Chapter 12: Betrayal
“I thought that you weren’t coming,” Stella said.
“I wasn’t,” Tom murmured, “but I changed my mind.”
Although Tom obviously seemed very awkward, Stella reasoned that this was because he was embarrassed about being afraid and decided not to remind him about it. She was quite relieved that he had changed his mind. She had realised that without Tom’s company she felt more alone.
Reaching out and patting him on the shoulder, she said, “I’m glad you did, Tom, but we’ve got to get back to the Attic. We found Jerbil-Din, but I think that the Greddylick has done something to him. When he saw us, he ran away. Uncle Dodds and the others have gone after him.”
“I think I might have found…a…a spaceship,” Tom said, cringing away from Stella’s touch. “I got lost looking for you and found some kind of weird staircase.”
“That’s brilliant. Let’s go and get the others,” Stella cried and turned to go back into the tunnel.
Tom reached after her and grabbed her back. He was obviously a bit rougher than he intended, because he snatched his hand away once Stella had stopped.
“No – we can’t do that!” Tom yelped. “I mean, do you think we can find them? I think we should go now. What if this Jerbil-Din is running back to that ship to make a getaway? It stands to reason, doesn’t it? I think the stairway is a short cut. We can be there waiting for all of them to turn up.”
This made sense to Stella. She wondered whether she could take the risk of losing Jerbil-Din. Uncle Dodds himself said that he was the best chance they had of finding the Greddylick.
“I don’t know about this. Doctor Dodds said we should go straight back to the Attic,” Wendell said.
“But Jerbil’s spaceship is here,” Stella replied. “What if Tom is right? If he does return there, we can catch him.”
“Yes, yes. Come on, we might not have much time,” Tom said and beckoned to them. “The staircase is this way.”
Tom led Stella a breathless chase through the tunnels. She very soon lost her way in the labyrinth of corridors, often stumbling on the ridged flooring, and it was only through the light of the peeper and Wendell trailing behind her that she could keep track of the way Tom was leading them.
“Hey, Tom, slow down,” Stella called.
“It’s just down here,” Tom’s voice called from below them.
Stella shone the peeper’s gaze along the tunnel wall. There was a crack in the wall. A skeletal archway of spindly bones. Stella peered inside. The floor spiralled downwards in uneven steps.
“It might be best if you go first, Wendell.” Stella gulped. “Those stairs look pretty steep. You can light the way.”
“Your star is glowing too,” Wendell whined. “I’m sure it’ll be best if you went first.”
“I thought you liked the dark,” Stella said.
“I like it when I know what’s in it,” he said. But he tentatively hovered down the staircase.
“Tom? Are you down there?” Stella called out.
Stella followed Wendell down the spiral staircase. She had to hold out her hand to steady herself against the narrow wall.
Finally, she got to the bottom, surprising herself by stepping down when her foot reached the floor before she expected. Shining the peeper above her, she saw that they had descended into a vast chamber, similar to the one that the Attic was anchored in. Wendell gave a whimper and bobbed close to her.
In the centre of the cave, Stella traced the torpedo-like outline of a spacecraft that hovered in front of them. This ship was made of metal and glinted the light back at her. It was about twice the size of her father’s van, but looked more like pictures she’d seen of submarines.
“Look. There’s Tom,” Wendell said, “behind the ship.”
“Tom, why didn’t you wait for us?” Stella shone the peeper at him, but he just cringed away.
“I…I’m sorry, Stella,” he said. “It told me that if I led you here, I’d get my gran back. She’s all I’ve got left.”
“What do you mean? What about your gran?”
“It’s the same as your mum and dad. It took her. The Greddylick took her memories.”
“I told you, boy. When you speak of me, you call me master,” a terrible voice hissed.
Stella saw a shadow drop from the cavern roof. It uncurled, and Stella recognised the twitching fingers and pitted eye sockets of the Greddylick. It no longer wore the top hat that had disguised its elongated, scaly head.
“You!” Stella gasped.
She grabbed at her necklace, and its blue light flared even brighter. The Greddylick snarled and leapt towards Stella. It covered the distance between them in one bound. One of the forearms of its overcoat tore open as a serrated talon sprung from it. The Greddylick slashed at Stella’s neck and sliced through the chain that held her pendant. The crystal clattered to the floor, and its light snuffed out.
“You dare to resist me, little girl?” The Greddylick cackled. It was a hideous screeching sound. “I can’t think why Dodds would entrust Parhelian’s flame to such a weakling.”
“You better watch out,” Stella spat back at him. “Doctor Dodds is on his way here right now!”
“It is Dodds’s meddling that brought you here, fool. I knew it would be difficult to get hold of the star whilst it was on that filthy planet of yours. Far easier to wait here until you wandered into my trap.”
Stella could see her crystal glittering on the floor. Unfortunately, the Greddylick stood in the way, preventing her from reaching out and grabbing it.
“You still have to get the star out of here,” Stella said. She was just saying the first things that popped into her head, trying to distract the creature, whilst she frantically thought how she could get her pendant back. “That’s going to be difficult since you can’t even touch it.”
Stella sprang forward, rolling across the cavern ridges, and stretched her hand out to pick up her pendant. The Greddylick, however, grabbed hold of her before she could touch it.
“But I don’t need to touch it,” the Greddylick hissed. “Not since that imbecile Dodds brought along my little pet spy. You, boy! Pick up the crystal.”
Tom was hunched by the spaceship, but lurched to his feet as if kicked.
“No, Tom. Run and get Doctor Dodds,” Stella pleaded.
“Do as I say, boy, or watch that gibbering old woman you care for die a drooling vegetable.”
“But you said you’d make her normal.”
“I said pick it up!” the Greddylick yelled furiously.
