Tunnels

17

It was a week later when Will and Chester finally made the breakthrough. Dehydrated from the heat at the work face, and with muscles that were cramped and fatigued by the relentless cycle of digging and tipping, they were on the verge of wrapping up for the day when Will's pickax struck a large block of stone and it tipped backward. A pitch-black opening yawned before them.

Their eyes locked onto the hole, which exhaled a damp and musty breeze into their tired and dirty faces. Chester 's instincts screamed at him to back away, as if he were about to be sucked into the opening. Neither of them said a word; there were no great cheers or exultations as they gazed into the impenetrable darkness, with the dead calm of the earth all around them. It was Chester who broke the spell.

'I suppose I'd better be getting home, then.'

Will turned and looked at him with incredulity, then spotted the flicker of a smirk on Chester 's face. Filled with an immense sense of relief and accomplishment, Will couldn't help but erupt into a peal of hysterical laughter. He picked up a clod of dirt and hurled it at his grinning friend, who ducked, a low chuckle coming from beneath his yellow hard hat.

'You… you…' Will said, searching for an appropriate word.

'Yeah, what?' Chester beamed. 'Come on, then, let's have a look-see,' he said, leaning into the gap next to Will.

Will shone his flashlight through the opening. 'It's a cavern… Can't make out much in there… Must be pretty big, I think I can see some stalactites and stalagmites.' Then he stopped. 'Listen!'

'What is it?' whispered Chester.

'Water, I think. I can hear water dripping.' He turned to Chester.

'You're kidding,' Chester said, his face clouding with concern.

'No, I'm not. Could be a Neolithic stream…'

'Here, let me see,' said Chester, taking the flashlight from Will.

Tantalizing as it was, they decided against any further excavation there and then. They would rйsumй the following day when they were fresh and better prepared. Chester went home; he was tired but quietly elated that their work had borne fruit. It was true that they were both badly in need of sleep, and Will was even, unusually, considering taking a bath as he swung the shelves back into position. He did the usual sweep-up and made his way lethargically upstairs to his room.

As he passed Rebecca's door, she called out to him. Will grimaced and held as still as a statue.

'Will, I know you're out there.'

Will sighed and pushed open her door. Rebecca was lying on her bed, where she'd been reading a book.

'What's up? asked Will, glancing around her room. He never ceased to be amazed at how infuriatingly clean and tidy she kept it.

'Mum said she needs to discuss something with us.'

'When?'

'As soon as you came in, she said.'

'Great, what now?'

Mrs. Burrows was in her usual position as they entered the living room. Slumped to one side in her armchair like a deflated mannequin, she raised her head dozily as Rebecca coughed to get her attention.

'Ah, good,' she said, pushing herself into a more normal sitting position and, in the process, knocking a couple of remote controls onto the floor. 'Oh, drat!' she exclaimed.

Will and Rebecca sat down on the sofa while Mrs. Burrows rummaged feverishly through the mound of videotapes a the base of her chair. Eventually coming up with both remotes, her hair hanging forward in straggles and her face flushed from the effort, she positioned them very precisely on the arm of her chair again. Then she cleared her throat and began.

'I think it's time we faced the possibility that your father isn't coming back, which means we have to make some rather crucial decisions.' She paused and glanced at the television. A model in a spangled evening dress was revealing a large letter V on the game-show wall, where several other letters were already revealed. Mrs. Burrows muttered, 'The Invisible Man,' under her breath as she turned back to Will and Rebecca. 'Your father's salary was stopped a few weeks ago and, as Rebecca tells me, we are already running on empty.'

Will turned to Rebecca, who simply nodded in agreement, and their mother continued. 'All the savings are gone and what with the mortgage and all the other expenses, we're going to have to cut our cloth…'

'Cut our cloth?' asked Rebecca.

''Fraid so,' their mother said distantly. 'There won't be anything coming in for a while, so we're going to have to downscale — sell whatever we can, including the house.'

'What?' Rebecca said.

'And you'll have to take care of it. I'm not going to be around for a while. I've been advised to spend a little time in a… well… sort of hospital, somewhere I can rest and get myself back on form.'

At this, Will raised his eyebrows, wondering just what «form» his mother could be referring to. She had been set in her current form for as long as he could remember.

His mother went on. 'So while I'm gone you two will have to go and stay with your Auntie Jean. She's agreed to look after you.'

Will and Rebecca glanced at each other. An avalanche of images fell through Will's mind: the housing projects where Auntie Jean lived, its public spaces crammed with garbage bags and disposable diapers, and its grafittied elevators reeking of urine. The streets filled with burned-out cars and the endlessly screaming motorcycles of the gangs and small-time drug dealers. The sorry groups of drunks who sat on the benches, squabbling ineffectually among themselves as they downed their brown-bagged 'Trampagne.' 'No way!' he suddenly blurted out as if waking from a nightmare, making Rebecca jump and his mother sit bolt upright, once again knocking the remotes off the arm of her chair.

'Drat!' she said again, craning her neck to see where they had fallen.

'I'm not going to live there. I couldn't stand it, not for a second. What about school? What about my friends?' Will said.

'What friends?' Mrs. Burrows replied spitefully.

'You can't really expect us to go there, Mum. It's awful, it smells, the place is a pigsty,' Rebecca piped up.

'And Auntie Jean smells,' Will added.

'Well, there's nothing I can do about that. I have to get some rest; the doctor said I'm very stressed, so there's no debate. We've got to sell the house, and you're just going to have to stay with Jean until—'

'Until what? You get a job or something?' Will put in sharply.

Mrs. Burrows glared at him. 'This is not good for me. The doctor said I should avoid confrontation. This conversation is over,' she snapped suddenly, and turned on her side again.

Back out in the hall, Will sat on the bottom step of the stairs, numb, while Rebecca stood with her arms folded, leaning against the wall.

'Well, that's an end to it all,' she said. 'At least I'm going away next week—'

'No, no, no… not now!' Will bellowed at her, holding up his hand. 'Not with all this going on!'

'Yeah, maybe you're right,' she said, shaking her head. Then they both lapsed into silence.

After a moment, Will stood up decisively. 'But I know what I have to do.'

'What?'

'Take a bath.'

'You need one,' Rebecca said, watching him climb wearily up the stairs.

18