by Duncan Ball
‘This makes me feel sort of funny,’ Mr Eyefinger said. ‘It’s all so … so small in here. It makes me nervous.’
‘It’s perfectly safe,’ Dr Deddybones said. ‘You’re lucky you didn’t come into the tomb we discovered last year. That one had booby traps in it.’
‘Booby traps? What kind of booby traps?’
‘The kind that makes everything fall in on you. It was a trick to catch robbers. The robbers would get into a tunnel and they’d be saying to themselves, “Oh, this is very nice” and “We’re going to get away with all the gold in a couple of minutes ho ho ho” and things like that. Then suddenly, whoooooomph! The whole thing would fall in on their heads.’
‘Oh great,’ Mr Eyefinger mumbled.
When they got to the bottom of the stairs there was an even smaller tunnel. This one was so small that everyone, including Emily, had to get down on their hands and knees and crawl. When Mrs Eyefinger was nervous, she started whistling ‘Happy Birthday’. The more nervous she got, the more she whistled. She was whistling now.
Emily wasn’t scared at all. She just kept shining her torch on the walls and looking at the picture writing. She was having a wonderful time.
Finally the tunnel opened up into a huge empty room that had pictures all over the walls.
‘Well, here we are,’ Dr Deddybones said. ‘This is the burial chamber. It’s where the mummy of King Inverticheops and all the treasure must have been before they were stolen. Isn’t it a great place?’
‘Yes, it is,’ said Emily.
‘Hadn’t we better go back?’ Mrs Eyefinger said. ‘I think it’s time for lunch.’
‘Oh, Mum,’ said Emily, ‘we only just got here.’
For the next few minutes they all looked at the pictures and even took photographs of them. Then Emily saw something.
‘What’s that?’ she asked, pointing to a doorway that was filled with small square stones.
‘It’s what we call a false door,’ Dr Deddybones answered. ‘That’s another thing the pyramid builders used to do. They’d build things that looked like doorways. Then, when the robbers took the stones away to try to get to the next room, there wasn’t any room there at all. It was just to fool them.’
‘Why don’t we take the stones away just to make sure there’s no treasure on the other side?’ Emily asked.
‘It’s too much work,’ the woman said. ‘Besides, I’ve seen lots of false doors and I know that this is one of them. I’m an expert, remember?’
‘Maybe this one was supposed to fool archaeologists,’ Emily said.
Emily pulled out one of the small stones. Behind it was a deep crack between some more stones. She put her hand, and then her whole arm, deep into the crack. She had to bend her wrist and wiggle it through. Suddenly her hand was dangling in the air.
‘I think there’s another room in there,’ she said.
‘There can’t be!’ Dr Deddybones exclaimed.
‘I think there is, you know,’ Emily said. ‘But it’s too dark to see anything.’
Emily took her arm out and picked up a torch. She put her arm back in the hole. When it was through to the other side she turned on the light. There was another big room just like the one they were in. But this one was filled with gold statues and other treasure. In the corner was a big mummy case.
‘I spy with my little eye,’ Emily said.
‘What?’ asked Mrs Eyefinger. ‘What is it?’
‘It’s there!’ Emily cried. ‘It’s all in there, the lost treasure. And the mummy of King Inverticheops!’
The Eyefingers and Dr Deddybones pulled away the stones till they had cleared out the doorway. Then they stepped into the chamber.
‘I can’t believe it!’ Dr Deddybones cried. ‘This is the greatest discovery ever! That other room was just to fool robbers — and archaeologists,’ she added. ‘Thank goodness for that eye thing of yours!’
Suddenly there was a creak and a croowk and a chi-chi-chi-zing and then a huge whoooooomph! They looked behind them as the roof of the empty room came crashing down.
‘Goodness!’ muttered Mr Eyefinger. ‘It’s a good thing we’re in here and not in there. We could have been killed!’
‘I’m afraid it’s a booby trap,’ said Dr Deddybones. ‘And we’re the boobies. When we cleared the stones out of that false doorway — I mean that real doorway — it made the roof fall in. Now we can’t go back. This is a real pickle. I’m afraid we’re trapped down here.’
