Underworld (13 page)

‘No. It's only your life,' Liam said.

They heard movements in the cave, steps coming closer, and voices. Zesh and Angie were on their way back.

Zesh was shaking his head. ‘Not that way, anyway. It leads nowhere.'

Angie ran to Fiona. ‘Zesh nearly fell down a hole. It was really scary.'

Fiona grinned sarcastically. It was all lost on Angie. ‘Good thing you were there, eh? We might have lost him for ever.'

Zesh dusted himself down. ‘We'll have to be careful where we're walking.' He peered towards the other tunnel. ‘We'll try that way.'

Liam stood as if he was ready to say something. Axel held him back, but Zesh noticed.

‘What's wrong?' Zesh asked him.

‘Your arrogant attitude. That's what's wrong.' Axel's whole stance was threatening. ‘Telling everybody what to do. As if you were still a prefect. Down here you're nothing. Remember that.'

Zesh held his stare. ‘Even down here I've got more brains than you.'

Axel's eyes flashed. Liam stepped back, sure Axel would fly at Zesh. Even Zesh expected it and steeled himself. But Axel didn't. Instead he snarled dramatically, ‘We'll see about that.'

Fiona stretched herself. ‘Well, I'm not going anywhere now. I am shattered. It must be bedtime. At least here we can sleep for a while.'

Angie touched the teacher's face. ‘Mr Marks is so cold.' She took her bottle, opened it and wet his lips. She was the only one who ever thought to do that, Zesh realised. She does all the right things, yet she still gets right up everybody's nose.

‘We'll have to get him some medical help soon.' Angie looked up at Zesh, as if all her hopes of freedom depended on him. That annoyed him too. He was as scared as any of them. Why did they expect him to know everything?

‘Do you know a way out, Angie? Is there a zonking lever in here somewhere that you press and it shoots us to safety?' Fiona sounded angry.

Angie's eyes filled up with tears.

‘No. Didn't think so, Angie. So shut your gob.' Fiona flopped and turned her back on them all, pulled her knees up and wrapped her arms around them. Angie
looked embarrassed. For once, she didn't know what to say.

‘We all need some sleep,' Zesh said. He sat down beside Angie. ‘Then we move on.' He nodded towards the other tunnel. ‘That way.'

Axel and Liam said nothing. They sat at the other side of the cave, watching Zesh.

He could feel their eyes on him, even when he closed them. He snapped them open once, and sure enough they were still watching him.

He wouldn't sleep, he told himself. Couldn't. Not when they were watching him like that. He didn't trust them. They were up to something. Maybe, while he slept, they meant to slip off on their own.

That wasn't a threat, he realised. That was a dream. Axel was nothing but trouble. He'd be better gone. Zesh closed his eyes and slept.

Fiona was dreaming of more bats, their wings fluttering, their cries filling the caves. But these bats could talk. She could hear them swearing, shouting. She jumped awake. The noise still filled the caves, and in the gloom a rolling bundle moved towards her. Angie woke too, just as Fiona jumped to her feet.

‘What's going on?'

It took her a moment to realise that the rolling bundle was Liam and Axel and Zesh. Liam and Axel were holding Zesh down. Zesh's face was bleeding where one of them had punched him – Axel probably. They hauled Zesh to his feet. Axel felt in Zesh's pockets, pulled something out with a triumphant yell. ‘Gotya!'

He held it aloft for them all to see. Like a trophy won by a warrior. An inhaler?

Zesh struggled to try to snatch it from him, but Axel was too strong. He pushed Zesh back so hard he stumbled and fell. Axel spat at him.

‘See, who's got the brains now? Eh! Tell me that! Who's got the brains now!'

Axel got to his feet, stood over Zesh and pushed him back on to the ground with his boot. Zesh was white around the lips.

Fear. Axel recognised it. Not so bossy now, was he? He looked over at Liam. ‘I think he knows who's in charge now, eh?' Liam grinned back.

Fiona ran towards them. ‘What's going on here!'

Axel told her. ‘I'm fed up wi' him.' He poked at Zesh with his foot again. ‘Telling everybody what to do. Telling me what to do. Now I've got this.' He showed her the inhaler. ‘He'll not boss anybody about again.'

She tried to snatch it from him. ‘Axel, give him it back. That's rotten.'

