She led him through another maze of corridors, heading steadily down. After a while, a nasty smell reached him. It was a heavy, organic sort of smell that gradually grew more nauseating and intense. Blossom turned and grinned at him. ‘See?’ she said.
She turned a corner, then quickly pulled back.
‘What is it?’ asked Pod.
‘There are guards on the door.’
Pod stood there in silence for a moment, thinking. ‘I’ve got an idea,’ he said. ‘Can you act upset?’
‘Huh?’
‘Try to look like you’re in fear of your life.’
He hurried round the corner, Blossom following, and rushed up to the guards on the garbage bay door.
‘Hey, listen, we’re in serious trouble,’ Pod said. ‘My sister accidentally put a passenger’s jewellery in the garbage when she was cleaning up the room. It’s got to be in here somewhere and we’ve got to get it back before the passenger realises it’s missing.’
The two guards stared at him. ‘Do you mean you want to go in there?’ the taller one asked.
‘You know that’s not allowed,’ said the shorter one.
Blossom suddenly erupted. ‘Oh, please,’ she wailed. ‘I already signed the room off, if the passenger reports me I’ll be in so much trouble!’
The guards exchanged looks. ‘It’s strictly forbidden,’ the tall one said.
‘We’re due for clearance any minute,’ the short one said.
‘If they think I stole the jewellery, it’s all over for me,’ Blossom wailed, wringing her hands. ‘Please.’
Pod thought she was rather overdoing it, but the guards seemed taken in.
‘You don’t know what it’s like in there,’ the tall guard said. ‘You’ll never find it.’
‘At least let us try,’ Pod said. ‘Please?’
The guards looked at each other again, clearly considering it. ‘But what about the drop?’ the short one murmured.
The tall one screwed up his face, then said, ‘You can have five minutes. Then you got to be out.’
‘And never breathe a word of this to anyone,’ the short one added.
‘Of course not,’ Blossom said eagerly. ‘Thank you!’
‘Be quick,’ the tall one said.
The two of them unbolted the doors and cranked them open just enough to let Pod and Blossom slip through. They’d thought the smell was bad before, but when the doors cracked apart for the first time and the smell of the garbage hold breathed out over them, Pod felt like he was going to be sick. The reek was so foul and potent it could burn metal.
‘Five minutes,’ the guard warned.
They stepped inside the hold.
The doors clanged shut.
They were trapped.
The hatch
It was perfectly dark inside.
Luckily for them both Blossom carried a torch in the pocket of her uniform and she switched this on now. Garbage, loose and in bags, towered all around them in vast, slimy heaps. Things moved and scuttled around them, scampering away in the dark.
‘Rats,’ Pod said.
‘I hate rats,’ Blossom said.
For a moment they both stood there, rigid with fear and disgust. The smell was overwhelming.
‘Now what?’ Blossom said.
‘I guess we try and find the hatch,’ Pod said.
Together they began to climb over the mountains of garbage. It was a horrible experience. Bags squelched and slithered and sometimes split under their hands and feet, so they went sprawling into old, spoiled food and used tissues and bits of hair and all kinds of disgustingness. Rats squeaked at them and ran about. They kept hearing a slithering sound which grew louder and louder, followed by a brief period of silence and then a thump as garbage dropped down the chutes. Once, a bag dropped down right between them, almost taking them out, and then burst in a shower of rancid stink.
They heard a clang; the doors had opened. ‘Oi!’ came the tall guard’s voice. ‘Five minutes are up! You’d better get back here!’
‘We’re still looking!’ Pod shouted. ‘Just one minute more!’ He turned to Blossom. ‘Keep moving,’ he murmured. ‘Hurry.’
The guards were not in a mood to be patient. ‘Time’s up!’ the guard shouted. ‘You got to get out of there! It’s dangerous!’
‘Where do you reckon the hatch is?’ Pod asked Blossom. He ran the torch beam over the distant wall of the hold, but it wasn’t strong enough to pick out any detail. Another load came slipping and slithering down a chute.
‘We’re going to have to lock the door!’ the short guard shouted. ‘You’ll be locked in there!’
After a moment, they heard the clank and grind of the door being closed and bolted.
‘This is it,’ Pod gulped. ‘No going back now.’
‘What do you think it’s going to be? Get free? Or drown?’
Pod looked at Blossom, surprised. In the weak torchlight, she didn’t look frightened at all. If anything, she looked excited.
An alert sounded, a loud, terrifying honking sound. The rats bolted, all travelling in the same direction, scurrying up the rubbish and away. Far across the hold they saw a hatch slide up. ‘Quick,’ Pod said, ‘let’s try and get to it!’ Just as they were renewing their efforts to scramble across the garbage, they heard a new sound. An engine started up. There was a clank and a clunk, and then the wall behind them began to move.
They climbed frantically across the garbage, trying to stay ahead of the wall as it moved inexorably across the hold, pushing all the garbage towards the open hatch. If they got caught up in that growing wall of filth, they could be crushed and smothered under the weight of it. They scrambled forward, panic making them clumsy, sinking into the garbage. The open air and the smell of the sea was tantalisingly close, but the garbage was mounding up behind them like a tsunami. Blossom slipped and
