The Bromeliad 2 - Diggers

Chapter 9

III. The younger nomes spoke, saying, Would thatwe were the nomes our fathers were, to ride uponthe Truck, and what was it like.

IV. And Dorcas said, It was scary.

V. That was what it was like.

-From the Book of Nome, Strange Frogs II, v. III-V

It was pretty much like the cab of the truck that had brought them from the Store. It brought back old memories.

"Wow!" said Sacco, "And we all drove one of these?"

"Seven hundred of us," said Dorcas proudly. "Your dad was one of them.

You were in the back with your mothers. All you lads were."

"I'm not a lad," said Nooty.

"Sorry," said Dorcas. "Slip of the tongue. In my day girls stayed at homemost of the time. Not that I've got anything at all against them gettingout and about a bit now," he added hurriedly, not wanting another Grimmaon his hands. "I'm not against that at all."

"I wish I'd been older on the Drive," said Nooty. "It must have beenamazing."

"It terrified the life out of me," said Dorcas.

The others wandered around the cab like tourists in a cathedral, gawking.

Nooty tried to press a pedal.

"Amazing," she said, under her breath.

"Sacco, you get up there and take those keys out," said Dorcas. "The restof you, no lollygagging. Those humans could be back anytime. Nooty, stop making those brrrm-brrrm noises. I'm sure nice girls shouldn't makethose kind of noises," he added lamely.

Sacco swarmed up the steering wheel post and wrestled the keys out of theignition while the rest of the boys poked around in the cab.

Grimma wasn't with them. She hadn't wanted to come up into the cab. She'dgone very quiet, in fact. She'd stayed down in the dirt road with a sullen look on her face.

But it had needed saying, Dorcas told himself.

He looked around the cab. Let's see, he thought ... we've got thebattery, we've got the fuel, was there anything else the Cat needs?

"Come on, everyone," he called, "Let's be getting out of here. Nooty, stop trying to move things all the time. It'd take all of you to shiftthe gear lever. Come on, before the humans come back."

He made his way to the door and heard a click behind him.

"I said come on! What do you think you 're doing?" The young nomes staredat him, wide-eyed. "We're seeing if we can move the gear lever, Dorcas," said Nooty, "If you press this knob you can-"

"Don't press the knob! Don't press the knob!"

The first inkling Grimma had that something was going wrong was a nastylittle crunching sound and a change in the light.

The truck was moving. Not very fast, because the two front tires wereflat. But the dirt road was steep. It was moving all right, and justbecause it had started off slowly didn't mean there wasn't something hugeand unstoppable about it.

She stared at it in horror.

The dirt road ran between high banks all the way down to the big highwayand the railroad.

"I said don't press it! Did I say press it? I said don't press it!"

The terrified nomes stared it him, their open mouths a row of Os.

"It's not the gear lever! It's the hand brake, you idiots!"

Now they could all hear the crunching noise and feel the slightvibration.

Er," said Sacco, his voice shaking, "What's a hand brake, Dorcas?"

"It keeps it stopped on hills and things! Don't just stand there! Help mepush it back up!"

The cab was, very gently, beginning to sway from side to side. The truckwas definitely moving. The hand brake wasn't. Dorcas heaved on it untilblue and purple spots flashed in front of his eyes.

"I just gave the knob on the end a push!" Nooty babbled. "I only wantedto see what it did!"

"Yes, yes, all right ..." Dorcas stared around. What he needed was alever. What he needed was about fifty nomes. What he needed most of allwas not to be here.

He staggered across the bouncing floor to the doorway and cautiouslypeered out. The hedge was moving past quite gently, as if it wasn't in aparticular hurry to get anywhere, but the surface of the road alreadyhad a blurred look.

We could probably jump, he thought. And if we're lucky, we won't breakanything. If we're even luckier, we'll avoid the wheels. How lucky do Ifeel, right at this minute?

Not very.

Sacco joined him.

"Perhaps if we took a good running jump-" he began.

There was a thump as the truck hit the bank, heeled over, and thenbounced back onto the road.

