Blue Dome (The Blue Dome Series) (6 page)

“We might be okay if we
can just keep in front of them,” said Bede. He gave me one of his hopeful,
lopsided grins, and I couldn’t help but smile back.

My legs were really tired
and I could feel them starting to wobble as I ran. The darkness of the streets
had forced us to slow down slightly, so we could see where we were going. Even
then, I was navigating as much by touch as by sight, the treacherous ground
bending the soles of my boots into odd angles. Suddenly, my foot caught on
something – a loose paving tile maybe, I couldn’t be sure – and I went
sprawling across the cobblestones. Bede heard me fall and spun around.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, fine,” I said,
clambering to my feet. It wasn’t until I tried putting weight on my foot again
though that I realised how badly I’d twisted my right ankle. The pain made me
draw the breath back behind my teeth.

“C’mon, we’ve got to get
going,” I said.

Bede frowned. “Are you
sure? You look like you’re in pain.”

“I’m fine,” I said. There
seemed little point telling him the truth.

Bede hesitated for a
moment, tossing up whether to believe me or not. He settled on a compromise.

“Okay, but you go ahead
of me and set the pace,” he said. “Let me know if you need to stop.”

“Thanks,” I said, smiling
weakly as I hobbled ahead of him. “Don’t worry, I won’t need to stop.”

I gritted my teeth, determined
not to be the one that held us back. It wasn’t bravery driving me on, but fear,
pure, raw, fear. The last thing we needed was to get caught before we’d had a
chance to find Dad. I tried to block out the pain in my ankle by concentrating
on the sound of my boots, clattering over the cobblestones.

“Quick, down there,” Bede
called out behind me. He was pointing towards a particularly dark and narrow
street up ahead. I glanced back at him doubtfully. The street was so old and crumbling,
it was hard to imagine that people might actually walk along there during the
day. But as Bede drew up beside me, something else had suddenly caught my
attention.

“Can you hear that?” I
craned my ear, listening for the sound again.

“What?” said Bede.

“It sounds like a
helicopter.”

Bede sighed, heavily.
“You’ve got to be kidding me. Are you sure?”

There was no need to
answer, the once distant plop, plop, plop of rotor blades was now an
unmistakeable hum, moving rapidly towards us.

“Keep running!” Bede
grabbed the sleeve of my jacket and hauled me forwards.

I glanced up, snatching a
glimpse of the belly of the helicopter as it hovered above us like a giant
hornet. I could feel the sound of it vibrating through my whole body, drowning out
my own heartbeat. A swathe of yellow suddenly cut a track across the black sky
and I realised that someone had turned on the spotlight. The beam was now
probing the southern part of the city, like a dentist poking around in a giant
mouth. It was drawing dangerously close to where we were running and I knew it
would only be moments before the light had hunted us down.

“We need to hide,
fast
,”
I said.

“Just keep running,” said
Bede. “There’s got to be something useful to hide along here.”

My eyes strained to see
where the street was leading us but the darkness was impenetrable. I was still
trying to find my way when I suddenly hit something solid. I pressed my hands
against it, then moved them slightly apart, searching to see if the object had
any edges. It was entirely flat. I spread my hands even further apart and
pressed again. Nothing moved. I pressed again, as hard as I could, before
realising what had actually happened.

“Bede, it’s a wall. We’ve
hit a dead end!” I said.

“Maybe we can climb over
it,” he said.

We both looked up. The
wall was several metres tall and far too high to climb, even if one of us had
stood on the other one’s shoulders. By now the beam from the helicopter was
shining down on a street just two away from where we were standing.

“It’s no good, we need to
find cover,” I said.

“Try and find a door,”
said Bede. “Push, pull, kick anything that even vaguely looks like one.”

I had already begun
scanning the walls as Bede was speaking, but everything seemed to be made of
solid stone.

“There’s nothing here!” I
said, my voice the colour of panic. Only a few minutes longer and it would be
all over, the searchlight would be on us and any hope of finding Dad would be
dead. I suddenly had an overwhelming urge just to run home, stick my head under
the covers, and pretend that none of it was happening.

Then something caught my
eye I crouched down to take a closer look, running my hand over a rough
surface. Nestled amongst the stone was a small patch of wood. My fingers slid
to one side and I felt the metallic coldness of a padlock. It was then that I
realised I’d found a door of some sort. I felt along the length of the panels
to discover that a couple of boards had been broken at the bottom, leaving a
triangular shaped gap the size of a large dog.

“Hey Bede, look at this,”
I said, pointing to the gap.

