The Tunnels of Tarcoola (14 page)

KITTY
agreed to go to Rosa's house after school. It was better than being around Martin, who was still in his bad mood at breakfast time.

On the way, while Rosa chattered cheerfully, Kitty's eyes were everywhere. Before long she was convinced there was a white car following them. It would drive off for a while, then come back. Was it the one that had been outside the Sunset Home the day she'd seen Mr Buckingham there? Her stomach clenched into a painful knot at the thought.

‘Kitty!' Rosa's voice broke into her thoughts.

‘Huh?'

‘I said, what do you think?'

‘Oh . . . sorry.'

At Rosa's she tried to concentrate on her friend's chatter, but she kept wandering over to the window. She could see the street, and a white car parked halfway down. Was it the same one? She hadn't thought to look at the numberplate.

‘Kitty, what's wrong with you?' demanded Rosa.

‘Sorry,' she said again. ‘Can I use your phone?'

With some difficulty she composed an SMS to Andrea: ‘How's it going? Will she tell you?'

‘You don't have to write proper sentences and stuff!' said Rosa, peering over her shoulder.

‘It's done now.' She pressed the Send button.

The answer came back in seconds:

‘wont talk 2 me wants u'

‘What's this about?' asked Rosa.

‘Can I borrow some clothes?' said Kitty. ‘I need to go out the back way, and I need you to cover for me. I promise I'll tell you all about it later.'

‘You'd better,' grumbled her friend. ‘What sort of clothes?'

Five minutes later, wearing Rosa's jeans and an old baseball cap, Kitty emerged from the lane that hooked around and came out into the street thirty metres behind the white car. She walked briskly away, resisting the urge to run, her palms clammy. When she got around the corner and out of sight her legs turned to jelly and she almost collapsed. Then she did run, as fast as she could.

At the Sunset Home there was no one around. Kitty waited a few seconds for her rasping breath to quieten, then she hurried up the stairs to Miss Gordon's room.

Andrea sat on a chair by the door, and the old lady was dozing on the bed. She looked unbearably fragile, her hair spread out on the white pillow, her breathing hardly a sigh. At Kitty's arrival she drifted into wakefulness and held out her arms.

‘It's Kitty! I thought you weren't coming back.'

‘You shouldn't think that.' She leaned forward and kissed the soft cheek.

‘I missed my cup of tea. They don't leave it if I'm asleep.'

‘I'll make you one,' Andrea said. She slipped out of the room while Kitty helped Miss Gordon to sit up in bed, fetching an extra pillow that had fallen onto the floor. Andrea came back with tea and held the saucer for the old lady while she sipped.

‘Ah, good girl. Just the way I like it.'

Kitty said, ‘Andrea's my friend, Miss Gordon. She came here with me, remember?'

‘Oh. Are you Tarcoola girls?'

‘Sort of,' said Kitty. ‘Miss Gordon, we're worried about your present. We think the Woolf boy is trying really hard to find it.'

The old lady started to tremble. Kitty put an arm around her. ‘The thing is,' she said, ‘we can help. We can put it in a much safer place for you.'

‘It's safe there,' whispered Miss Gordon.

‘Maybe not for much longer,' said Kitty. ‘Even if the Woolf boy doesn't find it, he's going to make it much harder to get into the mine. That's where it is, isn't it?' The old lady nodded. ‘It's in Birthday, isn't it?' Another nod.

Kitty took the cup, then held the old lady's trembling hands in her own.

‘Miss Gordon, can you tell us exactly where it is?'

‘Well, he didn't put it right in the shaft, dear,' said Miss Gordon, her eyes far away. ‘They were going to fill that in. He said he'd put it where he kept his lunch pail. No one ever touched another person's lunch pail.'

Kitty spoke very seriously. ‘Miss Gordon, would you give us permission to find your special present and put it in a safer place, to make sure the Woolf boy doesn't get it?'

Miss Gordon nodded.

‘Are you sure?'

