The Paradise Trap (25 page)

Jake had to squeeze her tightly until she squeaked and stopped thrashing about. For a few seconds, there was no sound except the rasp of people catching their breath.

‘Sorry,’ Marcus said at last. ‘I guess it’s a whip sign, not a smoking cigarette sign.’

‘A whip?
A whip?
’ Newt screeched. ‘Why the hell would there be a
whip room
at an
airport
?’

No one replied. Coco was too busy tearing the leather strap off her wrist, which was now disfigured by a raised, reddish welt. Sterling was trying to calm her down. Edison was sucking his thumb for comfort and Marcus couldn’t think of a sensible answer.

But when Miss Molpe tried to hum a little tune, Jake turned to Newt and growled, ‘Just punch her in the face for me, will you? I can’t reach around that far.’

The humming immediately stopped.

‘Jake,
don’t
,’ Holly chided. Then she took a deep breath. ‘Okay, we’re all in one piece and everything’s fine. Obviously that’s not the smoking room, so we’d better keep moving.’

‘I’m not opening any more doors,’ whimpered Coco. ‘In fact I don’t think
anyone
should.’

‘We have to,’ said Marcus. He was about to go on when Jake suddenly announced, ‘I’ll do it. I’ll open the doors. In fact I might even use this evil old bag as a battering ram.’

Holly clicked her tongue. ‘Jake—’

‘Or as a shield, perhaps. If anything comes at me, it’ll hit her first.’

‘Uh – before you do that,’ Sterling interjected, ‘maybe I should try calling Prot. For all we know, he’s in this terminal somewhere. And if he is, he can open some doors for us.’

Since no one could find a flaw in this plan, Holly gave Sterling her mobile phone. And as they all trudged along, past gate after gate, Sterling busily tapped codes and commands into its keypad.

‘Look,’ Edison suddenly remarked. ‘There’s that cigarette.’ He’d been clinging to Newt with both hands. Now he raised one of them to point at a familiar symbol: the white line with the black tip. ‘Except that it might not even
be
a cigarette . . .’ he had to admit.

Everyone slowed, then halted in front of another purple door. Sterling, meanwhile, had connected with Prot. ‘Prot?’ he said. ‘Where are you?’ There was a brief pause. ‘Really? You
are
?’ Sterling covered the mouthpiece of Holly’s phone. ‘Prot’s at Siren Song Travel!’ he exclaimed. ‘He took the lift back there!’

‘Oh, wow.’ Marcus brightened. ‘That’s
fantastic!
’ But when he beamed at his mother, he saw that she was wrinkling her brow and chewing on her bottom lip. The others wore the same troubled look; they were either too tired, too stunned or too stupid to grasp the importance of what Sterling had just told them.

‘It might not be the real Siren Song Travel,’ was Coco’s immediate concern.

‘It has to be,’ Marcus insisted. ‘Prot’s a robot. Robots don’t have dreams or nightmares.’ To Sterling he said, ‘Ask if there’s an airport brochure.’

‘Good thinking!’ Sterling proceeded to interrogate Prot. ‘Prot? Is there a brochure for an airport? An
airport
. . .’

Jake, by this time, had come to a decision. ‘I’m going to take a look,’ he declared, adjusting the weight on his shoulder. Then he strode forward and reached for the purple door.

‘Be careful, Jake,’ warned Holly, as he turned the handle. Everyone else retreated a step – except Sterling, who was still doggedly questioning his robot.

‘Have you searched the whole room?’ he asked. ‘What about the desk? Yes, I want you to check all the drawers in that desk . . .’

‘
Yuk!
’ cried Newt, slapping a hand over her nose. The smell was overwhelming; it seemed to engulf them like a tidal wave before Jake could shut the door again. He gagged and coughed and gasped. So did Holly and Coco. Marcus felt dizzy. Staggering backwards, he nearly fell.

‘Read it to me. Okay. And the next one?’ When the stench hit Sterling, he was cut off in mid-sentence. ‘Oohh . . . arrgh . . . gaak!’ he choked.

Around him his family were scattering in every direction, fleeing from the smell as if it were poison gas. Even Jake moved away once the door had been shut. It took a while for the noxious fumes to dissipate – and even longer for Jake to find his voice again.

‘Maggots,’ he wheezed.

‘Hnnn?’ Holly’s eyes were brimming with tears. She was holding her breath and couldn’t speak.

‘Giant maggots. In there.’ Jake jabbed a finger at the door. ‘White body . . . black head . . .’ Propped against a wall, he was doubled over beneath Miss Molpe’s oddly misshapen frame, with its stalk-like neck and small, bobbing skull. ‘That picture wasn’t a cigarette.

