by Susan Berran
We climbed up over the rocks and into the pipe opening. It was completely dark in there, so you couldn’t see more than a metre, or so and we had no idea where our ball had gone.
“Hey,” Jared said suddenly as he looked down to something in the pipe.
“What?” I really wasn’t that interested, I was busy trying to step around the garbage that was washing around my ankles.
“Isn’t that our coconut? ” Jared said as he leaned down and picked up the SLIMY, FUNGUS covered, hairy SMELLY blob. Wow, just for something totally different … Jared was right! It was the coconut we’d carved a message on and tossed into the stream on the first night that we got to the hotel.
That meant that the stream behind our hotel that ran along and disappeared into a pipe underground actually ran all the way to the very spot we were standing on.
I could tell Jared was thinking the same as me. Why not take a shortcut through the pipe and follow it all the way back to the hotel.
Luckily we always carried our TOTALLY WICKED AND AWESOME UTILITY BELTS. We were always ready for any sort of emergency. We pulled them out from our backpacks and clipped them around our waist. I knew we hadn’t bought all of our stuff with us, but between us, we had the best stuff. Like my Genuine one of a kind BULRAVIAN SECRET AGENT Ninja Knife. My Authentic Spy Pin Torch. The Secret Agent Camera in a Can, the Mini Pellet Pooper Shooter and of course, the Incredibly Awesome Extendo Rod with Fully Retractable Almost Invisible Rope.
Now, where were we … ? Ah yes. Incredibly Awesome Extendo Rod with Fully Retractable Almost Invisible Rope. It’s my most prized possession. Given to me by my dad, just before he disappeared from our backyard shed. It’s actually a telescopic fishing rod that extends from about twenty centimetres, to two and a half metres with the push of a button. The line is practically invisible and really strong. I’d told the guys at school all about it and how one time I had to use it when my family was in Italy and a huge earthquake suddenly hit.
Right in the middle of the city we were visiting was a tall, round cylinder shaped building. It kind of looked like an empty white toilet roll. It was called the ‘Tower of Pisa’. Just then I saw a full busload of three-legged, near-sighted donkeys that were on their way to have plastic legs and glasses fitted, when, without warning, the earthquake hit. People were running around screaming and crying in every direction. Then I saw the tower suddenly starting to fall towards the bus. Without thinking of my own safety, naturally, I extended my rod and cast … WWWSSSSSS … got it! I caught the rail at the top of the tower and held on. It leant further and further over towards the bus … the donkeys were braying and whimpering. I dug in my heels and pulled with all my might. It was coming back … it was coming … coming … com … Oops! Too far! I’d pulled it just a little bit too far towards me. I didn’t think anyone had really noticed until they changed the name to … ‘the leaning Tower of Pisa’.
But at least I’d saved the donkeys and they were on their way again to get glasses and a brand new leg fitted.
“Yeah right!” said Toffee sarcastically. “No, their left leg actually” I replied.
It had looked so small from the other end of the beach. But now, as we stood crouching in the opening, we were pretty excited. The pipe wasn’t quite big enough to walk through, but we definitely wouldn’t have to crawl either, just hunch over a bit. Excellent!
We stood there hunched over just inside the pipe entrance, staring through the darkness. The SLIMY goop was still swirling around our legs, before continuing down and out of the pipe.
“Ok so who’s going first?” I spoke up. Jared just stood there staring into the pipe like the ‘HUNCHBACK of Sewage’.
“I know … we’ll flip for it!” I said. “ I’ll go first … I may as well. I always somehow lose your coin tosses, ” said Jared.
I took out my authentic BULRAVIAN Spy Pin Torch and handed it to Jared, just as he took the first steps into the pipe. Within five, or six steps, his skinny hunched over figure had completely disappeared into the darkness. It was really spooky … for Jared! Not me! As the beam of light from the torch shone up ahead, I stepped tentatively further into the pipe. Suddenly Jared swung the torch around and straight back into my eyes, blinding me for a few seconds.
