POWER AND FURY Page 18

  A pain, like a stubborn splinter, pierced her. For the first time in years, the long, thick scar beneath the mop of bright orange hair on her forehead throbbed, giving her a pressing headache.

  She’d never seen or heard anything like it. Instantly, she recognised the gravity of the children’s situation.

  The longer it went on, the more she pined, as though the cord that tied her to her children was being ripped apart and pins pressed slowly into her heart. She tried to soldier on and put these feelings behind her. She had to. They would return, she was sure of it. Old Man Wood would find them.

  But what if they didn’t? What if her children were stuck out there?

  Tears swam down her cheeks, falling in drops on the wooden surface. Her head pulsed with doubt and sorrow as she cradled it in her hands and wept.

  Realisation dawned on her that if this storm continued, and if Old Man Wood was to go after them, she might be alone in the world for the very first time.

  Fifty-Six

  Gus’ Quiz

  ‘Oh, ARK!’ Sue exclaimed. ‘As in, "Joan of Arc".’

  Gus clapped slowly. ‘Blimey. At long last. Remind me never to partner you in a pub quiz. Ever.’

  ‘You mean,’ Sue said, ‘you’ve actually been to a pub quiz?’

  ‘Of course, every Friday night with my dad.’

  ‘Really? My parents never do that kind of thing. What’s it like?’

  Gus wondered if he should make it sound exciting. ‘Well, it’s OKAY. Actually, it’s quite nerdy, so you’d probably like it.’

  Sue’s eyes sparkled. Gus was full of surprises. Just goes to show, she thought, you really can’t tell a book by its cover. ‘So, what subjects are you good at?’

  Gus made his brainiest face, which made him look pretty stupid. ‘Particle physics, geography, English history from 1066, current world affairs and, yeah, modern American history.’

  ‘You’re joking me!’

  ‘Try me. Go on,’ Gus said, moving even closer.

  Sue didn’t know what to think. She screwed up her face as though deep in thought and asked: ‘Which President of the United States of America wrote the Declaration of Independence?’

  Gus scratched his chin and made lots of quite odd-looking faces. ‘Abraham Lincoln—’

  ‘Ha, wrong—’

  ‘Won the Civil War,’ Gus continued, ignoring her. ‘Thomas Jefferson was the main author of the Declaration of Independence.’ He tried hard not to smile. But he did raise his eyebrows. And they were huge eyebrows.

  Sue couldn’t believe it. ‘Correct,’ she said, trying to think of another question. ‘Name the English monarch who came after William Rufus.’

  ‘You can do better than that, sexy Sue.’ He pulled a serious face. ‘William Rufus, heir to William the Conqueror. Shot by an arrow by a noble who thought he was a knob-end. Succeeded by Henry, as in Henry the first, also a son of the Conqueror, who sat on the throne for a middle-age marathon of thirty-five years.’

  Sue shrieked. She couldn’t believe it. ‘Gus, you’re brilliant at this. Why are you such an idiot in class?’

  Gus shrugged. ‘Low tolerance to teachers.’

  A clunking noise stopped them in their tracks. Gus raced up to the bow step. ‘‘The Joan of’ has hit the roof,’ he yelled. ‘Here we go.’ Gus ducked his head inside the canopy. ‘I hope you’re ready for this. Pass me that long bit of wood and sit at the end. And Sue...’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Whatever you do, don’t scream. It won’t help.’

  Gus had never really expected the water to rise quite so high, nor so fast. In fact, he was pretty sure they’d remain in the boathouse, quite safe from the tempest outside. Now, it was different.

  He grappled with the piece of wood, eventually holding its base, and thrust it up towards the corrugated sheeting directly above. Come on, you little beauty. Move. Nothing happened. He changed his tack, trying to lever the roofing off. Move, you little tick, he murmured, as he pushed the wood with all his might.

  As he pushed, he became aware that the entire building had begun to move. Gus stopped hammering on the roof and watched as the shed began to drift off all on its own. He couldn’t believe it.

  He wondered if, incredibly, the buoyancy of their boat had given buoyancy to the entire building, and now it had gone adrift with them inside it. That, or he was suddenly immensely strong.

