Arthur Quinn and the World Serpent (4 page)

As he got ready for school on Monday morning, Arthur was glad the weekend was over. Following the game on Saturday, he'd spent the evening in his room, staring at his laptop, waiting for his Kerry friends to come online. They didn't. He could imagine what they'd been doing: they'd probably gone into Killarney for a trip to the cinema or bowling. In fact, bowling was more likely this week. Sometimes they played in teams, but the teams would be uneven now with Arthur in Dublin, so they probably settled for solos. His screen remained blank all evening, Paul, Dave and Louise all marked as ‘offline'.

After a week of eating take-away Indians, pizzas and burgers, Joe and Arthur finally went grocery shopping on Sunday. Being Joe's only day off and with him not really ‘in the mood for cooking', they ended up ordering a Chinese when they got home anyway. That evening, as Joe slept on the couch with a full stomach, Arthur had considered visiting Ash for company but still felt too ashamed to face her.

So, leaving the house on Monday morning, he was surprised to find Ash waiting by herself at the end of his drive.

‘Hi,' she said.

‘Hi.' He approached her slowly. ‘I should apologise.'

‘You don't need to apologise to me.'

‘Then I should apologise to Will.'

‘You should give him a chance. He can be a bit much at times but he's great once you get to know him.'

Arthur nodded. ‘I'll make more of an effort.'

She opened her backpack, took out his mobile phone and handed it to him.

‘You fixed it!' he exclaimed in delight, seeing its screen light up.

‘Computers and electronics are my hobby. I've tweaked it as well so that you'll never run out of credit.'

‘Wow! That's amazing. Thanks a million, Ash!'

Stace and Max were coming towards them from the direction of their house.

‘Let's go,' said Ash. ‘We don't want to be late another Monday.'

The EarthKruncher 5000 drill had a seventy-foot-diameter conical point and could bore through half a mile of rock in just over a week. The concentric gorging swirls ended in a diamond-tipped point that was so sharp that no member of the drilling crew was permitted within ten feet of the drill without full body protection – hard hat, goggles and leather-lined gloves included – in case they tripped and fell near the non-revolving point.

The point was revolving now, though, at approximately three thousand rotations per minute, and the noise was deafening as it approached the rock wall before it. Luckily for Joe and the other crew members watching from a safe distance, they each had a pair of foam plugs squeezed into their ears which took the noise level down to just an irritating drone. They could still feel the soundwaves, though, reverberating through their bones.

As the drill started to dig into the rocky surface and a screech was added to the roar, somebody tapped Joe on the shoulder. It was Deirdre. She opened her mouth and shouted as loudly as her lungs would allow, but Joe still couldn't hear a thing. He shook his head, pointing to his ears, then nodded towards the exit. She led him out of the tunnel, past the smaller excavators and the crewmen setting up more work lights.

They came out into the sunlight, blinding after the darkness of the tunnel, and walked around to the top of the mound, away from the drill noise.

Joe pulled out his earplugs. ‘What is it?'

‘Luke Moran wants to see you.'

Luke Aloysius Moran was the millionaire CEO of Citi-Trak. From his appearances on several celebrity reality-TV shows and interviews in
VIP
magazine and on any chat show that would have him, the general population had a very clear idea of what he was like: brash, greedy, selfish and single-minded. It wasn't far from the truth. Since Moran's office had called Joe almost two weeks ago to offer him the job, he still hadn't had the pleasure of meeting the man himself, although he doubted it would be much of a pleasure.

‘I'm busy. They're starting under the mound now.'

‘I don't think he'll take “no” for an answer.' From the serious and slightly scared expression on Deirdre's face, Joe realised he'd better go and meet the formidable Mr Moran.

‘Trains,' said Miss Keegan, spelling out the word on the blackboard. ‘Tee-rain-ss.' She even drew a speeding locomotive underneath the word.

Will was already in class when they arrived. So unlike him to be early, but then he probably didn't want to have to face Arthur as much as Arthur didn't want to face him.

‘Trains, Miss?' asked Ciara O'Connor, the class swot, in the front row.

‘Trains,' Miss Keegan repeated, turning back to the class. ‘News-Watch time. I thought we might look at the history of trains a bit this morning. Considering what's been in the news a lot lately. Anyone?'

A couple of hands shot up. Will answered without being prompted, ‘The new Metro.' His eyes lit up when he said it.

‘Thank you, Will. The new Metro.' She walked between their desks, handing out photocopies of a newspaper article all about the Metro. The photograph with the article showed the same computer-generated image of the finished Metro that hung in Joe's Citi-Trak office. ‘And what can you tell me about it?'