“Thanks a lot Jared!” I called out.
“ Sorry, ” echoed back towards me.
“Found anything up there yet?”
“ Nah! Hey Sam? ”
“What?”
“ Which way … right or left? ”
I had absolutely no idea, but I figured that when we left the hotel, we turned left to follow the track. So we just had to keep turning left and we’d end up coming out of the pipe and into the stream just behind our hotel. Yeah, that sounded right … I think?The slush and garbage continued to wash around our feet and ankles as it was swept along through the pipe. But in the darkness we could only guess at what the boxes, cans and all sorts of mystery goop were. Jared nearly pooped himself a couple of times when some old rags wrapped themselves around his legs and tripped him over. He was thrown face first, down amongst the rubbish and into the giant puss-bucket of SLIMY goop.
We kept on walking through the dark, SLIMY slop for about an hour, turning left at every junction. We soon found out that the Spy Torch was great for spying, but not quite so good for seeing where you are going. It gave off very little light at all, so we didn’t realise that we’d missed a number of other turns. Finally, we decided that the pipes probably didn’t go straight back to our hotel after all. They might go on and on for miles before reaching the stream behind where we were staying. I didn’t know how Jared was going, but my back was killing me from being hunched over for so long and my toes felt like a family of slugs were living between them. So we decided it was time to turn back.
“Hey Jared, toss me the torch!”
“ Yeah catch! ” he said instantly throwing it.
“Noooo!” Sploosh! “Quick help me get it doofus!” I called.
We immediately fell into the goopy, murky FILTH on our hands and knees. Shoving and stumbling, grabbing over the top of each other, trying to grab the torch. But instead we got handfuls of globules and squishy, icky crap. Jared tried to reach past me and slipped in the fungus-filled pipe. He fell right on top of me, flattening me, face first into the puss-filled slimefest. Sharp objects poked holes into my hands and legs as more rubbish crashed into us, but it was too late. The torch had been swept along in the SLIMY water and disappeared around the corner thrusting us into total darkness.
“Great! So what do we do now … you turkey in a tutu!?” I said, really annoyed. “ Well you shouldn’t have asked me to toss it if you’re a hopeless catcher, ” he said.“It’s a figure of speech. It means to pass something!”
“ Well next time I’ll know! ”
“If there ever IS a next time!”
“ We just have to retrace our footsteps ”
“Look down Jared! What footsteps!?”
“ Well, I still reckon I know the way ” “Sure you do … fine … then YOU lead the way!”
Without the torch we could barely see our hands in front of us. Even once our eyes had adjusted to the darkness, we still couldn’t see our feet and had to keep one hand on the pipe wall, feeling our way along so that we wouldn’t miss any turns. It was incredibly SLIMY and gross. Obviously, over winter, the pipes flooded and heaps of gunk got stuck to the sides. Then when the water level receded the stuck gunk grew little gunk and the little, gunk grew MOULD and the MOULD grew fungus and the fungus grew … stuff that felt like furry slug trails along the walls
… eeewWww!
For the next hour and a half we took every turn possible. But there were just too many junctions and it was sooooo dark.
I was beginning to think we’d never get out of there. I could see it all now.
The first year would be the hardest. Knowing the terrible suffering our families would be going through from missing us soooo much. Of course Jared would be a total e
motional wreck on the verge of a complete mental explosion. I’d have to keep him together by slapping him about a fair bit … to keep him from going absolutely insane. And we’d have to learn what smells were what, so that we could scrounge around in the flowing river of ‘goop’ under our feet for anything even remotely food-like.
Naturally, all the bent over walking would cause our backs to form a mighty curved hunchback. And after years of walking through the watery, slimy sludge stream, changes would occur. Our feet and hands would evolve to become webbed like the duck, or turtle. Our skin would start to become shiny and slimy from sleeping in the goop. Then, finally, we’d turn green from the amount of algae and moss growing all over us. Of course we’d need to learn some sort of self-defence too. Who knows what else could be down in the underground pipes of the city.