  The only thing he knew for sure was that the whole unit was moving quickly into the swollen floodwaters. As far as he could tell, they were safe. In fact, he rather suspected they were safer than any place they could otherwise have expected to end up in, so long as ‘The Joan of’ didn’t fall apart.

  He ducked down under the canopy to find Sue crying hysterically.

  ‘Everything ship-shape and dandy, Captain,’ he said, saluting.

  Sue looked confused. ‘What’s happening, Gus? I’m scared.’

  Gus shrugged. ‘I pushed the roof and the entire shed came away. Funny thing is, I always suspected I had superpowers.’

  ‘Is it safe?’

  Gus looked at her blankly. ‘Truthfully?’ He shrugged. ‘I’ve no idea, but, so far, so good. Now, how about another brainteaser.’ He sat down and put his legs up. ‘Can’t wait all day.’

  Sue peered up at him. She simply couldn’t believe his brazen attitude to the disaster unfolding around them. The boat lurched and her eyes widened. But Gus rubbed his eyes and yawned.

  ‘Gus Williams,’ she said. ‘I don’t know how you do it.’ She took a couple of deep breaths to settle her nerves. ‘We’re on the verge of plunging into Armageddon and you want another teaser?’

  Gus nodded. ‘Yeah. Absolutely.’

  ‘Good Lord. Okay. Physics question—you said you were good at physics, right?’ He nodded. A question popped into her head. ‘Where does bad light end up?’

  Gus confidently put his feet on the seat. He was grinning like mad, which Sue later discovered was a sign that his brain was working. ‘Okay,’ he began cagily, ‘either it’s in an ohm?’ Sue giggled but shook her head. ‘OR,’ and there was quite a long pause. He clicked his fingers, ‘In a prism?’

  Sue clapped her hands. ‘Brilliant! You’re a big, bloody genius, aren’t you?’

  Gus was bursting with pride. Big and genius—in the same sentence—from delicious, sexy Sue. He hardly dared tell her he’d read the answers in a magazine at the dentist. ‘One for you,’ he said. ‘What did the male magnet say to the female magnet?’

  Sue burst out laughing. ‘I’m seriously attracted to you?’ She turned purple on the spot.

  Gus caught her eye. ‘Not bad. Want another try?’

  Sue shook her head. ‘Tell me.’

  Gus looked quite serious. ‘From your backside,’ he began, ‘I thought you were repulsive. However, from the front I find you rather attractive.’

  Sue clapped her hands and laughed as Gus punched the air.

  Suddenly, a terrible noise, like the body of a car scraping along a road, stopped both of them in their tracks.

  Gus slipped out the front. Then he dived back in, and dashed toward Sue at the rear. ‘Move up front,’ he ordered.

  Sue shuffled up as Gus headed out of the canopy at the bow.

  Seconds later, he reappeared. Without hesitating, he sat in the middle of the boat and grabbed the oars. He started to row, pushing the oars in the water to go backwards, as fast as he could.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Sue cried.

  ‘Our time has come. ‘The Joan of’s’ moment has arrived.’

  With a terrible crunching noise, the back end of the shed levered high into the air, as if the nose had dived headlong into the water. Gus took a deep breath and, praying ‘The Joan of’ held together, he rowed with all his might. The little boat plunged backwards, creeping under the raised end, out into the river.

  Now, for the first time, rain whammed into the canopy and the boat rocked in the water the sound like a relentless pounding of drums.

  After a c
ouple of minutes, Sue put her head out as far as she dared, and tried to survey the scene. The only things she could see were the faint outlines of cars, wood, and sections of plastic, bobbing along beside them.

  She ducked under the canopy, her face ashen.

  ‘Everything all right?’ Gus yelled, noting the distress in her face.

  ‘Isabella, Daisy, and Archie are in this, with no protection,’ she yelled back. ‘They haven’t got a hope.’

  ‘They’ll be fine,’ he yelled back. He looked down. ‘Sue,’ he hollered. ‘Get a bucket NOW and start bailing!’

  Fifty-Seven

  Old Man Wood Finds A Clue

  Old Man Wood stared around his room and thumped the air.

