The World's Worst Mothers (20 page)

‘What about that fellow?' asked Vibke Paulsen pointing at a half-collapsed figure in the corner, with a peaked cap pulled over his face.

‘He's the one who stole my ice cream!' cried Nicholas. ‘And he threw my Mousie in the bin.'

‘That's Alfred,' said Bruno.

‘And who is Alfred when he's at home?' asked Vibke Paulsen.

‘Frau Wohlfarth's butler,' said Bruno.

‘Frau Wohlfarth's chauffeur,' said Sophie.

‘Frau Wohlfarth's sea-captain,' said Emily.

‘Well, whatever else he is,' said the guesthouse keeper, ‘at the moment he is only one thing, and that is dead drunk. First he drank tea. Then tea with rum. Then just rum.'

‘I could do with something myself to give me a bit of strength,' said Vibke Paulsen. ‘My poor nerves! Bring me an egg-nog, Swantje. And a hot chocolate for the little lad.'

There was a trapdoor behind the counter, which Lührsen was opening. A narrow staircase was revealed. In the brightly lit cellar there were beer barrels, crates and all sorts of stuff. They went through a door into a narrow hallway with shelves full of bottles at the end of it.

‘Now what?' asked Sven-Ole.

‘Help me to push the shelves away. My grandfather put them here as camouflage. The passageway to the bunker is behind them.'

‘So it's true that drink used to be smuggled?' asked Sophie.

The guesthouse keeper shrugged his shoulders. He was carefully removing bottles. ‘That was a long time ago,' he growled.

A bottle clattered to the floor and smashed.

‘Watch out!' he snapped at Bruno. ‘That was a 1969 Bordeaux.'

‘To hell with your stupid wine,' said Bruno. ‘Our mothers are drowning!'

They weren't drowning just yet, but the water had reached nearly as high as their bottoms. Only one of the candles was still burning, but its light was getting weaker by the minute.

‘I should have been nicer to her,' Sophie's mother was wailing. ‘A girl who is going through puberty needs understanding and love; I know that now. I preferred Nicholas, because he is so much easier to look after.'

‘Don't blame yourself,' said Susie. ‘I think children know very well that they are loved, no matter how badly you behave.'

‘Well, ours don't seem to have known it. Otherwise, why would they write such horrible things about us?' said Earth Mother bitterly.

‘Did you never complain about your mother?' asked Susie.

Of course they had. They all had stories to tell about the dreadful mothers they'd had.

‘Mine said, at a school party, loud enough for everyone to hear, that I shouldn't have any bean salad, because it would make me fart,' said Clingy Mum.

‘Oh, God!' said everyone in unison, and the women forgot their present troubles in remembering hurts from the past. But not for long. Then the moaning started up again.

‘My panties are wet through.'

‘I'm freezing.'

‘When is someone going to get us out of here?'

‘How could they?' asked Susie. ‘The entrance to the bunker is in the sea by now.'

‘They'll have to get divers,' said Sophie's mother.

‘That's a great idea, Mrs Supersmart,' said Bruno's mother dismissively. ‘Maybe they could get in here, but how would they get us out? I never thought of bringing my diving suit. Did you?'

‘Well, it'd be hard to find one to fit you, anyway,' retorted Sophie's mother.

‘You stupid –'

‘Oh, stop squabbling,' said Susie. ‘That's not going to get us anywhere. I wonder if there is another way out.'

She took hold of the last candle and went feeling her way along the back wall of the bunker. Her fingers moved over slithery moss until they came to a rusty bar.

‘There's something here!' she called. ‘A ladder.'

The passageway that led from Dune View to the bunker was low and narrow. Not even Emily, who was the smallest, was able to walk standing up straight. But mostly it was dark. Hinnerk did have a torch, but its light only reached a few yards.

They struggled on, bent over. A rat brushed past Emily and she gave a muffled screech. But then she heard something.

‘Psst!' she went. ‘Can you hear that?'

They all stopped and listened. The sound was quite clear now. Knocking.

Susie was standing at the top of the ladder and was hammering on the wooden hatch behind it. She finally gave up and climbed back down. Down into the water that was now chest-high on her.

‘Let me have a go!' said Sophie's mother.

She clambered up and banged with her fist on the slimy wood, until she slipped.

‘Oh, give over with this nonsense,' said Earth Mother. ‘Who could possibly hear us?'

The water was up to her waist by now. And she was the tallest.

Clingy Mum was gasping for air. ‘I want to get out! Let me get on the ladder.'

‘No, me!' called another.

And another one spluttered desperately, ‘I've swallowed water, I'm drowning!'

All the mothers gathered around the ladder and tried to pull Sophie's mother down off it. She cried, ‘Shut up! I hear something. Someone is there!'

