The Black Room (5 page)

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Authors: Gillian Cross

BOOK: The Black Room
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“OK,” he said roughly. “What do you want to show me?”
Robert leaned closer to the bank. “Can you see the tunnel entrance? ”
“You mean that little hole I found before?” Tom shook his head. By now the whole hedge bank was a single block of shadow. He couldn't make out any details at all. And anyway—what did it matter? The hole was just a hole. How could it be anything else?
Robert caught hold of Tom's forefinger and pulled it gently down onto the ground. Tom couldn't help recognizing the feel of the fine dust in front of the hole. He slid his finger forward until he found the tunnel. It was so small that he could cover the entrance with one fingertip.
“It's
tiny,”
he said harshly. “You don't really expect me to believe you've been down there, do you?”
“I can't help what you believe,” Robert said. “I can only tell you what happened. Last
week, I was small enough to crawl through that tunnel.”
His voice was tight, as though the words hurt him.
Tom's mouth was dry. All at once he found it hard to breathe. “OK, so you're telling the truth,” he muttered. “As you see it. But it's not real, is it? Not the way
we're
real. And Helga.”
“I was there, in the cavern,” Robert said relentlessly. “With all the others. And if you were small enough to crawl through that tunnel now, you'd see exactly what I did. A space hollowed out under the ground, with a brazier up at one end to keep it warm.”
“A
brazier
? Oh, come on now—”
“It's an old tin.” Robert drew a long breath. “Punched full of holes to let the fire burn. It takes a lot of stoking because the twigs burn through so fast.”
Uneasily, Tom remembered the little wood stack he'd found hidden under a leaf. But that was nothing. It didn't prove a thing.
“Can you feel the heat from the fire?” Robert said softly.
Closing his eyes, Tom held a finger over the hole and tried to concentrate.
Could
he feel anything? He didn't know. And even if he could—wasn't it always warmer underground anyway?
Robert murmured again. “Can't you smell the smoke? It comes out of a hole, a bit higher up the bank.”
Tom sniffed. There were dozens of different smells mixed together. Damp earth. The brown, sludgy water at the bottom of the ditch. The wet leaves rotting under his feet. And ... for a fraction of a second, he almost caught something else. Another, more elusive, smell, too faint to distinguish properly. He sniffed again, trying to make it out.
And then he realized what he was doing.
He straightened up quickly, sitting back on his heels. “It's no good. I'm not playing. You really expect me to believe that you've been in some cavern and met a load of fairies?”
“They're not fairies,” Robert said. “They're people. Just like us, Tom.”
“It didn't happen!”
Tom wished he'd never seen Robert and Emma in the supermarket or watched them in the woods. He wished he'd never asked any questions at all. “You've been hallucinating, Robbo. You couldn't have been down in any cavern—because you were
here.
All the time. I saw you at school, every day. And if you don't know that—then you need treatment.”
He stood up quickly, remembering how he'd squeezed the story out of Robert in the first place.
You won't stop me from finding out
—
unless you kill me.
Suddenly—horribly—that didn't seem fantastic anymore. He had to get away.
But Robert was faster than he was. His hand shot out and he grabbed Tom's wrist. “This isn't a game, Tosher. You made me tell you. Now I can't let you go until you understand that it's true.” He stood up and stepped across the ditch, hauling Tom after him.
“What do you mean?” Tom said. “What are you going to—ouch!”
His foot slid off the bank, twisting sideways, and squelched down into the bottom of the ditch. Robert pulled impatiently at his arm.
“You're coming to my house,” he said.
Tom grabbed at the nearest excuse. “What about Helga?”
Robert just shrugged. “You can drop her off on the way. But you're not going home until you've talked to Emma.”
6
FOR THE FIRST TIME IN HIS LIFE, TOM FOUND HIMSELF wanting to see Emma Doherty—just because she was such a critical, sarcastic cow. She couldn't really believe Robert's weird story, even if she was pretending that she did. Maybe she had some reason for indulging Robert, but Tom knew she wouldn't try to con
him.