‘What are we going to do?’ asked Emily who was getting a little nervous.
‘There’s nothing we can do,’ said Dr Deddybones. ‘We could start digging our way through the rock and rubble to tunnel our way out. But there’s just too much of it. We’d run out of air to breathe before we got to the other side.’
‘Maybe someone can come down and dig it away from the other side,’ Mr Eyefinger said.
‘Not enough time, I’m afraid,’ Dr Deddybones said. She picked up a golden statue of a bird and looked at it carefully. ‘By the way,’ she asked, ‘is it somebody’s birthday?’
‘That’s just Mum,’ Emily explained. ‘She whistles “Happy Birthday” when she gets scared.’
‘Oh, I see.’
The Eyefingers sat around feeling a little sorry for themselves. Finally something occurred to Emily.
‘How did the people who put the treasure in here get out again?’ she asked.
‘Back through the other room and up the stairs,’ said Dr Deddybones. ‘The same way we came in.’
‘Are you sure?’ Emily said. ‘I don’t know. The ceiling might have fallen in on them if they did. They’d have been caught by their own booby trap. I think they closed up the doorway from this side and then found a different way out.’
‘Good point!’ cried the archaeologist. ‘There might be a secret way out of here!’
For half an hour, Dr Deddybones and the Eyefingers searched all around the walls and even looked up at the ceiling for signs of a secret door. But they couldn’t find one.
‘I’m afraid those old pyramid builders were too smart for us,’ said Mrs Eyefinger. ‘It could take us ages to figure out which rock to move to find the way out. I think we’ll just have to give up.’
Emily sat down and let her hands dangle down at her sides.
‘Maybe I wasn’t so lucky to win this trip after all,’ she said. ‘I probably just should have let someone without an eyefinger win. They wouldn’t have found the lost treasure, but at least they wouldn’t be in this pickle.’
‘I’m afraid you’re right,’ sighed Dr Deddybones. ‘Your good luck was bad luck after all.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Emily said.
Emily closed her eyes and waited for the air to run out in the room. But she left the eye on her eyefinger open and with it she saw something strange. She opened her other eyes and looked down at her feet.
‘Hey, come over here!’ she said. ‘Look at this!’
Everyone gathered around and looked down at the floor.
‘I don’t see anything,’ Mr Eyefinger said.
‘Have a closer look. Look at the cracks between this stone and the other ones,’ Emily said. ‘Don’t you see? There’s no sand in the cracks the way there is everywhere else.’
‘Why do you suppose that is?’ Mr Eyefinger asked.
‘The sand must have fallen down somewhere,’ Emily explained. ‘There must be a hole under this stone.’
The crack was too thin for Emily’s eyefinger so she found a long spear and slid it in beside the stone. She pulled on it, but the stone wouldn’t move.
‘Give me a hand, everybody!’ she cried.
Everyone pulled on the spear and the stone popped up.
‘Look! It’s a secret tunnel!’ Emily cried. ‘This must be the way they got out.’
‘But it goes down,’ Dr Deddybones said. ‘We want to go up.’
‘Let’s see where it goes, anyway,’ said Emily. ‘Follow me!’
Emily jumped into the hole. Sur
e enough, there was a long tunnel under the floor. The others climbed down and they all made their way along the tunnel. At the end of it they came to a stairway that led up and up and up. When they got to the top, they pushed away another stone and there they were in the open air.
‘Emily!’ Dr Deddybones cried. ‘You’ve not only discovered the lost treasure of King Inverticheops but you’ve saved our lives.’
‘It’s not me you should thank,’ said Emily. ‘It’s my little friend who always comes in handy.’
With this, Emily held up her eyefinger, and everyone laughed long and loud.
