The Whizz Pop Chocolate Shop (11 page)

It was not a long journey; Joyce’s office was at the nearby King’s Cross Station.

“Very convenient because a lot of subway lines pass through here,” Alan said. “And you’ve also got the railway and the Eurostar.”

He parked the car and Spike hid inside his jacket while they walked into the busy entrance to King’s Cross Station. Announcements boomed over the loudspeaker as crowds of people hurried about with heaps of luggage. Trains pulled in and out, and as
usual Lily was confused by how ordinary everything looked.

They joined the fast-moving crowd going down into the Underground. Lily was bewildered by all the signs for different lines and destinations, and clung on to Alan’s sleeve. On the northbound platform of the Piccadilly Line, he opened a small door set into the wall and hurried everyone through it while no one else was looking.

The light was dim now, coming from feeble bulbs set into the dirty tiled ceiling. They went down a metal spiral staircase that seemed to descend into the bowels of the earth. Every few minutes there was a great roar and a rush of warm, sooty wind as trains passed over their heads.

“Here we are.” Alan opened another door, and they were in a clean, bright subterranean office with a flickering bank of computer screens. “Hi, Joyce.”

Joyce, the tough gray-haired woman they had met at the debriefing, was filling a kettle at a sink in the corner. “Hi, everyone! Who’s for a cuppa?”

Spike leapt off Alan’s shoulder onto Joyce’s head. She chuckled. “All right, mate?”

“Never better!” said Spike, hopping to the desk.

They all sat down and had cups of milky tea. Spike took occasional gulps of Joyce’s instant coffee—which she didn’t seem to mind at all—and nibbled at a lump of sugar.

“Right, I’ll tell you what we’re doing today,” Joyce said. “The phantom busker was reported on the Piccadilly Line, so we’ll be exploring that part of the system. If Oz is down there, you two will pick him up like a couple of television aerials.”

“Do you think it might be Oz?” Lily asked.

“It might be nothing,” said Joyce. “I wouldn’t want you to get your hopes up too much.”

Spike took a noisy slurp of her coffee. “I’ll speak to a few of my connections—not much goes on down here the rats don’t know about.”

“By the way,” Joyce said, “I wish you’d have a word with your lads at Holland Park—two sightings in one week, and it’s a really posh station.”

“They get careless,” said Spike. “I’ll put out another poison warning.”

Joyce patted him affectionately. “I don’t know what we’d do without you!”

When she (and Spike) had finished her coffee, Joyce opened a large cupboard. “Time to put on the protective clothing.”

Caydon’s eyes had been wide with fascination since their arrival at the station. “Why do we need protective clothing?”

“Because of the anti-goblin spray,” Joyce said briskly. “It’s very itchy for humans.”

The four of them put white jumpsuits over their
clothes and had hoods that covered their heads and mouths. Joyce handed out large cans of aerosol.

“If you see one, don’t think twice—give it a squirt right between the eyes!”

“How will we know?” Caydon asked. “What do goblins look like?”

“You can’t miss them,” said Spike. “They’re about twenty centimeters tall, with enormous ears and mean faces.”

“The little bleeders think train crashes are funny,” Joyce said. “Squirt to kill.”

“Cool.” Caydon beamed as if he’d come to Disneyland.

Lily did her best to look brave, but her hands shook so much, she could barely hold her can of spray. She knew she couldn’t kill anything.

“Chin up, love,” Joyce said. “They hardly ever show themselves. Stick close to me.”

The first part of the patrol was uneventful. Joyce and Spike led the way up and down staircases and along bare, badly lit tunnels. Joyce and Alan carried flashlights and carefully swept the beams around the walls.

At the top of one rickety spiral staircase, Lily suddenly caught a whiff of something familiar and unexpected. “I can smell coffee.”

“Phew, me too,” Caydon said. “Really strong.”

“Coffee?” Joyce whipped round quickly. “Well done! That’s a sure sign of goblin activity—they’re mad for coffee, and forever nicking it from the shops upstairs.” She shone her torch into a dark corner; Lily saw a heap of rubbish topped with a paper cup from Starbucks. “You two have great noses.”

“Give it a good spray so they won’t sneak back,” Spike said.

