It decided.

  Then something happened.

  The house shivered.

  Like it was waking up.

  The house shivered exactly the way my pop does when he’s waking up from his every-afternoon-without-fail nap.

  Pop rocks from side to side in his chair. Then he grunts. Like his brain is telling his body that it should be awake and his body is telling his brain that it wants to stay asleep.

  The brain wins.

  His left eye opens.

  Then his right eye opens.

  Even though his eyes are open they are still dark.

  Then the light comes on in his eyes and Pop is awake.

  From when the lights in his eyes come on it takes about five minutes for the awake to get from his eyes right down to his feet.

  That is pretty much exactly what the house did. Next, the house did something Pop had never done.

  The floor, in front of where I was standing, started to drop down slowly and form a ramp. A ramp which led to a tunnel. A dark, secret tunnel.

  ‘You’re starting to like The Lurker now, aren’t you?’ said Hils.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘But I will admit that he is an important asset.’

  Hils pulled two tiny, really, very, super powerful torches out of her backpack. She handed me one, turned hers on and headed down the ramp into the dark, secret tunnel.

  ‘There’s a button on the back of the torch that turns it on,’ said Hils.

  ‘I knew that.’

  I didn’t know that.

  I turned on my torch and followed her down the ramp.

  27

  THE TUNNEL

  Hils and I reached the bottom of the ramp and stepped off.

  We were in a secret tunnel.

  I was excited.

  The ramp closed behind us with a muffled WHOMP.

  Excited and a little bit scared.

  The tunnel was really, very, super dark.

  A lot scared.

  I heard a FOOFF sound and, a long way down the tunnel, I saw a tiny light come on.

  Another FOOFF. Another light. But closer.

  Another, louder FOOFF. Another light. Even closer.

  I saw that these lights were flaming torches hanging from the walls. They came on one by one, along the tunnel, until they reached where Hils and I were standing.

  The tunnel looked exactly like I’d hoped a secret tunnel would look. It was narrow with a high arched ceiling and rough rocky walls. It smelled like our garden does just after it has rained.

  Behind where we were standing was a wall of solid rock.

  ‘Looks like there’s only one way we can go,’ said Hils. ‘Straight ahead.’

  We started walking.

  ‘Hils?’ I said after we had been walking for a long time.

  ‘Roger,’ said Hils.

  That’s the army way of saying, ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘This secret tunnel . . . there’s something about it that doesn’t feel completely . . . right,’ I said.

  ‘Affirmative.’

  ‘I think I’ve worked out what it is.’

  Hils stopped walking.

  ‘This secret tunnel is BORING,’ I said.

  ‘Affirmative. Really boring.’

  ‘I’ve never been in a secret tunnel before but I’ve seen a lot of secret tunnels on TV. None of them have been as boring as this one.’

  ‘We’ve been walking along this tunnel for ages,’ said Hils, ‘and we should have heard at least one unidentifiable scratching noise which gets louder and louder the further up the tunnel we travel.’

  ‘We haven’t heard ANY scratching noises. What sort of secret tunnel doesn’t have ANY scratching noises? When we went on that class trip to that completely normal tunnel it had scratching noises. Secret tunnels should definitely have them.’

  ‘We haven’t heard any noises at all,’ said Hils. ‘Not even a blood-curdling scream.’

  ‘A blood-curdling scream that seems to be coming from all around us,’ I said.

  ‘So we have no way of knowing which way we should run to escape it.’

  ‘Exactly,’ I said.

  ‘We haven’t stepped in a pool of blood,’ said Hils.

  ‘We haven’t stepped in a pool of anything.’

  ‘Not quicksand,’ said Hils. ‘Or acid.’

  ‘We haven’t felt something drip on our heads,’ I said, ‘only to look up and realise that it’s blood. Fresh blood.’

  ‘We haven’t encountered an old man with a really long beard chained to the wall of the tunnel,’ said Hils.

  ‘A really, very, super old man who, with his dying breath, says something really, very, super cryptic that we don’t understand.’

  ‘That we don’t understand until much, much later,’ said Hils.

  ‘When we realise how important the cryptic thing the old bearded guy said was to our really, very, super important secret-tunnel-based quest.’

  ‘Affirmative.’

  ‘We haven’t even come to a place where the tunnel splits in two and we have to make a decision about which way to go,’ I said. ‘We’d probably have an argument about which way to go and we’d split up and go in opposite directions.’

  ‘Negative. It wouldn’t be an argument. I would make a sensible suggestion based on strong intelligence and experience and you would ignore it.’

  Normal boring vs secret boring

  A boring secret tunnel is much more boring than a normal, un-secret place. You expect a normal place to be boring. You don’t expect a secret place to be boring. So when a secret place is boring it’s much more boring than when a normal place is boring.

  ‘I wouldn’t ignore it. It might just be that I wouldn’t think it was the right suggestion.’

  ‘It would be the right suggestion,’ said Hils. ‘You’re not always right.’

  ‘When am I not always right?’

  ‘All the time,’ I said.

  ‘Name one of the all-the-times when I was not-right.’

