Charlie in the Underworld Read online

  They swarmed, humming and buzzing, around my rucksack, as excited as puppies over a bone. It was the toffee – Granny Green’s toffee, which I had given my bug for breakfast. They were crazy for it, and if I hadn’t opened the flap and taken out the slab of toffee right away, I think they would have burrowed straight through the canvas to get to it!

  I held the toffee out towards the mad swarm of insects, which were lighting the tunnel as brightly as the sun. I turned to see if there was any sign of the ape-man, but the far side of the pit was still deserted. He had probably gone back down the tunnel to his tribe. Good! That was one less thing to worry about.

  But oh no! When I turned back again, the massive man-monster was standing right in front of me. Uh! How on earth did he get there? Then I saw the entrance to a side tunnel. Oh, that’s great, I thought. There must be a passage leading all the way round the pit from the chamber. I needn’t have tried swinging over it in the first place. But never mind about that. What was I going to do with the lump of muscle standing in front of me?

  In The Grip Of The Ape-man

  I couldn’t go back because of the fiery pit, and I couldn’t go forward because of the ape-man. I WAS TRAPPED!

  Then my friendly insects swarmed towards the great hairy creature, darting around his head, trying to distract him. As the big ape staggered about, swiping them away, a narrow gap opened between him and the passage wall and I went for it.

  Crouching low, I barged my way past the nutty Neanderthal. I thought I’d made it, but then I felt his huge hand grab me by the scruff of the neck. I dropped the toffee and the insects pounced on it as the ape-man lifted me clean off the ground.

  Nose to nose, we stared each other in the face. The ape-man gave a grin, licked his lips and chuckled. It sounded like someone stamping along a wet gravel path.

  ‘Man-cha,’ he said, and then to my utter amazement he put me back on the ground, took my hand in his massive hairy paw and led me down the tunnel as if I were a toddler and we were out for a stroll in the park!

  Walking With The Ape-man

  I didn’t know what was going on, but I didn’t want to be in the hands of this great hairy brute, so I pulled and I tugged and I dug my heels into the rock-strewn floor of the tunnel. But it was no good; I couldn’t pull free.

  In fact I don’t think the ape-man even noticed I was struggling. He just led me casually down the passage, turning every now and then to grunt ‘Man-cha’ at me, snuffling like a great grizzly bear.

  Man-cha, man-cha, man-cha – was that the only thing he could say? And if it did mean ‘man-banana’, why wasn’t I already stewing in the juices of his great pot belly?

  A Light At The End Of The Tunnel

  Soon I became aware of a faint glow in the distance. Oh, not another pit! I thought. Then, as we turned a bend in the passage, a brilliant white light hit me. I screwed up my eyes, shielding them with my free hand.

  The light was strange; it was as bright as day, but somehow I knew we were nowhere near the daylight. It had an odd bluish tinge, more like moonlight than sunshine, but brighter.

  ‘Wow!’ I cried in amazement as we stepped out of the tunnel.

  The Great Cavern

  We were still underground, but had emerged into an immense cavern. The walls beside me arced hundreds of metres above my head, disappearing into an intense brightness. How weird; it was as if the light came from the rock itself. Glancing at the granite wall by my side, I realized this was exactly where it came from!

  The cavern wall was covered with a filigree of white opalescent veins that gave a powerful glow; where the veins were thickest, the light was stronger. It was fantastic, and looking around in awe, I slowly became aware of the vastness of the cavern I was in.

  The walls stretched out on either side of me, disappearing into the distance; to my left were the foothills of some gigantic underground mountain range; scattered all around were great milky-white columns; a hundred metres or so in front of me was the shore of a huge, placid underground lake, so large it stretched all the way to the horizon. It was incredible!

  The ape-man pulled me forward, leading me down to the water’s edge, where a dilapidated wooden jetty stretched out into the lake. I had given up struggling by now; there was no point. The mountain of muscle sat me down on the jetty and looked out across the black water.

