The World's Worst Mothers (18 page)

‘Oh, I don't mind eating cake with my fingers,' said Susie with a laugh.

‘OK, let's get out of here,' called Sophie's mother.

The big wooden door was only half-open, but then, out of nowhere, a dark figure pushed against it and, with a loud crashing sound, the bunker grew suddenly dark, apart from the light of the candles.

‘The door is shut,' said Susie in surprise.

Sophie's mother ran up to it and rattled at it. ‘It's locked!'

‘Rubbish,' said Bruno's mother. ‘It's just stuck. Let me at it. I've been training, and I'm strong.'

But all she got for her trouble was a sore arm.

‘Kruschke!' she called. ‘Kruschke, open up. This isn't funny!'

Nothing happened.

The others came closer and pushed against the door. They knocked. They shouted. All in vain.

‘Maybe it's part of the lesson,' said Earth Mother. ‘We're supposed to learn how to behave in a situation like this.'

‘And how would you recommend we behave?' asked Clingy Mum angrily. She'd been looking forward to a piece of cake and was not interested in playing games.

‘We mustn't lose our nerve,' said Sophie's mother. ‘If we keep quite quiet, nothing can happen to us.'

‘We won't die of thirst anyway,' said Bruno's mother. ‘There's plenty of water.' She pointed at a wall dripping with water.

‘My feet are wet,' said Susie.

Then the others noticed it too. The floor of the bunker was damp. In some places, puddles were forming and getting slowly bigger.

‘Does that mean this thing is going to fill up with water?' asked Bruno's mother, horrified.

‘Surely not,' said Earth Mother. ‘They couldn't have built the bunker in such a way that it would be underwater when the tide comes in. Our feet will get wet; that's all.'

Bruno, Emily and Sophie were running along the beach. They had left Nicholas with Vibke Paulsen. She was reheating some fried fish from lunchtime for him.

Emily wasn't hungry. She was too unsettled. Something was wrong. She could sense it. Where on earth were the mothers?

Their footprints were still visible in places in the sand, but they were being slowly washed away by the tide. There was no sign of the women themselves anywhere.

‘You'd think we'd at least see a few kites in the sky,' said Bruno.

‘Maybe they were just too stupid to be able to make any,' said Sophie.

‘Come on, let's climb up on the high dunes over there,' suggested Emily. ‘We should be able to see something from there.'

They scrambled up a dune, but from there all they could see were more dunes. Sophie fell back onto the soft, warm sand and held her face up to the sun. It was supposed to be good for pimply skin. She closed her eyes, murmuring, ‘They'll turn up. That many women can't just go missing.'

Emily sat down beside her, shaking the sand out of her skirt. ‘But Frau Paulsen did say they should have been back long ago. Maybe they've gone exploring the mudflats and they've been caught by the tide.'

Bruno yawned. ‘Kruschke was with them. He must be well up on the tides.'

Kruschke did indeed know all about the tides. After he locked the door of the bunker, he checked his watch. Within an hour, the bunker would be full of water. Over the past fifty years, the sea had nibbled away at the north end of the island. This brought the bunker, which had originally been built in the middle of the dunes, closer and closer to the sea. What that meant, exactly, the ladies in the bunker would soon experience for themselves. By the time Wohlfarth noticed, at supper, that his pupils had disappeared, it would be too late.

He didn't feel the least bit guilty. Had he told the mothers to go scrabbling around in that bunker? It was their own greed, that typical female greed for money and glitter, that had lured them in and would be the ruination of them.

Back at the factory, he would say the mothers had sent him away so that they could have a bit of fun without any of the teaching staff around. Nobody would be able to enter the bunker again until after midnight when the tide would have gone out. He would be the first at the door and could unlock it secretly. Everyone on Nordfall knew that it got stuck easily, but nobody knew that he had the key to it.

Regrettably, none of the foolhardy ladies would live to tell the tale. It was a pity about none of them. There wasn't one among them who had ever taken him seriously.

There was only one person who respected and admired him. Only one. And he was on his way to her now. He wanted to tell her that victory was at hand, almost within their grasp. He didn't come back along the beach. Instead, he took the shortcut through the dunes.

Bruno had climbed the next dune along and was taking a good look around. He needed to have a pee, and he didn't want the girls to see him. He'd just found a suitable spot when someone came hurrying along past him. It was Kruschke! Wasn't he supposed to be with the mothers? He was just about to call out, ‘Hey, there,' but something made him hesitate, and instead he ran back to the girls.

‘I've just seen Kruschke!' he said to them. ‘But he is alone.'

‘We'd better follow him, then,' said Emily. ‘He must know where our mothers are.' Her heart had started to pound like mad.

Sophie sat up and pushed the hair out of her eyes. ‘I don't know what good that'll do,' she said. ‘I really couldn't be bothered.'

‘Don't you want to see your mother?' asked Emily in surprise.

‘Yes, but a few hours won't make any difference.'

But Emily had the feeling that it could make all the difference in the world.

In the bunker, the water had reached thirty centimetres and was still climbing. The mothers had retreated to the back of the building where the floor was a good bit higher than it was near the door. They were all bunched up together.

‘Hey, stop pushing.'

‘I need a bit of space!'

‘If you push, you're out.'

‘Ho-ho, very funny.'