“Good work,” he said. “At
least one of us should be able to get in there.”

He looked at me
expectantly. I paused, double-checking that I’d deciphered his expression
properly, before shaking my head.

“No, don’t be stupid, I’m
not leaving you behind.”

“Quit the heroics,
Clare,” he said. “Now’s really not the time.”

“Who do you think…”

I was completely caught
off-guard as Bede started bundling me into the hole. There was no time to even
feel indignant – I just had to scramble into the small space as quickly as
possible. The helicopter was now in the street next to us and starting to
circle.

“Bede, get in here!” I
screamed, curling myself up as tightly as I could to make room. Two seconds
passed like two hours. There was still no sign of my brother.

“Bede!” I screamed again,
but the sound of the helicopter swamped my voice. Then, an agonising few
seconds later, Bede’s arms thrust through the gap, making him look like a
headless ghost. I grabbed his sleeves and pulled as hard as I could, trying to
wrench him inside.

“It’s too small Clare.
Let go, I’m not going to make it!” Bede shouted. The fear in his voice was
contagious.

“Yes you are!” I
screamed. “Just keep trying!”

I pulled frantically at
the boards, trying to make the gap bigger, but it was no use, the wood wouldn’t
budge. Bede’s head was now inside and he was clawing desperately at the
concrete floor, crunching his elbows against it and tying to lever himself
inside.

“C’mon!” I screamed.

I grabbed his shoulders and
kept pulling, while Bede continued to wriggle frantically, finally managing to
haul himself onto his knees. He catapulted himself forwards, just as a
searingly bright flash of yellow flooded the triangular gap in the door.

The pair of us lay in a
heap on the floor, hardly daring to breathe, as the light lingered outside.

“Did it see us?” I
whispered.

Bede cast me a worried
glance. “Dunno”.

I could feel each thud of
my heart, bounding in my chest, and the adrenalin in my system was making me shaky.
Then, almost as suddenly as it had arrived, the light disappeared and I could
hear the rhythmic chops of rotor blades drift away. Bede and I sat in silence,
saying everything we needed to in heavy sighs of relief.

It was the sunlight that
woke me up, sneaking through the wooden slats of the door and prising my
eyelids open. I lay still for a few seconds, pretending to myself that I wasn’t
awake, before reluctantly admitting that I was a useless actress. No matter how
tired I was, I could never sleep when it was too light. Bede, on the other
hand, was still asleep and snoring happily. There were some things I really
envied him for and his ability to sleep, no matter what drama might be going on
around him, was right up there.

I glanced at my watch:
7:03 am
. Still way too early for any civilised
person to be awake. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and began inspecting our
hide-out. It was so tiny it looked like a dumping ground for old arms and legs,
the way that Bede and I had squashed ourselves into the space. I closed my eyes
again and tried to catnap, when something suddenly jabbed me in the ribs. My
eyes flicked open to see Bede in the middle of a huge yawn. He glanced at me
with a dazed expression on his face.

“Oh, that’s right,” he
said, slowly coming to. “We’re in the middle of a living nightmare.”

I laughed, not because it
was particularly funny, but because I was relieved that there was at least one
other person in the world who understood how I felt.

“I reckon we should start
looking for Dad and Arlene right away, if we’re going to beat the police to
it,” I said.

“Food first though?” said
Bede.

“Food? At a time like
this?” I said.

“I’m starving, and we’ve
got to eat, Clare. How else do you think we’re going to keep going?”

I paused. Now Bede
mentioned it, I was pretty hungry too. The last time I’d eaten was lunchtime
the day before, and that had been a pretty pitiful sandwich from the school
canteen. A short detour to find food wouldn’t take long.

“Okay, maybe food first,
then
we look for Dad and Arlene. We should probably work out how much money we’ve
got.”

I started rifling through
my pockets, pulling out notes and coins and dumping them on the floor. I
counted it quietly to myself, before turning to Bede.

“There’s just over thirty
here.”

Bede pulled out the notes
and coins from his pockets and started counting.

“I’ve got twenty-three
here and a few coins,” he said. “Not much, but it should get us something. A
bread roll at least.”

“A bread roll?” I said. “We
can get more than that.”

I began putting the money
away, storing some of it in the soles of my shoes like I’d seen on TV when
people went on the run.

“We’ve got to be careful,
Clare,” said Bede. “We’ve got no idea how long it’s going to take to find Dad
and Arlene, or how much money we’re going to need. If we’ve got, say,
fifty-five all up and we budget on five each a day, that should give us just
over five days to find Dad and get this whole mess sorted out.”