Tom inched forward, visibly trembling. He reached down and picked up the star.
“Tom, you sneak,” Stella shrieked. “You’ve just been waiting to give us away the whole time.”
“It said if I told anyone, I wouldn’t see my gran again.”
“When you speak of me, you call me master,” the Greddylick hissed and cuffed Tom in the face.
Stella saw the chance to free herself from the Greddylick’s grip, but its fingers just closed more tightly around her arm, and the digits of its other hand started to sniff around her face, curling around Stella’s jaw.
“I’d like to get rid of you right now,” the Greddylick mused, “but you could still be useful.” Squeezing her face, the Greddylick reached into his coat and pulled out a shiny metallic globe. “You don’t need much of your mind. Just enough to fetch and carry and call me master.”
One half of the globe split open. The top came apart like segments of an orange until they looked like opened petals of a spiteful flower. The Greddylick lowered the claw-like instrument onto Stella’s head, and the talons clasped onto her scalp. Stella opened her mouth to shout, but no sound came out.
Although Stella could see the cave, it was as if time had slowed in some way. She could see the Greddylick standing above her and Tom looking on in terror. She even noticed Wendell floating above. But the more she looked, the more the figures in the cave became more indistinct as if they were fading away. Othe
r figures started to appear beside her, like wispy phantasms. Soon it felt like she was standing within a bustling crowd. The figures were whispering and moaning, but she had to concentrate to hear what any of them were saying. Even then, she could only hear snippets of thoughts. As the figures became more substantial, Stella could make out some she recognised. Jerbil-Din floated past her muttering, “My esteemed colleague…” Then she spotted Vanga-Tron. He seemed to be chanting, “Ancient ruins…perfectly safe.”
One of the more disturbing figures was an old woman who was weeping. She kept repeating the same words over and over again, “My poor boy. My poor boy.” Then Stella spotted her parents. Her mother was frantically looking for something, running around the cavern, her head turning from side to side. “Have you seen her?” she kept insisting. Her dad was standing still, his hands to his mouth. He was shouting Stella’s name over and over.
‘Mum!’ Stella tried to shout, ‘Dad,’ but no words would come. She realised this was because someone was holding her jaw. It hurt, so she jerked backwards with all her strength.
The Greddylick’s grip was momentarily loosened as Stella tried to burst free. It snarled and grabbed her rucksack. One of its talons caught the fabric, tearing it open. The maps and gadgets that Dodds had packed inside spilled onto the cavern floor, along with one of the jellied dog toys. A distant part of Stella’s mind wondered, ‘How did Helix put that in there?’ as she struggled to break free from the Greddylick and reach her parents. If she could just reach out a little further, she could touch them.
The orange, rubber man was stuck to the rags of Stella’s rucksack. However, the effect of being close to the Greddylick brought it to life. It gave a squeak and leapt at the Greddylick’s face. The Greddylick tried to tear at the figure, but like elastic, it just stretched. Caught by this unexpected attack, the Greddylick’s grip on Stella loosened, and she pulled herself away from its grip. Stella fell to the ground, dislodging the claw that had attached itself to her head. The figures in the cave started to flicker away. Stella felt the mind-squeezer try to shift its grip again. She yanked it free from her head, and it clattered to the floor. Immediately, all the figures cleared from her vision. Her mum and dad had gone, again.
Stella’s attention was swiftly brought back to the present, as she saw the Greddylick struggle with the orange coat of plastic-like substance that had attached itself to its face. The Greddylick finally managed to rip the thing off, and it returned back into its original shape, its legs and arms thrashing against the Greddylick’s hand.
The Greddylick brought its talon to the rubber man’s face. “I’m going to spit you, you interfering little vermin.”
Before the Greddylick could skewer the helpless creature, another toy appeared, out of seemingly nowhere. Then another. Then another. Soon the cavern held over twenty of the little rubber figures. They all followed the same behaviour. They would take one look at the Greddylick and launch themselves at it with a brave squeak of rage, plastering themselves to a part of its scaly body. Snarling and hissing, the Greddylick started to rip at the sticky blobs as they wriggled around. Wendell also decided to add to its discomfort by whizzing around the Greddylick’s head, narrowly avoiding being punctured by its sharp teeth.
The Greddylick got so enraged it slashed at the figures with the talon on its forearm. A similar blade appeared on its other arm, and then two more appeared on each of its shins. Although the creatures were an obvious irritation to the Greddylick, he managed to cut some of them off. The figures would limp away, clutching bits of their limbs, and would stick bits of their arms and legs back to themselves until they would slowly become whole again. One jelly man found itself cut in half and crawled on its torso over to its legs. Although they could seemingly reattach various limbs, the severed jelly men seemed to be sluggish and disorientated. It looked like the Greddylick had started to wear them down. Swatting away the creatures with ease now, the Greddylick turned its attention back to Stella.
“Pathetic. Your little friends won’t save you,” it sneered and retrieved the mind-squeezer from the cavern floor.
The sound of Helix barking echoed across the cavern, and the Greddylick gave a hiss of rage. “Keep your mind, then, little girl. What there is of it. The deeper your despair when we meet again.”
It grabbed hold of Tom, who was seemingly frozen in fear, his hand still clutching Stella’s pendant.
“Tell Dodds that I now have Parhelian’s flame, and the galaxy will again taste the wrath of the Greddylick.”
The Greddylick levitated into the air, pulling Tom behind him, and dragged them both into the hatchway of the spacecraft. Stella could now see Helix, the peeper strapped to his head, piercing the darkness of the cavern. Behind him sprinted Doctor Dodds and Grandas.
They both arrived at Stella’s side just in time to see the spacecraft spear out of the cavern, carrying with it the Greddylick, Tom and the seven-pointed star.
***