  ‘What a marvel-blister of a goal!’ he roared.

  He stared at the ceiling, a big smile on his face, his head sizzling as though a rocket had detonated gone off. His entire body tingled.

  ‘What a wonder-apple-tastic dream,’ he said to the empty room.

  His foot throbbed. ‘Ouch!’

  He discovered he’d walloped the end of his bed and, looking closer, noticed a hole in the wooden board that covered the bed-end. He studied it, pulling a few wooden splinters away, chuckling at the absurdity of it all.

  Old Man Wood wiggled his toes, grateful that he’d lain on his bed with his shoes on. Leaning forward, he heard the rain pounding down and his heart sank. His earlier worries flew back to him. He kicked at the broken piece of wood, as though recreating the goal might lift his spirits. It wasn’t the same.

  He climbed off his bed and peered out of the window, but the rain was so heavy he saw only grey lines.

  His heart filled with heaviness.

  Were the children safely tucked away in the school? What if they were outside trying to get home. What could he do?

  If something happened, he was responsible.

  Old Man Wood lay down.

  He looked at the hole in the wooden panel. A tiny flicker of light, like a dim torch whose batteries were running low, leeched out from behind it.

  Now, wasn’t that strange, he thought. A trick of the light?

  He tried the light switches. None of the house lights were working.

  Maybe he should crank up the generator. At least it would give him something to do. He swung his feet off the bed and, as he did so, the flicker from behind the wooden panel intensified for a second or two.

  He inspected the hole a little closer and found that there was indeed a faint glow emanating from behind it. He prised it open with his fingers and, feeling more than a little intrigued, began to wrestle with the wooden surround that covered the bed-end.

  Old Man Wood found a torch, and went to his tool cupboard under the stairs. He selected a crowbar and returned his room.

  Old Man Wood wedged the metal in behind the panel. He attempted to lever the wood away by leaning on it gently but firmly, as he thought necessary. But whatever angle he tried, the panel would not budge.

  He scratched his head and slipped out of the room, returning moments later with a flat head screwdriver and a hammer. Old Man Wood thrust the flat head into the tiniest of gaps and gave the end a smart whack with the hammer. The nails securing the panel lifted a fraction.

  Placing the crowbar in the newly created gap, he levered it once more. After a few more hits, the panel popped off.

  He rubbed his chin. ‘Well, I’ll be blowed,’ he said, as he ran his fingers over the three panels that now stared back at him. ‘What in the apples do we have here?’

  In front of him were three beautifully inlaid panels that seemed to glow like three small monitors, rather like the children’s computers. The difference was that these were part of the bed, and were surrounded by similar, matching carvings.

  He stared at them for a while, his face a picture of confusion and the wrinkles on his forehead deeply etched. Every now and then, images in the panels moved, causing Old Man Wood’s heart to race.

  Was he seeing things?

  Overlying the images he noticed a blurry, streaky haze, as if, somehow, he were looking through water.

  Maybe, it was mirroring the weather right now.

  As he became more accustomed to the movements, the images on them became a little clearer, until he realised each panel focused on a figure.

  ‘Three panels, three figures,’ he said out loud. ‘And why do they look so familiar?’

  He studied the carvings to the sides of the screens.

  He touched an ornate arrow icon that faced away from the first panel. To his astonishment, the image moved out, exactly like a zoom on a camera.

  He did the same with the next panel pressing on the arrow that turned in. The picture zoomed closer.

  The blurry image showed a person in the panel who appeared to be walking, and tripping, as though trying to negotiate a pathway.

  He rubbed his hand over another carved icon adjacent to the arrow, which he thought looked rather like a cloud. He pressed it and magically the picture transformed, the layer of rain disappearing altogether from the image.

  Old Man Wood gasped as he stared at the new image. That balance and gait could only belong to one person, and that person was Daisy. He pressed the inward arrow a couple of times and saw her in detail.

  He was viewing the children, right now, in real time. He realised that if he could determine which buttons to press, he’d be able to see exactly where they were. He did the same to the panel on the right, pressing the cloud and zooming out.

  He clapped his hands. Archie! It was definitely Archie, with a kind of spiky hat on his head, sitting next to Daisy. But where were they?