She knew him too well for that.
He was so eager to get the whole thing sorted out that he pitched Helga into the house without even wiping her feet. Then he slammed the door and left her barking while Robert hustled him off down the road.
Tom's mother wouldn't have noticed if he'd dragged ten friends through the house, but Robert's mother was different. As soon as they walked in, she left her computer and came into the hall.
“Is everything all right?” she said.
She always pussyfooted around like that. If Tom's mother did notice anything, she always asked a direct question.
Have you two had a quarrel? You both look dreadful!
But Mrs. Doherty hovered uneasily, keeping her eyes away from their faces. Carefully not noticing Robert's hand and the way it was gripping Tom's arm.
“Hi, Mom,” Robert said firmly. “Everything's fine, thanks.”
He stayed in the hall, smiling brightly at her. Not moving until she went back to work. As soon as she was out of sight, he made for the stairs, pulling Tom after him.
“You haven't told her all this stuff then?” Tom asked.
“No,” Robert said shortly.
“She's your mother, isn't she? Wouldn't she like to hear all about your amazing adventures?”
“No,” Robert said again. In a voice that meant he wasn't going to talk about it anymore.
He pushed Tom along the landing toward Emma's door. It was firmly shut, as usual, but Robert didn't wait to be asked in. He knocked once, quickly and lightly, and then opened it right away, without waiting for an answer.
“Problems,” he said.
Emma was lying on the bed reading, leaning back against a heap of cushions. She sat up quickly, and Tom braced himself for a
rant. Don't you dare come marching into my room like that! You're such a jerk—
But there was nothing like that. She looked startled and worried. “What have you done to yourself, Rob? You're a real mess.” Then she saw Tom, and her expression changed. “Oh. It's you. I suppose you've been fighting then.”
Tom had almost forgotten about that. But now he saw himself in Emma's mirror, with his eye swollen and his face smeared with mud. And Robert looked battered, too. His coat was torn and there were long bramble scratches on his neck and under one eye.
“It's nothing,” Robert said impatiently. He pulled Tom into the room and shut the door. “I just hit him. That's all.”
“You
hit
him?” That was the voice Tom hated. Hard and chilly and superior. The one Emma always used on Robert.
You're such a pathetic idiot....
“It's only blood,” he said dismissively, wiping his cheek with the back of his hand. “No big deal.”
“I thought you two were supposed to be friends.” Emma looked pointedly at his jacket, and he realized there was blood on that, too.
“We
are
friends,” he said. “Aren't we, Robbo?”
Robert ignored that. “I
had
to hit him, Em,” he said. “It was the only way to stop him. He was in the woods.”
“And?” Emma said.
Robert turned his head away. “He was ramming a stick into the tunnel. Jabbing it straight down. He could have hurt someone.”
“So you hit him?”
Robert nodded. “As hard as I could. But it wasn't any use. I had to tell him in the end.”
“You
told
him?” Emma's voice went up three notches. It was the first time Tom had ever seen her look shocked. “But we said—”
“I
had
to,” Robert said wretchedly. “He thought we had something hidden down there, and he was threatening to dig up the whole bank.”
“But we said we wouldn't tell
anyone.
Ever.”
“What could I do?” Robert said helplessly. “He saw us there. He knows exactly where the cavern is. And I thought if I told him—if he understood—then I could get him to leave it alone.”
“And did it work?” Emma said tartly.
Robert shook his head and looked even more miserable. “He doesn't believe me. He thinks I'm crazy.”
“It's not that,” Tom said half-apologetically. “I just think—” He stopped short, because, of course, it
was
that. He thought the whole thing was crazy.
“So what are we going to do?” Emma said.
“That's why I brought him here.” Robert tugged at Tom's arm, dragging him nearer to the bed.
“You've
got to convince him.”
“Me?”
Emma obviously wasn't expecting that. “What can I do?”