The nomes struggled to their feet.

"On the other hand, perhaps not a good idea," said Sacco. "What shall wedo now, Dorcas?"

"Just hang on," said Dorcas. "I think the banks will keep it on the roadand I suppose it'll just roll to a halt eventually." He sat down suddenlyas the truck bounced off the bank again. "You wanted to know what a truckride was like. Well, now you know."

There was another thump. The branch of a tree caught the door, swung itopen and then, with a terrible metallic noise, ripped it off.

"Was it like this?" shouted Nooty, above the noise. To Dorcas'samazement, now that the immediate danger was over, she seemed to bequite enjoying it. We're bringing up new nomes, he thought. They're notso scared of things as we were. They know about a bigger world.

He coughed.

"Well, apart from its being in the dark and we could see where we were going, yes," he said. "I think we all ought to hang on to something. Just in case it gets bumpy."

The truck rolled down the dirt road and onto the highway. A car skidded into the hedge to avoid it; another truck managed to stop at the end of four long streaks of scorched rubber.

None of the nomes in the cab noticed this at the time. All they felt was another thump as the truck bounced gently over the far side of the highway and down the dirt road that ran toward the railroad. Where, with red lights flashing, the barriers were coming down.

Sacco peered out of the stricken doorway.

"We've just crossed over a paved road," he said.

"Ah," said Dorcas.

"I just saw a car run into the back of another car and a truck ended up going sideways," Sacco went on. "Ah. Lucky we got over, then," said Dorcas. "There's some dangerous drivers around."

The gritty sound of the flat tires rolling over gravel gradually slowed down. There was the snap of something breaking behind the truck, a couple of bumps, and then another thump that brought them to a halt. And a low, booming noise.

Nomes hear things differently from humans, and the shrill clanging of the crossing warning alarms sounded, to them, like the doleful tolling of an ancient bell. "We've stopped," said Dorcas. He thought, We could have pressed the brake pedal. We could have looked for something to press it with and pressed it. I must be getting too old. Oh, well. "Come on, no hanging around. We can jump out. You youngsters can, anyway." "Why? What are you going to do?" said Sacco.

"I'm going to wait until you've all jumped out, and then I'm going to tell you to catch me," said Dorcas pleasantly. "I'm not as young as I was. Now, off you go."

They got down awkwardly, hanging on to the edge of the running board and dropping onto the road. Dorcas lowered himself gingerly onto the running board and sat with his legs dangling over the drop.

It looked a long way down.

Below him, Nooty prodded Sacco respectfully on the arm.

"Er. Sacco," she said, nervously.

"What is it?"

"Look at that metal rail thing over there."

"Well, what about it?"

"There's another one over there," said Nooty, pointing.

"Yes, I can see," said Sacco testily. "What about them? They're not doing anything." "We're right in between them," said Nooty. "I just thought I should, you know, point it out. And there's that bell thing ringing."

"Yes, I can hear it," said Sacco irritably. "I wish it would stop."

"I just wondered why it was."

Sacco shrugged. "Who knows why anything happens?" he said. "Come on, Dorcas. Please. We haven't got all day."

"I'm just composing myself," said Dorcas quietly.

Nooty wandered miserably away from the group and looked down at one of the rails. It was bright and shiny.

And it seemed to be singing.

She bent closer. Yes, it was definitely making a faint humming sound. Which was odd. Bits of metal didn't normally make any noise at all. Not by themselves, anyway.

As she stared at the truck stuck between the flashing lights and the shiny rails, the world seem to change slightly and a horrible idea formed in her head. "Sacco!" she quavered. "Sacco, we're right on the railroad line, Sacco!"

Something a long way off made a deep, mournful noise.

Whoo-oooo ...

From the gateway of the quarry Grimma had a good view of the land all the way to the airport. She saw the train, and the truck. The train had seen the truck too. It suddenly started to make the long drawn-out screaming noise of metal in distress.

By the time it actually hit the thing, it seemed to be going quite slowly. It even managed to stay on the rails.

Pieces of truck spun away in every direction, like fireworks.