Hero Page 9

  The ground trembled. Bulldozers were coming from the far side of Great Western Road, their headlights roaming the ground.

  I ducked behind the barriers.

  I heard a voice. “Whoa!” A man in a fluorescent jacket and hard hat stood before the bulldozers, waving his arms. The engines slowed and rumbled.

  “Knock down those first two buildings on the left. We’ll use the rubble to start filling up the hole.”

  They were going to bury Jack! Think! There must be a way to get underground. What did I know? And then I remembered the cellar in the dress shop.

  I ran back down the road until I came to the back of the dress shop. The back wall was still standing, like the fragile skin of the shop that had once been there. The back door sagged on a broken hinge. I shoved it aside and wished I hadn’t. I heard the dry bricks slipping like a cough against each other, the scatter of debris. I ducked, wrapped my arms over my head to escape the small landslide. The noise, the movement, the avalanche stopped. I shook off the dust.

  The front of the shop had gone but the steps to the cellar still led down into the dark.

  The cellar was heavy with dead silence, but smelled of new things. The painted stone walls were hidden by rails of clothes. The closest wall to the sinkhole was straight ahead of me.

  I felt around, felt the scratch of dust in my hands, the way the floor sloped away. I slid down, kicked out because I couldn’t see clearly what was in front of me. Then I kicked against stones, fallen stones, and a gap! The corner of the cellar had fallen away and there was a hole. A small hole, big enough for maybe a cat, but not for me. I felt air, like a cold breath, coming through it.

  I pulled apart one of the clothes rails to get at a metal tube. I hammered at the stone wall with it. I smashed and smashed those stones until they loosened like old teeth. I kicked them away until the hole was big enough for me to climb through.

  A new smell gushed out. Like the smell in a museum, ancient, preserved, musty, but the hole fell away into nothing but deeper darkness. What if it was too deep? What if I fell and couldn’t get back up?

  I crouched and slumped against the stones, steadied my breath and trembling hands. I felt how alone I was without my audience in the sky. How could I stand up and do something brave if nobody saw, if nobody was watching?

  But I couldn’t rely on them any more, even if they cheered. They were in my imagination, and so was the gladiator I used to be.

  Then I thought of the real people that mattered. My family. George. Grizzly. Jack Pepper, alone too in the dark. It was him I wanted to be like.

  I filled my lungs with air, climbed into the hole, let my weight hang from my arms. They stretched and strained. I let go.

  My feet hit the ground not far below, but I crumpled as my ankles twisted and rolled.

  There’s nothing wrong with darkness, I told myself. It’s exactly the same as when it’s light, except, because we can’t see, we imagine the things we’re scared of. They loomed in my head: the bear, the tiger and the lion. And the real things: being nobody worthwhile.

  I reached out. A wall curved up and away from me, built with what felt like large bricks. A breeze touched my right cheek. I looked that way, saw the palest glimmer of hope in a yellowy light. My eyes adjusted.

  I could soon make out why the walls curved away above and beside me when I found myself in a passageway, surrounded by arches and pillars and small rooms like cells. I’d seen pictures like this in a book. The cells and cages of the gladiators and wild animals that would take centre stage lay beneath the arena floor. Was I in the underground section of a Roman amphitheatre?

  Is that why dreams of gladiators and the arena were so vivid to me? Was it because our town was built within Roman walls along arrow-straight roads that made me imagine the gladiator in me, with the sand of the amphitheatre beneath my feet? Touching the earth where battles had once been. I wondered, could something abandoned for hundreds and hundreds of years seep through the earth? Could the spirit of the gladiator have got into my dreams and imagination? Into me?

  At the end of the passageway the light was stronger, but still pale and dim. I began to stumble, feel rubble under my feet, the crunch of sand and small stones. More rubble that I had to climb over, until I reached the end of the passage and was standing below an arch. The archway was blocked almost to the top by the debris of fallen buildings, apart from a small space of pale light.