  ‘Man-cha,’ he grunted, pointing at me. What on earth did he mean? What was he showing me? He repeated his actions and then, fumbling amongst the coarse hairy garments he wore, he pulled out a package and placed it on the jetty beside me. Then he looked pleadingly into my eyes, turned on his heel and walked back to the mouth of the tunnel. Without a backward glance, he disappeared inside.

  A Light Snack

  Now I was totally confused. One minute I was expecting to be pulverized by the Neolithic ape-man’s stone sledgehammer, cracked in half across his hairy knees and then eaten; the next minute the numbskull had sat me down, given me a parcel and left me on an old jetty by the side of a huge black lake. What was I supposed to do now?

  First things first – find out what’s in the parcel! I had only removed the top layer of grubby wrapping when the smell told me it was food, and my tummy gurgled in anticipation. I was absolutely starving; apart from the toffee, I hadn’t eaten for ages. I unwrapped it further. Oh yum! It was a sandwich, a doorstep of thick, crusty bread with a filling that smelled so tasty.

  It was only after I had sunk my teeth deep into the sarnie that I noticed the thick, scaly tail poking out. Ugh! I spat the mouthful onto the floor and tentatively pulled the two slices of bread apart. Inside was a rat, a revolting fat rat, just like the one in the tunnel. It had been squashed and compressed into a sort of pâté, sure, but it was still unmistakably a rat!

  My stomach turned over, and I thought I was going to puke, but then the smell hit me again. It smelled really, really good – and I was very, very hungry. I closed my eyes and opened my mouth to take another bite …

  You don’t need to hear any more about my snack – all you need to know is I’m no longer hungry!

  Waiting For The Ferryman

  For the last hour I’ve been writing up my latest adventures in this journal, trying to jot everything down while it’s still fresh in my mind. I think that’s the lot. So, what shall I do now?

  Well, I may not be hungry any more, but I am tired. In fact, after my desperate fight with the Spidion, I am exhausted, so I’m going to lie down on the jetty for a proper rest. Hold on, what’s this? I’ve been leaning against a signpost all the time. The letters on the board are worn and cracked, but I can just make them out:

  Is that what the ape-man was telling me – to take the ferry to Subterranea? Is that where Jakeman is? Well, I don’t have anything else to do and I certainly don’t want to go back into the tunnels, so I might as well wait. Looking across the water, I can’t see any sign of a ferry, so I’m going to curl up on the ground and get some sleep.

  Waiting Some More!

  I don’t know how long I slept; it’s impossible to judge the passing of time in this permanently bright cavern.

  There is still no sign of a ferry anywhere on the water.

  Still Waiting …

  No ferry yet – maybe they’ve stopped the service. Getting bored.

  Later

  Getting really bored!

  Much Later

  He’s coming! The ferryman is coming. I can see a small dot on the horizon. It won’t be long now.

  Much, Much Later!

  Come on – hurry up!

  This underground lake must be huge, because the tiny dot has been on the horizon for ages and never seems to get any nearer; but at last the figure is getting closer. I can hear the slap of the ferryman’s paddle – and now he’s calling out. His voice sounds strange in the massive cavern, echoing across the smooth black water.

  ‘Whoever awaits ferryman have correct fare ready. Form an orderly queue,’ he cries in a flat, vacant voice.

  Form an orde
rly queue? I’m the only person here, and judging by the state of the jetty, I’m the only person who’s been here for ages!

  Now, without the slightest of splashes, the ferryman is mooring his flat-bottomed punt to the jetty, and I can take a proper look at him. Wow! What a weird little man!

  Whoops! I’ve just realized – I don’t think I’ve got any money for the fare. Will he let me travel for nothing? I must get across the dark waters and find news of Jakeman.

  I have to stop writing now and try and wheedle a free ride.

  What Happened?

  The next thing I remember, I was waking from a deep and dreamless sleep. I felt as if I’d been snoozing for a hundred years, just like that girl in the fairy tale.

