Buried Alive! (8 page)

I tried. My hands were slippy as I seized the club. I took a wild swing. And missed completely.

‘Hey, hey, careful!' said Dad. ‘No, you've got to keep your eye on the ball. Have another go.'

I tried. I did hit the ball this time. About a centimetre.

‘Hit it a bit
harder
, Tim,' said Dad, sighing. ‘And hold the club with your hands together. No wonder you're so useless.'

I tried again. I could hear giggling behind me. Kelly and Biscuits were talking together, looking at me.

It was cold in the moonlight, with a sharp breeze off the sea, but I was burning hot. I took another swing and the ball went careering off in totally the wrong direction.

There was a great scornful whoop. Not from behind. Not from in front. From above. I looked up.
It was Prickle-Head and Pinch-Face!

‘Oh no. Oh Dad, please. I can't play any more. Don't make me,' I begged.

‘Just do your best,' Dad said.

‘But those boys, they're watching me.'

‘Take no notice.'

I took another swing. How can you take no notice when your worst enemies in the world are cracking up laughing because you're so hopeless?

Mum started walking towards me, looking cross. Oh no. It was getting even worse.

‘You boys up there! You mind your own business!' she shouted.

They hooted even harder. I took one last desperate shot and missed again.

‘What a load of rubbish!' yelled Prickle-Head, and then he took his Coke can and threw it at me. ‘Rubbish, rubbish, rubbish! Throw your rubbish at the rubbish!'

‘
Right!
' said Dad. Kelly's mum's boyfriend Dave was coming over too.

Prickle-Head and Pinch-Face decided to make a run for it.

‘But we're still going to
get
you,' Prickle-Head yelled. ‘You just w-a-i-t!'

I WENT UP
and up and up the tower steps, gasping for breath. There was someone behind me. I could hear them getting nearer and nearer.

I kept craning back fearfully but it was so dark and I couldn't see anything. But there was a faint glimmer ahead. I was nearly at the top.

I made one last desperate effort and stepped out onto the castle battlements, my hands ready to clasp the wall . . .
but it wasn't there
!

I was standing on a tiny parapet, the wind whistling around me. If I took just one step forward I'd be treading thin air!

‘
Where's the wall?
'

There was a horrible laugh from behind
me. I turned my head stiffly, not daring to move any more in case I toppled over.

Prickle-Head was grinning at me from the doorway. He stamped his huge boots.

‘These are great for kicking. A few kicks at that wall and it crumbled. You're the one that's going to crumble now, Mummy's Boy. You like cissy pretend games, don't you? Well, you can play at being a weathercock now. Have fun!'

He dodged back and slammed the door shut. I heard the thud and rattle as he bolted it from the inside.

‘Please! Come back! You can't do this!' I screamed.

‘I
said
I was going to get you,' Prickle-Head shouted from behind the door.

I heard the clump of his boots down and down and down the steps.

I was left, unable to move, my head spinning, eyes streaming, mouth screaming. It was so windy I could barely keep my balance. I had to keep still, it was my only chance, but I was being buffetted from side to side, and I felt so sick and dizzy I couldn't keep my legs stiff. I staggered forward, arms flailing wildly – and then I fell.

Down, down, down . . .

and landed with a bump.

‘Tim?'

‘Oooh!'

‘What're you doing on the floor?'

‘I fell out of bed. I think I was having a nightmare.'

‘Oh. Right. Night then,' said Biscuits.

Walter Bear had fallen with me. I clutched him tight against my chest.

‘Tim?' said Biscuits.

‘What?'

‘Why aren't you getting back into bed?'

‘Because – because I don't want to go back to sleep. In case the nightmare comes back.'

‘Was it a really awful maniac-killer-with-a-machine-gun nightmare?' said Biscuits.

‘Worse!'

‘Wow. Well. Do you want to get in my bed for a bit?'

‘Yes please,' I said.

It wasn't very comfortable in Biscuits's bed. Biscuits himself took up a great deal of room, and his sheets were all prickly with crumbs. But it was much much cosier squashed up with him than my own cold bed where the Prickle-Head dream was still lurking, ready to flash on the screen in my head the minute I closed my eyes.

Walter Bear had also crept in with me. He cuddled up with Dog Hog.

‘Is Tim feeling better now?' said Dog Hog.

‘Much better, thank you,' said Walter.

‘He doesn't
sound
much better. Tell him not to worry. It was only a nightmare. It can't come true,' said Dog Hog.

‘It can,' said Walter. ‘He says it's about Prickle-Head.'

‘Ah,' said Dog Hog. ‘
Him
.'

‘Yes,' said Walter Bear. ‘He's going to get Tim.'

‘And Biscuits,' said Dog Hog.

‘He's going to get me
more
,'I said in my ordinary voice, forgetting to be Walter Bear. ‘He chased me up this castle and then left me right at the top and there was nothing to hold on to and it was so awful—'

‘But he couldn't really do that,' said Biscuits.