  I started to climb, pushing my hands and feet deep into the rubble, but it was like a steep sand dune: there was nothing holding it all together. Stones clattered and fell away into the darkness. Things slipped from underneath me.

  I slid. Nothing I could feel belonged down there. It wasn’t smooth or soft or stable. I grabbed out for something to hold on to until I found a narrow beam of concrete wedged into the side of the sinkhole. I pulled myself up on it. Above me, through the top of the archway, the tarmac crust was dark lit only by a glimmer of hope from a bright star.

  I called out, “Jack Pepper!”

  My voice started something. Pieces of rubble clinked and clattered and echoed further down where it was darker and blacker. I kept still, clinging to the concrete, because it seemed like the only solid thing down there.

  “Jack!” I whispered.

  I lay along the concrete, let my arms hang and reached into the dust. I scratched the surface of the pile. I buried my hands, dug with my fingers, grazing my knuckles, pushing away small pieces of brick and stone and earth. I only looked up once, to see how enormous the hole was, how the things I moved away might be burying Jack even further. I didn’t let myself think it was impossible. I kept digging.

  I touched something soft. Fur.

  “I’m coming, Jack!” I called.

  I leaped back on to the heap. I dug, faster, pushing away the rubble with my forearms, fighting against what was slipping down from above me, anchoring my knees again and again as they slid away. I felt the fur. I held on tight, pulled and pulled.

  The rubble crumbled, fell away. I slipped. It wasn’t a dog in my hands. It was a fake fur coat.

  Thunder rumbled closer. The bulldozers were coming. How long did I have until they demolished the surrounding buildings and filled in the sinkhole like a grave?

  I panicked, kicked and clawed at the rubble nearest me. It felt useless. Pointless. It was dim down there although my eyes had adjusted. All I saw was the jagged edge of the mountain of rubble, piled up through the archway. Did I really think I could find Jack Pepper in there?

  I wished George was here to help me, to look up the answer in a book. How do you find a dog in a sinkhole full of rubble? I shivered, the deathly cold and fear prickling my skin. I picked up the coat, put it on to protect me, sank to the ground, pressed my head in my hands. I wanted to shout. To tell someone up there to get me out. I wanted somebody to come and rescue me. But I couldn’t let that happen again and it wouldn’t. Nobody knew I was here.

  The thundering of the bulldozers grew louder.

  I shouted, yelled, roared.

  But what was that other noise?

  “Jack Pepper!” I called, making a cone around my mouth.

  I closed my eyes to help me hear. But the rumbling grew.

  “Jack Pepper!”

  Was that him? A whimper. Had I imagined it?

  “It’s me, boy! Where are you?”

  But the growl of those bulldozers vibrated right through me, shaking at the debris, quaking the ground, drowning out other sounds. Rubble slipped away from the arch; lights roamed the rim; fragments of buildings came tumbling in.

  I scrabbled up the bank, slipping again, trying to cling to things that were not steady or stable. I dug in, climbed my way up to the top of the arch where I thought I’d heard Jack.

  My hands tore at the stones and concrete and brick, throwing them down behind me. Did I hear Jack growl? Was it my imagination or an echo of the bulldozers rumbling above my head?

  I dug and dug where I thought the sound had come from unti
l I found a space under the beam of concrete big enough to put my arm through. I stretched, reached in, pushed my shoulder against the slab, but it wouldn’t budge. I kicked and kicked away at the crumbling parts. Reached in again, pushed my arm until I felt something soft. Jack’s ear! Jack’s collar! I hooked one finger in just as the boom of another huge pile of rubble landed in the sinkhole.

  Big dull thuds of brick and concrete clattered above me. Thunder vibrated through me. The pile shifted, falling back. The collar slipped from my fingers and I couldn’t feel Jack Pepper any more. The debris collapsed like sand as more rubble was pushed into the hole by the diggers. I’d had him and now I didn’t.

  I reached up, anchored my other hand on something hard and metallic, curled my fingers round it to pull myself back up. I stretched my arm into the gap again. I could see the big concrete beam moving, slipping towards me. I stretched even more. I dug in my knees, gripped tighter with my other hand. Something sharp clamped round my wrist. Jack Pepper’s teeth! I’d felt him do this before at the pond when he tried to pull me out. It hurt, but I didn’t care.