‘Yes, Kitty. I'm so tired. I can't keep him off any longer. You look after it now, dear.'

Over her head, Andrea mouthed a big ‘Yes!'

Kitty raised the bony hand to her lips and kissed it.

‘We need the key,' she said. ‘There's a big door that goes into the mine, and it's locked. Do you know where the key is?'

The old lady smiled. ‘It's with the naughty little boy. That was Mr Woolf's idea. The little boy always made him laugh. He called him Oskar.' Her expression changed. ‘After his little boy that he lost in the war.'

‘He had a little boy?' Kitty was startled. Nobody had ever mentioned a child before. All of a sudden the cold-hearted and selfish Mr Woolf seemed different to her. He had lost a child! For a moment she glimpsed the darkness in his soul.

She realised that Andrea was making time-to-go movements.

‘Where is this—' Kitty started, but Andrea was nodding vigorously and making a sign with her finger and thumb, indicating that she knew exactly what Miss Gordon meant by the naughty little boy.

They ran down the stairs. Andrea opened the big front door and peeped out, then she jumped back, colliding with Kitty.

‘They're there!' she said.

‘But . . . but I left them outside Rosa's!' whispered Kitty. She opened the door a crack and peeped out. The white car was parked in the street outside. The sight of it made her start to shake again.

As they stood in the hall a man came down the stairs, balancing a huge white bundle on one shoulder, and set off down a short passage to the left.

‘After him!' hissed Andrea.

The man went out a side door, where a blue van was parked. He tossed the bundle in and was about to close the van's sliding door when a voice called out to him. A couple of nurses from the Home were sitting on a bench in the front garden, smoking. He strolled over to join them, lighting up as he went.

The van hid the girls from the smokers and from the street as they slipped out of the building.

‘Come on,' whispered Andrea. ‘We'll have to hide behind all this laundry until he closes the door.'

They climbed into the van, crouched down and waited interminable minutes, rolling their eyes at each other and not daring to make a sound. After a last burst of laughter they heard the crunch of gravel as the man strolled back, then a scraping, rolling sound as he shut the door. A few seconds later the engine started and they were moving.

‘Andrea,' whispered Kitty. ‘It stinks in here. I can't breathe.'

‘I know. I reckon some of those old people wet their beds.'

‘They do more than wet their beds,' complained Kitty. ‘I think I'm going to throw up.'

‘Don't you dare.' Andrea was busy sending a text to David: ‘got it c u in 15 at little boy with fish'.

‘Fifteen minutes? How do you know?' said Kitty. ‘Maybe he's going into the city. Maybe the laundry's in Parramatta.'

If they went all the way to Parramatta she couldn't imagine how they would get back. The combination of worry and nausea made it impossible to think properly. She tried holding her nose, but that only made it worse when she had to let go and take a deep breath.

After a few minutes the van stopped, then backed up, parking.

‘What are we going to do when he opens the door?' hissed Kitty.

‘Run.'

The door slid open and they erupted out of the van. Andrea was halfway down the street by the time Kitty registered which way she was going. The man was too startled to react as Kitty took off, his shout ringing in her ears. She pounded along, knowing she'd never catch Andrea, just trying to keep track of which way to go. Gradually she recognised that the van had stopped at a laundromat in the main street and that Andrea had turned the nearest corner and was heading down towards the park.

By the time she reached the garden Kitty's chest hurt, her legs hurt and she had a stitch. Andrea was waiting for her.

‘Where now?' panted Kitty.

‘Shortcut.' Andrea plunged into the bushes, and Kitty struggled after her.

David was waiting by a dried-up pond that Kitty hadn't seen before. In the middle was a statue of a little naked boy, surrounded by goldfish.

‘Oh, I get it,' said Kitty. ‘Isn't he cute?'

‘You shouldn't be here,' said David. ‘You'd better go home.'

‘I can't,' said Kitty. ‘If I go out into the street those men'll see me.'

‘They were outside the Sunset Home,' Andrea explained. ‘We smuggled ourselves out. It was cool.' Her eyes were shining.

