Jay, Lizzie and the Tale of the Stairs

  Chapter 43

  Back to the Junction Sphere

  But nothing happened.

  I counted the long seconds of silence, all the time expecting to see the man who Lizzie thought was Hitler standing over me. Instead I heard the soft click of his walking stick on the damp concrete floor as he walked back to the young woman, dragging one leg like before.

  I never saw his face again. When I finally found the courage to look the woman was leading him by his good hand towards the wooden steps and the click-click-click of his walking stick. When they reached the steps they began to climb slowly, noisily. When we heard the door at the top of the stairs open, then shut, we knew it was time to move.

  I was first up, then Lizzie, then Rosie, all of us breathing a huge sigh of relief. As Rosie got to her feet she dislodged the top of one of the boxes we had been hiding behind. A lid that was already loose. It jumped up and came down with a loud crack.

  We all held our breaths and listened for voices or running footsteps.

  But no-one came.

  “Sorry!” whispered Rosie guiltily and it was then that I saw something glisten inside the box. The lid had come down awkwardly and left a big gap. Although it was almost pitch black I peered in further. It looked like something dull and black had somehow caught whatever weak light made it down here.

  I reached in and felt cold, hard metal. I moved the lid clear and got a firm hold of the heavy object within. With a series of soft clicks the metal object came away from others similar inside.

  I lifted it clear.

  It was a machine gun.

  I looked at it with the kind of fascination that boys have with guns. Then I looked doubtfully at Lizzie, then at Rosie.

  “Brilliant!” I heard Lizzie say in the gloom.

  I wasn’t so sure. I held it up and turned it towards the light like it was something that had been buried for a thousand years.

  “Is it loaded?” asked Lizzie.

  “I dunno!” I said. “Hang on while I fire it to find out.”

  “Very funny. Better bring it with us though.”

  I agreed.

  Rosie had delved into the box and had found what I recognised to be a hand grenade and a pistol. Lizzie took the pistol and I told Rosie to put the grenade in her pocket.

  “Watch the handle bit on top,” I told her.

  “I know,” she replied, stuffing the grenade into the pocket of her dress. “It’s called the pin. I’m not stupid.”

  I found the machine gun difficult to carry. For one it was heavy. In the films they make carrying a machine gun look so cool and easy but it was difficult as it didn’t have a strap. Another problem was actually using the thing. I was pretty certain that I would if I had to but actually killing a person was a different matter. I didn’t want to think about that. Anyway, the gun probably wasn’t loaded and I wasn’t going to risk discovery by finding out.

  So we were back on track, Lizzie clutching the pistol with both hands, Rosie making sure her grenade was safely still in her dress pocket.

  And I had the machine gun tucked into my hip.

  We stopped. Up ahead we saw the steel door that led into the wider shelter and, beyond it, there would be the Junction Sphere.

  “What do we do now?” asked Lizzie urgently.

  We had tucked ourselves against the earth wall again and out of sight of anybody who might be looking through the hole that I knew was in the door.

  “I’m not sure,” I answered.

  We knelt down and thought.

  There was no way of forcing the door open. It was just too strong. There was almost certainly someone guarding the door on the other side. That was another problem.

  “There’s only one thing for it,” said Lizzie after we had been thinking for a while. “We’re going to have to bluff our way through.”

  “Bluff?” I coughed. “How?”

  “Your oldest trick in the book.”

  “My oldest trick?”

  “Yes. The ghost trick.”

  This seemed like a good idea but, like when we first used it as a diversion, it was a good idea that went bad. So I told Lizzie what I thought.

  “Can you think of anything better?”

  To be honest, I couldn’t. And neither could Rosie who still clutched the grenade in the pocket of her dress like the nasty surprise it was.

  We decided that I’d wave my arms about in the same lame, ghost-like way that I had done before. When someone came to investigate we would nip in through the door and if things got awkward we could use our weapons to persuade the guards. If things got really bad then, well, again I didn’t want to think about that.

  Lizzie and Rosie positioned themselves just out of sight, beside the opening. I swallowed hard and stood up about three or four feet in front of the heavy metal door. I waved my arms around like I was drowning at sea and even managed some ‘boos’.

  It seemed like I was doing this for ages. When nothing happened I dropped my arms and stared hopelessly at the girls and shrugged.

  “Keep going, keep going!” ordered Lizzie, irritated that I’d given up so easily.

  It was just as I was raising my arms again that we heard a bolt being drawn back on the other side. As planned I ducked down out of sight and joined the girls, picking up the machine gun from beside Lizzie.

  With a horrible, grinding creak of dry metal the door opened slowly outwards. After a few seconds we could hear two men whispering nervously together in German. I gripped the gun tightly. Then a suited leg stepped cautiously into the tunnel. This was slowly followed by another. Then the man himself. Like most of the people down here he was dressed in a 1940’s suit with a hat. What I was more concerned about though was the pistol the man held out in front of him. Nervous blood banged and clattered around my ears once again and I asked myself how much more of this I could take.

