The Tunnels Below by Nadine Wild-Palmer (best short novels of all time .TXT) 📕

at her papers. The writing was exquisite, flawless in detail. Then she looked at the “photo” of herself and had to stop herself laughing, which resulted in a sort of stifled snort. It was rubbish! He’d made her look like a oddly shaped potato with electrified spaghetti hair coming out of her forehead. She’d expected it to be one of those magical life-moments where you realise that the guy in front of you is in fact a wizard. This was not one of those moments.

“Oh, wow, it’s amazing,” she lied, holding back the desire to laugh.

“He’s a real artist, right?” said Luke proudly.

Cecilia snorted again and cleared her throat in an attempt to gain some composure.

“Right, one more thing!” said Jasper.

“What?” said Luke and Cecilia in unison—they were becoming restless.

“Some props to support the backstory, of course.” He began rummaging and murmuring to himself. “Take these, just in case,” he said, handing them some old bits of newspaper. “These are a few old articles from the Fly. And a notepad to give the impression you’re actually writing an article.”

“Cecilia, I can’t wait! It’s so exciting to see all the sigh riders taking their places at the Concave Stadium for the Ride or Sigh competition—especially if you’ve never been before!”

Cecilia let out a sigh and a bubbly puff of light-blue steam left her lips. She clapped her hand over her mouth.

“Quick! We’ll explain the rules when we get there but if the sighs are that strong already, the competition will be starting soon!” said Luke excitedly.

“Gather yourselves!” called Jasper. It felt like match day as Jasper and Luke grabbed coats and bags. Cecilia looked at Jasper hard and thought about how well he had adapted. She wondered what had made him want to stay there in the tunnels at all. Perhaps he had somehow got past caring about getting home, or maybe when he was up above ground, he had no friends or family and so this was actually a better place for him to be. If she did have to stay down here for any length of time, she thought, at least she had made friends of some kind; and although she was determined to get home eventually, right now she just had to suck it up until she could find Kuffi, who at the very least could get her back to where she started…

Jasper was busy tying on a handcrafted wolf’s head. It was a hat with ears and lots of bits of patchy fur stuck to it. It was sewn together beautifully and looked much like the animal hats you can buy in the shops—the fake ones that people wear in winter to keep warm.

“Cecilia?” Jasper said quite seriously. “Please never mention that you have been down here, to our secret cavern, or tell anyone how to get here, will you? Can we trust you to do that?”

“Of course, Jasper, you have my word.”

“Follow Jasper; he’ll lead us back to the main lines along what I like to call ‘Jasper’s secret tunnel’,” Luke said in a comical voice.

“Great name, Luke. Did you come up with that yourself?” she jested.

Jasper waved his walking stick in the air and shouted, “Follow me!” as he began to feel his way along the tunnel walls.

Cecilia let out a sigh that floated into the air—a thin lilac mist—and watched it dance into nothingness.

They travelled down the tunnel past where Luke and Cecilia had first entered and carried on a while further until a small opening ahead of them showed a dazzling lime-green light. The light danced about, flickering with the shadows of each dweller that passed it. They got to the opening; it was no bigger than a car door.

“We will have to go out one at a time,” said Jasper. “So it’s not so noticeable that we are coming out from a secret passage.”

Cecilia felt very excited and it was clear that Luke could hardly wait for whatever it was that they were about to see at the Ride or Sigh competition.

“You go first, Cecilia. Wait for us on the other side,” said Jasper.

Cecilia bent low under the tunnel wall and stepped out into a ginormous hollow bursting with lime-green neon light. It was so sharp and bright she could almost taste it. It reminded her of the Sensational Sound Bites music shop that she and Kuffi had visited, and she felt all the more determined to get him back. The air was electric and she was mesmerised; it pulsed like a heartbeat. Luke came to stand beside her, then Jasper, and she could see in their faces how excited they were too.

“This is the lime-green district, Cecilia, it’s where all the magic happens.”

“Yeah, loads of famous people come here. They love the lime light and many of them live in this district because of it. Not just anybody can live here, though. You have to be a somebody,” said Luke.

“Isn’t everybody somebody?” asked Cecilia.

“Well, yes, but you know—somebody… a dweller who’s known by everybody.”

There was a loud squawk and Cecilia, Luke and Jasper jumped with surprise when a voice called out from the crowd: “Jasper! You old dog!”

12Risky Business

The jovial voice belonged to an exotic-looking parakeet-face. He looked just like the kind that flew over Cecilia’s house when she was gardening with her mum and Hester. He had a red beak and green feathers that seemed all the more splendid in the lime light.

“Augustus, old friend!” Jasper called. He must’ve recognised the voice.

Cecilia noticed that Augustus was holding a thick roll of old carpet under his arm. He was dressed elaborately in shiny dark-pink coat-tails that trailed off his own tail feathers. There were two rows of medals attached to the breast pockets, placed in numerical order but with gaps in the sequence. Cecilia noticed that this fellow had come first at something at some point and that he had also come fifth, seventh, twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth. She stopped staring when a scaly green hand with red