a better judge of that given your talent to ferret things out. The nearest I get to technology is emailing the geek who manages my website.”
Deanna hoped that Mrs Solomon hadn’t mentioned her aptitude with electronic technology, especially in coding HTML and Java, and cracking ciphers, to anyone else. It was bound to interest dubious individuals wanting her to hack into something. The only other person to know just how good she had become was her technology teacher. Aware of how well they would get on together, he had been the one to introduce her to Mrs Solomon.
After typing the address in Start Page to reduce the number of pointless results thrown up by Google, only one mention came up. That was in a register of buildings demolished in the late 19th century.
“There’s something kooky about this page.” Deanna was tempted to run it though Scamadviser to see where it originated.
“How do you mean?”
Deanna checked out its source code. “It’s just a page, recently posted, with too many keywords and no primary root folder. Why go to the bother of a domain name when this is all you need to upload?”
“Sorry, it’s too small to see without my other glasses, and probably won’t make much sense to me anyway,” Mrs Solomon evaded.
“Anyway, it’s quite near here. Shall we take a look?”
“Why not. I could lock the shop up tomorrow afternoon and get out the car.”
“I didn’t know you had a car?”
“Stays in the garage. Don’t worry, I’m still safe behind the wheel. It needs an outing every now and then to keep it roadworthy.” Mrs Solomon studied the location Deanna had brought up on Google maps. “Anyway, we’ll never reach that by bus.”
Deanna expected Mrs Solomon’s car to be some old banger that she kept for its vintage value. She couldn’t have been more wrong. It was hardly surprising it wasn’t left parked in the road. Far from being ancient and barely roadworthy, it was the most up-to-date, top of the range, electric sports car on the market. And she thought that this woman couldn’t drive!
And how the antique dealer could drive. Even the satnav had been switched off because it couldn’t keep up with her.
Deanna checked their destination on Google Earth. “You do know that there aren’t any buildings at this address, don’t you? The nearest place is a deserted aerodrome.”
“Well, we’ll just take a look. The old girl likes a good spin out.”
Indeed, when you had a car like Mrs Solomon’s, why not let the hedgehogs know about it. The electric engine purred like a tiger as it sped across a field, startling rabbits and pheasants, to reach a potholed road leading to a long demolished house. The grounds were vast and overgrown and the occasional tower of masonry jutted above the trees.
Mrs Solomon stopped by the only intact wall. In it were steps leading down to a door.
Deanna’s puzzle solving efforts hadn’t been a waste of time after all.
She waited for Mrs Solomon to get out of the car before following her down the steps, tightly clutching the old key. She was sure the lock must have rusted tight after all these years.
“Did you bring a torch?” Deanna asked.
“In the car. We’ll just take a peek inside first to see what’s there.”
“Okay.” Deanna pushed the key into the lock and turned it. The tumblers immediately rotated.
Deanna started to feel apprehensive. “That’s weird.” What had she let herself in for? Mrs Solomon was no longer the same amiable antique dealer she had known for over a year. As well as the expensive car and irrational diffidence about plummeting through the decaying floorboards of old ruins, her tone was now more authoritative.
“Push the door open then.”
Deanna dared not refuse.
As it creaked wide, she expected a colony of bats to fly out from their roost in the decaying beams that supported the ceiling of the cellar.
Instead, a bright light flooded out onto the stone steps.
“Go in. Be careful. There’s quite a drop down.”
Deanna toppled into a large room. She picked herself up. Bemused operatives at computer monitors gazed at her in interest.
Mrs Solomon closed the door. “Here she is, as promised.”
“She cracked it then?” a young woman exclaimed.
“Well I never! It was worth the hassle of putting that thing together after all.” This voice sounded like the designer of the puzzle box. “She’s better than the adults.”
“Careful,” chided Mrs Solomon. “She is virtually an adult.”
Someone else sounded more dubious. “Still hormonal, I bet.”
“No more than you when you were recruited.”
Deanna was too overwhelmed to ask what was going on.
“This is what the plebeian masses refer to as the Secret Service - technical branch,” declared Mrs Solomon.
“One of those many branches they fortunately know nothing about,” added the young woman.