Emily Eyefinger and the Black Volcano
Duncan Ball
Dedication
To Emily’s fans everywhere
Contents—Emily Eyefinger and the Black Volcano
Title Page
Dedication
1. Emily’s Terrifying Tug of War
2. Emily and Tizzie Lizzie
3. Emily and the Snow-Mice
4. Emily Goes to Prison
5. Emily and Oodles of Loot
6. Emily and the Black Volcano
1.
Emily’s Terrifying Tug of War
One day all the teachers and children went to the sportsground behind Emily’s school. There they had a tug of war using a big thick piece of rope. Because Emily had an eye on the end of her finger she put her special plastic bubble over it to protect it.
Emily’s teacher, Ms Plump, scratched a line in the dirt. The teachers stood on one side of the line and the kids stood on the other. Then they picked up the rope and got ready to pull.
Emily looked over at Terry Meaney who was eating his lunch.
‘Aren’t you going to help us?’ she asked.
‘Tug of wars are stupid,’ Terry said.
‘Okay, Terry, we’ll just have to win without you,’ Emily said.
Ms Plump yelled out, ‘On your marks! Get set! Go!’
Everyone pulled as hard as they could but neither side moved. Then the kids were pulled towards the line. Janey Star’s feet almost crossed the line. Then the kids pulled harder and the teachers were pulled towards the line. The tugging went back and forth and back and forth.
‘Pull harder! We can do it!’ Janey yelled.
Just when the teachers were going to lose, Terry put his sandwich down and ran to the kids’ end of the rope. He pulled as hard as he could and soon the teachers were dragged over the line.
‘I won! I beat them!’ Terry yelled, poking himself in the chest with his thumb. ‘I’m stronger than the teachers!’
‘All the kids won,’ Emily said. ‘Not just you.’
‘It was me!’ Terry screamed. ‘Youse were hopeless!’
‘There are just too many kids and too few teachers,’ Ms Plump sighed. ‘We’ve got to get more teachers.’
‘Me! Me! Me!’ Terry said as he ran around in circles. ‘I did it! I’m the best! I’m the strongest boy in the world!’
‘Terry is such a pain,’ Janey said.
‘Just ignore him,’ Emily said. ‘That’s what I do.’
Finally the teachers went back to the school to have lunch except for Ms Plump who was on playground duty.
Emily sat in the shade of a tree with some of her friends, eating her lunch. All at once she heard the sound of an aeroplane coming closer and closer.
‘Look!’ Emily pointed through the trees. ‘Goodness, it’s flying very low!’
Suddenly the engine of the tiny plane stopped, then started, and then stopped again.
‘It’s in trouble!’ Emily said. ‘And it’s coming straight towards us. The pilot must be trying to crash-land.’
‘Children!’ Ms Plump shouted. ‘Get out of the way! Right now! Quickly quickly!’ she added, clapping her hands.
‘It’s going to crash into me!’ Terry Meaney screamed. ‘I don’t want to die!’
The children scattered in every direction until the sportsground was clear. The plane glided silently down.
‘Oh, no!’ Janey cried. ‘It’s going to hit those trees at the end of the sportsground!’
Sure enough, the aeroplane clipped the top of a tall tree. It flipped over in the air before crashing into the top branches of another big tree.
The children watched in terror as the plane came to rest high up in the tree with its nose pointing down towards the ground. Emily could see two people inside looking completely shocked.
‘Stay where you are, kids!’ Ms Plump yelled. ‘I’ll go for help!’
With this, Ms Plump raced towards the school to ring triple-0.
Emily watched as the terrified man and woman undid their seatbelts and tried to climb out of the plane and onto a branch. But just as the man opened his door, the plane suddenly shifted. It fell a short distance and then was caught by another branch.
‘Don’t move!’ the woman yelled, ‘or the plane will crash to the ground!’
‘Our teacher has gone for help,’ Emily called out to the man and the woman. ‘Just stay where you are.’
‘Did it crash?’ a little voice called out from behind Emily.
Emily turned and looked in the bush behind her. There was Terry, sitting with his hands over his eyes.
‘Why are you hiding?’ Emily asked.
‘I’m not hiding. I just don’t want to get killed. What happened?’