  ‘I can’t,’ I said.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘There have been too many. I can’t remember any one in particular,’ I said.

  ‘If this boring secret tunnel split into two and we had to decide which path to take I would take the right way and you would take your way.’

  ‘My way might be the right way.’

  ‘That is statistically improbable,’ said Hils.

  ‘I’d probably end up picking the way where there was a booby trap,’ I said.

  ‘Affirmative.’

  ‘A booby trap involving a large rock which rolled out of a secret door in the roof.’

  ‘Affirmative.’

  ‘Crushing my leg.’

  ‘Affirmative.’

  ‘I’d be racked with terrible pain.’

  ‘Affirmative.’

  ‘I’d call out for you to help me.’

  ‘I wouldn’t hear you because the geological make-up of this secret tunnel would mean that sound doesn’t carry further than a few metres,’ said Hils.

  ‘I wouldn’t know that.’

  ‘Affirmative.’

  ‘Eventually I’d realise you were never going to come.’

  ‘You’d close your eyes,’ said Hils.

  ‘And wait to die.’

  ‘Slowly and painfully,’ said Hils.

  ‘Of course,’ I said.

  ‘You should have listened to me,’ said Hils. ‘You might still be alive.’

  ‘True,’ I said.

  ‘I’ll miss you,’ said Hils.

  ‘I’ll miss you too,’ I said.

  Saying that made us both feel nice and uncomfortable at the same time.

  Maybe slightly more uncomfortable than nice.

  Yes, definitely more uncomfortable than nice.

  We kept walking for a while.

  In silence.

  ‘We haven’t seen any animals with more heads than they should normally have,’ I said.

  ‘And they haven’t talked to us out of any of those more than normal heads,’ said Hils.

  ‘They haven’t told us to follow them.’

  ‘They haven’t told us to go back from whence we came.’

  ‘Nice use of the word “whence”,’ I said.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Hils. ‘“Whence” is a very secret-tunnel word.’

  ‘True,’ I said.

  That’s when we saw it.

  28

  THE POSTERS

  Stuck to the wall of the boring secret tunnel was this poster.

  We walked a little bit further and there was another poster stuck to the wall.

  29

  THE DUMBNESS

  ‘What does that mean?’ I said.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Hils.

  ‘How can anything be located between “rude words” and “unexpected hellos”?’ I said.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Hils.

  Hils kept on walking down the tunnel.

  I stayed in front of the poster.

  It had to mean something and I had to know what it meant.

  Maybe I just needed to look at it harder.

  I looked at it harder.

  My eyes started to go a bit blurry.

  I looked at it even harder.

  My eyebrows started to hurt.

  I looked at it even, even harder.

  I got cramp in my ears.

  The ear-cramp really hurt. I had never had cramp in my ears. I didn’t know how to make it stop. It was really hurting.

  People often got cramp while we were doing PE. Maybe people got ear-cramp. Maybe the PE teacher Mr Hardy-Soul had explained how to stop ear-cramp. Maybe I needed to start listening in PE.

  The ear-cramp was really hurting. I had to do something or I might lose the use of my ears. I grabbed my earlobes and started flapping them about. The ear-cramp went away. I had cured ear-cramp. That made me pretty proud. Maybe I didn’t need to start listening in PE.

  I looked at the poster. I still didn’t know what it meant.

  ‘You are a dumb poster,’ I said. ‘You’ve given me cramp in my ears and I still don’t know what you mean, also, I think it is cruel to make an innocent kitten hang from a rope just so it can be on a dumb poster that doesn’t mean any-dumb-thing.’

  ‘I’ve found something,’ shouted Hils from further down the tunnel.

  ‘I hope someone draws all over you,’ I said to the poster.

  I ran down the tunnel towards Hils and the something she had found.

  The tunnel made a sharp right turn and as I came around the corner the tunnel started to get wider. I ran under a thick wooden arch. Beyond the arch the walls weren’t rocky any more. They were smooth and white. The flaming torches had disappeared and now the tunnel was lit by large fluorescent lights hanging from the ceiling.

  Hils was standing under another thick wooden arch. She was staring into an enormous room that couldn’t have looked less like a secret tunnel.

  It looked like an office.

  30

  THE OFFICE

  It was an office.

  A normal sort of office with desks and computers and fuzzy nothing-coloured walls that didn’t go all the way up to the ceiling and coffee mugs and things Blu-Tacked to other things and bored people sitting in office chairs doing boring office stuff.

  It looked like the sort of place where a whole lot of mums and dads would work EXCEPT that it was underground and at the end of a secret tunnel.

  ‘Sign. Two o’clock,’ said Hils.

  In the army ‘two o’clock’ means that something is up and to your right.

  I looked up and to my right.

  Hanging from the ceiling of the office was a sign that read:

  Behind that was a sign that read:

  Behind that was yet another sign:

  ‘Eleven o’clock,’ said Hils.

  There was a sign at eleven o’clock (up and to the left) which read:

  Next to that – at one o’clock (up and a tiny bit to the right) – was this sign:

  31

  THE RECEPTION

  At RECEPTION there were only two things. An enormously wide, high reception desk and behind the desk a grumpy-receptionist wearing a telephone headset. Her face looked like an old crumpled bit of paper that someone had drawn a really grumpy face on. Someone who couldn’t draw very well and was angry about not being able to draw well.