  But, so far, it was working. The man nimbly crept out of the door way, letting the muzzle of his pistol lead him. He didn’t see us, flattened against the earth wall right beside the door. The man had moved quite a way into the tunnel – and I was about to give the signal to sneak inside – when The Face appeared. I knew it was him because of his broad shoulders and square jaw. Looking up at him he looked massive and I instantly asked myself what he was capable of doing to someone.

  That was something else I didn’t want to think about.

  Luck stayed with us. The Face didn’t have a gun and followed the man in the hat warily out into the tunnel. He was three or four steps inside and I was just about to move when he must have caught something out of the corner of his eye.

  The Face’s head turned and he looked directly at us.

  From somewhere courage sprang up inside me. I looked him square in the eyes and raised the muzzle of the machine gun.

  What happened next was totally unexpected. A look of surprise passed over The Face’s huge features when he saw that I held a machine gun. He raised both his hands. Meanwhile, the other man was unaware of what was happening behind him and carried on up the dark tunnel. Not believing my luck I got to my feet and told Lizzie and Rosie to get through the door. They scuttled in through the opening and all the time I covered The Face with the muzzle of the gun. As soon as the girls were both inside the door I joined them. I didn’t take my eyes off The Face. I was scared stiff that at any moment he’d take a lunge at me. After all I was just a scrawny teenager. But he didn’t. There was a moment of panic as I fumbled with the gun and the handle of the door and I could see The Face looking for an opportunity to make a move. The opportunity passed when, with a screech of metal on metal and a hollow clang, I managed to close the heavy door. Now we were on the inside I couldn’t resist a peek through the small spy-hole that was clear on this side. I saw The Face shout at the man who had disappeared up the tunnel and they both rushed towards the other side of the door. I heard them struggling faintly as they tried to open it. I backed away and joined Lizzie and Rosie.

  That’s it. We were trapped and ther
e was only two possible ways out - through the Junction Sphere or as a prisoner again.

  A third way was far worse.

  We all understood that and we looked at each other uncertainly. We didn’t even know how the J-Sphere worked or even if we could use it to escape. It was a long shot and we really didn’t have a choice.

  We were near the main part of the shelter now and all was still apart for the heavy humming of the Sphere. I held a finger to my lips as a signal for quiet but the noise from the Sphere itself covered our footsteps. Like before, we heard the bang and crash of its power long before we saw it. On hearing this Rosie cowered against one of the concrete walls. Fingers held fearfully to her mouth. We insisted that she be brave.

  The shelter itself was deserted. It seemed that everybody had gone to bed and left chairs scattered and tables empty, but The Junction Sphere still held the same kind of fascination it did the first time we saw it. Colours moved freely over its surface and you couldn’t help but gaze in wonder at the huge ball of ever-changing light. It displayed all the colours of the rainbow and every one in between. As we watched a shower of sparks like sudden summer flowers shot out and fell to the floor of the shelter. Red and orange globs of power. Then they bounced away like tennis balls. We stood watching for long seconds before we forced ourselves out of our trance and into action.

  “What now?” muttered Lizzie.

  I gripped the cold metal of the machine gun for reassurance. “Let’s go take a look.”

  The sheer power of the Sphere was obvious and although I had never stood directly under an electricity pylon I guessed that this is what it might be like. The drone vibrating down through the floor and up through our feet felt like a train at full speed passing close by. As soon as I thought we were close enough I held out my hand for us to stop. We just didn’t know what sort of energy we were dealing with.

  “How do you think it works?” Lizzie’s question was an obvious one and it was exactly what I was thinking.

  I looked around for something to throw at it. The people who came down here to gaze at the Sphere were tidy as the tables were clear and wiped clean. There was really nothing around to throw. I laid the machine gun on the floor of the shelter then walked to the nearest chair. It was an old wooden one and heavy but if I got close enough I could just about manage to lob it at the Sphere to see what happens. It was a basic experiment but we just didn’t have a clue how this dangerous but beautiful looking object worked at all.

  Both Lizzie and Rosie saw what I was up to and moved back to a safe distance. With difficulty I brought the chair up to shoulder height and then counted to three then I heaved the thing at the outside of the Sphere. Instantly there was a huge bang and splatter of sparks as the chair clumped against the outside of the Sphere and fell back to the shelter floor. The three of us ducked away to what we thought was a safe distance and watched as the Sphere’s colours then changed to moody, muddy browns, greens and glittery blacks. Only slowly did it return to the happy colours of before.

  “It’s almost alive!” I said and, as silly as it sounds, it did seem like the J-Sphere was able to protect itself. Like any living thing it hadn’t liked something thrown at it. It had blocked it and had shown its anger with those dark and grumpy colours.

  Suddenly, a single, slow hand clap.

  “Splendid! Splendid! Well done!”

  And Dr Meen slid out of the shadows and into the glow of the Junction-Sphere.