Five minutes later, we’re still in the dusty dark room, frantically hunting around for a hidden door, or even just somewhere to hide. It’s hard to see clearly in the dim red light, so I ask Oscar to fire up his built-in torchlight. He turns it on and flashes it around the room like a searchlight.
A few seconds later, I feel a tap on my toe. I look down and see Oscar’s big round eyes staring up towards a spot on the ceiling. I look up and realise he’s aiming his beam at an air duct up there.
‘You’re brilliant, Oscar!’ I say. ‘I think you’ve found us a way out of here.’
The duct sits right above the weird machine Snarkle wanted to use to print the photo. The machine is about a metre high, but it doesn’t look nearly strong enough for us to climb onto.
‘How do we get up there?’ I ask Oscar.
Oscar winks and darts under one of the desks.
‘What is it, pup?’
I hear a bump and a clang and see Oscar dragging something out from under the desk. It’s another machine - exactly the same as the one on the desk.
‘Nice work, Oscar,’ I say. ‘Are there any others under there?’
Oscar wags his tail and darts back under the desk. A few seconds later, he’s back with another one. I pat him on the head and lift the machine onto the table with the other two.
I climb up onto the table and push the machines as close together as I can. Then, I place a plastic tray on top of them to make a little platform. It doesn’t look very sturdy, but I climb up onto it and sit on both knees. I reach a hand down to Oscar. He lifts up a front leg and I yank him up, onto my lap. Then, with the machines wobbling under my feet, I carefully stand up, cradling Oscar like a baby. When I’ve got my balance, I lift Oscar up until he can reach the duct with one of his front paws. He taps on it, but it doesn’t budge. He looks down at me with a frown on his face.
‘It’s okay, Oscar, it’s not your fault they’ve screwed the duct cover on!’
That cheers Oscar up, but it doesn’t solve the problem - we need to get that cover off, fast! I look down and see if there’s anything we might be able to use to loosen the screws. All I can see is our film, lying on one of the desks. It’s just enough to give me an idea.
‘Oscar,’ I yelp. ‘Hop down and grab the film for me!’
Oscar climbs down onto the desk, grabs the film in his mouth and jumps back up into my arms. I lift him to the duct cover and tell him to slide the film through two of the grate holes. He threads it through and, a moment later, two bits of film are dangling down towards me.
‘I hope that film is as strong as it looks,’ I say, ‘because we’re about to go for a swing on it!’
I grab onto both ends of the film, and clutching tight, I lift myself up off the little platform. For a moment we’re just dangling in the air, but then I hear a creaking noise coming from the duct.
‘It’s working!’ I yell to Oscar, but suddenly I realise it’s working too well. We hear a loud pop as the whole grate drops out of the ceiling! I land with a crash on our little platform. The next thing I know, I’m falling through the air and crashing onto the desk. Oscar is a bit luckier — he comes to a soft landing on my stomach!
The three machines are now on the floor in a thousand pieces, but at least I have the film beside me, tangled up in the duct vent cover. I slide it out, roll it up and slip it into my pocket. Then, I look up at the ceiling. We now have a way out, but I’m not sure how we’re going to get back up to it!
‘What a mess,’ I say to Oscar. ‘What do we do now?’
Oscar puts his paws up into the air and tips his head sideways. He clearly isn’t full of ideas either.
Just then, we hear noises - loud footsteps out in the corridor.
‘Uh-oh,’ I groan to Oscar. ‘We need to slow them down, somehow!’
I roll onto the floor and start pushing desks in front of the door - anything to give us a few more minutes to make another plan.
Suddenly there’s a pounding on the door, and one of the desks jolts forward. I see the door begin to open, but luckily it can only move a few centimetres before it hits the same desk again. I add one more desk to the pile, and cross my fingers.
Fists continue to pound, and a very familiar voice starts growling at us.
‘Open up, Booth!’ yells Squad Captain Selby. ‘Don’t make this any worse for yourself.’
I look around the room, desperate to find anything that can help us get back up to the ceiling. All I can see is the desk at the back of the pile. It’s the smallest of the lot - and it’s just light enough to lift onto the desk beneath the duct. I climb on top of it and lift Oscar towards the hole in the ceiling. With my arms over my head, he can just get his front two paws into the edge of the hole.
I give Oscar’s rump a big push. The next thing I know, he’s vanished into the ceiling. That’s a good start, but I’m still down here! There’s no way I can join him unless I grow an awful lot taller in the next minute or two.
Down at floor level, the desks behind the door are slowly sliding backwards. Selby and his helpers seem to be thumping on the door with their hips and shoulders. They’ll only need a few more seconds to open it wide enough to squeeze their way in.
With a gulp, I look up to the ceiling and notice that it’s filled with light! Oscar’s beam is flashing around like a strobe. I hear the sound of a drill and see another kind of light - big blue sparks!
