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- Chapter 2: A Small Problem -

Georgie found himself following John and Alby into a large stone-walled hall, with a rich carpet, chandeliers, and all the sort of things one expects to find in posh homes - except for the stuffed animals heads on the wall, which were replaced by Plasticine versions of the creatures ("I do enjoy a bit of modelling," said John), and posh-looking people with upper-class accents, which were not.

"Is this your house?" Georgie asked.

"Er - yeah," said John. "I started off with just the one room, but - er - people kept dying and now it's all mine - don't - er - don't know why they left their property to me, of all people."

"It's 'cause you're such a nice person, John," said a voice. Georgie looked around, as one does. It appeared to have come from a girl, about as old as Georgie and apparently rather short, with long, dark brown hair, who had just entered through one of the doors leading off the hall. He might have thought she was John's daughter except that her skin wasn't purple and she was calling him by his first name. "Isn't he?"

After a few moments, Georgie realised that the question was directed at him. "Um - yes." It was true. John gave off an aura of being one of the nicest people you would ever meet. Georgie decided he'd better introduce himself to the girl. "Hi. I'm Georgie."

"Hi," she replied, smiling disconcertingly. "I'm Katrina Kaxton," she said. "With a K." She paused, obviously going over what she had just said. "With two Ks," she finally said, rather hurriedly. "Not Cs."

Georgie, who had no idea what she was going on about, nodded.

"Er -" said John, "I was going to tell you about this -"

"You mean you haven't?" interrupted Katrina, before turning again to Georgie. "You're not the first person John's had to take in," she said, guessing correctly the reason for Georgie's presence, "I've been here since last year."

"Oh," said Georgie. He took a closer look at the girl. Her eyes were a rather cold grey - which he hoped was misleading - and she perhaps wasn't as short as he has thought. At least long-distance communication wasn't going to be his only contact with people from the 'Surface World'.

"It's not that bad here, actually," said Katrina cheerfully. "Lots of fun things we can do - and John'll make sure you can talk to people whenever you want, won't you?"

"Er - yeah," said John. "I can do that, yeah. First things first though ... er - I s'pose you'll want to know where you'll be sleeping?"

"Might be nice," said Georgie, only half sarcastically. The presence of the girl seemed to have removed some of his negative feelings.

"Er - well, up till now, I've had the top floor, and Katrina the one under that, and the bottom two floors have been for everyone. But - well, there's plenty of space here, so if you have the first floor from now on, and we'll - er - we'll just keep the ground floor as communal. Okay?"

Georgie nodded while Katrina said, "Yes. Where's Alby?"

"Er - he's gone off to make dinner," said John. "It's - er - it's seven o'clock already, you know."

"I thought he was your chauffeur?" said Georgie.

"Well - er - he's more of an all-round servant," John replied. "I had to start employing him when the house got too much for me - this was before - er - before Katrina came along." He smiled. Katrina scowled.

"You don't expect me to do jobs do you?" Georgie asked, shocked.

"No, of course not," John answered. "I don't pay Alby five hundred a week for someone else to do the work ..."

"To the communications room, then?" Katrina asked, clearly trying to change the subject for some reason.

"Yeah, I think so," said John. "I'll - er - just ..."

He waved his hands around, and for a few moments just looked rather stupid. Then, to Georgie's amazement - though not Katrina's, who seemed used to it - dozens of the tiny glowing balls of energy which had surrounded the Calvetia 5000 earlier, each about half the size of Georgie's clenched fist, had appeared out of nowhere from between John's palms, before forming themselves into a shimmering vortex which collapsed into a circular white board, about six inches thick and three feet wide, that floated a short distance above the ground.

"That was Dumple," said Katrina for Georgie's benefit. "Strange thing the people here can do -"

"Yeah, I heard," said Georgie, finding his mouth was open again and closing it quickly. "Is it possible to learn it?"

"No, 'snot," said John, putting a foot onto the hovering platform. "You have to be born with it ... step on ..."