‘The plane is stuck in a tree,’ Emily said.
‘Planes don’t get stuck in trees.’
‘This one did. Come out and see for yourself.’
Just as Terry crawled out of the bush, a breeze came up. The tree moved in the wind and so did the aeroplane.
‘If the wind keeps blowing I’m afraid the plane will fall,’ Emily said to Janey. ‘I wish there was something we could do.’
‘How can we stop a plane from falling out of a tree?’ Janey said.
That’s when Emily looked back at the tug-of-war rope that still lay out in the sportsground.
‘I have an idea,’ she said.
‘Don’t be silly, Emily! Wait till the rescue people get here!’
‘By then it could be too late,’ Emily said. ‘We’ve got to do something right now!’
With this, Emily dashed out and picked up the rope. She tied a big loop in one end of it and then ran to the tree — the side away from the aeroplane. Then she put the loop around her waist and started climbing up the tree.
The man in the plane saw her climbing.
‘Hey, little girl!’ he said. ‘What are you doing? Get down, you’ll shake the tree!’
‘I’m not shaking anything,’ Emily said.
On she climbed, as carefully as a cat, until she was higher than the plane. She then climbed across one branch and out onto another one until she was directly above the plane. The children watched silently from around the edges of the sportsground.
‘Maybe I can tie the rope around the tail of the plane,’ Emily thought.
A sudden wind came up and Emily had to hang on tightly to her branch. Below her, the plane shifted again but didn’t fall. She then looked for a sturdy branch and looped the rope over it.
‘Janey!’ she called. ‘Grab the rope and lower me down! You too, Terry!’
‘Why me?!’ Terry called back.
‘Because you’re the strongest boy in the world. Now don’t be such a scaredy-cat!’
‘Don’t call me a scaredy-cat.’
‘Then come and help!’
Terry scuffed his shoes in the dirt as he came around the tree. He and Janey grabbed the rope and slowly lowered Emily towards the back of the plane.
‘Okay, stop!’ Emily called.
Emily was dangling right next to the tail of the plane. It was then that she saw the wide crack that ran along it.
‘Hey, little girl! What are you doing?!’ the woman yelled. ‘If you touch the plane it’s going to fall!’
‘I was going to tie this to the tail to keep it from falling,’ Emily explained. ‘But it’s all cracked. It looks like it could pull off.’
Emily wasn’t listening. She knew she had an important job to do and that she had to concentrate. She looked at the broken metal where the tail joined the rest of the plane. Part of the crack was just wide enough to put her hand in.
Emily put her left hand — the hand with her eyefinger on it — into the crack making sure she didn’t touch the plane. It was darker inside so she had to wait for a moment before she could see properly. She closed her other eyes to make seeing things with her eyefinger easier.
‘There’s a big metal bar that goes from one side of the plane to the other,’ she said to herself. ‘It’s part of the plane. Maybe I can tie the rope around it.’
‘What’s happening up there?!’ Janey called.
‘I can’t talk now,’ Emily called back.
Emily gently fed the loose end of the rope into the crack. Then, using her eyefinger to see what she was doing, she tied it around the metal bar as tightly as she could.
Just then, the wind blew again and the plane began swaying with the tree.
‘Everybody grab the rope!’ Emily called to the other children. ‘But don’t pull till I tell you to!’
Emily slipped out of the loop in the rope and started climbing down the tree as the children picked up the rope. Emily could see Ms Plump and all of the other teachers running towards them.
‘Get away from that tree!’ Ms Plump yelled. ‘Do you hear me? Get away!’
Emily leaped to the ground and grabbed the rope with the other children.
‘Come on now, kids!’ Emily said. ‘Hold tight and get ready to pull if we have to!’
Just then, the wind blew harder and the aeroplane shifted. Suddenly it came loose from the branch. The man and woman in the plane screamed. The rope pulled tight and the kids dug their heels into the dirt. But the plane was so heavy that the kids were pulled towards the tree.
‘Don’t anybody let go!’ Emily cried. ‘Everything will be okay if no one lets go!’
