The Plug at the Bottom of the Sea (13 page)

‘In the Chamber of Plenty, trying to provide for the sick and hungry. He will be able to tell you how you can help.'

‘Then we will go to him,' nodded Moses, his beard shaking with happiness.

‘I advise you to take some string to let out on your way. Even we, who have lived here underground all our lives, still get lost.'

‘My father gave me the same advice when I was young and I have brought some.'

‘Good—but make sure you know what your string feels like. There's so much string tied through these caves it often makes it more confusing!' The old man laughed, in his high, wispy voice.

Just then, sliding out of the water beside them, Cindy saw the long black arm of the octopus.

‘Oh! Watch out!' cried Captain Tiny, jumping up into the arms of a statue. ‘It's the octopus!'

Everyone except the old man and Moses jumped.

‘He's in the water!' cried Craig. ‘He's coming out onto that statue over there!'

‘Which statue?' cried Captain Tiny, trembling.

‘Oh, don't worry about that octopus. He's our guard,' said the old man. ‘He swims near the plug to make sure we're all safe.'

‘Really?' asked Captain Tiny, now hanging from one of the statues. He looked down at them with his moustache bent.

‘Yes, indeed. The last time I saw him was just before he went off to look at the rope from the windmill, the night of the storm. I haven't seen him since.'

‘Well, we have!' complained Captain Tiny.

‘His name is Occi. He's been with us almost as long as I have been here myself. Yet he always looks young.'

‘He's been following us,' explained Cindy, a bit less frightened now that she knew of Occi's long service, but still not ready to climb down the statue she had jumped onto.

‘Almost all the way from the windmill,' added Craig from another statue.

‘You were at the windmill?' asked the old man.

‘I lived there,' said Moses.

‘And you were there during the storm?' asked the old man, very excited.

‘Yes, they were.' Moses picked up his pack, anxious to find his brother.

‘Wait! Tell me, did you see how the windmill began to turn? Did you see the dreadful King of the East turn the sails?' asked the old man, waving his feather in excitement. Moses shook his head.

‘No, lightning struck the sails and started them turning,' said Moses.

‘No, it was all our fault,' cried Craig and Cindy together. ‘We put the iron bar against the sails …'

But the old man shook his head, unable to understand.

‘Let me explain,' said the mermaid, who had heard the story several times now. And she did.

‘So it wasn't the King of the East at all?'

‘No.' They all shook their heads.

‘Well, thank you, Mrs Mermaid, for explaining. Now Occi will
guide you to the Chamber of Plenty. He knows the way better than I do.'

Craig took some candles out of the sack and lit one. Suddenly the octopus reached an arm over to the sack, frightening Craig. Occi took the candle and turned it upside down neat the statue. A few drops of wax fell and the candle flared up showing the remains of thousands of candles.

Then Occi turned the candle right side up and squeezed and held it till it stood by itself. His thin arms then curled around and he waved to them to follow him as he lit many candles and carried them with several arms as he slid along. He looked like a ferris wheel in slow motion.

‘He's truly amazing,' said the old man fondly, as he waved good-bye. ‘Occi lights candles and leads everyone. He's so devoted.' Sure enough, while Occi carried four lighted candles, he still had enough arms left over to light other candles along the path.

Then Windmill, who was jealous of Occi, and not to be outdone by eight arms, picked up the string from Cindy's hand and fluttered along above the black octopus.

So the little group in this vast, pale blue oyster shell of a cavern called good-bye to the old man with his beard, notebook, and feather, and followed the bird and the octopus along the winding path between the statues.

The lights of their candles reflected in the blue pools making green circles. The dark shapes of cannons and battleships stuck up out of the water. They were as dark and frightening as sharks' fins. Statues of soldiers in ancient armour stood, looking down at them with their stone eyes. Their spears and swords pointed at the small group as they walked on.

Suddenly Cindy asked, ‘If this is a peace chamber, why are there so many statues of soldiers and fighters?'

‘Perhaps they're there to remind people how bad war is,' suggested Moses.