They had stuck the candles onto little ledges on the walls. There were no draughts, so they burnt steadily but alarmingly fast.

‘I want out of here!' moaned Clingy Mum. ‘I want to go home to my little Timmy. He misses me terribly, I'm sure of it.'

‘Don't you believe it,' said Earth Mother bitterly. ‘Our children seem to be managing very well without us. Otherwise, they'd have come looking for us.'

‘They did,' said Susie quietly.

The others all turned to look at her. Her face looked eerily pale in the candlelight. ‘My Emily was here,' she said.

‘You're dreaming,' said Sophie's mother dismissively.

‘Along with Bruno and Sophie and Nicholas.'

‘What?' cried Bruno's mother. ‘When? Where?'

‘Sophie and Nicholas? Here? I don't believe it,' said Sophie's mother, shaking her head.

‘I didn't get the whole story. We didn't have enough time. But they found out, through the … Annas, where we were.'

‘Annas? You mean the childminders who have been looking after our children while we're here?' asked Earth Mother.

‘Childminders. Yeah, right!' said Susie with a laugh. ‘Do you know what they are? They're robots. Those dolls you've seen, they're all over the factory. They can talk, laugh, cry, belch. Kruschke had them made on a larger scale and he let them loose on our children.'

The mothers were all jabbering at the same time and they never even noticed that the water had reached their little slope and was already lapping at their feet.

‘Bruno, Emily and Sophie all found out independently of each other. And they also worked out that the dolls came from Wohlfarth's factory. So they came here.'

‘And then what?' asked Sophie's mother.

‘Wohlfarth told them what a great time everyone is having here and he sent them off again. But then they got suspicious so they came back.'

‘And they had Nicholas with them the whole time?' asked Sophie's mother, horrified. ‘He needs his afternoon nap.'

‘Well, he didn't look too sleepy to me,' said Susie. ‘Nice boy.'

‘Yes, isn't he?' Sophie's mother smiled proudly.

‘And your Sophie is one smart girl.'

‘Do you think so? That's news to me.'

‘Look, can't you tell us what happened?' insisted Bruno's mother. ‘How is Bruno?'

‘He's fine, except that he gets seasick. I wanted to go back to the mainland with the children, but the gate in the fence was locked. So then we tried to go by the beach, where the fence goes into the sea. And just as we had nearly managed to get around the fence by wading through the water, Emily was suddenly swept off her feet. When I tried to help her, I got carried away by the tide as well. If Kruschke hadn't turned up …' She stopped.

‘So those stomach cramps of yours weren't real?' asked Earth Mother.

‘No. I had to get away. I've wanted to get away the whole time.'

‘We weren't exactly nice to you,' said Clingy Mum.

‘It doesn't matter,' said Susie. ‘The really annoying thing is that there's nobody to point a finger at that swine.'

‘What swine?' asked someone.

‘Kruschke, of course.'

‘But I thought you said he rescued you,' said Clingy Mum. ‘How does that make him a swine?'

‘You'll find out soon enough,' said Susie. ‘If you ask me, he is planning to drown us in here, like kittens.' And then Snivelling Susie started to panic. She laughed dementedly, her laughter echoing off the concrete walls and running, ice cold, down the spines of the other mothers.

Kruschke was making his way unhurriedly towards the factory. The children had no bother catching up with him.

‘Hello there!' called Bruno as Kruschke was just about to disappear through a side door. ‘Wait a moment.'

Kruschke turned around. His face was bright red. It could be the heat.
Or anger,
thought Emily.

‘Huh! You lot again!' said Kruschke. ‘Aren't you supposed to be gone home long ago?'

Instead of answering, Sophie said, ‘Where are our mothers?'

‘Somewhere on the beach. They didn't feel like making kites and they sent me away. But they'll be back soon, I'm sure. It's nearly supper time.'

He went into a little room. It was clear this was his workshop. A smiling head lay on a table. It looked as if it had been scalped. Multicoloured wires and circuit boards were bursting out of the top of it. Beside it lay a couple of arms and legs. A pair of eyes sat in a dish.

‘The best glass eyes there are on the market,' said Kruschke. ‘None of the plastic rubbish that you see everywhere. And look at this.' He pointed to a leg. ‘Silicone. Lifelike. You can see the veins shining through. Even varicose veins, if necessary.'

He tittered and took a bunch of keys out of his pocket. He opened the door of a closet. Inside was a woman's headless body. He picked up the head from the table and placed it carefully onto the body. Then he took a brown wig from a stand and draped it over the head. Then he tweaked the hair into place, murmuring, ‘Now you're pretty again, my girl. But not just that. Do you notice how feelings are streaming through your body? Joy and pain, happiness and puzzlement, love and hate. And to whom do you owe it all? To me. Your creator.'

The children looked at each other. The man was mad. He had to be mad. Bruno cleared his throat, embarrassed.

Kruschke turned around. ‘This is Sarah. Isn't she lovely?' He stroked her cheek. ‘And so clever. She knows everything there is to know. There is nothing that she can't tell you. Give it a try. Ask something.'

He picked up a remote control that was no bigger than a matchbox and pressed a button.

Sarah opened her eyes. ‘I know everything. I am so clever,' she twittered.

‘When and how did Muhammad Ali gain his world title back?' asked Bruno.