“What do you mean?” I
said, frowning at him “We’ll find them today, Wiltsdown’s not
that
big. Come
tonight, everything will be pretty much back to normal.”

I paused, remembering the
business about the smuggled snakes. “Well, maybe not completely normal, but
there’s got to be some sort of reasonable explanation. I’m sure things will get
sorted.”

Bede looked at me in a
way that made it clear he thought I was being way too optimistic.

“It might not work out like
that,” he said.

“I don’t see why not,” I
said, stubbornly.

Bede shrugged. “Let’s just
see, shall we?” he said.

I frowned at him some
more. “C’mon, I can’t believe this much weird stuff can happen in such a short
space of time without there being some sort of logical explanation,” I said. “I
mean, seriously, how else would the world work if random stuff just kept
happening?”

Bede was now fiddling with
a buckle on his bag and smiling quietly to himself. I knew that look. It was
the kind of a smug smile I used to see when we were kids, when Mum and Dad
would tell him stuff simply because he was older and would understand it
better.

“How about we go and track
down some food?” he said, obviously trying to change the subject. “The market
should be setting up by now.”

I paused, deciding
whether or not to let the subject drop. It was pretty clear that Bede wasn’t
going to listen to a word I said, at least not right now.

“Okay, so we’ve got five
each to spend, right?” I said, gathering up all the money. I shoved a ten note
in his hand, then crammed the rest into my shoes and pack. “For
safe keeping,” I said.

Bede shifted his weight
awkwardly.

“Umm…I wasn’t exactly
thinking of spending anything this morning,” he said.

I looked at him,
confused. “I don’t get it? We’ve both just been saying how hungry we are.”

“Yeah, I meant, we’ll get
some food. We just won’t pay for it. You know, the ole ‘five-finger discount’.”

I shot Bede a look that went
well beyond mere scepticism. I was accusing him of downright idiocy.

“We’re on the run for one
day and you’re already turning feral?” I said. “Since when was stealing stuff okay?
Besides, are you crazy? We’ve already got the police looking for you and
chasing us half to death last night. Do you
really
want to do something
that could show them where you are? Why can’t we just buy the food like
normal
people?”

Bede sighed impatiently. “Look
at us Clare, we aren’t exactly ‘normal’ people at the moment, are we? It’s not
like we can just go and ask Dad for more money if we run out. If we’re careful
with it now, we’ll have more to spare if things get tight.” He paused to
stretch his shoulders. “As for the police, they’re not going to stop looking
for me no matter what we do. We could stay put and they could still find us.”

“I still think you’re
crazy,” I said.

“Look, Clare, I get what
you’re saying, but honestly, it’ll be fine. I know what I’m doing, we’re not
going to get caught. Besides, if you still feel bad about it later, you can
always come back and pay the money once all this crap’s died down.”

I tried to put my moral
objections to one side and think about what Bede was saying from a purely
practical point of view. As much as I hated to admit it, I could see his
argument. If I could convince myself that it was just a loan that I could pay
back later, then maybe it would be okay. But there was still one slight
problem.

“I don’t actually know how
to, you know, just take stuff without people noticing,” I said.

Bede smiled knowingly. “Don’t
worry, I’ve done it loads of times before. Like I said, I’ll take care of it.”

I arched my eyebrows.

“Don’t ask.” He laughed
sheepishly. “Look, it’s easy. If you go up to the shopkeeper and start a conversation
about something like, I dunno, the weather, baking, the price of fish,
whatever, I’ll do the rest. When I tell you to run though, you’ve got to run as
fast as you can, okay?”

“I think so,” I said. It
sounded straightforward enough, in theory. “Just try to give me some advance
warning. It takes me a while to prepare for top speed.”

Bede tried, and failed, to
stifle a snort of laughter. He knew how crap I was at sports.

“Gotcha,” he said,
sniggering.

I ignored him and leaned
over his legs to peer through the hole in the door. It was amazing how
different the street looked in the daylight, compared to the night before; old
still, but no longer creepy. Shambling apartments with small wrought-iron balconies
and shuttered windows lined the footpaths, some with little flights of
terracotta stairs and glossy black pots filled with orangey-red, and purple
pansies. The only sign of life was a black cat, curled up fast asleep in the
middle of the cobblestones.

“Coast is clear,” I said.
“Do you want to go first? I’ll follow.”