Georgie did so, followed by Katrina. It was a tight fit, but once they were all on John clicked his fingers and more of the Dumple balls appeared around the platform, this time merging into what Georgie could only describe as some sort of energy field that surrounded the board and pushed it forward - at great speed - zooming towards great oak doors which swung open as if they could sense it coming ... Georgie was petrified. Too scared even to jump off, in case he hurt himself in the fall, he merely grabbed hold of the nearest person - Katrina - and hung onto her for dear life and the platform hurtled through oak door after oak door, richly decorated room after richly decorated room, before, ninety seconds later, coming to a sudden halt in another stone-walled chamber, this time with several strange and not so strange instruments perched on a collection of wooden desks. Georgie was jerked back into reality by Katrina's voice, which sounded dimly annoyed:

"You can let go now." It had clearly been enough for her to put up with Georgie this far, and she wasn't going to do so for any longer.

"Sorry," said Georgie, taking his hands off her and clambering off the platform, which - after Katrina and John had also got off - crumbled to a million tiny lights that then flickered and died. Georgie stood panting for a few seconds, taking in the room. One desk had writing implements, another seemed to contain a bank of telephones; there was a strange-looking computer, a radio, and several other objects which he couldn't name. In the centre of the room was a raised rectangular platform or dais, at one end of which sat a richly carved hardwood chair, or - as Georgie saw it -throne.

"This brings back memories," said Katrina somewhat clichédly, sitting down behind one of the desks. "My first night was just like this ..."

"How did you get here?" Georgie asked.

"Oh, John was up in the Surface World on some sort of business -"

"I - er - I sometimes have to make contact with the Dumplings who don't live underground - quite a few don't," John explained. "I'm - er - well, I've won a few awards for my models ..."

"He's the best Plasticine modeller in Hole, at any rate," said Katrina. "And people do like to buy his sculptures."

Georgie wondered why John hadn't pointed this out in the hall earlier. Maybe it was just modesty.

"Anyway -" said Katrina. "I'd run away from home a few days before ... and I bumped into John doing a bit of Dumple. So ... you know ... he had to take me home, and I ended up here." She smiled her disconcertingly cheerful smile again.

"Er - are we ready?" said John. "If you could sit in the chair and look forward ..." He motioned towards the throne on the dais. Georgie did as he was told, feeling rather stupid staring forward into space.

"Okay ..." said John. "What's your mother's name and address?"

Georgie told him. In the interest of her privacy, I won't tell you.

"That's good," said John, pointing forward with his hand at a point roughly at the opposite end of the platform from the chair in which Georgie was sitting. "Okay - er - face forward and speak that out loud."

Wondering what this was supposed to, and feeling slightly stupid - Katrina was watching him intently - Georgie did so. As the last word left his mouth, there was a noise like a rush of wind and a stream of the Dumple balls shot forward from John's hand, merging almost instantly into a violent red light, which exploded suddenly into a flickering image suspended in the air directly in front of Georgie. The face of a woman gradually slid into focus ...

"Aaarrrrggghhh!" she said, then - "Georgie?!" (If you will forgive such usage of punctuation, which doubtless you won't.)

"Hi Mum," said Georgie, realising instantly how stupid this sounded.

"Is this real?" said Mrs. Keynes, shaking slightly.

"I think so ..." replied Georgie - "Look, Mum - I can't come home."

"What?"

"I ... sort of ... got into a bit of trouble. Don't worry, I'm okay. I have to stay here now ... but we can talk like this whenever we want ..." He trailed off, the significance of what was happening to him sinking in properly for the first time.

"Yes ... yes ... okay," stammered Mrs. Keynes. "Be good ... I think I need to go to bed ..."

John clicked his fingers. The image flickered one last time, and disappeared.

"Well - er - that's that then."

You probably thought that that conversation was rather unrealistic for a mother being told she was never going to see her only son again - for Georgie was such; indeed, he was her only surviving relative - but you will have to get used to the fact that many things in this story aren't going to be realistic (if you haven't already, what with purple-skinned men and underground cities and girls called Katrina). Indeed, it probably won't even be consistently non-real, which is one of the most important things for a piece of fantasy fiction to be ... but if you were looking for realism, you'd be reading The Boring Everyday Adventures of Mr. Boring-Everyday (which, incidentally, doesn't actually exist, probably at least in part because no one would want to buy it) or actually living a proper life ...

"Shall we go and eat?" said Katrina, standing up. "Alby'll've prepared it by now ..."

