“Actually…” Tim began.
“Goodbye!” Charlotte said.
Tim fell out of the train and in that split second I realized two things: one — that Charlotte had given him a helpful push; and two — that I was still chained to him. With a yell I launched myself after him.
I felt the wind grab me. For a moment everything was a blur. Then long grass rushed up at me from all sides. I heard Tim yell, the sound blending in with the roar of the train. I could feel his weight at the end of the chain, still pulling me forward. There was a sickening thud as my shoulder came into contact with the earth. And then everything was blue, green, blue, green as I rolled down a hill between the grass and the sky. I couldn’t see Tim any more and wondered if he’d managed to pull off my arm.
Then I must have blacked out for a moment. The next thing I knew, I was lying on my back, winded and only half-conscious. A pair of eyes that I thought I knew well loomed over me.
“Tim?” I muttered.
“Moo,” came the reply. It was a cow. And it seemed as astonished as I was that I was still alive.
I raised my hand and was grateful to see it was still there. It seemed that I hadn’t broken any bones in the fall — but I had broken the handcuffs. A length of chain trailed away from my wrist.
There was a loud groan a short distance away and Tim popped up behind a small bush. It had been a big bush until he had rolled through it. Tim had been less fortunate than me. As soon as we were separated, he had rolled through six nettles, a clump of thistles, a cowpat and the bush.
“Next time, we take a bus!” he muttered as I tried to tidy him up. The cow ambled over and tried to eat his sleeve. “Shoo!” Tim cried out. The cow put its head down to the ground and took a bite out of one of his shoes.
We chased the cow away and found Tim’s other shoe. A few minutes later we crossed the field leaving the railway line behind us. There was a gap in the hedge and a lane on the other side. We turned left, following our noses. Actually, Tim’s nose had been stung so badly, it now pointed both ways.
But he didn’t complain. He was limping along beside me, deep in thought. For a long time neither of us spoke. Then, at last, he sighed. “Charlotte!” I’d had a feeling he was thinking about her. “You know, I really think she likes me.”
I shrugged. “Well, she was certainly smiling when she pushed you off the train.”
We reached a crossroads. This time there was a sign. Dover straight ahead. But it didn’t say how far.
“How far do you think it is?” Tim asked.
“It can’t be more than a couple of kilometres,” I said. Tim grimaced. “I’m not sure I can make it, kid. I think I’ve twisted both my ankles.”
I looked down. “No you haven’t,” I said. “You’ve got your shoes on the wrong feet.”
“Oh.”
We walked a little further and suddenly there we were. We were high up with the sea — a brilliant blue — below us. The port of Dover was a knotted fist with a ferry and a hovercraft slipping through its concrete fingers even as we watched. And to our left and to our right, as far as we could see, a ribbon of white stretched out beneath the sun. The White Cliffs of Dover. We had made it to the edge of England. But now we had to go further, over the water and away from home.
We slipped into the crowded port without being noticed. Maybe the police were still waiting for us at the station. Maybe they had given up on us and gone. There was a ferry leaving for Ostend in ten minutes. We took it. Despite what I’d been able to save from the bank robbery, we were getting low on cash so we only bought one-way tickets.
But as I said to Tim, if we didn’t find Charon in Amsterdam, it was unlikely that we would be coming back.
THE SECRET AGENT
To be honest, I’m not crazy about Amsterdam. It’s got too many canals, too many tourists and most of its buildings look like they’ve been built with a Lego set that’s missing half its pieces. Also, the Dutch put mayonnaise on their chips. But if you like bicycles and cobbled streets, flower stalls and churches, I suppose there are worse places you can go.
We arrived the next morning after hitch-hiking up from Ostend. That was one good thing about Amsterdam. After three hours with a lorry driver, a cheese salesman and a professional juggler (who dropped us in the middle of the city) we realized that just about everyone in the place spoke English. This was just as well. Ten minutes after we’d set off in search of the Amstel Ijsbaan, we were hopelessly lost. It wasn’t just that we couldn’t understand the street signs. We couldn’t even pronounce them. We found our way by asking people. Not that that was much help.
Me: “Excuse me. We’re looking for the Amstel Ijsbaan.”
Friendly local: “Go along the canal. Turn left at the canal. Continue until you see a canal. And it’s on a canal.”
There were hundreds of canals and they all looked exactly the same. In fact if you went on holiday in Amsterdam you’d only need to take one photograph. Then you could develop it a few dozen times. We must have walked for an hour and a half before we finally found what we were looking for; a low, square building on the very edge of the city, stretching out into the
only open space we’d seen. Like the rest of the place, the sign was old and needed repair. It read: AMS EL IJSBAAN.
“There’s no ‘T’,” I said.
“That’s all right,” Tim muttered. “I’m not thirsty.”
We went in. An old crone was sitting behind the glass window of the ticket office. Either she had a bad skin disease or the window needed cleaning. As Tim went over to her she put down the grubby paperback she had been reading and looked up at him with suspicious eyes.
“ Kan ik u misschien helpen? ” she said. It sounded like she was gargling, but that’s the Dutch language for you. Tim stared at her.
“ Hoeveel kaartjes wilt u? ” she demanded more angrily.
You didn’t have to be Einstein to work out what she was saying. After all, she was a ticketseller and we needed tickets. But Tim just stood there, rooted to the spot, mumbling in what sounded like GCSE French. I stepped forward.
“ Twee kaarties alstublieft, ” I said and slid some money under the window. The old woman grunted, gave us two tickets and went back to her book.
“What did you say?” Tim demanded.
“I asked for two tickets.”
“But when did you learn to speak Dutch?”
“On the ferry. I looked in a phrase book.”
Tim’s face lit up. “You’re brilliant, Nick!”
“Not really.” I shrugged. “It’s just a phrase I’m going through.”
We passed through a set of double doors. We could hear the ice rink in the distance now, or at least the music booming out over the speakers.
I noticed that Tim had picked up a pair of skates.
“We’re here to look for 86,” I reminded him. “We’re not going skating.”
“86 could be on the ice,” he said.
“But Tim… can you skate?”
“Can I skate?” He grinned at me. “ Can I skate!”
Tim couldn’t skate. I watched him fall over three times — and that was before he even reached the ice. Then I left him and began to search for the secret agent who called himself 86. How would I recognize him? He was hardly likely to have a badge with the number on it. A tattoo, perhaps? I decided to look out for anyone who seemed strange or out-of-place. The trouble was, in a run-down Dutch skating rink in the middle of the summer,
