Charlie and the War Against the Grannies (13 page)

Hils checked The Lurker's map and then walked into the house over to an old bit of string that was hanging from the ceiling. Hils grabbed the string and pulled it three times.

There was a click.

Then silence.

Then nothing happened.

It was the kind of click-then-silence-then-nothing-happened where you knew that something
was
going to happen very soon. It's like the nothing-happened just needed a moment to work out what something-happened it was going to turn into.

It decided.

Then something happened.

The house shivered.

Like it was waking up.

The house shivered exactly the way my pop does when he's waking up from his every-afternoon-without-fail nap.

Pop rocks from side to side in his chair. Then he grunts. Like his brain is telling his body that it should be awake and his body is telling his brain that it wants to stay asleep.

The brain wins.

His left eye opens.

Then his right eye opens.

Even though his eyes are open they are still dark.

Then the light comes on in his eyes and Pop is awake.

From when the lights in his eyes come on it takes about five minutes for the awake to get from his eyes right down to his feet.

That is pretty much exactly what the house did. Next, the house did something Pop had never done.

The floor, in front of where I was standing, started to drop down slowly and form a ramp. A ramp which led to a tunnel. A dark, secret tunnel.

‘You're starting to like The Lurker now, aren't you?' said Hils.

‘No,' I said. ‘But I will admit that he is an important asset.'

Hils pulled two tiny, really, very, super powerful torches out of her backpack. She handed me one, turned hers on and headed down the ramp into the dark, secret tunnel.

‘There's a button on the back of the torch that turns it on,' said Hils.

‘I knew that.'

I didn't know that.

I turned on my torch and followed her down the ramp.

Hils and I reached the bottom of the ramp and stepped off.

We were in a secret tunnel.

I was excited.

The ramp closed behind us with a muffled WHOMP.

Excited and a little bit scared.

The tunnel was really, very, super dark.

A lot scared.

I heard a
FOOFF
sound and, a long way down the tunnel, I saw a tiny light come on.

Another
FOOFF
. Another light. But closer.

Another, louder
FOOFF
. Another light. Even closer.

I saw that these lights were flaming torches hanging from the walls. They came on one by one, along the tunnel, until they reached where Hils and I were standing.

The tunnel looked exactly like I'd hoped a secret tunnel would look. It was narrow with a high arched ceiling and rough rocky walls. It smelled like our garden does just after it has rained.

Behind where we were standing was a wall of solid rock.

‘Looks like there's only one way we can go,' said Hils. ‘Straight ahead.'

We started walking.

‘Hils?' I said after we had been walking for a long time.

‘Roger,' said Hils.

That's the army way of saying, ‘I'm listening.'

‘This secret tunnel . . . there's something about it that doesn't feel completely . . . right,' I said.

‘Affirmative.'

‘I think I've worked out what it is.'

Hils stopped walking.

‘This secret tunnel is BORING,' I said.

‘Affirmative. Really boring.'

‘I've never been
in
a secret tunnel before but I've seen a lot of secret tunnels on TV. None of them have been as boring as this one.'

‘We've been walking along this tunnel for ages,' said Hils, ‘and we should have heard at least one unidentifiable scratching noise which gets louder and louder the further up the tunnel we travel.'

‘We haven't heard ANY scratching noises. What sort of secret tunnel doesn't have ANY scratching noises? When we went on that class trip to that completely normal tunnel it had scratching noises. Secret tunnels should definitely have them.'

‘We haven't heard any noises at all,' said Hils. ‘Not even a blood-curdling scream.'

‘A blood-curdling scream that seems to be coming from all around us,' I said.

‘So we have no way of knowing which way we should run to escape it.'

‘Exactly,' I said.

‘We haven't stepped in a pool of blood,' said Hils.

‘We haven't stepped in a pool of anything.'

‘Not quicksand,' said Hils. ‘Or acid.'

‘We haven't felt something drip on our heads,' I said, ‘only to look up and realise that it's blood. Fresh blood.'