Georgie also stood up. However, describing every event such as this in this sort of pedantic detail is about as exciting as The Boring Everyday Adventures of Mr. Boring-Everyday, which you will recall are non-existent, and to be blunt nothing more of note happened that evening, aside from the usual events revolving around one's first night in a new home with a couple of total strangers (or three, if one counts Alby) in and with which one expects to spend several years at least, which even so are not really worth going over. Georgie suffered another ride at breakneck speeds on one of John's Dumple platforms (thankfully his neck was not actually broken, which would have been somewhat damaging to the remainder of this story), enjoyed a hearty meal of some strange but filling dish (John's response to him asking what it was precisely was completely incomprehensible, and Katrina was choking on a piece of fried mushroom at the time and thus unable to help), watched some rather unusual programmes on John's rather unusual television, played ping-pong with Katrina (who was rather good at it) and John (who was terrible), and then went to bed (falling asleep rather quicker than usual) in a cavernous and richly decorated room on the first floor.

Four hours in one sentence. Not bad. I shall take this opportunity to utilise the amazing power of the section break.



§ § §



A loud crash vibrated through the house. Georgie awoke with a start, and checked the grandfather clock opposite his bed - it was half past seven, presumably in the morning. Georgie sat up, then climbed out of the bed, grabbing a dressing gown from a hook on the wall and pulling it on over his pyjamas - John seemed to have an abundance of spare clothes in the house, and was only too willing to let Georgie take some of them for his own use, seeing as most of his own clothes (save his school uniform and PE kit) were back at home in the Surface World. Trekking across the massive bedroom, Georgie opened the door to find himself in a long hallway stretching out into the distance. Gathering himself for the hike to the breakfast room, and praying that he would not be too badly lost, he set off.

Thankfully he found the room without too much bother, but he was not prepared for what he came across when he got there. The room was empty apart from Katrina, who was sitting at the huge table, with her head resting on the polished oak. She looked as if she had, like Georgie, only just got out of bed - she too was wearing a dressing gown and her hair was a mess. Not entirely sure how best to react to the situation - not knowing whether she was tired, ill, grieving or mere chronically depressed - Georgie stood silently in the doorway for a few seconds, before asking as softly as he could whilst still being audible across the sizeable distance between himself and her: "Is everything alright?"

Note the spelling of alright. Some people insist on a spelling all right, which is clearly ridiculous - things are very rarely all right (insofar as true perfection is rather uncommon), whereas things are very often alright - that is, not too bad. In any case, this is irrelevant to the actual story.

Katrina looked up. "Have you seen John?"

"No," Georgie replied. "Should I have done?"

"He's always in the breakfast room by now ... and the noise ..."

"You heard it too?"

"Yeah. It sounded ... like a fight or something."

Georgie nodded. Attempting to be decisive, he suggested, "Let's just wait here, and see if he comes - perhaps ..." He trailed off.

"No," said Katrina exasperatedly, standing up. "What's that going to prove? Maybe he's fallen down one of the staircases and needs help ..."

"By the time we've searched every staircase, room and cupboard in this place we may as well've stayed here for all the good it'll do!" said Georgie, noticing that his voice was rising. "Have you seen how big this place is?"

"I have lived here about a thousand times longer than you, you know!" Katrina said angrily. "I'm not stupid!"

Georgie was amazed at the vast difference between the irate girl before him and the one he had come to know the previous evening. "Yelling your head off's not going to help!" he shouted, not for a moment noticing how hypocritical he was being.

"You're not helping anyway!" Katrina returned. "Everything was fine before you turned up!"

"Don't blame this on me! I don't want to be here either!"

"Oh, shut up!"

"Why don't you?" Georgie bellowed, rather rhetorically.

"Because ... because I've been here longer than you and I ..." Katrina trailed off lamely.

"You? You what?" Katrina seemed unable to think of any adequate responses to these questions. She looked as if she would dearly like to throw something at him. Georgie watched her hand drift vaguely in the direction of a butter knife.

The door, which had swung shut behind Georgie during the course of the dispute, opened again. Georgie swung round, expecting to see John standing there wondering what all the fuss was about, and was half disappointed to find that it was only Alby.