Yep! By the time anyone found us … if they ever found us, we’d be weird ‘beings’ with shiny, slimy, green skin, with webbed fingers and toes and with massive round humps on our backs and could fight off giant rats.
Wow we’d have to be careful, from behind, someone might accidentally mistake us for a couple of mutated, giant teenage tae kwon do turtles.
Nah … no-one’s that stupid.
“The garbage is getting thicker!” Jared suddenly piped up. Like that was something I really wanted to know. I didn’t want to tell him that the garbage wasn’t the only thing getting thicker … if you know what I mean.
“ Feel it!” he said.
“No way, why?”
“Because the more garbage that joins in from other pipes, the thicker the sludge and slime! Get it?” he said all excited.“Soooo …”
“So we could have a slime fight. That should take our minds off it for a while. ”
I did wonder if the inside of that pipe was like the inside of Jared’s brain … full of sludge and slime and garbage all building up and heading for the nearest exit.
“That’s it!! Yes, I had it!”
WHAM!! ow!! Splash! As I leapt for joy I belted my head on the roof of the concrete pipe and landed face first in the sludge at my feet … again.
But now I knew how to find the way out! There was massive garbage coming out of the pipe when we first entered it. But there was less and less garbage the further we went into the pipe. And each arm of the pipe system came from the different areas of the city. And each area of the city had its own garbage. So at each junction, garbage from another area joined the system, making the sludge thicker. Another junction, adding more garbage and so on, until the whole lot was coming out at the ocean all together. So all we had to do was to keep following the thickest garbage at each junction. Yes!
We stretched out our arms to touch both sides of the pipe and headed off. With barely an arm’s length of vision, we didn’t want to risk missing a single junction. Then, once we came to an intersection of pipes we’d just kneel down and start to feel the goop, using both hands to scoop some up and stir it around, or whatever else we could to try and feel how thick it was. Then we’d crawl just into the next pipe and ‘play’ with the sludge-fest in that one. Once we’d compared them both, we could then decide which was thicker and follow the thicker sludge to the next junction.
“Another junction … do you reckon pipe one, two, or three this time?”
“ Well, pipe one did seem to have a thicker slime than the others. ”
“Nah, I thought pipe three’s slime stayed dangling from my fingers longer. So it had to be thicker than pipe one.”
“ Maybe, but pipe two had more rags and bottles than the others I reckon. ”
“But the smell of pipe one was ten times worse than in pipe three.”
“ Mmm, but what about the mould quality in pipe two? ”
“Yeah, that was great mould!”
“ Ok, so pipe two it is then!? ”
“Yep, pipe two!”
It felt like we’d been in there for days. And there seemed to be a junction every ten metres, or so. We had to be getting closer to the ocean outlet where we’d started from and Jared’s stomach noises told me it had to be getting late in the day … rUmBle rumbLe burblE bUrBle … It was grumbling and burbling away and the echoing inside the pipe made it sound louder and louder. But it was making me realise just how hungry I was too.
“Hey Jared, can ya try to keep the hunger noises down?” I asked nicely.
“ Sure, if you’ll try to stop your stomach growling. It’s making me hungry. ”
“Hang on. It’s your gut whinging, not mine … isn’t it?”
“ I … I … I thought it was yours. ”
“Nah, no way, it’s not me!”
“ Well it’s not me! ”
“So if it’s not your gut … and it’s not my gut … then who’s …”
Just then we came to yet another junction. As soon as we stepped into it the sound seemed to suddenly became a whole lot louder as it echoed all the way along inside the pipe.
I took out my Mini Flip Out Binoculars, but it was just too dark. We wouldn’t have seen an elephant wearing a fluro singlet and undies if he was tapping us on the shoulder. We couldn’t have seen a … a … hang on, what was that?
“Jared, can you see that?”
