T-E-S-S-I-E Spells Trouble, Chapter Three

Robbie and Peter were nowhere near the doors they’d come in by when they saw they weren’t going to make it. A shape was rising up from the shadows to obstruct their path, and both boys knew what it was. Peter like a panicking rabbit shifted trajectory without checking his stride, all but wrenching poor Robbie’s arm out of its socket as he dragged him along behind him. The downward stairs they’d dreaded to look at had just become their last escape-route from a second protracted stay at Gachna’s torture-chamber.

Taking the rickety descent in necessitous tiny pattering steps verged on more than the boys could bear, when bulging eyes and fish-lips and fangs urged a far greater turn of speed.

Never even mind the jolting. Each free hand was needed by now to clench tight.

“Oh! Oh! Oh!” broke from Peter’s parted lips and “Oh! Oh! Oh!” from Robbie’s a split second after, as scrambling sneaker-soles slapped on boards then skidded into space again.

Speaking of torture! It was some sort of mercy to be back on level ground again, even compacted earth in a musty basement which was all but black. All but.

“A window!” wheezed Peter with the last of his breath. “Robbie, come on!”

They made a break for the dim slanting shaft, but pounding hearts sank and spare hands gripped more desperately than ever when the puny light disclosed a sloping dirt-tunnel too steep to climb, and high up at the end of it the silhouette of bars.

Armour was jangling and flat feet stamping on the top steps. It was not so pitchy as to conceal tridents and daggers and vicious needle-points.

“We’ve got to try!” Peter panted, and though weak with fright made his best bid to push Robbie by the shoes and shorts-seat onto the scrabbly insurmountable hillside. Robbie shovelled and scraped for all he was worth, throwing gritty fistfuls down on Peter again, both boys burning up the energy lent by terror even after strength was exhausted. They might even have continued thus for three or four frenzied heartbeats more, had not Sheila materialized in her swimming-costume inches from Peter and summarily stopped his.

Doubtless the day was soon to come when she’d have that effect on every boy, and Peter only hoped her long line of admirers would be spared the side-effect to which he so nearly succumbed, thudding pantswise to the hard floor with Robbie on top of him. Not that the sight of Sheila was by any means unwelcome for all that.

“Sis, am I glad to see you!” Robbie moaned.

“There’s an underground passage outside that leads to a basement door!” Sheila reported at once, pointing back the way she’d come. “The creatures are everywhere and one’s standing guard, but I turned invisible and with all the coming and going I was able to slip through the door when another one of them had opened it, and then all I had to do was listen out for you and find my way to where you were!”

Darkness swarming with the unspeakable closed in all around, as though to extinguish the one feeble ray which fell yet from on high.

“How does that help us, Sheila?” Peter hinted, not liking to be the one to say it.

Robbie clung to his sister, whimpering with hopelessness and need. A second or two and Peter was sure he’d be doing the same. Sheila meanwhile rolled her eyes and made answer.

“Because I’ve got to tell you when to – ”

The wall where the window was exploded.

Substance and light were thrown in one cacophonous thunderous upheaval, the former hurtling safely over heads to spread itself across the basement’s far reaches, while there was no foul corner or fusty nook the latter failed to touch. Sheila had been expecting such a ruckus, and little knew how lucky she was. Peter and Robbie fairly squealed.

In an instant, talons were scrambling on ash to keep their horrendous bearers ahead of the streaming solar flood. This was not so much because anybody or anything present was nocturnal in the strictest sense, but rather that the halo of radiance framed by broken brick had become backdrop to one enormous-shouldered form. It was Vramm, determined of chops, and he aimed at the basement a photon rifle around the size of all three children put together.

So swift and clamorous was the rout that masses of motes lingered in the sunbeams long after it was done. The noise of two boys’ breathing seemed loud amid the newfound still.

“I didn’t go into the haunted house,” said Tessie, her head hanging low. “I only saw it for a second, in the rain, when we were passing on the way to our chalet. Just wanted to dare the boys, and then get rid of you, Sheila.”

Her last addressee needed something like a minute before she could even start.

“And why should any of us believe a single word of that, you little lying creep?” Sheila flung. “You’ve just admitted you’ve not told the truth even once all day, and – ”

Suddenly Tessie was glaring.

“So why don’t you go ahead and say it all, Sheila?” she defied her. “Tell everyone what sort of person you think I am. That I knew all about those monsters, and sent your little brother to them anyway? And then that I kept Calvin with me, even though you’d told me he has powers, and he could have helped? Is that what you’re saying about me, Sheila? I mean, do you think I need to feel any worse?”

It was more awkward than any of the youngsters had bargained on, and Vramm looked most aghast of all.

“I’m supposed to be on holiday,” begged Tessie, her voice trembling. “You play games and do dares and have fun, right? I’ve not been here as long as you. How was I supposed to know?”

Calvin heaved a huge sigh.

He was in no mood to be forgiving. Peter and Robbie were by him, both visibly mortified and hurt, their day out roundly ruined. Had Tessie done something like that to any younger brother of Calvin’s, she’d have been wise to head back to her chalet and start packing now, girl or not. His disgust in her was as great as Sheila’s own, and nor did Calvin balk from admitting he was sicker still at himself, for having been so flattered by Tessie’s attentions at the pool as to overlook how much was obviously amiss. When Sheila, nothing moved, grumbled words to the effect that somebody needn’t let the camp hit her in her stripey bum on the way out, Calvin’s first impulse was to side with her.

Yet a five-strong gang, facing down one, who seemed by now on the brink of tears? That wasn’t what Calvin called good sportsmanship, especially not when one of the five was a giant.

It wouldn’t have suited Mini-Flash Juniper either.

Calvin knew that no matter the circumstances, she’d have striven to be fair. And if she meant as much to him as he professed, now was surely the time to prove it.

“Tessie didn’t know, Sheila,” he therefore told her at last. “None of us did on our first day. And now that she does, she’ll be more careful. So how about we all start over? Maybe we’ll even come out of it friends. That’s what holidays are supposed to be about too.”

No-one disputed this, and the amicable solution came as a relief to most. So it was that after arranging with Tessie to meet tomorrow, the others bade her goodnight, some admittedly still with reluctance but others in genuine hope for the success of Calvin’s proposal. Tessie watched them go until they were out of sight, Vramm’s vast back dwindling last of all.

“Got all that, did you?” she then said aloud.

From some shaded plane behind her and unseen crept the crooning tones of Gachna, master of chains.

“Were you in any way exceptional, wretch, you might have been of tangible use from the moment you stumbled on us,” that one declared. “I confess, it amused me you were the first of your kind to attempt to strike a deal. Know however my patience is not limitless.”

“You’ll get what you asked for,” retorted Tessie. “You nearly did today.”

“That we knew not of their pet buffoon is why I grant you another chance,” came back from Gachna coldly. “That you allowed personal desire to interfere is why it will be your last.”

“Can’t blame a girl for trying,” was how Tessie answered him.

Her tone would have warned a human listener it was time to drop the subject. No more, just now, on Calvin having slipped an arm round Sheila while he was leading her away.

And absolutely nothing more on the pair of them having made Tessie crawl.

She let out her breath slowly, between bared teeth.

But Gachna, of course, knew. He wasn’t the liar Tessie was. He’d told her she amused him, and he’d meant it.

What cost, a second attempt? It was evident the tool held untapped potential.

Not often in Gachna’s line of work did like call out to like.

“You’ll get them,” Tessie vowed again. “Just leave little carrot-top to me. She’s going the right way about disappearing for good.”

END OF CHAPTER THREE