Doubting Thomas

  Thomas stared at Kevin.

  ‘She died after a trip to France,’ said Kevin. ‘From food poisoning. Which she got in Paris.’

  There was a long silence. Thomas watched Mum think about this. She was still crouched down next to him and he desperately hoped she couldn’t feel the massive itchy vibrations coming off his nipples.

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that, Kevin,’ said Mum. ‘When did your nan die?’

  Kevin hesitated.

  ‘Um… last year,’ he said. ‘Or the year before.’

  Mum didn’t say anything. Thomas held his breath. After a few moments he realised Mum wasn’t speaking because she was feeling emotional.

  She reached over and patted Kevin on the arm.

  Then she put her arms round Thomas and squeezed him tight.

  ‘You’re a very kind and thoughtful boy,’ she murmured into Thomas’s ear. ‘Letting Kevin think you’re doing this for him. And you’re a wonderful son for letting me and Dad finally have a honeymoon.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Thomas.

  He didn’t know what else to say.

  Mum stood up and gave them all a warm smile.

  ‘Even though it’s not the best time for me to be going overseas,’ she said, ‘I think we’re all going to have a very happy week. And I’m going to share a secret with you. One of the things me and Dad have always wanted to do is have a picnic under the Eiffel Tower in Paris.’

  Thomas couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

  It was the perfect way to take Mum and Dad’s minds off their problems.

  He waited while Mum went back to her seat, then gave Kevin a grateful grin and saw that Holly was doing the same.

  Kevin’s right, thought Thomas. I worry too much. With friends like I’ve got, everything’s going to be fine.

  As long as I can stay alive.

  16

  The Paris metro was amazing.

  A gleaming underground train with rubber wheels hissed out of a tunnel and sped towards the platform in gusts of warm air that smelled of garlic.

  Thomas knew if he wasn’t feeling so strange he’d be enjoying it as much as the other two.

  ‘Brilliant,’ said Kevin as they got into a crowded carriage where you didn’t have to sit down, you could stand up and hang off plastic handles if you wanted.

  ‘It’s very clean,’ said Holly as the train accelerated into the tunnel without a single cough or lurch.

  ‘Wow,’ said Kevin as the tunnel walls started to flash by at speeds unheard of in Australian tunnels.

  ‘What a well laid out urban transport system,’ said Holly as she studied the plan of the Paris metro above the carriage door. But between gazes she threw anxious glances at Thomas.

  Thomas didn’t want to spoil the experience for Holly, so he tried not to look too weary.

  ‘Six more stops to Denfert-Rochereau,’ he said, studying the plan with her.

  ‘It’s dead quiet,’ said Kevin. ‘For a train.’

  Thomas didn’t say anything.

  Kevin was probably right, but Thomas couldn’t tell because his head was still full of the fuzzy roaring sound from the plane.

  In the taxi from the airport he’d told himself it was just the echo of the jet engines in his brain.

  ‘It’ll fade,’ Holly had told him at the hotel when he’d mentioned it to her.

  But it hadn’t faded.

  It was getting stronger.

  Thomas closed his eyes and let the rubber wheels of the train whisper to him through the weird worrying noise in his head.

  ‘Doubters, doubters, doubters,’ they said. ‘Die, die, die. Young, young, young.’

  Thomas didn’t blame the wheels. In fact he felt grateful to them.

  They were speeding him closer to Vera Poulet.

  The woman in the Denfert-Rochereau pet-grooming parlour stared at Thomas and Holly and Kevin as if they were scruffy pets in urgent need of grooming.

  Thomas understood why.

  It was a very expensive pet-grooming parlour, full of expensive furniture and expensive sinks and expensive smells. The French people going past outside on the wide elegant tree-lined street were wearing expensive French clothes and driving expensive French cars. The expensive pets being groomed inside the parlour looked like they’d already been groomed, at great expense, about ten minutes ago.

  Amazing, thought Thomas. This place is twice as flash as Mum’s salon, and she does people.

  Thomas caught sight of himself and Holly and Kevin in a big mirror. They didn’t look French, or expensive. They looked like they’d recently got off a plane after a twenty-two hour trip without a comb or an iron between them.