  Ask her to confirm our coordinates,’ said Hils.

  That’s how an army person says, Ask the grumpy-receptionist where we are.’

  ‘No. You do it.’

  ‘Negative.’

  Suddenly I realised there was something amazing and scary about the grumpy-receptionist. Amazingly amazing and amazingly scary.

  ‘Hils,’ I said.

  ‘Just go up to the desk and ask her,’ said Hils.

  ‘Hils, I don’t think that grumpy-receptionist is sitting at a desk.’

  ‘Of course she is sitting at a desk,’ said Hils.

  ‘Have a closer look,’ I said.

  Hils had a closer look.

  Hils’s mouth fell open. Her mouth fell so wide open that it was like a castle letting down its drawbridge. I almost expected some knights on horseback to come riding out.

  But the only thing that rode out of Hils’s mouth was the word ‘Wow!’

  Hils never said ‘Wow!’

  The grumpy-receptionist wasn’t sitting at a huge desk.

  There was no huge desk.

  There was just a huge grumpy-receptionist.

  She was the hugest person I had ever seen.

  She was probably the hugest person ever.

  AND SHE WAS WALKING TOWARDS US.

  My brain was still trying to do thinking about seeing the world’s hugest grumpy-receptionist and now it also had to do more thinking about how the world’s hugest grumpy-receptionist was walking towards us.

  My brain did not want to do all that thinking.

  She was walking towards us much faster than I’d imagined the world’s hugest grumpy-receptionist could walk towards us.

  ‘Visitors,’ she shouted as she kept on walking towards us.

  When she shouted the whole building shook. Actually, we weren’t in a building we were underground. She was making underground shake.

  ‘Visitors.’

  She was like a talking earthquake.

  ‘We come in peace,’ I said.

  ‘The nearest exit is 15.7 metres in a south-easterly direction,’ said Hils.

  ‘I don’t know what that means,’ I said.

  ‘Visitors.’

  She was getting closer.

  ‘It means turn around and run. Really fast. NOW.’

  ‘Visitors.’

  My ears got cramp. Again.

  ‘I don’t want to die,’ I said as I turned around and ran really fast while I grabbed my earlobes and started flapping them about.

  32

  THE SMASH

  I was running and flapping my earlobes when I smashed into the back of Hils.

  ‘WHY HAVE YOU STOPPED, HILS?’

  ‘The young lady has stopped because she collided with poor old me,’ said a voice I had never heard before. It was an amazing voice. It was so smooth and so sweet. If a marshmallow could talk, it would have that voice.

  I realised I had been running with my eyes closed. I kept them closed.

  ‘Hils, is that true?’

  ‘Affirmative.’

  ‘Who have you collided with?’

  ‘But I’ve been rude. Allow me to introduce myself.’

  I opened my eyes. In front of us was a man in a silver suit with silver hair and silver eyes.

  ‘My name is Mr Norma Michaels. A pleasure.’

  Norma is a lady’s name and Mr Norma Michaels was clearly not a lady. I decided not to ask about that right now.

  ‘Young man,’ said Mr Norma Michaels, ‘if I might be so forward as to enquire: why are you holding your earlobes and flapping your ears about?’

  I was still flapping my ears.

  I stopped flapping my ears.

  ‘I had ear-cramp.’

  ‘A nasty ailment no doubt,’ said Mr Norma Michaels.

  I looked behind me.

  ‘You met Phyllis our receptionist. She’s such a sweetheart.’

  I looked at Hils. I didn’t know what to do. Or say. We were lost. We were underground.

  ‘RUDE,’ shouted Mr Norma Michaels.

  Hils and I both jumped.

  Mr Norma Michaels had suddenly got really, very, super angry.

  ‘UNCOUTH. I told you my name, you discourteous little ingrates, and you have not told me yours.’

  ‘I’m Charlie Ian Duncan.’

  ‘I’m Hils. Not short for anything.’

  ‘Don’t call her Hilary,’ I said.

  Just as suddenly, Mr Norma Michaels stopped being angry.

  ‘Young lady, young gentleman, I bid you welcome. I can only imagine you are teeming with questions. Ask away.’

  I knew exactly what to ask.

  ‘Do you have a toilet?’ I said. ‘I’m really busting.’

  Interesting fact

  I wee a lot. I’m not sure why. I just do. I had expected that while I was on a double-secret mission I wouldn’t need to wee.

  I was wrong.

  33

  THE TOILET

  I’m sure you think there are a lot of other questions I should have asked Mr Norma Michaels.

  Where are we?

  What do you do in this office?

  Why is your secret tunnel so boring?

  Is Phyllis the biggest person in the world ever?

  Have you ever met a cannibal?

  Are you a cannibal?

  Are you going to eat us?

  Which one of us will you eat first?

  Are there vultures underground?

  Why is your name Norma?

  But I was really busting.

  Also, I really needed to have a secret conversation with Hils and the best way to do that was to use Flush Latin.