She looked at Zesh, expecting him to do something, but Zesh was stunned. Still couldn't believe it. The fight was out of him.

‘Zesh!' Fiona shouted. ‘Don't let him get away with this.'

But Zesh said nothing.

Axel took the inhaler and pushed it deep inside the pocket of his jacket. He patted it. ‘And that's where it's going to stay. You behave yourself, Zesh, and I might just let you have it back. But no back chat, no cheek, and it's my rules from now on.'

He said the last bit with relish. Rolling it around his tongue, taking his time to spit it out. My rules from now on.

‘And we're not going to have anybody hold us back.' Axel looked down at Mr Marks. ‘And that means him.'

‘We can't leave him behind,' Zesh said.

‘You carry him then … oh forgot, you'll not be able to breathe.' Axel moved close to his face. ‘It's your choice, Zesh. You carry him if you want, but I'm not helping him and neither is he.'

Zesh looked at Liam as if he had just crawled out from under a rock. ‘Come off the fence at last, have you, Liam?'

‘Know what side my bread's buttered on, don't I?' Liam licked his lips nervously. ‘Anyway, we're going to
send somebody back for him.' He looked at Axel. ‘So we will, Axel?'

Axel didn't answer him.

Angie stepped closer to Zesh. ‘I'll stay with Zesh,' she said firmly.

Then, a startling thing happened. Zesh turned on Angie furiously, taking all his anger out on her. ‘You! You keep well back from me. You said you wouldn't tell. But the first thing you do when you get back here is tell him, of all people. Typical fat Angie. You couldn't keep your mouth shut, could you!'

Angie almost fell back with the shock. Her hand flew to her mouth. Axel's laugh filled the whole cave.

‘At last, no more Mr Nice Guy Zesh. Fat Angie, he called her!'

Angie was trying to mumble something but she couldn't get the words out. She looked at Fiona. ‘Fiona, you don't think …'

But Fiona turned her back on her too.

Axel looked at Liam and winked. Liam winked back. Good. Zesh thought it was the fat bird who had told him about the inhaler, Axel realised. Let him think that. Let them all think that. Divide and rule. Get the rest of them fighting against each other and there is only one
winner. Where had he heard that? He couldn't remember. In a film, he was sure of it.

‘Your choice, Zesh,' Axel said, and this time nobody said a word.

‘Do you feel all right?' Fiona edged closer to Zesh. He looked miserable. She had never seen him so miserable.

He just looked at her. ‘Oh, I'm brilliant. I'm an asthmatic and my worst enemy's just stolen my inhaler … oh, and I'm also trapped underground with him. Let me see … do I feel all right? What do you think!'

‘Don't be so zonking cheeky!' she answered him. ‘I didn't even know you had asthma, right!'

‘Nobody did. Except her!' Zesh glared across at Angie, who hadn't stopped weeping since he'd turned on her. Angie was huddling close to the teacher as if he could comfort her.

‘There's not a bad bone in her body,' Fiona said. ‘She's just thick. She never knows when to shut her mouth.'

‘Taking lessons from you, is she?'

‘Hey, I'm supposed to be the comedian here. I've a good mind not to talk to you at all. I'm trying to be nice … for a change.' She hesitated. Zesh was already
getting on her nerves. ‘What are we going to do?'

Zesh knew what she meant. Were they going to leave the teacher here … and go on without him?

‘He's right, you know,' she said. ‘Axel, that is. It is stupid to carry him about with us. He's too heavy. We could be doing him more harm than good. Maybe we should just leave him.'

‘Easy for you to say.' Zesh wheezed the words out painfully. He could manage without the inhaler now, but soon, he wouldn't be able to breathe without it.

‘It's all in the mind,' he said suddenly, as if to himself. ‘Because I've not got the inhaler, I think I need it. I don't. I'll be fine.'

He tried to take a deep breath but there was a whistle deep in his chest that gave away the pain he was already feeling.

‘We could jump him,' Fiona said. Knowing they couldn't. Zesh didn't have the strength, and Axel was built like a Clydesdale horse. ‘He's getting his own back on Marks, you know. Axel was scared coming here. Scared that here, Mr Marks would get him. But the tables have turned. Axel's happy now.'

Zesh wheezed, ‘How could he be that bad? How could anybody?'

Fiona tutted. ‘Because you
are
an arrogant zonker, Zesh.'