  I opened my eyes and gasped. I was lying on a strange bed in a gloomy room. Somewhere beyond the pool of light cast by a small window, I could hear something shuffling about. Panicking, I sat up quickly and oooh! my head throbbed – it was wrapped in a thick bandage. What was going on? Where was I? How did I get here?

  The shuffling noise stopped. There was complete silence. Then it started again and I realized it was getting closer and closer. Wide-eyed, I stared into the dark, waiting for whatever it was to emerge from the shadows.

  ‘Oh good, you’ve decided to wake up!’ said a friendly voice, and a lady stepped into the light.

  Again I gasped. ‘Mum?’ I said. ‘Is that you? Am I home?’ For a second I thought that my adventures had just been a dream. I must have had an accident – a bump on the head – and imagined it all. Now I’d woken up in my own bed and everything was going to be OK.

  ‘Oh no, dear,’ said the lady, chuckling, ‘I’m not your mum. Drink this,’ she said, placing a glass of water on the little bedside table. Now I could see she was nothing like my mum; she was a short, round lady with wrinkly grey skin! But she reminded me of someone. Oh, I know – the ferryman! I had forgotten all about him.

  ‘Where am I?’ I said, trying to get out of bed.

  ‘You stay right there,’ said the lady. ‘You’ve had a nasty bump on the head. I don’t know how you got it, but I found you unconscious on the seashore.’

  ‘My explorer’s kit!’ I cried. ‘Where’s my rucksack?’

  ‘Don’t worry, it’s safe,’ the kind lady told me, dragging my rucksack from under the bed. ‘You were also holding this in your hand. I don’t know if it means anything to you …’ She felt in the pocket of her pinny and pulled out a fang that made my river croc’s tooth look like a baby’s! It was massive, ginormous! And as soon as I saw it, the whole scary, dangerous, crazy, catastrophic journey across the Wide Subterrestrial Sea came flooding back.

  This Is What Happened

  The ferryman arrived at the little jetty, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a stranger-looking man. He was small and skinny with a large round head, a tiny nose and a wrinkled face. The weirdest thing about him was the grey, muddy colour of his skin. This is what the ferryman looked like:

  ‘You go to Subterranea?’ he asked in a voice that bubbled like a bilious swamp.

  ‘I suppose I do,’ I said, not really sure where or what Subterranea was. ‘Is it very far?’

  ‘Twenty tulsa,’ gurgled the man, holding out his hand.

  ‘Not how much, how far?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, how far!’ said the mud-man. ‘Twenty tulsa!’

  I sighed, patting my pockets. ‘I don’t seem to have any cash on me,’ I said, ‘but it’s really, really important that I get away from here. It could be a matter of life and death.’

  ‘Goodbye!’ said the ferryman, lifting his long oar.

  ‘No, wait! I must have something here that will do,’ and I tipped up my rucksack, letting its contents spill onto the wooden jetty. The ferryman was out of his boat in an instant, sorting through my explorer’s kit and quickly dividing the contents into three neat piles.

  ‘Maybe; rubbish; big load of rubbish,’ he said, pointing at each pile in turn. ‘What else you got? Something shiny – I like shiny.’

  ‘Nothing,’ I said, trying to hide the walnut-sized diamond that Chief Sitting Pretty had given me, which was hanging round my neck.

  ‘Goodbye,’ said the ferryman again.

  ‘Wait!’ I cried, just about to untie the leather thong that held the precious diamond, but as I did so, something else caught the ferryman’s eye. He pounced on my rucksack, thrusting his hand to the bottom and pulling out one of the doubloons I had managed to save from my time aboard Captain Cut-throat’s ship, the Betty Mae.

  ‘You hide – you hide shiny,’ he said accusingly.

  ‘No, not at all,’ I said. ‘It must have got stuck in the stitching at the bottom of my bag. You keep it. It must be worth a hundred tulsas!’

  ‘Million tulsas!’ said the ferryman, chuckling with delight and polishing the doubloon on his muddy sleeve. He quickly climbed back aboard his flat-bottomed boat and beckoned to me, thrusting his oar into the water at the same time. I just had time to gather my stuff together, and running full pelt along the jetty, I leaped onto the boat as it floated out onto the black lake.