‘You're lying,' shouted Fitness Mum. ‘You just want to stay up there, where it's safe. Get down here!'

At that very moment, the hatch over their heads opened.

‘Hang on, Mum,' called Sophie, holding out a hand to her mother. ‘I'll get you out of here.'

Wet through and rather emotional, all the mothers started climbing, one after another, up the ladder and through the narrow opening into the passageway.

Sophie's mother didn't want to let go of her daughter. ‘My angel, my darling! You saved us! Good heavens, I'm afraid even to think about what might have happened. Are you all right? What have you done with your hair? It looks terrible.' And then finally she asked, ‘Where is Nicholas?'

‘Vibke Paulsen is looking after him,' Sophie assured her. ‘And my hair looks the same as it always does.'

Susie sneezed several times. Emily gave her a hanky.

‘I was afraid you had believed my lie,' snuffled Susie. ‘Kruschke made me do it. Otherwise he said he wouldn't pull you out of the water that day.'

‘You were crying when you said goodbye to me,' said Emily. ‘That struck me as odd. You never cry.'

Susie laughed, and then she sneezed again. ‘You must be joking. Do you know what they call me here? Snivelling Susie!'

‘No dilly-dallying there at the back!' called Sven-Ole. ‘It's high time everyone was on dry land. Oh, yes, by the way, do you know this one? A blonde comes to a tunnel …'

‘We know it!' came several voices at once, and he shut up.

A little while later they were all sitting around in Dune View, wrapped in blankets, drinking hot tea or something stronger, all gabbling away at the same time.

Lührsen hadn't seen his bar this full for years. Sven-Ole had run to the factory to bring the news to Wohlfarth that all the mothers were safe. Alfred, who was not yet quite sober, had insisted on accompanying him.

‘Ma … Ma … Madam will be … be … be needing me, for sure,' he'd babbled. ‘And I ha … ha … haven't drunk anything.'

Pleased as Punch, Nicholas sat up on Sophie's lap, like a king on his throne. ‘You saved everyone, Sofa, didn't you?'

‘It was really Bruno,' said Sophie. ‘If he hadn't asked Kruschke's Sarah about the bunker, we'd never have found out about the secret passage.'

‘Well, actually, it might have occurred to me eventually,' said Vibke Paulsen sheepishly.

‘Strictly speaking,' said Bruno, ‘we have Emily to thank for it all. If she hadn't insisted that we should go looking for old Frau Wohlfarth, we'd never have come back to Nordfall at all.'

‘Oh, dear, I can't bear to think about it,' said Clingy Mum.

‘All three of you rescued us,' said Susie. ‘We can all be really proud of our children, can't we?'

Sophie's and Bruno's mothers nodded. The other fourteen looked a bit embarrassed.

‘I just hope my Nadine will be pleased to see me tomorrow,' said Suspicious Mum. ‘She's probably spent the whole time in front of the TV.'

‘My Timmy has probably got used to sleeping alone,' wailed Clingy Mum. ‘Or, worse still, maybe he sleeps with that robot woman.'

‘You think you have problems?' said Bruno's mother. ‘I really have something to worry about.'

‘What's that?' asked Sophie's mother.

‘Whether we are ever going to get anything to eat, since our picnic fell through.'

‘Have we got any tinned beef stew, Swantje?' Lührsen asked his waitress, who was standing near Hinnerk and listening as he told how he had, at great danger to himself, pulled seventeen women out of the water.

She threw a languorous look at him, then she said to Lührsen, ‘At least ten tins.'

‘Good, well then, pour the lot into a pot, add onions, peppers, tomato purée and a couple of bay leaves, and in ten minutes we'll have goulash soup.

Nobody could ever remember having eaten such good soup. Even Earth Mother managed to forget, in the face of the steaming and fragrant soup, that she was a vegetarian. That feeling of well-being that you only get from having lived through a shared danger gradually spread through them all.

Bruno's mother licked her lips with satisfaction and smiled proudly. It was, after all, her son who had knocked Kruschke out.

Bruno plucked up the courage to say, ‘I don't think I can ever play the piano again, Mum.' He held up the little finger of his right hand. ‘It's broken.'

‘Oh, Bruno, that doesn't matter one little bit. Forget the stupid piano. I have wonderful news for you: not only may you box, you absolutely must! A talent like yours is a rare thing.'

Bruno wasn't sure whether he should be pleased about this change of heart or not.

Then Susie asked, ‘So what's the story with Kruschke anyway? Has he been locked up? He did try to kill us, after all.'

‘Wohlfarth's mother is guarding him,' said Emily. ‘And that's worse than jail.'