‘Nonsense!' called Captain Tiny. ‘These are the statues of all the great men who fought for peace.'

‘No, no,' called the little old man, who came trotting up to join them. ‘I thought Occi might lead you this way. It's been blocked and Occi hasn't been here since the flood so he doesn't know.'

‘Well, now then which way is it?' barked Captain Tiny. ‘Which is it to be, the devil or the deep?'

‘Im afraid you'll have to squeeze through that silver horn of plenty. It's the only way.'

Captain Tiny began to fume, but the old man continued, ‘I was hopping mad when that flood brought all these new silver horns of plenty into my Peace Chamber. We've cleaned up most of the place as you can see, but this …' He pointed and they followed his finger to a gigantic, shiny silver, bullet-like thing stuck between two statues. ‘We couldn't move it a hair.'

‘That's a missile,' said Moses, ‘that silver horn as you call it.'

‘Is that really a missile?' asked Craig, who had never seen one before.

‘Of course it is,' said Captain Tiny scornfully. ‘I've flown in a hundred of them myself.'

But the old man was already leading the way. ‘Right through the middle here,' he called.

Now he was inside the missile and his voice sounded muffled, but still cross.

‘I told the men in this horn-missile that they'd ruined my Chamber of Peace, but they obviously didn't know where in the world they were. One of them asked me if I was a Martian. I also complained to some men in a “submarine,” I think they called it, but they didn't speak English.'

They had to climb over old battleships and cannons after they squeezed through the missile. The octopus was still leading the way with Windmill flying above him.

They went on, it seemed as though they would be in the Peace Chamber forever. But at last they saw that the ceiling was getting lower and they knew that they were near the edge of the cave.

At the end of the cave there were stone stairs leading down, in a spiral, round and round into the Chamber of Plenty.

They went down these twisting stairs and, after going round and round several times, they came to a balcony. The balcony overlooked a gigantic cavern, even larger than the Chamber of Peace.

‘This,' said the old man, ‘is the Chamber of Plenty.' And it looked it.

The entire cavern was filled from floor to ceiling with piles of barrels and boxes, ropes and sails, masts and broken oars. They could see all these things by the light of seaweed on the walls which gave out a dull green shine, like lighted velvet.

‘It's electric seaweed,' explained the old man. ‘Usually the cave is nearly filled with water and then it's much brighter. The seaweed needs the water to glow. Without water the seaweed gets cold and shivers.' Sure enough when they looked closely at the walls they could see the seaweed shivering.

Down at the bottom of the chamber far below there was a great deal of activity. People, who looked very tiny from where they stood, were moving about, pushing crates and barrels into piles, and making new piles out of old piles.

‘Every one of these boxes and crates and barrels was taken off the ships that the recent flood brought down here. There is not enough food to go round, so we are searching each crate again. We hope …' But he was interrupted in his speech by Moses. Down at the bottom of the cave he had sighted a familiar face—or rather a familiar beard—for that was all you could really see of it.

‘Noah! Can you hear me, Noah?' cried out Moses.

‘What's this?' said the old man, surprised.

‘Moses!' came a shout from below. ‘Moses, is it really you, my brother?' They all saw a bearded man run round some boxes to look up at them. ‘Ten years and we find each other!' shouted the tiny figure.

Moses was already starting down the spiral stairs which led to the floor of the cave. Now his brother began to run up the
stairs from the bottom. Round and round they went, shouting happily to each other.

‘Where've you been all these years?'

‘Where've you been yourself, Moses? I've been looking for you across the seven seas.'

‘I've been on the island.'

‘Windmill Island?' asked Noah, puffing as he tried to go faster up the stairs.

‘Yes, where Father took us years ago,' answered Moses, grabbing for the railing as he ran down the stairs to stop himself from falling. ‘But how do you happen to be here?'

‘I was on a ship sailing to find you.'