‘They've been in the house, too,' said David. ‘I went down to the cellar while I was waiting, and they've fixed the bolt on the trapdoor and put a new padlock on it.'

‘So,' said Andrea, ‘they do know about that entrance, and they can get into the tunnels themselves.'

‘What about the marks we made,' asked Kitty anxiously, ‘leading to our secret exit?'

‘Well, luckily we were using Marty's mysterious medieval map system,' said David. ‘I'm betting those guys won't have any idea what his symbols mean.'

‘At least Marty did something right,' said Kitty. ‘Making us find that other entrance.'

‘Yeah. I called him and tried get him to come with us, but he wouldn't even talk about it.'

Andrea was looking around the pond.

‘Let's find that key and get going,' she said.

They examined the statue first. It was broken in places, but they could imagine what it would have been like intact. There weren't any obvious hiding places, particularly as the little boy was naked. Nor were there any recesses in the pedestal he stood on.

‘Okay,' said Andrea. ‘It's got to be the fish.'

The key was in the mouth of one of the fish – or rather, down its throat. It was David who worked it out, by noticing that only every second fish was designed to spout water.

‘It wouldn't be in a watery fish,' he explained. ‘It'd rust in no time. See, it's sure to be an iron key . . . '

‘We get it, we get it!' Kitty and Andrea were running around peering down the throats of the non-watery fish, which were turned slightly away from the pond, and it was Kitty who found the key, wrapped in a piece of heavy, oily cloth. As soon as she held it up the others were off, and with her shorter legs it was all she could do to keep up with them.

They regrouped at the edge of the clearing with the female statue.

‘Now,' said Andrea. ‘Let's be really quiet when we go to the entrance, and make sure there's no one around.'

‘Just a minute,' said Kitty. ‘Can I please use your phone, David?'

She dialled her home number. Martin answered.

‘Is Mum home yet?'

‘No.'

‘Good. Marty, you've got to cover for me.'

‘Huh? Dave said you weren't with them.'

‘Well, I am now, but I'm supposed to be at Rosa's. If I'm late, try to stall Mum and Dad, okay?'

‘Yeah, but, you know . . . don't be too late.'

‘I know, I know. But your precious Harold Buckingham and his gooks are onto us. This is our last chance, Marty.'

‘He's not my Harold Buckingham, Kitty, and they're not . . . '

‘Sorry, gotta go now. Bye.'

David had gone ahead, so she slipped the phone into the pocket of her jeans.

They moved the pile of stones aside and climbed down through the entrance behind the statue. Staying close together, they followed Martin's symbols back through the tunnel to the main shaft under the house. The solid locked door opposite them was coated with dust and looked as if it had not been moved for a long time. The key fitted easily, but resisted all attempts to turn it. David tried to jiggle it, but it wouldn't move. He tried pulling it out a bit, then pressing it further in, without success. Finally Andrea, with gestures and raised eyebrows, suggested they retreat to the bomb shelter.

‘I thought we might oil it,' she explained when they got there. ‘That works with our back-door key. There must be some kind of oil here?'

While Andrea lit candles, Kitty searched around and found something that she thought might do. She also found some kerosene and an old rag, and set to cleaning the key. Meanwhile, David selected three gas masks and tried them on to satisfy himself that they were working. Andrea giggled nervously at the sight.

‘We won't be able to talk with these on,' he remarked. ‘So it'll be all sign language. Kitty, keep yours simple, okay?'

‘I'm really good at sign language!' She was indignant.

‘Yeah, but we're really bad at reading it.'

Holding the gas marks and torches, they went back into the shaft and slipped the prepared key back into the lock. At a nod from David, they all found a grip on the key and twisted together. Slowly it turned, and they heard a dull clunk. The door creaked as it swung open and a foul smell erupted into the shaft. Kitty fell to her knees, gagging, her eyes streaming. Next minute they were all tumbling back into the shelter, and Andrea was slamming the door.