“ What, where? ”
“Way up there. It looks like …” “ Yeah, I think I see something. It looks like …
like … two tiny yellow … eyes? ”
“ AArrrrHHHHHH!! ”
There was no discussion on slime. There was no ‘playing’ with the sludge. Just running, hunched over running. Something was definitely in there with us! And the only thing that kept pounding through my head and smashing against the inside of my skull, like a jackhammer, over and over, was the lifeguard on that first day, telling us how CROCODILEs like to lay on the beach and hide in dark, moist places. CROCODILE!! We ran until our chests were bursting and our mouths frothing with exhaustion. We raced straight through junction after junction. Right, wrong, left right … who cared, we just ran. Eventually we stopped for a breather at a junction, but it was hard to hear anything apart from the beating of our hearts, thumping away and just about bursting out of our chests.
Sucking in air like a massive vacuum cleaner, we listened as best we could. Hoping against hope that whatever belonged to those eyes had taken one of the other turns that we’d passed by.
I looked back and strained every tiny little eye muscle. There was silence … maybe it had … rumble rumble burble burble … there it was again! The two beady yellow eyes and the deep vibrating rumble. It swept around the corner fast and was definitely heading straight for us.
We took off again, splashing through the rubbish and dragging our hands along the walls. Guessing which way to go at the next turn before we even got there. There was no way of knowing if we were getting closer, or further away from the ocean. Or maybe we were just going around in circles.
With all the turns we’d taken, we were sure that our predator would have to be in another pipe by now. We finally sat down in the liquid garbage, our fingers bloodied from dragging them along the SLIMY concrete walls. We were exhausted, starving and starting to wonder how long we could survive eating only algae. I was actually wondering if we weren’t the only ones lost in here? Maybe the ‘CROC’ was lost too. Jared thought that maybe it was following us and thinking that we’d show it the way out.
“Yeah and it probably figures that if we don’t lead it back out then at least it has ‘fast food’ to eat” I said. The only problem was … the ‘ fast food’ was s l o w i n g down.
I just about had Jared convinced to give the algae a taste test, when we felt a very slight vibration in the slime. We looked closely, a ripple appeared in the liquid. Then another, and another; bigger this time.
It was still coming!
In my mind I thought back to one of those old movies that Mum calls a ‘classic’. They’re all the same. Monster turns up … monster goes berserk … monster is killing everyone … monster kidnaps hero’s best mate … hero saves best mate
and then comes the big chase scene just before the end. It would go on and on until the best mate of the hero just can’t go any further and is certain to be dead meat. But then at the very last second the hero gives up his life to save his best mate. The monster is killed and only the best mate survives to tell the story.
Yeah well I might be a hero … but I’m not stupid!
I was thinking that maybe I could outrun Jared. After all, he wouldn’t be missed as much, his mum had five other sons. My mum needed me. It just made good sense I thought.
… rumble rumble burble burble … there it was again, it was about to come around the corner. The blank yellow stare of death! It was definitely getting louder, definitely gaining on us and it was still coming straight at us! Just my luck, we had to be chased by a ‘smart’ CROC.
I couldn’t go much further and neither could Jared. We zipped around one more corner when I saw it …
“Jared … light! This way!”
We’d nearly missed it and headed back deep into the pipe system, but I’d seen it just in the nick of time. The faintest reflection of sunlight along the slimy side of the pipe. Jared doubled back and joined me.
“ I see it too! ” he yelled happily.
At each junction now, we could see faint, light reflections bouncing into the pipe system. We were getting closer, we were going to make it. There was no time to stop and breath … rumble rumble burble burble …
“Don’t look back, just run!” I yelled. The pipes were getting lighter and the rubbish was getting thicker. We were on the right trail! The garbage waste and slimy fluid was making our feet suction into it, so it was becoming almost impossible to run.
But while it was harder for us to run, it seemed to be getting easier for something else to swim! We heard the sploosh of water and the rumbly growling come around each corner just behind us … rumble rumble burble burble it was getting closer, louder! We stumbled around the last corner, our feet smashing through the thick rubbish … there it was … the opening, the ocean . . . rumble rumble burble burble … it was right behind us … it was about to pounce!