‘We haven't encountered an old man with a really long beard chained to the wall of the tunnel,' said Hils.

‘A really, very, super old man who, with his dying breath, says something really, very, super cryptic that we don't understand.'

‘That we don't understand until much, much later,' said Hils.

‘When we realise how important the cryptic thing the old bearded guy said was to our really, very, super important secret-tunnel-based quest.'

‘Affirmative.'

‘We haven't even come to a place where the tunnel splits in two and we have to make a decision about which way to go,' I said. ‘We'd probably have an argument about which way to go and we'd split up and go in opposite directions.'

‘Negative. It wouldn't be an argument. I would make a sensible suggestion based on strong intelligence and experience and you would ignore it.'

 

‘I wouldn't ignore it. It might just be that I wouldn't think it was the right suggestion.'

‘It would be the right suggestion,' said Hils. ‘You're not always right.'

‘When am I not always right?'

‘All the time,' I said.

‘Name one of the all-the-times when I was not-right.'

‘I can't,' I said.

‘Why not?'

‘There have been too many. I can't remember any one in particular,' I said.

‘If this boring secret tunnel split into two and we had to decide which path to take I would take the right way and you would take your way.'

‘My way might be the right way.'

‘That is statistically improbable,' said Hils.

‘I'd probably end up picking the way where there was a booby trap,' I said.

‘Affirmative.'

‘A booby trap involving a large rock which rolled out of a secret door in the roof.'

‘Affirmative.'

‘Crushing my leg.'

‘Affirmative.'

‘I'd be racked with terrible pain.'

‘Affirmative.'

‘I'd call out for you to help me.'

‘I wouldn't hear you because the geological make-up of this secret tunnel would mean that sound doesn't carry further than a few metres,' said Hils.

‘I wouldn't know that.'

‘Affirmative.'

‘Eventually I'd realise you were never going to come.'

‘You'd close your eyes,' said Hils.

‘And wait to die.'

‘Slowly and painfully,' said Hils.

‘Of course,' I said.

‘You should have listened to me,' said Hils. ‘You might still be alive.'

‘True,' I said.

‘I'll miss you,' said Hils.

‘I'll miss you too,' I said.

Saying that made us both feel nice and uncomfortable at the same time.

Maybe slightly more uncomfortable than nice.

Yes, definitely more uncomfortable than nice.

We kept walking for a while.

In silence.

‘We haven't seen any animals with more heads than they should normally have,' I said.

‘And they haven't talked to us out of any of those more than normal heads,' said Hils.

‘They haven't told us to follow them.'

‘They haven't told us to go back from whence we came.'

‘Nice use of the word “whence”,' I said.

‘Thanks,' said Hils. ‘“Whence” is a very secret-tunnel word.'

‘True,' I said.

That's when we saw it.

Stuck to the wall of the boring secret tunnel was this poster.

We walked a little bit further and there was another poster stuck to the wall.

‘What does that mean?' I said.

‘I don't know,' said Hils.

‘How can anything be located between “rude words” and “unexpected hellos”?' I said.

‘I don't know,' said Hils.

Hils kept on walking down the tunnel.

I stayed in front of the poster.

It had to mean something and I had to know what it meant.

Maybe I just needed to look at it harder.

I looked at it harder.

My eyes started to go a bit blurry.

I looked at it even harder.

My eyebrows started to hurt.

I looked at it even, even harder.

I got cramp in my ears.

The ear-cramp really hurt. I had never had cramp in my ears. I didn't know how to make it stop. It was really hurting.

People often got cramp while we were doing PE. Maybe people got ear-cramp. Maybe the PE teacher Mr Hardy-Soul had explained how to stop ear-cramp. Maybe I needed to start listening in PE.

The ear-cramp was really hurting. I had to do something or I might lose the use of my ears. I grabbed my earlobes and started flapping them about. The ear-cramp went away. I had cured ear-cramp. That made me pretty proud. Maybe I didn't need to start listening in PE.

I looked at the poster. I still didn't know what it meant.