  Vera Poulet will understand, thought Thomas.

  Once she realises who we are.

  ‘Excuse me,’ he said to the woman. ‘Are you Vera Poulet?’

  She didn’t look much like the photo of Vera Poulet on Holly’s computer, but Mum had explained to Thomas years ago that people could look quite different with their hair done or a good moisturiser.

  The woman was frowning.

  ‘Nous chercher Vera Poulet,’ said Holly, reading from her laptop.

  ‘Non,’ said the woman crossly. ‘Pas ici.’

  Thomas knew she was telling the truth. His nipples weren’t even tingling. Unlike the nipples of the poodle being shampooed nearby, which were quivering with indignation at being interrupted by scruffs.

  ‘Salon de chouchou de Denfert-Rochereau?’ asked Holly, reading from her screen again.

  ‘Quoi?’ said the woman, sounding even crosser.

  ‘Non.’

  Still no nipple itch.

  Thomas turned away disappointed. This woman wasn’t Vera Poulet and this place wasn’t the Denfert-Rochereau pet-grooming parlour.

  ‘We’re here about his nipples,’ said Kevin loudly to the woman. ‘Nipples.’

  ‘Allez-vous en!’ shouted the woman. ‘Allez immediatement. J’appelle les autorités.’

  ‘Let’s get out of here,’ said Kevin. ‘She’s gunna call the cops.’

  ‘Do you speak French?’ Thomas asked him as they ran outside.

  ‘No,’ said Kevin. ‘But when people threaten to call the police, my nipples itch.’

  An hour later, in a quiet back street somewhere in the Denfert-Rochereau area, Thomas pressed his aching head against the wall of a shuttered apartment building and begged Paris to be honest with him.

  ‘Please,’ he whispered.

  He didn’t go into detail. There wasn’t time to explain everything to Paris. How Mum and Dad would panic if they woke up from their afternoon nap in the hotel and found he and Holly and Kevin had snuck off. How Vera Poulet had information about doubters that Thomas desperately needed if he was going to stay alive much longer.

  ‘We need to find the Denfert-Rochereau pet-grooming parlour,’ he whispered. ‘To cure my nipples.’

  Thomas felt a bit dopey talking to a city, but he was desperate.

  When you got away from the main boulevards, the street layout in Paris was very confusing. Narrow alleyways that just stopped at dead ends. Cobbled carparks that weren’t on the map. Signposts that pointed at brick walls or other signposts.

  Kevin was squatting on the ground again, moaning about sore feet and hunger pains.

  Holly was frowning at the map on her laptop screen again, like she had in the last forty-seven streets they’d been in.

  ‘We’re lost,’ she groaned.

  ‘Great,’ said Kevin. ‘If I don’t find some jelly snakes soon I’m gunna pass out.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Holly to Thomas. ‘On the plane I said this wouldn’t happen.’

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ said Thomas.

  Then suddenly he had an idea. It was obvious. Why hadn’t he thought of it before?

  ‘Maybe we’re looking for the wrong place,’ he said.

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Holly.

  ‘Vera Poulet works at the Denfert-Rochereau Catacombs, right?’

&nb
sp; ‘Right,’ said Holly.

  ‘If she’s still there,’ said Kevin gloomily.

  ‘Listen,’ said Thomas. ‘Maybe it’s not a pet-grooming parlour. Maybe the computer translated it wrong. Maybe a catacombs isn’t a place where cats get combed.’

  ‘Of course it is,’ said Kevin. ‘Get real.’

  ‘No,’ said Holly, staring at Thomas. ‘You could be right.’

  ‘Let’s ask someone,’ said Thomas.

  ‘Oh no,’ wailed Kevin. ‘We’re not going all the way back to that main street where the crowds are. The one without the jelly snakes.’

  ‘No need,’ said Thomas. ‘We’ll ask someone in this street.’

  The street was deserted.

  Thomas went over to the entrance of the nearest apartment building and pressed all the brass doorbell buttons several times each.

  He was still doing it when one of the upper window shutters banged open and a woman started shouting angrily at him in French.