They were getting nearer and nearer, as around and around they went. By now, Moses was going much faster than Noah because he was the one going downhill. With their beards they looked identical, except Moses was twice as tall and his beard was red, while Noah's beard was white. But they were both as big and round as barrels.

‘I have great news,' cried Noah.

But Moses couldn't reply because just at that moment there was a thud as the two sturdy brothers' bodies collided.

‘We've found your ship,' gasped Noah out of breath. ‘It's here in the cave.'

Moses beamed.

‘Congratulations!' cried Captain Tiny as the others came down the stairs to join the brothers. Captain Tiny was being pleasant for a change and he introduced himself to Noah.

‘Did you say Captain Tiny of H.M.S.
Lazy
?' asked Noah.

Captain Tiny realized that he should not have admitted his name. He shook his head without saying anything more.

‘Captain, half your ship, H.M.S.
Lazy,
is in the great Cavern of Knowledge with a boatload of penguins doing tricks.'

Captain Tiny moaned and shook his head backward and forward remembering when he last saw his boat and those penguins.

Noah looked at him, trying to understand. ‘Your name is Captain Tiny, isn't it? And the H.M.S.
Lazy
is your boat—isn't it?'

‘Yes, I mean no, I mean …' he stuttered, shaking as he turned to run back up the stairs. But the first thing he saw was the penguin in his path. ‘
Oh!
' he shrieked, tripping and falling on his moustache. He looked up and saw the penguin looking down at him with a puzzled expression. ‘I knew it!' he cried. ‘I knew it. They're little devils. Them penguins—even look like the devil.' And he got up.

‘Come on, Captain.' Moses laughed. ‘Penguins are no more devils than you are.' He helped Captain Tiny up the stairs, though he still looked frightened of the penguin. ‘Now let me introduce you and everyone else to Noah.' And he did, one by one, even the penguin, Windmill, and the seahorse.

‘Now,' he said when they were finished, ‘we must hurry to find our boats and families and try to get the water back.'

‘The water back?' asked the old man, who had just finished writing down all the names in his book. ‘Why that means we have to pull out the plug in the other side of the earth again. And it's stuck fast now. All the water in the world is on top of it.'

‘That's the problem we have all been trying to solve down here,' said Noah. ‘We've tried pulling it, blasting it, everything. Nothing will make it come loose.'

‘Well, let's get to it and see what new ideas we have. We'd better hurry,' added Moses, pulling his pack on again. ‘The world's going dry without the sea.' Everyone began to hurry down the spiral stairs. They were a large group now with the old man and Noah.

Some of them could move much faster than others. Mrs Mermaid could swim in the pools, but couldn't walk down the stairs. The penguin waddled very slowly and unless he could slide downhill on his tail he had to be carried too.

Because of this, they were spread apart when a strange rumbling suddenly split the stairs in two. The large group had suddenly become two small groups, separated from each other by an earthquake.

One group, with Cindy, the old man, the mermaid, and the penguin, was hanging on to the last stairs looking down at the other group: Moses, Craig, Noah, Captain Tiny, and Occi, who were now far below. They were on the same stairway but the stairs were now split in two. The floor of the cave had tilted and all the piles of barrels and boxes were falling or teetering
on the brink of falling. When the rumbling stopped and the clouds of rock dust and shreds of seaweed cleared, the two groups saw each other across a great crack in the earth.

‘Are you all right over there?' called Moses, watching the old man hanging on to the edge with Cindy as the mermaid pulled them to safety. When they were all standing on the hanging step, the old man called out: ‘An earthquake! It must be caused by the great pressure on the east side of the earth. You must hurry to the plug while we climb back through the Chamber of Art.'

‘But,' argued Moses, ‘on the map there is a bridge leading directly from the Peace Chamber to the Chamber of War.'

‘That bridge has been washed away by the flood,' called the old man. ‘Better split up into two groups and I'll lead this group to the Great Chamber.'

‘No, we can't leave you!' shouted Moses. But just then another rumbling made them all tremble.

‘You see. It's no use trying to stay here. We must go back up and you must go on to the Great Cavern!'