The Plug at the Bottom of the Sea (6 page)

‘Hold on!' Craig shouted. Cindy kept screaming.

‘Just hold tight,' shouted Moses, running up with the great pack on his back sticking up above his head. He threw off the pack and knelt beside her, looking at the strange flower. ‘Slowly
turn your foot round sideways till it's across the opening. Then if you pull quickly it'll come; you'll see.'

Cindy turned slowly, still shaking but not screaming, staring terrified at the purple petals.

‘Old trick I learned about your age,' whispered Moses.

Cindy finished turning her foot and looked up at Moses for advice. Just then as her foot had come out a bit, she felt she was free and she pulled hard, but the flower-sponge honeycomb of holes tightened and held her foot.

‘Oh no, what do I do now? It won't let go.'

‘Maybe it's holding on cause it doesn't have any food or water,' suggested Craig.

‘Well, it can't have my foot to eat.'

‘But Cindy, if we give it some food and water maybe it will let go.'

‘Good idea, Craig,' Moses called out, already opening a water sack and handing Craig some cheese. ‘Tear this and these biscuits into little pieces.' Soon they were mixing them with the water, in the leather sack. ‘More cheese,' ordered Moses, seeing the mixture was too thin. So Craig cut up pieces of cheese while Moses crumbled biscuits and Cindy chewed her fingernails.

When the mixture was stirred they poured it on the red and purple flower. Ever so slowly, its honeycomb sponges darkened in colour as it became moist. Ever so slowly it loosened its grip on Cindy's foot. She slid her foot out and saw it was covered with little red and purple marks.

‘Look! I'm bleeding.'

But the spots began to disappear as Moses poured water on her foot. ‘It's just the colour from the sponge, Cindy.'

‘Can you walk on your foot?' Craig asked, holding her arm.

Cindy tried. ‘O.K. I s'pose.'

‘O.K.' said Moses, lifting his bundle above his head again and fastening the loops over his shoulders. ‘Let's keep moving,' and he shifted his pipe from one side of his mouth to the other, and puffed a few white clouds of smoke like a train ready to
leave. ‘All right,' he called from somewhere inside an enormous cloud of smoke. ‘This forest of weeds will be no picnic, so let's move as fast as we can. But no one step in any more flowers or on anything suspicious looking.'

In the fading sunlight all the leaves were glowing red. The mud hissed and slap-sucked as they walked. They could look back down the hill as they began to climb the first tree. The bush was so thick that they could not crawl through the branches underneath. Since they could not crawl under, they had to climb over.

The thick seaweed branches were black and green, and bent like soft liquorice as they climbed. Just as Craig was reaching for a branch high in the tree, the branch moved and he saw an eye staring at him and another eye wink. Slowly the branch lifted him and Craig saw that it was the arm of an octopus with lots of suction cups on one side and quite smooth on the other. He felt very frightened. But the arm did not come round him, it helped him up to the next branch. When he looked back at Cindy, she could find no other branch and did not notice that this was not a branch at all. Craig thought if he told Cindy she might scream, and the octopus might do something horrible, so it was better just to help her up and tell her later.

Cindy had taken hold and suddenly felt herself being lifted, just as Craig had. When she had moved up she looked startled, but Craig quickly reached down and grabbed her free hand.

‘There, there, all safe,' he said, as he pulled her up.

‘Craig, that branch lifted me up back there,' Cindy said in amazement.

‘Sh,' he said, and he looked down at Moses, who was coming up. Now Moses was very heavy and with his pack he was even heavier. The octopus would not be able to hold him and Moses would certainly know it was an octopus when he felt it, thought Craig.

He watched Moses coming up and whispered to him, ‘Moses,' and Moses looked up at him. Craig pointed at the
head below him. Moses nodded and came up a different way. He didn't say anything.

Cindy was still pulling Craig's arm. ‘I'm telling the truth, that branch lifted me up. It
did.
'

‘I know,' said Craig, when Moses had pulled himself up on top of the tree and they all sat on the many-coloured leaves.

‘It was an octopus that lifted you.'

‘An octopus? No.'

‘It was.' Moses nodded. ‘I saw it and you can too if you look over the edge.'

