sacks after they were captured. But they think he has some sort of mechanical elevator, with an entrance down here somewhere. They say it shot them up to the Cheese Hall as fast as a rocket.”
“They say it shot them up to the Cheese Hall as fast as a rocket.”
“Do you think we could find it?” asked Tom.
The boxtrolls looked unsure, and Titus whispered again to Willbury.
“Titus says that this place is such a warren that the elevator could be hidden anywhere.”
Everybody looked increasingly glum.
Willbury realized he needed to encourage them. “Come now, let’s split up and search for the elevator. It shouldn’t take long with so many of us. We’ll meet up here in an hour.”
It was agreed. Willbury stayed with Fish, Titus, Tom, and Kipper, while Marjorie teamed up with Shoe, Egg, and some other boxtrolls. As they waited for their turn to descend the ladder, Willbury told his group that there was something else he wanted to do before they started looking for the elevator. “I’ve got to find Arthur’s grandfather. I am very concerned, as he must be r
unning out of food.”
Fish perked up and raised a hand.
“Do you know where he lives?” asked Willbury. Fish burbled something and Titus whispered something to Willbury.
“You say you have heard that there are some humans living in a cave off one of the large caverns?”
Fish nodded.
“Do you think you can lead us there?” Fish looked a little unsure but then nodded again.
“Well, let’s try that!” said Willbury, clapping his hands together; then off they set back down the ladder.
Then off they set back down the ladder.
The evil crime.
chapter 39
THE TELLING
“Don’t you remember burning a hole in my mum’s carpet with the toy steam engine we tried to build?”
In the cell in the dungeon Arthur listened as Grandfather tried to jolt Herbert’s memory. “Herbert, do you remember playing with me when we were boys?”
“No.” Herbert sounded utterly forlorn.
“What? You don’t remember anything? Don’t you remember the Glue Lane Technical School for the Poor?”
“Not really . . . . I do remember the name . . . . You’re going to have to remind me.”
“Herbert, we grew up on the same street! We played together, got measles together . . . and got our ears clipped together. Don’t you remember burning a hole in my mum’s carpet with the toy steam engine we tried to build?”
There was a pause. “Was the carpet a rather odd green color?”
“Yes! Yes it was!”
“I seem to remember something . . .”
“Do you remember sinking in the canal up to our waists when we tried to cross the ice?”
“And the ice was so thin in the middle that it cracked and your dad had to pull us out?”
