Free Undergardeners by Desmond Ellis

monster thundered toward them. It became louder as it got closer, gathering speed as it came. Then it screeched past in a swirling blast of cold air and dust. The dust got in his throat and stopped Mouse’s laughter briefly, but after a couple of coughs, he started again. All the Undergardeners were clinging to him— and one another—with their eyes tightly closed. Alkus was the first to open hers. She glared at Mouse. “Have you gone… why are you laughing?”
    â€œWe’re in a tunnel. A train tunnel,” Mouse managed to gasp. “The Creepscreech is a train. Look, there are the tracks.”
    The three workers who had closed the big electricity switch were walking away from them between the tracks with flashlights in their hands. Two men and one woman. Three ordinary-looking workers in yellow hard hats and work clothes.

    Mouse explained what a train was and told them that sometimes trains went through tunnels like this one. “Digger must have pulled the main switch and cut off the power; that’s why it stopped. But we should get out in case any more trains come because even though it’s not the monster you thought it was, it’s still dangerous. Apart from the possibility of getting run over, that rail,” he pointed, “carries the electricity that powers the train. It can kill. Now, let me see. We don’t have to go back the way we came; we can go this way. I can see moonlight.”
    Alkus relit her lantern and made a note on her clipboard. Send a work crew to fill in the hole outside the Ancient Rhymer’s cave before it causes more trouble. And seal Podge’s pantry again.
    As the grateful Undergardeners thanked Mouse for revealing what the Creepscreech really was, he found out how the myth had come into being. Back when the tunnel was being built, some of the Undergardeners in those olden times had been killed in the blasting. The generations of Undergardeners that came after never went near the tunnel again, and the myth of the monstrous Creepscreech grew and grew. Digger shook his head ruefully. “Fear has a big shadow,” he said, “but he himself is very small.”
    Podge drew himself up on his hind legs and shook himself gleefully, his own spiky shadow looking huge and menacing in the light from the lantern. “You did a splendid night’s work, Mouse,” he said, his monocle glinting. “By gollopers, yes. You’re a hero.”
    Everyone agreed cheerfully, and Mouse felt proud. A hero, by gollopers, he thought as he led the happy Undergardeners along the tunnel toward the circle of light he knew was the night sky. They streamed out into the moon-bright, open-to-the-sky, outside world.

Chapter 10
    Mouse took a deep breath of the night air. Being below ground with the Undergardeners had been wonderful, but fresh air and moonlight and space were nice too. Looking around, he was surprised to recognize his surroundings. While underground he had felt he was a thousand miles away, yet here he was at a railway bridge not very far from his own home. The river flowing under the bridge ran through the park at the back of his house; a fast walk and he could be home in minutes. Mouse had never seen the park at this hour: dark, shadowy, moody, mysterious and silent, except for the flowing river whispering to the rocks.
    Sooner than he wanted, they came within sight of his back garden and the fenceposts he and his father had erected. In the moonlight they looked like small, square, branchless trees. The house was in darkness, which meant he hadn’t been missed; Mouse could sneak back to bed and nobody would be the wiser. But, tired though he was, he didn’t want to go to bed, didn’t want the evening to end. “Can we meet again?” he asked, looking beseechingly at Alkus.
    Alkus looked up at Mouse and then turned to the others. All nodded their agreement without hesitation. “It seems to be unanimous,” she