‘No,' Cindy shuddered, feeling goose flesh creep all over her. ‘Let's keep moving,' she said and got up. ‘He may follow us. Hurry.'

‘He's only a baby octopus and he's caught in the vines without water,' said Moses. ‘Don't worry.'

From up here they could see the pattern of the brooks and streams through the mud looking like golden branches with twigs like golden lace. ‘Wow,' said Craig, ‘it looks just like heaven with all that gold,' and he gazed over the tops of the trees.

There on a further tree, he saw something black and white that looked like a bird. ‘What's that?' he called out to the others. They all looked at the bird resting between two branches leaning back in the sun quite exhausted.

‘It's a penguin,' said Cindy. ‘A real penguin.' And sure enough it was sweating and roasting in the heat. Its chest rose and fell as it breathed deeply, almost dying from the salt mist that rose from the whole forest of seaweed.

The branches and leaves at the top of the trees were strong enough to hold them if they were careful. So they all made their way over the branches to the penguin.

‘He's too heavy to fly and his wings weren't made to anyway,' said Moses, looking at the tired bird who was very sad, lying on top of a pea-green tree. He saw them coming towards him from a long way off, and turned his head to see them.

‘He's sweating,' said Cindy as she climbed up to him. He
was perched in the top of the tree looking at her. ‘And he's got a sign on him.' She reached up and turned over the label which read:

a present of 10 penguins for
HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN
for Regent's Park Zoo

Cindy said: ‘We must take him with us.'

‘No, Cindy. We can't. He's a penguin,' said Craig, shaking his head.

‘So what if he's a penguin, he's a present for the Queen and we have to take him.'

‘Now, Cindy,' Craig began …

‘If he's a penguin then he's not meant to be on top of a tree, even a seaweed tree,' interrupted Moses. ‘Let's take him along till we reach some water.'

Craig nodded. ‘All right, that seems the right thing to do, but as soon as we reach a place for him we must leave him. We can't carry him all the way and, Cindy, you can't take everything along you find. You already have a zoo.'

‘That's not so; just a bird and a sea horse and a penguin.'

‘And?'

Cindy was flying through clouds of colour. Beneath her were explosions of coloured sponges looking like Christmas presents. They were shaped like the leaves and flowers of the sea she had climbed through that afternoon. She was dazzled by the whirl of colours when suddenly she heard …

‘Cindy, wake up,' Craig was shouting, all the colours had disappeared, it was dark and Cindy was still sitting on a cold wet rock.

‘Craig, I just had a dream in colour, beautiful colour just like the leaves and flowers in the seaweed.'

‘But you said you hated the flowers when you were caught.'

‘I know, that was when I was frightened. But the flowers were so friendly in the dream.'

‘Leaves aren't friendly or unfriendly, and besides how could you have a dream in colour?' Craig challenged.

‘They are friendly, just like people, and I'll bet you've never had a dream in colour.'

‘I have.'

‘When?'

‘Well,' Craig hesitated, ‘well, I don't believe you ever had a dream in colour either.' ‘I did.'

Firelight flickered over the high wall of the grey whale in front of Cindy. Cindy gasped, ‘How'd I get here?'

In the firelight Moses' red beard looked just like flames too. He turned around upon hearing them. He was throwing things on the fire. ‘Fell asleep. I had to carry you. Warm fire and supper should make you sleep better than cold mud.' The seaweed snapped and fizzed on the large fire. ‘We decided to camp beside the whale for warmth, in case you were wondering.'

‘It's bigger than a fish or a ship or anything,' said Cindy looking at the giant wall of grey. ‘It's bigger than an ocean liner. No wonder it can tip them over. Do you think it's safe to sleep near it? It might roll over and crush us in the night.'

‘Well,' said Moses, ‘it seems pretty stuck and it would be drier and warmer to sleep on than the mud and those rocks.'

Craig and Cindy came closer and saw that the whale was lying in a large pond of water at the bottom of the cliff, between two rocks. He looked like a large island in a tiny puddle. He was bigger than the pond. His head rested in the water and he breathed every ten minutes, making a spraying sound on the pond. He flipped his tail as they came nearer, high up in the air like a great black sail pointed and full. It made a heavy slap when it hit the water. Cindy jumped back.