  He zoomed out. They were by a large tree with a rope, or a creeper that hung down from a branch.

  The oak tree with the swing, it had to be.

  He pressed the away arrow and the image zoomed out even further. Apples alive! Look at the water gushing down the track.

  He clenched his fists. Oh deary! No, no!

  His heart sank. At least the twins were together. What about Isabella?

  He scoured the left panel and picked out her outline. He honed in on the image, pressing first the cloud icon, and then the outward arrow, in order to try and figure out her position.

  She was heading towards a large rock-like object with a sheer face, pushing past bushes and through trees. The only sheer rock he could think of was the cliff underneath the ruin. The question was, how come she’d separated from the others?

  Old Man Wood breathed a sigh of relief. At least they were alive. He looked at his clock. How long was it since he’d been out for a walk? Two hours? He trembled.

  That long?

  His heart thumped as he spurred himself into action. He needed to find them, and fast.

  Fifty-Eight

  Daisy And Archie Find Shelter

  At long last, Daisy recognised a boulder at the bottom of the covered tree track.

  A mini triumph, Daisy thought, as a long booming thunder roll drummed gruesomely overhead. She covered her ears, wincing, but after only a few paces she realised there was a far bigger problem. She kept close to Archie. ‘Mud!’ she yelled at Archie. ‘Look! Mud and stone, rushing down.’

  The lane was so knitted with branches, brambles, and rocks that every step forward was like walking through barbed wire.

  Worse still, the canopy of branches, bushes, and creepers above the lane was bowing to the pressure of rain. Branches were falling in. Not just dead twigs, but stems as thick as a man’s wrist. Even though they’d only stepped a few metres in, the canopy was clearly close to breaking point.

  Archie slipped as a branch whacked into him, the muddy water dragging him down the hill. He dug his fingers into the bank, grabbed a root, and pulled himself to safety.

  Daisy climbed up onto a large stump on the bank and waited. She looked down the track to see Archie struggling. For every two steps forward, he slipped one back.

  ‘COME ON!’ she screamed.

  Every time Archie tried to grapple with th
e side of the track, it collapsed in on him. Not only that, but his ankles were being stripped bare by the mud, stones, and wood.

  At last, he made it to Daisy’s position and climbed up next to her. Gasping for breath, he rubbed his scratched, blood-covered ankles. ‘We’ll never make it. Not like this.’

  ‘We have to!’ Daisy yelled into his ear. ‘Do you think it’ll be any easier out there?’

  ‘But it’s a massive ditch,’ Archie complained. ‘It’s become a gigantic storm drain. All the water’s cascading down here. It’s about as dangerous a place as you could wish.’

  ‘What’s your suggestion?’ Daisy fired back.

  ‘Up the bank and crawl along the top,’ he yelled.

  ‘But it’s a mile of crawling—’

  ‘I know. One mile of not being swept away. And we can use the shelter of the trees. There’s no other choice.’

  Using the roots of the big oak they were sitting beneath, they climbed up the bank. On hands and knees, they made their way uphill, brushing aside the branches and thorns which willingly tore into them. After several minutes, Daisy collapsed under the thicker branches of the next large tree.

  She rubbed her legs, pierced by blackthorn and dog rose. ‘Great idea, Archie!’

  ‘Look!’ he replied.

  Through the veil of rain, she could just see a moving torrent of mud and branches halfway up the bank. It was flushing downhill at great speed.

  ‘Okay, Okay. Good decision.’ Daisy drew in her breath. ‘How far up are we?’

  ‘Soon, we’ll come to the big oak with the swing rope. We can rest there.’ Archie had no idea whether this was true. But he noticed how Daisy’s eyes kept closing. Giving her a target was probably a good idea.

  Another huge boom clapped overhead, followed by a lightning bolt that smashed into the sluicing lane.

  They crawled on, Archie leading, with Daisy closely behind. But, after a short while, when he turned, Daisy wasn’t there.

  He backtracked fast. Hanging halfway down the bank, dangling above the rushing waters, and held only by the thick tendrils of a rose, he found Daisy screaming at him.