through the black.
Dawn sank to her knees, stricken with shock. There was nothing she could do but watch Jerry and the fiery man as they continued to teeter around in circles, like some terrible children’s wind-up toy. After less than two minutes they were blazing so fiercely that she couldn’t see which of them was which. Then, quite abruptly, they collapsed, and lay amongst the bricks, still burning.
Over on the far side of the demolition site, the back of the wardrobe fell to the ground with a clatter.
Dawn didn’t hear the sirens, but she saw the blue flashing lights, and she heard the firefighters crunching across the demolition site toward her. A firefighter laid his hand on her shoulder and leaned down to look into her face.
‘Are you all right, love? What happened here?’
‘You’re not Aslan, are you?’ she asked him.
‘No, love. Alan. Come on, let’s get you out of here.’
He reached down and picked her up as easily as if she were a little girl and carried her back to reality.
UNDERBED
A s soon as his mother had closed the bedroom door, Martin burrowed down under the blankets. For him, this was one of the best times of the day. In that long, warm hour between waking and sleep, his imagination would take him almost anywhere.
Sometimes he would lie on his back with the blankets drawn up to his nose and his pillow on top of his forehead so that only his eyes looked out. This was his spaceman game, and the pillow was his helmet. He travelled through sparkling light years, passing Jupiter so close that he could see the storms raging on its surface, then swung on to Neptune, chilly and green, and Pluto, beyond. On some nights he would travel so far that he was unable to return to Earth, and he would drift further and further into the outer reaches of space until he became nothing but a tiny speck winking in the darkness and he fell asleep.
At other times, he was captain of a U-boat trapped thousands of feet below the surface. He would have to squeeze along cramped and darkened passageways to open up stopcocks, with water flooding in on all sides, and elbow his way along a torpedo tube in order to escape. He would come up to the surface into the chilly air of the bedroom, gasping for breath. Then he would crawl right down to the very end of the bed, where the sheets and the blankets were tucked in really tight. He was a coal-miner, making his way through the narrowest of fissures, with millions of tons of Carboniferous rock on top of him. He never took a flashlight to bed with him. This would have revealed that the inside of his space helmet didn’t have any dials or knobs or breathing tubes; and that the submarine wasn’t greasy and metallic and crowded with complicated valves; and that the grim black coalface at which he so desperately hewed was nothing but a clean white sheet.
Earlier this evening he had been watching a programme on potholing on television and he was keen to try it. He was going to be the leader of an underground rescue team, trying to find a boy who had wedged himself in a crevice. It would mean crawling through one interconnected passage after another, then down through a water-filled sump, until he reached the tiny cavern where the boy was trapped.
His mother sat on the end of the bed and kept him talking. He was going back to school in two days’ time and she kept telling him how much she was going to miss him. He was going to miss her, too – and Tiggy, their golden retriever, and everything here at Home Hill. More than anything, he was going to miss his adventures under the blankets. You couldn’t go burrowing under the bedclothes when you were at school. Everybody would rag you too much.
He had always thought his mother was beautiful and tonight was no exception, although he wished that she would go away and let him start his potholing. What made her beauty all the more impressive was the fact that she would be thirty-three next April, which Martin considered to be
Dawn sank to her knees, stricken with shock. There was nothing she could do but watch Jerry and the fiery man as they continued to teeter around in circles, like some terrible children’s wind-up toy. After less than two minutes they were blazing so fiercely that she couldn’t see which of them was which. Then, quite abruptly, they collapsed, and lay amongst the bricks, still burning.
Over on the far side of the demolition site, the back of the wardrobe fell to the ground with a clatter.
Dawn didn’t hear the sirens, but she saw the blue flashing lights, and she heard the firefighters crunching across the demolition site toward her. A firefighter laid his hand on her shoulder and leaned down to look into her face.
‘Are you all right, love? What happened here?’
‘You’re not Aslan, are you?’ she asked him.
‘No, love. Alan. Come on, let’s get you out of here.’
He reached down and picked her up as easily as if she were a little girl and carried her back to reality.
UNDERBED
A s soon as his mother had closed the bedroom door, Martin burrowed down under the blankets. For him, this was one of the best times of the day. In that long, warm hour between waking and sleep, his imagination would take him almost anywhere.
Sometimes he would lie on his back with the blankets drawn up to his nose and his pillow on top of his forehead so that only his eyes looked out. This was his spaceman game, and the pillow was his helmet. He travelled through sparkling light years, passing Jupiter so close that he could see the storms raging on its surface, then swung on to Neptune, chilly and green, and Pluto, beyond. On some nights he would travel so far that he was unable to return to Earth, and he would drift further and further into the outer reaches of space until he became nothing but a tiny speck winking in the darkness and he fell asleep.
At other times, he was captain of a U-boat trapped thousands of feet below the surface. He would have to squeeze along cramped and darkened passageways to open up stopcocks, with water flooding in on all sides, and elbow his way along a torpedo tube in order to escape. He would come up to the surface into the chilly air of the bedroom, gasping for breath. Then he would crawl right down to the very end of the bed, where the sheets and the blankets were tucked in really tight. He was a coal-miner, making his way through the narrowest of fissures, with millions of tons of Carboniferous rock on top of him. He never took a flashlight to bed with him. This would have revealed that the inside of his space helmet didn’t have any dials or knobs or breathing tubes; and that the submarine wasn’t greasy and metallic and crowded with complicated valves; and that the grim black coalface at which he so desperately hewed was nothing but a clean white sheet.
Earlier this evening he had been watching a programme on potholing on television and he was keen to try it. He was going to be the leader of an underground rescue team, trying to find a boy who had wedged himself in a crevice. It would mean crawling through one interconnected passage after another, then down through a water-filled sump, until he reached the tiny cavern where the boy was trapped.
His mother sat on the end of the bed and kept him talking. He was going back to school in two days’ time and she kept telling him how much she was going to miss him. He was going to miss her, too – and Tiggy, their golden retriever, and everything here at Home Hill. More than anything, he was going to miss his adventures under the blankets. You couldn’t go burrowing under the bedclothes when you were at school. Everybody would rag you too much.
He had always thought his mother was beautiful and tonight was no exception, although he wished that she would go away and let him start his potholing. What made her beauty all the more impressive was the fact that she would be thirty-three next April, which Martin considered to be
Similar Books