  “Hold on to me, Jack!” I shouted.

  I pulled and pulled. I felt the hole give, his body move. I pulled and pulled until I felt him come free.

  I hurled Jack into my chest, caught that dog in my arms just as the ground slipped away under us. I slid on my back, under the archway, to the ground. The fur coat protected us from scratches, but not from the thump when I hit the bottom. Above me the thin concrete beam tipped. The shadow blocked the light. It launched down the side of the pile towards us like a thick lightning bolt. I thought we were going to die.

  I looked at Jack. The glisten in his eyes was alive. There was no fear, no tremble, no doubt that I would rescue him this time.

  I realised what I was holding in my other hand and suddenly I seemed to have all the time in the world. I whispered, “I’ve got you Jack.” I rolled, pulled Jack into my chest and crouched over him. I put my arm over my head with what I still had in my other hand. Just as the concrete landed.

  The smack of the concrete juddered through my arm; the pressure and weight pushed us to the ground. But what I had in my other hand was a Roman helmet, built to take the force of steel.

  Jack blinked through the dust. I looked at the helmet. The thick crest on the top was bent and crushed. And we were still alive. I felt Jack’s chest against mine, a faint movement from his ribs. He was so cold. He looked up. I saw Sirius, the eye of the Great Dog, brilliant even in the gloom of the massive sinkhole. Here, on earth, with me.

  “Were you still waiting for me, boy?”

  I felt him wriggle, just a little, his tail swish softly against me. I was astounded by the life I could see in him, the heart of him, the brightness of him, even after everything he’d been through.

  We weren’t safe yet.

  More broken buildings clattered into the hole. The ground rumbled and shook; dust showered us.

  I put Jack inside my pyjama shirt, tucked it into my trousers. I did the fur coat up around us. I put the dented ancient helmet on as stones bounced around us. I scrambled, ran up the passageway, along the cells and walls and arches, until I saw the hole above me. I found cracks and crevices for my fingers and toes. I scaled that wall with Jack Pepper held tight into my chest. I felt the rush of air coming through the passageway, dust choked me, the crash and boom vibrated through me, until I hooked my hands over the edge of the hole in the wall in the dress-shop cellar.

  I heaved us up, crawled in through the hole. Ran out of what was left of the building, over the wall at the back, along the alleyway and crouched down behind the empty lot.

  I pulled open the coat. Jack Pepper was grey with dust, his face sticking out of the top of my pyjamas. So cold. I breathed and blew warm air inside my pyjamas. I wiped away the dust around his eyes and mouth, his dry nose, brushed softly all over his face and ears, held him against me.

  I swear that dog smiled.

  “Got you this time,” I said. Jack’s hips wriggled, his tail tapped against me and I smiled. “You knew I would, didn’t you?”

  I wrapped that fur coat right around us again.

  I walked through the middle of the silence in Clarendon Road.

  I felt a stirring inside the coat. I checked on Jack, looking down into my pyjamas when I could see him better under the orange beam of a street light. Jack wriggled. I felt his paws against me, his head push against the collar of the coat. His nose came out of the top, his head, just as the light dawned over Clarendon Road. Jack blinked; his nose quivered as he looked down the road.

  The lion was heading towards us on the white line. His shadow grew as he passed the street light, stretched like a giant creature. He rippled and shook his head; his mane showered dust in a cloud around him as if he was in a mist. He padded towards us and I kept going, and right at the last minute he jumped to the side and out of my way.

  “Did you smell him, Jack?” I said. “Did you want to chase and play with him?”

  I laughed up at the sky at Sirius, still burning brightly for millions of years. I turned back to laugh at the lion who got out of our way, at how he made our town his hunting ground, how Jack and me found a place in an amphitheatre and won our fight. But there was no sign of the lion anywhere. Only Mrs Pardoe’s ginger cat disappearing around the corner.