“You've got to tell him what you saw,” Robert said. “He'll believe you.”
“Why should he? If he doesn't believe you.” Emma stood up and walked over to the window, with her arms folded tightly around her body.
She's afraid,
Tom thought.
Whatever she saw, she doesn't want to talk about it.
But she did talk. She turned to face him and looked him straight in the eye. “I'm not surprised you don't believe Robert,” she said abruptly. “I wouldn't believe him either—if I hadn't
seen
him.”
“Seen?” Tom didn't want to hear the answer, whatever it was, but there was no way of escaping it. She was going to tell him.
“I saw Rob.” Emma said it slowly and deliberately. “I saw him as clearly as I can see you now. And he was tiny—less than half the length of my little finger.”
Her eyes were a clear, light hazel, and there was a pulse beating in her neck.
It can't be true,
Tom thought.
It can't. It can't.
“The other Robert hadn't gone missing,” Emma said steadily. “You know that as well as I do. He'd been there all the time. Getting up and going to school, coming home and going to bed, just the same as usual. But he was ... blank. Like an empty person. Remember?”
Tom nodded, before he could stop himself.
That's enough,
he wanted to say.
Don't tell me anymore.
But Emma didn't stop. “And then suddenly, that morning, there were two Roberts,” she said. “The blank one next to me was the size he's always been. But I knew that the little one was the
real
Robert. He—”
Her voice stumbled for a second. Tom couldn't speak. He couldn't do anything except stare at her.
Emma caught her breath and went on. “The tall Robert crouched down and stretched out his hand toward the small one. Their fingers touched, and they just—just—” She shook her head. “It was the most frightening thing I've ever seen.”
Robert reached out and put a hand on her arm, reassuringly.
Tom stared at the hand. Until then, the whole thing had seemed like some wild fantasy, with no connection to the real world.
I woke up and found I'd shrunk to the size of a thumbnail.
It was crazy, but it didn't change anything.
Only it had changed things. Robert and Emma were both different. Tom leaned back against the wall so that they wouldn't see him shaking.
“People see all kinds of things,” Tom said. The words came out rough and hostile. “It's called hallucinating.”
“I'd like to believe that, too,” Emma said scathingly. “It would be much more comfortable, wouldn't it? But it wouldn't be
true.
I know what I saw and I know it was real.”
“So you swallowed the rest of the story as well? All that stuff about the cavern and the little people?”
Tom meant to sound scornful, to embarrass her into silence. But it didn't work. She gave him a pitying look.
“It explains what I saw. And the more Rob talks about it, the more I believe him. Because so many things fit in.”
“Like what?” Tom said. It was almost a sneer—because what could
fet in
with a completely unbelievable story?
“Like—” Emma frowned for a moment, thinking. Then she grinned. “Remember when you and Rob were doing that badge in Scouts? The one where you had to tie knots and splice ropes?”
Tom tried not to grin back, but he couldn't help himself. He'd been determined to get Robert through that badge. Evening after evening he'd sat with him, showing him how to loop the ropes around each other and pull the ends through in the right places. But he'd had to give up in the end. It was like trying to teach a chicken to do embroidery.
“Well, watch this.” Emma tucked her hair behind her ears so that it hung down her back in a long red cascade. “Go on, Rob. Show him how you can braid. Do a really complicated one.”
Robert gathered the hair in his hands. “Twelve strands?”
Tom laughed before he could stop himself. That had to be impossible for anyone.
“Right,” Emma said firmly. “Twelve strands it is.”
She took a fistful of elastic bands off her dressing table and handed them to Robert. He divided the hair into equal sections, fastening the ends with the bands to keep them separate. His fingers were quick and confident as he snapped the bands into place.
When the twelve strands had been separated, he started braiding them together so fast that Tom couldn't quite see what he was doing. But he was sure it was going to be a mess. He looked forward to seeing Emma cut the tangles out of her precious hair.

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