  ‘Sorry to bother you,’ Thomas called up to her when she paused for breath. ‘Do you speak English?’

  The woman threw an empty milk carton which hit Thomas on the head. He assumed that meant she didn’t.

  ‘Catacombs,’ he shouted to the woman.

  An onion whistled past his head.

  ‘Catacombs,’ he pleaded. ‘Please.’

  ‘S’il vous plait,’ shouted Holly, reading from her laptop screen.

  Thomas wondered if they could get the computer to speak to the woman.

  Forget it.

  ‘Catacombs,’ he repeated more loudly, in case the woman had a hearing problem.

  She obviously didn’t. She finished what she was doing, which was throwing a turnip at Thomas, then paused and stared hard at the three of them.

  After a moment she pointed up the street, saying something in French that sounded less angry.

  Thomas waited for his nipples to detect she was lying.

  They didn’t.

  She wasn’t.

  ‘Thank you,’ he called to the woman.

  ‘Merci,’ said Holly.

  They headed up the street in the direction the woman had pointed. Thomas swapped grins with Holly and Kevin.

  It was a start.

  It was more than a start.

  At the end of the street and round the corner, they saw a signpost.

  Denfert-Rochereau Ossuary.

  It was pointing to a shiny black metal door in an old stone building. On the door was another sign.

  Entrée Des Catacombes.

  17

  Thomas pulled open the black metal door of the Denfert-Rochereau Catacombs, went inside and found himself standing in front of a small ticket booth.

  Sitting inside it was an elderly woman.

  She didn’t look much like the photo of Vera Poulet on Holly’s computer, but Mum had explained to Thomas years ago that a bad hairdo could change your appearance even more than dry skin.

  ‘Vera Poulet?’ asked Thomas.

  His chest was tingling. Not with nipple itch, with excitement.

  ‘En bas,’ said the woman, pointing downwards.

  Thomas was confused.

  Then he panicked.

  Did she mean Vera Poulet was dead and buried? Was he too late to discover how to survive as a doubter? Because if he was, he’d probably be dead and buried himself fairly soon.

  As Thomas struggled to stay calm, he felt Holly tapping him on the shoulder. She was pointing to some stone steps leading down into a stairwell.

  ‘I think she means Vera Poulet is down there,’ said Holly.

  Thomas felt dizzy with relief. He hurried over to the steps. There was a turnstile blocking his way.

  ‘N’oubliez pas les billets,’ called the woman in the ticket booth. ‘Excusezmoi.’

  ‘She doesn’t want us to run down the steps,’ said Kevin. ‘And she doesn’t want any excuses.’

  ‘Possibly,’ said Holly. ‘But what she’s saying is we have to buy tickets.’

  Thomas could feel the air getting colder and damper as the three of them plodded down the spiral stone steps. It felt like they were descending into the chill depths of the earth.

  ‘What is this place?’ whispered Holly.

  ‘Maybe it’s where people come to check out the Paris sewers,’ said Kevin. ‘You know, if you drop something down the toilet and want to get it back.’

  Thomas wished he’d looked at the information on the wall next to the ticket booth. Some of it might have been in English. But OK, there were times when you didn’t stop to read instructions. Getting a new video game, for example, or meeting the person who could save your life.

  At last they came to the bottom of the steps.

  Ahead of them was a long gloomy tunnel.

  Thomas didn’t hesitate. He headed off into the gloom with Holly and Kevin close behind him.

  Then he had a thought and stopped and turned to them.

  ‘I’m really grateful you’re both here,’ he said. ‘But if it gets too scary and you want to go back up, I’ll understand.’

  In the dim light he could see Holly’s eyes, big and truthful.

  ‘Don’t be a dope,’ she said quietly.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Kevin. ‘Don’t be.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Thomas.

  He really meant it. He was feeling so jetlagged now, so weary and noisy in the head, that he wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep going on his own.

  They trudged into the tunnel.

  A small voice whispered in the gloom.

  It was Kevin’s.

  ‘Why might it get too scary?’

  Thomas decided the tunnel wasn’t a sewer, it was too dry for that.

  Which was a relief.