‘That tail is huge,' cried Cindy.

‘Come here,' they heard the old man call. ‘Let's get some food ready, I'm starving. Should be on that bundle on the sled.' Moses threw another seaweed branch on top of the fire; it hissed and snapped as it came alight in the dark night.

The penguin was standing on a small cliff, overlooking the pond, waiting for the tail of the whale to flip up again.

The bottle with the sea horse stood near them. Cindy could see the little head from inside the green glass looking at the fire.

Craig opened the ropes which tied the bundle onto the sled and pulled out the food carefully wrapped in little packages. ‘Why are the cheese and bread all split up into packages?'

‘One for each day so I don't have to get hungry. We'll all have to go easy on the food 'cos I only brought enough for me,
and split three ways we'll all have to take less to make it go around. O.K.?'

‘O.K.' Cindy nodded. ‘And thank you very much.'

‘Yes, thank you very much,' Craig agreed.

‘Well, everyone, stop thanking me and start eating.' Moses laughed. ‘I never did see such thankful sailors as you. Why out on the Spanish Main they'd just as soon put a cutlass through your choppers as through your cheese.' He tapped his teeth.

Craig and Cindy looked at each other, wondering whether to believe Moses' stories of cutlasses.

Moses saw them looking at each other and laughed. ‘You don't believe me. Well, I'm gonna tell you the tallest story you ever heard and tomorrow I can prove it, maybe.' He laughed. ‘If you come to that plug.'

Both Craig and Cindy munched their food, smiling, for they had waited all day to hear this legend.

‘My dad,' began Moses, scraping out the dead ash in his pipe and filling it with new tobacco, ‘he told me the legend I'm about to tell you, when I was a tiny mite 'bout half the size of that penguin.' Everyone looked at the penguin who couldn't understand why everyone was looking at him. ‘Told me never to tell a soul nor ever to even talk in my sleep about it.' There were long pauses as Moses puffed. ‘And he said never to move the sail from in front of the door of that windmill. But if ever a storm should move it, he told me what would happen and what I was to do.' Moses sighed, ‘Ah,' relaxing and leaning back as the smoke came out between his teeth like a house on fire. The pipe went out. Moses tapped his tobacco down and lit it again. All his attention was directed at the pipe. Cindy was afraid he would forget all about the legend.

But he didn't. Finally with the white smoke and sound of puffing they heard: ‘What was I to do? Oh yes. I was to get a lot of candles and rope and string and his map,' said Moses. ‘And I was to make my way lickety-split over the mud, following the rope till I reached the plug.'

‘But what was the legend?' asked Cindy.

‘Yes, Moses, how did the plug get there?' asked Craig.

‘How did the plug get there?' Windmill fluttered up to Moses' shoulder and settled himself under a corner of his red beard. ‘Well, this is the legend, and a greater tale was never told. Nor a truer one I'll wager you.'

‘There was once a king named Geiges, a thousand, thousand years ago on the lost continent of January, who controlled all this half of the world. He was threatened by King Cain, ruler of the other half of the world, who had begun to march against him with a secret weapon.'

‘I never heard of the lost continent of January.'

‘Neither did I,' said Craig. ‘Was that before the Greeks?'

‘This was before any of them people, Greeks, Romans, a thousand, thousand years ago. That's a long time,' Moses explained. ‘So Geiges, the King of the West, was threatened by the king of the other side of the world and, in order to avoid war, he made his whole continent look like an iceberg so the King of the East wouldn't know it was a continent. He made his men paint all the stones white and cut down all the trees so the land was bare and without grass.'

‘That sounds horrible. No grass,' said Cindy.

‘Well, he sowed all the fields with salt, and all the moss with lime, and soon an iceberg stood out upon the sea. Then, to avoid war, he summoned all his wise men to him and said, ‘What will we do now that the King of the East has begun to march?” and they all said they would have to think. So he gave them a month while he dug caves in the rocks for his people and no one was allowed out on the rocks for fear that the King of the East would see them and send out his secret weapon.