Alan, who was nearest, covered the heap with a mist of anti-goblin spray.

They carried on walking, through long concrete tunnels just large enough to stand up in; Joyce explained that these were secret access tunnels, known only to the SMU and the Transport Minister. After they had been tramping along for nearly an hour, they stopped to rest and drink some more tea from Joyce’s Thermos.

“Where are we now?” Caydon asked her.

“Underneath Piccadilly Circus.”

Lily sighed and sat down with her back against the wall. “Is this going to get interesting at any point?”

“It’s interesting already,” Caydon said. “I can’t believe I’ve been riding about on the tube with all this sort of stuff going on.”

“My legs are tired.” Lily had been hoping to hear Oz’s violin, and was cruelly disappointed by the silence. “Ugh! What’s that?” Something small and dark whisked past her foot. “A rat!”

She didn’t mind Spike, but the idea of all those thousands of ordinary, mortal rats made her flesh creep.

“They’re not supposed to use this route,” Spike said. “But there’re always a few troublemakers.”

Two more shapes scuttered past, their little claws clicking on the tiles; Lily shuddered and hugged her knees.

“Hallo—” Spike dropped the lump of sugar he was nibbling. “Something’s up! This could be a clue!”

Quivering with excitement, he jumped down in front of yet another hurrying rat. It was extremely strange to watch Spike talking to it in rhythmic squeaks, like something electronic.

The ordinary rat hurried off into the darkness.

Spike’s whiskery face was thoughtful. “Something’s up, all right—I couldn’t get much sense out of him—he kept saying he was going to eat a big dead thing.”

Caydon whispered, “Dead thing?”

“I’ll get an emergency unit.” Joyce was very serious; she pulled her radio out of her pocket. “Where is it?”

“In one of the old tunnels the rats are allowed to use,” Spike said. “I don’t like the sound of this—wish we didn’t have the kids with us.”

“They’ll be safest with us,” said Joyce. “You’ll be brave, won’t you?”

“Sure!” Caydon did his best to sound confident.

Lily was filled with a fear so terrible that she couldn’t
put it into words—what if Oz had been murdered and the rats were rushing to eat his corpse?

Joyce took her hand. “No need to panic, love—ten to one it’s a snoozing ghost, and they’re too thick to notice.” Her hand was warm and firm. Lily clung to it tightly.

“It’s the old tunnel that leads into the disused station,” Spike said. “Come on—we’re not far away.”

They set off again. Joyce muttered a few instructions into her radio. Spike perched on one of her shoulders, sometimes squeaking directions into her ear:

“Right here—door here—down these steps—”

The door at the bottom of the steps opened into a huge, black, windy nothingness. This tunnel had once been part of the Piccadilly Line.

Caydon hung back against the wall. “There won’t be any trains, right?”

“That’s one thing we don’t have to worry about,” Alan said. “It’s been closed for years—which is why the rats are allowed to use it.”

“What about ghost trains?” Lily asked.

“You’re a sharp one,” Joyce said approvingly. “As a matter of fact, we do sometimes see ghost trains—but only on New Year’s Eve.”

“Wow,” Caydon breathed. “I thought I wanted to join the magical bit of the river police—but it might be more interesting down here!”

“What was that?” Lily gripped Joyce’s hand. “Ugh—they’re running over my feet!”

In the sooty gloom, the floor was moving. Hundreds of rats streamed through their legs; the walls resounded with squeaks. Lily was numb with the horror of it—those greasy bodies, with their scaly tails and hairy, pointed snouts.

“They’re slowing down!” called Spike. “And I can hear lots of chatter about the dead thing!”

Even Caydon looked scared now.

“I don’t think the kids should go any farther,” Alan said. “Not till I’ve had a look.”

“My backbone feels funny,” Caydon said.

Lily felt a tingle of electricity; the magic pulled at them like a super-powerful magnet.

Alan shone his torch into a squirming, writhing heap of rats. The rats were swarming over something. Spike squeaked, and they scattered.

“Oh my g—” Joyce choked. “What the heck’s that?”

It was a mound of fur the size of a small armchair—an enormous dead rat with two tails and six legs.

Lily was sick all over some nearby rats.