  It meant the fuzzy roaring in his head was still just the fuzzy roaring in his head, and not the distant sound of millions of litres of sewage hurtling along the tunnel towards them.

  ‘Look at the walls,’ said Holly.

  Every few metres there was a dull light in a metal bracket on the tunnel wall, and in each patch of light Thomas could see how the tunnel had been chipped out of the rock by hand.

  ‘It must have taken ages,’ said Holly.

  ‘Almost as long as it’s taking us to get to wherever we’re going,’ said Kevin.

  Thomas plodded on and tried not to think about Mum and Dad getting worried.

  ‘I think I know what this place is,’ said Holly suddenly. ‘My parents told me how wine and champagne in France is often stored underground in old tunnels that go for kilometres.’

  ‘Great,’ said Kevin. ‘Did they say how many kilometres?’

  Thomas had a thought.

  Maybe that’s how Vera Poulet had survived being a doubter and avoided dying young. By drinking lots of champagne.

  He shook his head.

  Silly idea.

  Why couldn’t he think properly any more?

  Was it jetlag or something worse?

  Suddenly Thomas heard voices. Low murmuring voices. Coming from around a corner up ahead where the tunnel joined a bigger tunnel.

  He took a deep breath and stepped into the bigger tunnel.

  And gasped.

  So did Holly.

  Kevin gave a squeak.

  Neatly stacked along the walls of this tunnel, from floor to roof, were thousands and thousands of bones.

  Millions of them. And not just kid millions, thought Thomas, stunned. Real millions. The tunnel was long and high and for as far as Thomas could see ahead, the walls were all bones.

  Thin bones.

  Thick bones.

  Towering stacks of them.

  Row upon row of skulls.

  ‘Human skulls,’ whispered Holly, her voice wobbly.

  Thomas could see human arm bones, too. And human leg bones. And human rib bones.

  ‘Jeez,’ whispered Kevin. ‘My dad always reckons drinking too much wine is bad for your health. Wait till I tell him about this place.’

  ‘This isn’t a wine
cellar,’ said Holly. ‘I don’t know what it is.’

  ‘I’ll tell you,’ said a deep voice with a French accent.

  Thomas spun round, startled.

  Sitting on a wooden chair under one of the lights was an elderly man in a uniform. He had black skin and grey whiskers.

  ‘These are the bones,’ said the man, stretching out his arms, ‘of seven million people. They all lived and died in Paris hundreds of years ago. They were buried in old cemeteries all over the city. When the cemetery lands were needed for new houses, their bones were dug up and brought down here to these old quarry tunnels.’

  Thomas realised who the man must be.

  An attendant, like in a museum, to make sure people didn’t take any of the bones home for their dogs.

  ‘Any questions?’ said the attendant.

  Thomas only had one.

  ‘Vera Poulet?’ he asked.

  The attendant looked surprised. Then he pointed along the tunnel of bones.

  The woman attendant was sitting on a chair as well. She was wearing a uniform like the man attendant and she was about as old as he was, and she had roughly as many wrinkles as he did.

  Everything else about her, Thomas saw as he approached, was different.

  She was taller than the man, even when she was sitting down. Her face was thin and serious, not smiley like his. Her hair was white and pinned up into a tight bun. Her arms were folded and she didn’t even glance at Thomas and Holly and Kevin, not even when they got close to her.

  Unlike the man, she looked very similar to the photo of Vera Poulet on Holly’s computer.

  ‘Excuse me,’ Thomas said to her, trembling with excitement.

  ‘Excusement-moi,’ said Holly, reading from the laptop.

  The woman continued to stare at the bones in front of her, which were glowing spookily in the light from the laptop screen.

  ‘Are you Vera Poulet?’ said Thomas softly.

  ‘Être-vous Vera Poulet?’ read Holly.

  The woman still ignored them.

  ‘If you are,’ said Kevin, ‘give us a sign. Blink three times.’

  ‘Hang on,’ said Holly, tapping her laptop keys. ‘I can’t keep up. What came after blink?’

  Thomas saw it didn’t matter. The woman was still ignoring them.

  He stood right in front of her.