"They've taken the boss," said the gremlin without a second's pause, but rather one of about one-fifth the length.

"Who?" asked Katrina, slightly more violently than was necessary.

"I'm not sure, miss," said Alby. "Two of them ... tall, strange accent."

"Dumplings?" said Katrina. Georgie noticed with relief than she appeared to have forgotten the knife.

"Certainly," said Alby. "They had a bit of a fight ... John fell over some piping in the conservatory."

"Was that the crash?" Georgie asked.

"I imagine so, sir," said Alby. "Then they bundled him up and ran off."

"Couldn't you do anything?" asked Katrina.

Alby shook his head. "No, miss. Sorry. They walled me up behind the tomatoes ..."

"We ought to tell someone," said Georgie.

"That might be a good idea," replied Katrina, sarcastically but no longer with any more than a hint of real anger. "I'll go down to the police station; they should be able to help ..."

"There's no point going there yet, miss," said Alby. "You know what they're like at this time of the morning ... I'll get you and Georgie some breakfast, you can get dressed, sort your hair out, and then go. The kidnappers won't be able to get far ..."

"I'll go with her," said Georgie. It would be something to, and he didn't want to be in the house alone with none but Alby to help him if anyone else decided to break in. That said, he wasn't sure if Katrina would be able to do much more than shout at any attackers.

Alby left to the kitchen, and Georgie and Katrina sat down opposite each other at the table.

"I hope John's okay," Katrina said seriously. "Not many people could beat him in a fight, even in pairs ..."

Georgie said nothing.

"Thinking about your mum?" Katrina asked.

"A bit ..." Georgie replied slowly. "I suppose I'll have to get used to it ... I should be at school today - I wonder what people'll think ..." A thought occurred to him. "Do you have to go to school here?"

"John gives me lessons in the mornings," Katrina said. They were silent for a few moments. "I sometimes go out with a few of the Dumpling kids -"

"D'you get on well?"

"Not really - half of them can do nothing but tease me about being a Surface Worlder - I'm pretty glad that you're here, actually. John's great ... but y'know, he's about sixty years older than me ..."

I will take this opportunity to make a point that I think needs to be made as soon as possible. That is, now. In many stories, it is a sad but inevitable fact that by the end the lead male and female roles should fall madly in love, get married, have children, live happily ever after, et cetera, after several chapters of rather distressing romantic and sexual tension. One might well expect, therefore, that by the time this particular tale is concluded Georgie and Katrina will have kissed passionately several times over, and probably jumped into bed with each other once or twice for good measure as well. If this is your idea of a pleasing ending, you will be disappointed. Romance is all very well in fiction when handled imaginatively - say, for instance, that the story revolved around a woman fighting to win back her boyfriend's love from a number of jelly-toothed slow worms who happen to have captured him in their undersea castle, or perhaps that isn't a good example - or as a background to the main plot to add a degree of realism, but otherwise is either something so commonplace that one could quite easily expect to find it in The Boring Everyday Adventures of Mr. Boring-Everyday (the main character now joined, no doubt, by some poor woman - or possibly a man - whom he happens to be in love with) or else quite frankly pornographic. Such stories are fine for those who completely lack a love life, and thus gain some sort of comfort from this sort of fantasy, but the rest of us would be far better off reading about more interesting and less usual events, and thus Katrina and Georgie will not be sharing kisses or copulating with each other at any point during this particular instalment of the Dumplings Series. If you are currently suffering from lack of a partner, and looking for some consolation in fiction, you are in luck - romance novels do sell millions of copies annually, and other stories where romance plays a large part millions more (which either means there are a lot of lonely hearts in the world or people are just very, very unexciting) - but have come to the wrong place.

Following Katrina's words - which you have probably forgotten by now, as one does when reading angry and unconvincing rants about why Romantic Fiction Is Wrong - Alby re-entered the room, carrying two plates loaded with eggs and sausages and other breakfasty foods. Katrina and Georgie ate in virtual silence, before leaving to their separate floors to wash and dress before congregating again in the front hall.

"Shall we go then?" Katrina asked, pulling on a coat that was hanging from a peg on the wall.

"Yeah, I suppose so," Georgie replied. They passed out through the door, and as they started walking down the drive another crashing noise resounded out behind them.