‘Well, all right. But he could . . .' I paused, thinking of 1001 possibilities.

‘He can't do anything really,' said Biscuits firmly. ‘Not with your mum and dad around. Especially not your mum.' He chuckled.

I started laughing too, but a little uneasily.

‘I suppose he can't actually
kill
me,' I said. ‘But – but he can still call me horrible names.'

‘We can call him horrible names back,' said Biscuits. ‘I know! Let's have a Horrible Names for Prickle-Head contest!'

This was enormous fun. We started off mildly enough:

Pea-brain Prickle-Head.

Pig-manure Prickle-Head.

Pukey Prickle-Head.

Then the names got longer and fancier and much much ruder.

We were soon shaking with laughter, so that we were both in danger of tumbling right out of bed.

Then I suddenly heard a bedroom door slam. Footsteps, rapidly approaching!

‘Help!' I hissed, and I shot out of Biscuits's bed and into my own.

‘What on
earth
are you two boys playing at!' Mum whispered fiercely, bursting into our room. ‘It's four o'clock in the morning and you're waking the whole hotel!'

I kept my eyes shut and tried to breathe evenly, though my heart was thudding. Biscuits gave a very realistic little snore.

‘You can't fool me,' said Mum – but she sounded uncertain.

She waited . . . and then we heard her tiptoeing out.

I felt the most desperate giggle shaking my whole body. I had to go down under the sheets to muffle it. Biscuits was snorting too. A little too loudly.

‘Sh! She'll come back! We'd better go to sleep now,' I said.

‘But I'm wide awake,' said Biscuits. ‘And I'm
starving
. I'm going to ask for double sausages at breakfast.
Triple
.'

He did too. Mrs Jones laughed delightedly and called him Little Lord Greedyguts.

‘Anything to oblige and fill the Royal Tum,' she said, bustling off to the kitchen.

Biscuits and I laughed too, but Mum frowned. She wasn't in a good mood anyway because of her disturbed night.

‘Really, Biscuits! It's very rude of you to keep asking Mrs Jones for more food. She gives you very generous portions as it is. You mustn't do it.'

‘But she
likes
it when I ask for more. She thinks it's funny,' Biscuits protested.

‘Well, I don't think it's funny at all,' said Mum. ‘And you can't possibly want any more sausages. You'll be sick.'

‘I'm never sick,' said Biscuits. ‘Even on the day I had a Christmas dinner with my mum and dad and then we went to my auntie's and we had another whole Christmas dinner with her and then we went to my gran's in the evening and we had a big buffet and I ate
all
the sausages on sticks, every single one. I wasn't sick then.
And I wasn't even sick on my birthday when—'

‘
I'm
getting sick of this subject,' said Mum.

Mrs Jones was coming back with a plate of sizzling sausages, so Mum was forced to smile and be extra grateful.

Biscuits tucked into the sausages. He ate them all. The whole plateful. And then he smacked his lips happily.

‘When you die they'll pickle your stomach and doctors will come and look at it and
marvel
,' I said.

Biscuits still looked hopefully at the ice-cream stall as we went on the beach, but after one glance at Mum he could see there was no point asking.

Dad made a great to-do of getting the deckchairs positioned and the windbreak up.

‘You're probably wasting your time. It looks as if it's going to start raining,' said Mum, eyeing the grey sky.

‘Nonsense!' said Dad. ‘The sun's just about to break through, you'll see.'

Mum sniffed, pulled on another cardigan, and got her book out of her beach-bag. Dad reached for his paper, taking great deep breaths to show he was appreciating the balmy air, though there were goose pimples from the end of his shorts to his ankles.

‘You two boys had better run about a bit to get warm,' Mum said.

‘I'm warm enough,' said Biscuits, getting out his comic.

I read my own comic for a bit, and then I got my drawing book and doodled around doing a picture strip of me and Biscuits being Super-Tim and Biscuits-Boy. Super-Tim swooped up to the castle battlements and rescued damsels in distress who were swooningly grateful. He rounded up evil enemies, conquering them with a swift chop to the chops. ‘Kerpow!' said Super-Tim and ‘Wow!' said Biscuits-Boy, marvelling at his best friend's bravery and brawn.

‘What are you drawing?' said Biscuits, peering over my shoulder.

‘Just silly rubbish,' I said, crumpling the page quickly. ‘Come on, Biscuits, let's do something. Let's go looking for shells and seaweed and stuff and then identify it from my seaside nature book.'

‘That sounds like super fun –
not
!' said Biscuits. ‘Just like school.'

‘No, we might find something mega-rare. Some extraordinary lugworm all coiled up in the sand and we'll start digging him up and find he's vast, one of the great loathly worms they had in the Middle Ages. Or – or we'll pick
up this ordinary old stone and we'll see all the markings on it and it'll be a Stone Age flint used by a caveman to make an axe to attack all the woolly mammoths and sabre-tooth tigers. Aah! I've got a better idea! Let's find a cave and explore it and see if we can find any cave paintings.'