Free The Black Room by Gillian Cross Page A

reached the edge of the parking lot, the boy and his father were already climbing into a car. Robert broke into a run, but Tom could see that was pointless. He stayed where he was, watching the car back out of its space and drive away. It turned left out of the lot and then right, so that it disappeared almost instantly.
    That’s it, then, Tom thought. We’ve lost them.
    He was amazed at the sudden burst of feeling that swept through him. He could have laughed out loud from sheer relief.

10
    THE NEW CAVERN WAS FULL OF NOISE AND TERROR. PEOPLE began to blunder around, shouting and pushing at each other as they struggled to get away from the break in the wall. Lorn tried to talk above the yelling, to get them to calm down. But her voice wasn’t strong enough, and she couldn’t make them hear her.
    It was Perdew who stopped the chaos. He lifted the glowing wood high above his head, so that it flared suddenly brighter, and as the others turned to look, he bellowed at them. “DO YOU WANT IT TO HEAR YOU?”
    That brought immediate silence. Total and terrified. Perdew let it register with everyone. Then he looked at Lorn.
    â€œOK,” he said. “What do we do now?”
    â€œWe’ve got to fill all this in!” Tina said, not waiting for Lorn to answer. “Put it all back just the way it was, before we ever started digging!”
    â€œNo!” Lorn said. “No, we can‘t!”
    She hadn’t worked out what else they could do. Not yet. But she knew that they had to be down under the earth. It was like hearing a voice in her head. No one will get you down there. You’ll be safe under the ground. The idea of abandoning the new space they had made filled her with panic.
    â€œSo what are we going to do?” Perdew said steadily. “Sit here and wait to be eaten?”
    â€œOf course not!” Lorn forced herself to start thinking. “We’ve got to do something—but we can’t fill in everything we’ve dug out. How could we ever collect enough earth?”
    â€œOK.” Perdew wasn’t going to let it drop. “If we can’t use this, then we’ll have to find a new cavern after all.”
    Oh no, Lorn thought. You’re not getting away with that. She looked straight back at him. “You want to go out exploring? In the cold?”
    For the first time, she felt a response from the others. She could see them imagining what it would be like trekking over the hard, frosty earth, with the icy air eating into their bones. It was too late for exploring now, and they all knew it. They had to stay where they were.
    â€œSo what are we going to do about this hole?” Dess said. Not belligerently like Perdew, but desperate for an answer.
    â€œWe‘ll—”
    We’ll have to talk about that, Lorn was going to say. But the words came out differently. Because suddenly she saw what they could do.
    â€œWe’ll build a wall,” she said.
    No one was expecting that. She felt their surprise—and then their bewilderment. They didn’t understand what she meant.
    She turned toward the fallen earth, eager to explain. “Bring the light here, Perdew. So everyone can see.”
    The wood had almost burned through, but Perdew carried it over to her, standing to one side of the hole to light it clearly.
    Lorn swept her arm in a wide arc in front of the wall. “We can build a barrier right across this end. With big stones. If we make it thick enough, it will keep anything out—and we’ll still have the space on this side, to use as a storeroom.”
    She saw them nod as they started to take it in, and she knew they were going to agree.
    â€œThat would solve a lot of things,” Shang said thoughtfully. “If we put the stores down here, we’ll have more room up above.”
    â€œIt won’t solve anything,” Perdew said. “It’ll just leave us back where we started—in the old,