“Meet Sangeeta,” announced Mrs Solomon. “She will induct you into the ways of our little world - should you be interested.”
Overcoming her amazement, Deanna could only think of one thing. “But how did you all get down here? There’s no proper road or car park.”
“There, what did I tell you. Picks up on things that matter.”
Sangeeta laughed. “There is a tunnel to the aerodrome. Built during the last war. Once the walls were reinforced and wildlife evicted, it was ideal for our little bolthole, well away from phone masts.”
“Then how do you receive and transmit?”
“All cabled up to our own exchange. No Wi-Fi down here.”
“But if all this is a supposed to be secret, why are you letting me see it?”
“Don’t worry,” the dissenting voice chimed in. “We’ll just shoot you if you tell anyone else.”
“Shut up Dancy!” scolded Mrs Solomon. “The only person I’m liable to have shot is you.”
Deanna wandered uncertainly about the room lined with monitor screens, trying to guess what the software was capable of.
“Well,” snapped Dancy, disregarding Mrs Solomon’s glare, “want to join us or not?”
“Will I need to shoot anyone?”
“Only Dancy,” said Mrs Solomon.
“But I’m not 16 yet?”
“You can still the sign the secrets act.”
“What will my parents say? They’d never allow it.”
“We’re a secret service - you don’t tell them. You’ll be 16 in four weeks and able to do what you like - mostly.”
“Can I tell my brother?”
“You mean the one that let the F word slip on live TV?”
“You saw that then, did you?”
“Brilliant football player, but not so bright. We’re only interested in wordsmiths and have a very large swear box. Leave him to his boozy friends and blissful oblivion of what happens in the big, wide world.” Mrs Solomon indicated the monitors. “And this, believe me, is the big, wide world the tabloids do not have the words to describe. What we do might scare them to death. Not you, though. I reckon you’ll be here for keeps.”
Roy Goes On a Trip
It was the largest mushroom Roy had ever seen. It shouldn’t have been there, rooted between the cracks of the crazy paving. Even more worrying was its smug expression; an impudent, marshmallow face grinning up at him.
Roy almost smiled back in surprise, but managed to control himself. When hundreds more grinning mushrooms popped up, he decided things were getting too strange and fled up the path towards a grotto.
As Roy approached, the shell encrusted entrance turned into gaping jaws - which swallowed him whole.
The belly of the grotto was alive with liquid creatures lapping about his knees, trying to digest him. The more he struggled, the lower the fossil encrusted ceiling descended. On the verge of being crushed, he was catapulted into a world of prehistoric beasts. Fleet-footed carnivores with beady yellow eyes were hunting gigantic browsers the size of cathedrals. Then th
e predators turned and saw the young interloper, a much easier lunch than a massive brontosaurus.
The flock of deinonychus surrounded their new meal, snapping at him hungrily. Roy closed his eyes tightly, and would have clicked his heels three times to wish himself back home if he had been wearing Dorothy’s ruby slippers. But the ploy worked and once again he found himself in a different dimension. It wasn’t Kansas or the Land of Oz, though the faces now surrounding him were more familiar.
Kat had always reminded him a little of a meat eating raptor, though given the state of his teeth he probably wasn’t that dangerous. The gang that tagged along behind the nasty little lout were regarded as life’s losers rather than the terror of the neighbourhood, which made Kat even more obnoxious. He put his ugly face too near Roy’s. Roy punched it and saved the dentist the trouble of having to extract a couple of rotten teeth. No sooner had the blow landed than the switch controlling his progress through this weird otherworld rotated a couple more notches.
He was standing on a high peak. Below, beetling-browed faces in the rock glowered up and threatened to scream in rage. For fear of falling down one of their throats, Roy jumped in the hope this bad dream would allow him to fly. Instead he landed in a gullet that immediately tried to swallow him. The nightmare now seemed too real as it began to turn into the most visceral, violent video game made flesh.
Roy tried to yell out, but that was strangled in his throat as razor sharp talons snatched him from the devouring face in the rock. He was carried into a stratosphere filled with pumpkin-shaped creatures wearing gnomish expressions like the mushrooms.
Their smiles gaped wide to reveal tunnels into black