Ben Rice - Pobby and Dingan

The mine shaft was narrow and dark. I lowered myself down carefully onto the ladder. There was only enough room on each rung for my toes, and so I had to grip extra hard onto the sides with my hands as I climbed down, in case I lost some footing. Normally my dad came down with a cord and a light-bulb thing that’s attached to the generator, but all I had was my little one-battery torch, which didn’t let off too much light.

One foot after the other I went down backwards, trying not to think about how I would end up if I fell. After every five steps I took a breather to make sure I was still alive and on the ladder and not at the bottom in a heap. And the further I went down the more I felt like I was in some throat, being swallowed by some monster.

Well, pretty soon my foot was on the bottom rung and I was standing on the floor of the ballroom. It felt like I was still on the ladder, because I could feel where the rungs had been pressing into my feet.

Before I set off into the darkness I remembered the story Kellyanne had told me from her Book of Heroes and Legends about a Greek bloke who went into an opal mine to kill a giant huntsman spider, and how he took a ball of wool so he could follow it back out and not get lost in the drives. And that’s why I’d packed a ball of string and I tied it to the bottom rung of the ladder and went off down the drive. I was concentrating so damn hard on what I was doing that I nearly forgot why I had come in the first place.

I set off across the ballroom flashing my torch around and being careful not to walk into any props. The light of my torch lit up the red clay. I kept thinking I could see weird, wrinkly faces looking at me from the walls. And the further I went the more the faces became faces of people I knew or had heard something about. And one of those faces was like Old Sid’s and one was Jack the Quack and one was the bloke with the stinking breath who almost clobbered me at the Digger’s Rest. And one was Peter Juvenile Sidebottom. I put my mind off all these faces by saying out loud, “Sandstone and clay. Sandstone and clay. Sandstone and clay,” over and over again just to remind myself what a load of hooey all this face stuff was.

I took the drive on the left, ducking my head the whole time, even though I didn’t need to by a long shot. I kept walking, unravelling the string as I went and keeping an ear out for the slide of a snake.

Well, I knew these drives pretty well, but after a bit I found a new tunnel on my left which I hadn’t ever been in before. There was a strange monkey in the left wall. And a monkey isn’t a thing that swings through the trees but the word we miners use for a sort of a hole. And I figured it must be where Dad had been jackhammering recently, because he had left his pick there. Well, there was a smell of some kind which I’d never smelt here before. I reckoned it might just be the smell you get at night down an opal drive, because I’d never been out in one at night like this. Anyway, I went through the monkey and as far as I could go along the new drive.

Well, right in this corner I waved the torch around until I suddenly saw something pretty unusual. There was a massive heap of rubble in the corner. It wasn’t just opal dirt and tailings. Oh no, it seemed like the whole part of the roof had collapsed and fallen in like a big mushroom. The first thing I thought was: “Shit, that means some more of the roof might fall down on top of me.” I turned to follow my string back to the ladder, thinking that the last thing my family needed right now was a squashed Ashmol, when suddenly I had this peculiar kind of mind-flash which made me freeze in my tracks. I said to myself: “What if Pobby and Dingan got caught under the pile of rock?” And then I listened carefully and sort of convinced myself that I could hear a little moaning and breathing. And then I, Ashmol Williamson, found myself calling their names. I really did. “Pobby! Dingan! Don’t worry, Ashmol is here! Kellyanne’s brother! Pobby and Dingan! I’m here to rescue you.” But then I remembered that Kellyanne was convinced they were dead, and that meant they probably were. And so I took off the stones more slowly and didn’t hurry so much. But I was so excited I could have filled up a bucket with my sweat and sent it up on the hoist.

I set about on hands and knees taking off rocks and moving them to one side until I got to the floor. And there suddenly, right in front of me, was the wrapper of a Violet Crumble chocolate bar. And it was just great to see something a little familiar with those good old words written on it way out here in the middle of nowhere. But then suddenly my eye caught hold of something else flashing up at me. Something sitting there in the dark. Waiting. A sort of greeny-red glint. I headed straight for it. It was a nobbie the size of a yo-yo, and when I shone my torch on it I could see there was a bit of colour there. My heart beat the world record for the pole vault. I brushed the dirt off as best I could and then I licked the nobbie. It was opal. Green. Red. Black. All of them together. It was strangely warm, like it had already been in someone’s hand or close to someone’s skin. I sat there for a while, my heart doing a back flip, thinking: “Shit, we Williamsons are going to be rich bastards!” I rolled it around in my palm and licked the dirt off again to make it shine. And I reckoned the opalized bit was as bright as a star and the size of a coin, or a bellybutton. And that gave me the idea. This was Dingan’s bellybutton. This was Pobby and Dingan, who got trapped under the roof of the drive where it fell in. And the smell I smelt earlier was death. And the last thing they ate before they died was a Violet Crumble. Everything sort of fit together perfectly.

I put the nobbie in my shoe and the Violet Crumble wrapper in my pocket, and my torch in my mouth, and took up the bodies of Pobby and Dingan in my arms. They were heavier than I’d thought. Much, much heavier. I made my way back along the drive towards the foot of the ladder, the torch moving along the browny-red walls. And I found myself groaning and muttering as I dragged Pobby and Dingan back. There was something heavy about the air too, if you know what I mean.

At the foot of the ladder I paused and set Pobby and Dingan down gently, remembering that there was no way a little bloke like me was going to get them up to the top all by myself. So I laid them both down and took off my coat and draped it over them. As I climbed up the ladder I kept looking back down over my shoulder to make sure the corpses were still at the bottom. And then I got back on my Chopper and pedalled back home under a sky which was still laid up with opal-fever. I was colder than any cold thing a bloke could think of.

I didn’t sleep the rest of that long night, but when the morning finally showed up I walked into Kellyanne’s room to tell her what had happened. Everything smelt a bit of sick. I shook Kellyanne on the shoulder and said, “Wake up, Sis. I’ve got to show you something. Wake up!” Kellyanne’s eyelids fluttered and her eye peeped out. She looked like she didn’t have much life left in her. I felt sort of desperate. It was going to be me against death. Me on my own. Not James Blond, not Luke Sky-walker or nobody, but just Ashmol Williamson speaking to save his sister’s life. I’d seen Fat Walt and the legendary Domingo and Joe Lucas and all those others fail. I kind of knew this was my last chance and so I took a real deep breath.

“I did what you said, Kellyanne — I went down the mine last night — and guess what — the roof had collapsed in one of the drives — Pobby and Dingan got caught under it — I know it because I found the opal that Dingan wore in her bellybutton — they were lying all bruised in the mine — they were — honest — they were there — and they were dead. But they looked peaceful, like — they were lying together holding hands — and they were still a little warm and everything.”