It was a maggot.’

Miss Molpe snickered.

‘A maggot room. Great.’ Newt was holding her nose. ‘No
way
should we be opening any more doors! Not unless we know what’s on the other side!’

‘But we have to,’ Marcus objected. And Sterling backed him up.

‘That’s right, because Prot –
hack-hack –
Prot’s found a drawer full of –
hack-hack-hack
. . .’

When her father dissolved into a fit of coughing, Newt cried, ‘Prot’s found a drawer full of
what
?’

‘Ahh . . . ahh . . . a drawer full of files,’ Sterling croaked at last. ‘Each one’s got a number and each one deals with a specific complaint.’

‘
Complaint?
’ Holly echoed hoarsely. ‘What kind of complaint?’

‘A complaint about a disastrous holiday.’ After clearing his throat and wiping his eyes, Sterling continued. ‘According to Prot, there’s a sunken-ship complaint, and a vampire-infested camp complaint—’

‘And a delayed-flight complaint?’ Marcus interrupted breathlessly.

Sterling gave a nod. ‘Yes,’ he confirmed. ‘Which has to be the file for this airport.’

‘And it’s got a number? Is that what you said?’ asked Holly.

‘A file number. Yes.’

‘Which Prot can key into the office phone!’ Marcus seized Sterling’s arm. ‘Then he can program the lift to come straight down here!’

‘But he shouldn’t come down here with it.’ Sterling seemed to be thinking aloud. ‘He’s to send the lift to us, and when we get into it, I’ll call him—’

‘—and he can use the office phone again,’ Marcus finished, ‘which means the lift will go back there to pick him up!’

‘Exactly.’ Sterling and Marcus surveyed each other for a moment, full of mutual respect and mounting excitement. Then Sterling put the phone to his ear again. ‘Prot?’ he said. ‘Listen carefully. I want you to lift that phone receiver . . .’

Marcus was thrilled.
This time
, he thought,
I know
it’s going to work.
When he looked around, however, he was surprised to see no answering gleam of anticipation in the eyes of those people who had the most cause to celebrate. ‘Don’t you get it?’ he demanded. ‘The lift’s coming! It means we can go!’

Newt sniffed. ‘We’re not going anywhere unless we can
find
the damn thing,’ she spat. ‘Which is not going to happen if we can’t find the smoking room.’ She obviously wanted to pick a fight, but as she folded her arms defensively her brother suddenly pointed.

‘You mean
that
smoking room?’ he asked.

53

CHOKING

S
TERLING WAS STILL ON THE PHONE TO
P
ROT
.

‘You have? Excellent. Then wait right there until I call you.’ With a
beep
he hung up. ‘The lift’s coming!’ he cried, before he realised that everyone else was staring down the hallway. ‘What is it?’ he asked. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Look.’ Coco drew his attention to a distant glass box about half the size of a single-car garage. It was tucked into a corner between a wall and a window. ‘We think that might be the smoking room.’

‘That’s
definitely
the smoking room,’ Marcus decreed. He could just make out the sign on the glass box, which showed a universal hand holding a black stick between two fingers. ‘Apart from anything else, it’s full of smoke.’

‘Is it?’ Holly squinted. ‘You mean that isn’t
frosted
glass?’

‘We’ll soon find out,’ said Jake, marching ahead briskly. Soon, however, he began to slow down – and by the time he’d reached his destination, the others had caught up with him. ‘This is it, all right,’ he announced, panting and sweating. ‘Because old ferret-face here has decided to stack on the kilos again.’

‘But I can’t see a lift.’ Newt had pressed her nose against the glass wall of the box, beyond which lay a swirling grey cloud. ‘I can’t see
anything
.’

‘There must be some pretty heavy smokers inside,’ said Marcus. Coco wasn’t persuaded, though.

‘That’s an awful lot of smoke to be coming out of a few smokers,’ was her opinion. ‘Maybe it’s a fire. Maybe we shouldn’t go in.’

‘Oh, we’re going in. We’re not backing off now.’ Jake’s tone was hard and firm. Though his knees were trembling with the effort of supporting Miss Molpe, he barged straight through the door of the smoking room.

Then he started to cough.

‘Aw, Jeez –
huck-huck –
I can’t see a thing –
huck-huck-
huck . . .
’

‘I’m coming, Jake! I’ll help you!’ Holly pursued him into the smoke, which immediately swallowed her up. Marcus couldn’t see her anymore.

He could hear her, though. She was coughing her lungs out.