He glared at her. ‘I need you. I really need you.'

‘Don't get me wrong. Axel's a zonker as well. It's just my luck I'm trapped in hell with a bunch of zonkers.'

There was a rumbling deep below them. It made them all stop and listen. Even Angie stopped weeping and looked up.

‘What was that?' Fiona's voice was a whisper.

It came again, ominous. Shuddering through the rocks.

‘An earthquake?' Axel asked. ‘Somewhere deep down in the earth.'

They all sat still, listening, not saying a word. Not until Angie, in a whisper, voiced all their fears.

‘Maybe … it's the Worm.'

* * *

I do not want to die for anyone. I'm only seventeen. I want to go home. Therese is waiting for me. I dream of her. Before I left, Therese let me kiss her and she promised she would wait for me. I torture myself thinking of her forgetting me, taking up with some other boy. Though, as my mother reminds me, there are not many boys left at home.

‘The postman is still single and he is looking for a wife,'
my mother jokes in her letters. ‘He is only sixty-two. He would make Therese a lovely husband.'

Why am I still following this crazy man? He wants to blow up a whole island? An island filled with people he knows. Only a fanatic could do that.

So why don't I turn my back on him, and go?

Because I have been taught to obey orders, and he is still the officer.

But I am so cold, so hungry, and there are strange sounds in this cave.

In the end, Zesh wouldn't leave the teacher behind.

‘You're daft!' Axel told him. ‘You'll not be able to breathe carrying him.'

But Zesh had made his decision, for now. While he could still breathe he would help carry him, and maybe by the time he couldn't, he would have his inhaler back.

Axel looked at Fiona. ‘You're helping him? You hate that Marks. He was always getting at you as well.'

She didn't deny that. ‘You've not got my inhaler,' she said. ‘I can do what I want.'

So, they began moving ahead warily. Axel and Liam at the front, refusing to help with the teacher. Zesh and the girls behind, lifting, dragging Mr Marks on his makeshift stretcher, as best they could.

‘We're probably breaking every bone in his body,' Fiona moaned.

The strain of lifting him was only making Zesh
worse. Fiona listened to his laboured breathing. ‘Give him back his inhaler, Axel. This isn't doing anybody any good.'

‘It's helping me,' Axel said smugly.

Angie hadn't dared speak to Zesh since he'd snapped at her. She'd been, for Angie, remarkably quiet. Now she whispered to him, ‘Zesh, please don't think I told Axel about your asthma. I didn't. Honest.'

Zesh couldn't even look at her. ‘Doesn't matter now. He's got it, hasn't he?'

‘But I didn't tell him.'

Her whisper was more urgent now, carried through the dark to Liam. He nudged Axel, called back cheerfully, ‘And if you believe that, Zesh, you'll believe anything.'

Angie gasped and fell silent again. Zesh said nothing. It was hard enough to carry the teacher. Impossible to talk as well. Especially now. Zesh was afraid. More afraid than he'd ever been. He'd had asthma attacks before. Attacks that left him clawing for breath, unable to stand up. Wishing that he could just stop breathing for a few minutes, so his lungs could rest. Knowing that breathing
is
life, and yet it was breathing that was killing him. Since his last attack he had kept it under control,
promised himself he'd never be in that position again. Yet here he was, worse than he'd ever been.

‘I'll be OK,' he ordered himself. He was a great believer in positive thinking. He was sure he would be fine. Breathe deeply. Don't be afraid. But his breath was catching already. His lungs were closing like the tunnels in this cave, growing smaller, tighter. NO! He would not think like this.

‘Have you got a spare?' Fiona asked him.

Of course he had a spare. His mother never let him go anywhere without a spare. And where was it?

‘In the drawer beside my bed at the hostel,' he said. Too many words. Too much effort.

‘Not much zonking good there, is it?'

He almost smiled. She was so right. Not much zonking good there. His mother, he could see her worried face as he left, insisting he take it, telling him always to have it just in case.

But when had he ever listened to his mother?

As the caves opened below them, they found a strange new world. Here the rock had formed into fantastic shapes and patterns. Constant dripping water had caused that, Zesh remembered Mr Marks saying. In places there was rock hanging from the roof like filigree
curtains. Stalactites cascading from the ceilings and forming into grottoes dramatically. It was beautiful, but Zesh couldn't appreciate its beauty for now.