Bede wriggled himself backwards
out through the hole, before I copied his technique, propping myself up on my
elbows and jiggling my legs from side to side. He helped me to my feet and I
winced as the pain flooded instantly into my right ankle.

“Youch,” I said, before I
could stop myself.

“Oh yeah, I completely
forgot about that,” said Bede. “Are you going to be able to run?”

“Yeah, I’m sure it’ll be
fine,” I said, determined to hold up my side of the plan. Bede didn’t look so
sure.

“Your ankle looks pretty
bad. Maybe it’s not such a good idea for you to play the decoy after all.”

I took my boot off and looked
down. My ankle was so red and swollen it looked as if it had been stung by half
a million bees. There was no getting around it, I could barely walk, let alone
run.

“Maybe we can just buy
the food today and go back to the original plan tomorrow?” I said. Bede nodded,
although I could tell he was disappointed.

We started walking
towards the
Old
Town
, the streets now much more familiar
than they had been the night before when the darkness had turned them into a
maze. The
Old Town Square
was
only a few blocks away, in the centre of the south side of Wiltsdown, and was
one of my favourite parts of the city. It had been there for hundreds of years,
with its tall, narrow buildings, corseted in gables and crammed so closely
together that the Square looked like a mouth overcrowded with teeth. But rather
than looking out of place or ugly, the buildings made the Square beautiful.
Each one had its own pastel face and curly gold plumes, and a roof that was just
as individual and elaborate. Some of the shops even still had their old-fashioned
signs hanging outside and as we entered the Square I automatically searched for
my favourite – a gold lion with a sign saying
Tape’s Mercantile Wares 1794
hanging
from a chain beneath it. When I was a kid I used to believe that the lion
brought me good luck and even though I didn’t really believe in that anymore,
there was still a secret piece of me that, deep down, hoped the lion would help
us find Dad.

As we stepped off the
quiet streets and into the Square we were suddenly greeted by a frenzy of
people running in all directions. I looked around at the stalls being set up at
the edges of the Square, the white sheets being draped over the trestle tables.
A fruit and vegetable stall was bursting with shiny reds and dark greens as the
stall owner carefully made a pyramid out of apples. He glanced up at me,
winked, and tossed me one.

“Thanks!” I said. A free
apple had to be a good omen.

I could sense Bede over
my shoulder, looking at me with a mix of hunger and envy. We took turns, taking
large bites of crunchy, sweet apple until it was just a tiny, skeletal core. I
think it was probably the best apple I’d ever eaten in my life.

We continued wandering
around the Square and I noticed a group of men fitting thick, black canvas
sheets to the scaffolding of a stage. A theatre troupe were hanging around idly
to one side, dressed in black and wearing strange masks with greatly exaggerated
features. Most of the actors were horsing around and laughing, but there was
one member of the troupe who was standing perfectly still, a little way from the
others. He peered over the top of his mask and surveyed the Square intently. It
was if looking for something, or someone, in particular. I figured he was
probably the director.

I watched the actors for
a bit longer before glancing around at the other things that were happening in
the Square. There were kids playing a game of chase, as someone shouted at
them, and groups of men were stringing brightly coloured lanterns and streamers
between the lampposts, just as they always did at this time of year to celebrate
the start of winter.

“That’s right, me love,
ten pastries a fiver!” a voice suddenly barged into my thoughts. I turned to
see a large woman with red cheeks standing behind me. She was wearing a crisp
white apron and had a blue-check scarf tied ambitiously around a huge mop of hair.
The trestle table in front of her was packed with fresh, crusty bread; pies
that were so densely filled there were no gaps left for daylight to squeeze in;
cakes slathered in either raspberry, chocolate or thick cream-cheese icing; and
lattice-top tarts that had dark purple jam oozing out of them. I almost had to
stop myself swooning with hunger, as the woman cheerfully parcelled up the food
and swapped jokes with her customers.

“I could murder a pastry,”
said Bede.

I was already fishing around
in my pockets for the money.

“Two of those please,” I
said, pointing to the pastries with gooey, dark blackcurrant centres.

“There you go, me lovely,”
said the woman as I handed her the coins. “Have a good day, won’t you.”

I smiled, trying to remember
the last time I’d been so excited about food, and moved away from the table. I
began eating so quickly I was almost inhaling the food. Bede sidled up to me
with a suspiciously sly grin. Warily, I met his gaze, before my eyes travelled
slowly, reluctantly, to the loaf of bread that was now bulging from the inside of
his coat. He looked ridiculously pleased with himself. Unfortunately, I wasn’t
the only person who’d noticed his fancy finger work.