‘Jake –
cough-cough –
where are you?’

‘They’ll suffocate in there,’ Coco muttered. Then she raised her voice. ‘Jake! Holly! Come out before you die of smoke inhalation!’

By this time smoke was billowing into the hallway; Marcus couldn’t believe how much of it there was. He too began to cough – and to wonder what would happen if they opened a window. Would something nasty try to get in?

Suddenly a loud
ping
made his heart leap.

‘That’s it!’ he exclaimed. ‘That’s the lift! It’s arrived!’

‘Come on.’ Sterling seized his hand. ‘We have to go in.’

‘Everybody hold hands so we don’t lose each other!’ Coco instructed. ‘Newt! Take Eddie’s hand, please!’

Together they formed a chain, with Sterling at its head. As they crossed the smoke-blurred threshold, choking and gasping, Marcus heard his mother’s cracked voice drifting out of the grey haze. ‘I found a –
cough-cough –
wall!’ she was saying. ‘Jake? Where are you?’

‘I’m here!’ Jake’s response was muffled. ‘This place is so –
huck-huck-huck –
big!’

‘Wait! Listen!’ cried Holly. Straining his ears, Marcus caught the rattle of a metal sliding door, before the noise was drowned by a fit of coughing.

‘I hear it!’ Jake rasped. ‘It’s just over there!’

‘Hurry, before it closes again!’ croaked Sterling. The smoke was so thick that Marcus could barely see him, even though the two of them were holding hands. It was impossible to tell which way they were facing or how far away the glass door was.

Marcus felt sick and dizzy. He couldn’t breathe.
The
siren is doing this somehow
, he concluded.
She’s trying to
stop us from finding her lift.
His knees were beginning to buckle when Jake suddenly screeched, ‘I’ve got it! I found it!’ After that, there was total confusion.

Marcus was vaguely aware of a thump and a swish. His vision seemed to be darkening at the edges – or was that just the smoke closing in? He nearly lost his balance as he was tugged forward; then someone bumped into him and said, ‘Ooof!’ Newt and Sterling both let him go.

All at once Marcus staggered into a wall. It was a familiar wall. It was, in fact, the back wall of the lift.

Looking around with watery eyes, he realised that the dense haze was lifting. He could see Coco, Sterling, Newt, Jake, Miss Molpe, Holly and . . .

‘Edison? Where’s Edison?’ Coco demanded.

‘Here,’ squawked Edison.

‘So everybody’s present and accounted for? Yes?’ Satisfied, Sterling started jabbing at Holly’s phone again as Jake, who had been leaning against the lift door, stepped aside and let it rumble shut. Holly was almost sobbing with gratitude.

‘Jake, you’re a –
cough-cough –
genius!’ she spluttered. ‘I couldn’t see a thing! How on earth did you find your way in here?’

‘Simple,’ Jake replied gruffly. ‘This stupid old cow led me straight to it. The heavier she got, the closer I was.’

With a shrug and a grunt he let Miss Molpe slide off his back, so that she landed heavily on the floor.
Thump!
Everyone else shrank against the walls in a general movement of revulsion.

Only Sterling seemed oblivious to Miss Molpe. He was on the phone, addressing his robot. ‘Hello? Prot?’ he said. ‘You can pick up that phone again. Yes, please. And then you can key in the same number . . .’

After delivering his instructions, he signed off. ‘We won’t have long to wait,’ he announced.

He was right, too. Because about ten seconds later, the lift gave a sudden lurch – and dropped like a stone.

54

PAPER CHASE

‘
A
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH
!’

A chorus of screams rang out. Marcus was thrown against a wall. For about two seconds he thought that he was going to die.

But when Sterling fell on top of Miss Molpe, the lift stopped abruptly. There was no devastating crash, though some of the passengers did bump their heads and bruise their elbows. Most of them ended up on the floor in a muddled heap.

As they slowly disentangled themselves, the door opened
.

‘Prot!’ Coco exclaimed. ‘Hold that door! Don’t let it close!’

The sight of Prot was a welcome one. Framed in the doorway against a familiar backdrop of display shelves, the robot jerked to a halt before obediently wedging one steel hand against the lift door. Prot’s other (detached) hand was probably still inside Jake’s suitcase, which sat right in front of them on the shabby beige carpet of Siren Song Travel.

‘Oh my God! Look at that!’ Holly quavered. ‘It’s your bag, Jake! How on earth did it end up here?’

Jake didn’t reply; he was wincing and rubbing his knee. Miss Molpe also failed to respond – perhaps because she was buried under Sterling’s massive stomach.