  Across The Water

  With long, languorous strokes the ferryman sent the punt slapping across the surface of the water. He stood silently at the back of the boat, looking towards the horizon. I tried to talk to him – there were so many questions I wanted to ask – but the muddy little man ignored me, so in the end I gave up.

  We drifted for hours, the intense silence broken only by the slap of the paddle on the water. A mist started to form, and before long the air was as thick and white as milk. There was no way the ferryman could see where he was going, but he confidently paddled on, navigating by instinct and experience.

  All of a sudden a huge shadowy shape broke through the mist in front of us. The ferryman dug his oar into the water, steering us alongside the mysterious object. Then a slight breeze shifted the mist and I could see what had nearly run us down: a galleon, or rather the rotted hulk of a galleon. Its hull was full of holes, exposing a skeleton of beams and struts; the sails hung in tatters from the yardarms.

  ‘Whoa!’ I yelled.

  ‘What?’ barked the ferryman.

  ‘Stop!’ I cried. ‘Please, just for a minute.’ I had seen something that made my blood run cold.

  My Old Home!

  On the bows of the ship hung a sign, its chipped lettering spelling out the name Betty Mae. It was Captain Cut-throat’s pirate galleon, the ship I had lived on for such a long time; the ship where I had made so many good friends and such terrible enemies. But why was she in such a sorry state and how on earth did she end up thousands of metres below ground?

  As the ferryman held the punt steady, I took a huge leap, grabbing hold of a beam on the Betty Mae’s hull. Quickly and quietly, I climbed up to the rotting main deck. It was deserted.

  ‘Wait there,’ I called down to the ferryman. ‘I won’t be long.’ I went down the steps to the captain’s cabin. This too was deserted, although the ship’s charts, Cut-throat’s chest of clothes and her collection of scrimshawed whale’s teeth were where they had always been. It was so strange – like being on a stage set with no actors. I expected Cut-throat or Rawcliffe Annie to come crashing down the steps at any minute, cursing and bawling and calling for rum; but I knew that nobody had been here for a very long time.

  What on earth could have happened to make the brave band of female felons desert their beloved home? Perhaps they’d been taken prisoner by Craik, chief thief-taker and all-round no-good dog, after I had made my escape; perhaps they’d teamed up with their pirate husbands aboard the Saracen’s Skull.

  I would probably never know, but I found it all a bit sad – and very, very creepy; all of a sudden I wanted to get away.

  But first things first: ‘Once a pirate, always a pirate,’ I said to myself, and I heaved open the lid of the Betty Mae’s treasure chest, which stood in the corner of the captain’s cabin. Darn it – it was empty. No, hold on … I reached into the bottom and pulled out a
small sack of jingling golden coins. This could come in useful!

  In fact it came in useful straight away, because when I returned to the deck and peered down to where I had left the ferryman, there was no one there! I stared into the mist, but I couldn’t see a thing. I had been abandoned. Of all the double-crossing villains!

  ‘Hey!’ I called out. ‘Come back!’ Nothing. I tried again, but there was still no reply. Oh, help! ‘I’ve got lots of lovely shiny stuff here!’ I bellowed, hoping that if the ferryman was within earshot this might tempt him back. ‘I’ll share it fifty-fifty with you.’

  I was right: almost immediately I heard a faint voice calling through the mist.

  ‘Coming!’ A few minutes later the ferryman’s punt appeared through the swirling fog. ‘Sorry, young master,’ he said. ‘I must have drifted away in the current.’

  ‘Oh, sure,’ I replied, looking down at the still calm of the ocean. ‘Of course you did.’ I knew then and there that this weird little man was not to be trusted.

  I clambered back into the punt, and the greedy ferryman was pulling at the sack of gold before I’d even sat down.

  ‘Clear off,’ I warned him. ‘I’ll give you your share when we land.’

  But as it turned out, neither of us was destined to get our share of the booty!