“I’ve changed my mind,” Caydon said. “I’m not working in the Underground if I have to see anything else
like that. Seriously, wasn’t it the most disgusting thing you’ve ever seen?”

Caydon, Lily and Alan were sitting in a cafe in Muswell Hill, eating fish and chips. The disgusting creature had been bagged up and taken to the secret SMU kennel and the children had been sent off to have lunch while it was examined in the laboratory.

“It wasn’t pretty,” Alan agreed.

“Yuck, those two scaly tails! Wasn’t it fat? And the extra legs! It looked like a big blob covered with dirty hair.”

“I wish you’d stop going on about it.” Lily’s stomach still felt very weird. “It’s putting me off my food—I think it’s incredible that you can eat anything.”

“I wish I’d taken a photo, that’s all.” Caydon squirted ketchup over his chips. “I’d love to show it to my friends.”

“We’ve signed the Official Secrets Act,” Lily reminded him. “You’d be breaking the law.”

“I didn’t say I was going to, did I? You’re really in a grumpy mood today.”

“And you’re just treating this whole thing like a game!”

“I am not!”

“When my brother’s missing—maybe lying dead somewhere—”

“Stop arguing, you two!” Spike’s voice was muffled.
He was eating his chips inside Alan’s pocket where no one would see him; rats are never welcome in cafes. “Alan—throw us some more chips, mate.”

“OK.” Alan dropped a soggy handful of chips into his pocket.

“What—no ketchup?”

“Back off; the chips are bad enough.”

“Look—I’m sorry,” Caydon said. “I know how serious this is and I swear I want to find Oz as much as you do. But I was having a really boring holiday before all this started—the guy I normally hang out with has gone to Cyprus with his parents. You can’t blame me for being interested in all this magic and adventure.”

“You can’t help it,” Spike said. “Because you’re a witch.”

“I’m not a witch, OK? Or a wizard, or a warlock or whatever. I don’t know any spells and I still think there’s been a mistake.” Caydon was, for once, very serious. “But—did you get a feeling when we were in that tunnel? I mean, a feeling like we had in the sunken tram?”

“Yes,” Lily said. “A sort of pulling.”

“Well, I think it was a sign that Oz is still alive and kicking, and maybe somewhere near that old tunnel.”

“Really?” Lily suddenly liked Caydon a lot more, and felt a little less freaked out.

“That’s what they’re looking for in the lab,” Alan
said, slipping a piece of fish into his pocket for Spike. “Any sign of magic that will lead us to Oz. Come on, let’s get back to the kennels. I want to know if they found any clues.”

Lily didn’t want to hear or see any more of the revolting creature they had found that morning, but what if its shuddersome corpse led them to Oz? Deep down, something was telling her to hope.

The moment they reached the SMU’s secret kennels, she ran to the cage of Edwin the ghost elephant. It looked disappointingly empty.

“Edwin!” she called softly.

Caydon came to stand beside her. “He must be asleep—HEY!” He jumped back, giggling. “He tickled my neck!”

Lily stood very still. Something soft touched her cheek—the end of Edwin’s trunk. She felt him grab a lock of her hair and give it a gentle tug.

“Ed’s in a jolly mood today,” the lady at the desk said. “He likes having someone to play with.”

“Doesn’t he get bored here?” Lily asked. “Wouldn’t it be kinder to let him roam free somewhere?”

“Edwin doesn’t want to roam free,” the lady said. “He’s a ghost, so he can go where he likes, and he happens to enjoy living in this cage—it was the only place he could settle in after he left the zoo. And we all enjoy having him around. He’s our mascot.”

Inside the cage, Lily heard something large trampling and shifting excitedly.

“Hello, Edwin.” The man known as J came up to them, wearing a white lab coat over his suit. “How are you, old boy?”

He stood up against the bars of the cage, and the white handkerchief in his top pocket suddenly whisked into the air and floated above their heads.

J laughed. “He likes an audience.” The handkerchief circled in the air and dropped softly on J’s head. He stuffed it back in his pocket, turning back to Lily and Caydon. “The lab’s had a look at that frightful thing you found in the Piccadilly Line. Among the contents of its stomach were fragments of half-digested chocolate fudge.”