‘Well,' he said, ‘it's a subway train, like in New York. It's going to run east to west under the city and, eh …' He couldn't think of anything else to say.

‘Very good. Will's right. The first line is going to start in Dublin East, right at the coast. It goes under the city and comes out where?'

A few more hands shot up. She pointed to Ciara.

‘Heuston Station, Miss?'

‘That's right, Ciara. Now here's a tough one.' She went to the Dublin map the class had made a few weeks ago that was hanging on the wall. It showed all the main landmarks: the tall Dublin Spire, Heuston Station, the River Liffey and so on. She pointed to the coastline. ‘So the tunnel starts here,' she pulled her finger along the map to Heuston Station right in the city centre, ‘and ends here. But why have they started excavating here first?' Her finger landed right in the middle of the River Liffey.

Several confused faces stared back at the teacher. Arthur knew the answer – or at least thought he did – but he didn't feel comfortable enough to speak up in class just yet. Eventually Rob Tynan at the back of the class said, ‘Is it because the tide is low at this time of the year?'

‘No, Rob, that's not it. It's nothing to do with the tide. Interesting guess, though. Anyone else?'

As Brian Savage gave another wrong answer, Ash elbowed Arthur and whispered, ‘Answer. You know it.'

‘Ssh!' he said, elbowing her back.

‘Something wrong there?' asked Miss Keegan. ‘Ashling? Arthur? Everything all right?'

‘Well …' started Arthur. ‘Em … I think they're drilling there first because of the river.'

‘That's what I said!' protested Rob.

‘Not the Liffey,' continued Arthur, ‘the underground river.'

Miss Keegan smiled and nodded. ‘Go on.'

Arthur could feel his classmates' attention on him. ‘There's this underground river called the Poddle. It actually goes under the streets and roads. Most people don't even know it's there but it is. Anyway, they have to tunnel below the Liffey and above the Poddle. And it makes it really dangerous, having two rivers there. If they started at either end the whole tunnel could collapse when they reach the rivers. But starting at the rivers, they can make sure that bit is safe before they do the rest.'

‘Exactly right.' Miss Keegan's smile grew wider. ‘You seem to know a lot about the operation. You must read the newspapers.'

‘His dad is working on the tunnel, Miss,' said Ash.

‘Really? Arthur, is that true?'

‘Well, yeah. He's one of the head engineers.'

‘He's kind of in charge of digging the whole tunnel!' exclaimed Ash. She looked at Arthur and blushed.

There was a burst of excited chatter in the class. It came to a sudden end when Will spoke up. ‘Can you get us a tour?'

‘What?' exclaimed Arthur.

‘Well, if your dad really is that important, you could get us a tour. I mean, if he really
is
in charge, Artie.' There was a mischievous glint in his eyes as he grinned at Arthur.

‘Oh, Will,' said Miss Keegan, ‘that would be too much to ask. Wouldn't it, Arthur? Would it?' She looked genuinely hopeful.

Arthur glanced from her to the smug Will and without another moment's hesitation said, ‘I'll ask.'

Tunnel Drilling Unsafe

‘I was nearly killed in the last cave-in,' says source.

Luke Moran dropped the newspaper on the boardroom table. The headline seemed to scream out at them, next to a photo of workers at the Metro site with their faces pixelated.

‘I'm not a happy man,' said Moran. He thumped his fist hard on the table. ‘Not happy at all!' He was a tall, overweight man with large purple hands like undercooked steaks. His salt-and-pepper-coloured wig shifted slightly on his head with the force of the blow.

‘Sir,' one of Moran's advisers sitting around the table spoke up meekly, ‘I don't think we can do anything about –'

‘I want this source
fired
!'

‘We don't know who the source is,' Joe said reasonably. He, Deirdre, Ruairí and a couple of other engineers sat on one side of the table. Moran's advisers – all wearing identical grey suits and all excessively skinny – sat on the opposite side. Moran paced around the table at a furious rate.

‘Well then find out! What are you, some kind of
idiot
? In fact,
who
are you?'

Joe stood up and looked Moran straight in the eye. He spoke calmly and evenly. ‘Mr Moran, I am Joe Quinn. You hired me last week as one of your head engineers overseeing the Usher's Quay project. I and my son moved – at very short notice – to Dublin. You wanted the drill running again: today we started it up for the first time in almost two weeks. You called me here, away from the drill, as work was getting under way. Mr Moran, you hired me to do a job and I'm doing it.'