  Then I stopped. What was I going to do now? I had no idea what was going on at home where I was supposed to be grounded. I was in so much trouble I probably wouldn’t be allowed out of my room ever again. I didn’t have a clue about how anything else was going to turn out except I had to take Jack Pepper home to Grizzly. It couldn’t wait for another minute.

  Grizzly needed Jack back so that the hole in his heart would be filled again by his daughter’s little dog. And I needed to find a way to make it up to him for trashing his mobility scooter.

  I took off the fur coat, wrapped it round Jack Pepper and went into Grizzly’s front garden. At Grizzly’s door I lay Jack on the mat. Jack Pepper was the most loyal friend I could ever wish to have. He looked weak, thinner, but his tail wagged and his eyes glistened like stars.

  I was sorry I’d ever told him to wait before, but I asked him now to wait again. “You stay right here,” I said and I knew he would. And I promised him with a thump to my chest that I’d wait, just around the other side of the wall, to make sure Grizzly found him.

  Then I rapped that knocker hard, again and again, until I saw the hall light come on. Then I ran and hid behind Grizzly’s wall, still holding the Roman helmet I’d found in the sinkhole.

  “Dear boy, dear Jack!” I heard Grizzly breathe. “Dear, dear boy. What would Lucy … what would any of us have done without you?”

  I knew just by the sound of his broken voice that all along he’d been so afraid for Lucy to lose him, not himself.

  “Where have you been?” he said with nothing but joy at having that dog back. “Where have you been all this time? Causing trouble again, eh?”

  It went quiet and I guessed Grizzly was holding on to that dog to make sure he really was here.

  “What’s this?” I heard Grizzly say. “What did you bring back with you, Jack?”

  I was about to crawl away, to leave them to it, when Jack Pepper appeared round the corner of the wall, dusty and worn, but dragging the fur coat in his teeth. I didn’t have any strength left for more lies.

  Grizzly didn’t come out to the pavement. He just said, “You tell that Leo Biggs he’d better come in.”

  I heard Grizzly’s footsteps going back into his house. Jack kept standing on the coat, but he switched round and moved off it and kept coming, pulling as hard as he could. He dropped the coat at my feet as if it was mine. Then he stood there, all four unsteady legs square, looking at the coat and looking at me, and I looked at the fur, long and golden like a lion.

  Then Jack swayed and I scooped the lion’s coat and that little white dog up in my arms and went into Grizzly’s house.

  Grizzly was on
his knees when I went in, lighting his fire, Jack’s bed still by the hearth where it had always been.

  “Pass the coal bucket,” he said, without looking up, “and a newspaper to fan the fire. We need to warm that poor dog’s bones through.”

  We fed Jack, slowly at first, gave him plenty of water. Grizzly and I sat down and shared a pot of tea and ginger biscuits. Grizzly snapped his in half and fed the pieces to Jack. We didn’t stop looking at that little dog and Grizzly didn’t stop repeating, “Dear, dear boy.”

  Grizzly poured some tea in his saucer and put it on the floor for Jack to drink and warm him inside. We made a hot-water bottle, we brushed Jack down; we wrapped him in a blanket and watched over him. This was no time for talk and explanations: it was time to take care of that little dog. We could see Jack didn’t want to sleep, but he had to, his eyes slowly blinking, but watching both of us watching him. Then something seemed to satisfy him. He sighed, closed his eyes and tucked his nose under the blanket.

  Grizzly didn’t look as haggard as he had when Jack had been missing, but there were deep troubled lines in his forehead. He stood up, put his teacup on the mantelpiece, kept his back to me.

  “Maybe Jack got trapped in a shed or garage,” he said. “And couldn’t get home even if he wanted to. Is that what happened, Leo?”

  I swallowed. It hurt, like there was something stuck in my throat. Did he expect me to agree, to keep lying? Surely Grizzly guessed what had happened, where Jack had been, where I had been. But just beginning to tell the truth to the person you’ve hurt the most is the hardest thing. Knowing where to start.