Oscar’s head appears in the hole, and he gives me a thumbs-up. I see his robotic arm reaching out from his back, and his little razor saw slicing through one of the support beams in the roof. It only takes him a few seconds to cut free a section of ancient wood and hand it down for me to grab onto.
‘Thanks, Oscar,’ I say. ‘That was very clever, but if I try and climb up that plank I’ll just pull you back down here.’
Oscar rolls his eyes at me and waves me forward with one paw.
‘Okay then. I hope you know what you’re doing!’
I grab hold of the plank and pull myself upwards. Incredibly, the plank stays where it is. I pull my head, and then the rest of my body, into the hole in the ceiling.
I look up and see that Oscar has drilled a hole in the end of the plank and another hole in a support beam that’s still part of the roof. His tail is sticking through both holes, anchoring my plank to the ceiling.
The moment I’m safely away from the duct hole, Oscar removes his tail from the two pieces of wood. The plank crashes to the floor. He shines his beam up towards the roof, lighting up the bottoms of all the tiles above us.
I look back down through the hole and see Selby’s head peeping around the door, darting from side to side.
‘Okay, Oscar,’ I say, ‘we’d better knock out some of those tiles and get onto the roof before Selby joins us up here.’
Luckily, the roof angles down quite steeply, so I only have to take a few steps to touch the nearest tile. I bump the tile with my elbow, and it loosens a tiny bit. I bump it again, even harder, and this time I feel it break completely loose.
I press my hand against the tile and push it up towards the sky. The next thing I know, a beam of sunlight pours into the roof and lights up the whole space. I bump another two tiles with my elbow and knock them both wobbly. They’re loose enough that I can lift both of them up and push them out onto the roof. It doesn’t take me long to make an Oscar-sized hole. I lift him up onto the roof and take one last look down into the dark room.
By now, Selby, Snarkle and their helpers have made their way into the room. They’re all running around, frantically looking for us. Snarkle doesn’t take long to notice the missing duct vent. She looks up through the hole in the ceiling, and for a moment, her eyes make contact with mine.
‘There he is!’ she yells, pointing up at me. ‘Someone get up there and get those rats down!’
Just before Selby reaches the double-decker desk beneath the hole, I dangle my foot back down and kick the top desk as hard as I can. It falls to the floor with a crash. Two of its legs break off and slide across the floor in opposite directions.
‘Nice to see you again, Smell by!’ I laugh. ‘Sorry we can’t stay for a chat!’
I give him a wave and lift myself out onto the roof. I carefully put the tiles back where I found them and look around. From up here, we get a great view of Bluggsville East, but Oscar looks worried.
‘It’s okay, Oscar,’ I say. ‘See that old power line? We just need to climb across it, crawl over the roof of that zooper-market and climb down to the square in front of the Skyburb Up-station. That can’t be so hard, can it?’
Oscar seems to like my plan. He leads the way across the roof, down to the nearest gutter. He climbs up to the old power line that crosses the street and trails across to the zooper- market. Before I know it, he’s dangling upside down from the line and sliding his way across. I slowly step towards the gutter - the tiles are quite slippery, and the busy street is a long way down below ...
Oscar’s already halfway to the other side before I find the nerve to climb up to the power line and start slithering across it. Chances are, it hasn’t had electricity flowing through it for centuries. I hope it’s still strong enough to hold my weight.
As I slither out the first few metres, the power line starts to stretch downwards. I tip my head back to see how far Oscar’s gone. He’s already sitting on the zooper-market gutter, watching me with a very concerned look on his face.
Just before I reach the middle of the line, I hear a strange creaking noise. From the top corner of my eye I can see Oscar pointing at a section of the line in front of me. Even hanging upside down, I can see that the wire is beginning to fray! Some of it’s as thin as a piece of fishing line.
I shuffle forward as quickly as I can, until I can safely place one hand on either side of the narrow patch. It’s not a second too soon. The next thing I know, the wire snaps in two, and I’m dangling over the street with a piece of power line in each hand!
‘Oscar!’ I yell. ‘HELP!’
Oscar doesn’t seem to have many ideas to save me. Suddenly, the frown on his face changes to a smile. It makes me feel better for a second or two, but then he scuttles over the zooper-market roof and vanishes from sight.
I look down at the busy road. It’s full of people in hover-cars, zipping past each other below me. All I can do is I squeeze onto each piece of power line as tightly as I can. If I let go of either, I’ll have a very uncomfortable landing on the road ... if a hover-car doesn’t crash into me first.
It doesn’t take long for my hands to get sore from clutching the lines so tightly. I yell for help, but no one seems to notice me dangling there. As my fingers slip closer to the ends of the lines, I hear a loud noise from below. I look down and see Oscar pushing a big metal rubbish bin onto the road. Hover-cars beep at him and drivers yell, but he ignores them all, pushing the bin with all of his strength.
‘Hurry, Oscar,’ I yell. ‘I can’t hold on much longer!’
I close my eyes and squeeze even tighter, but it’s not enough. Suddenly, I feel my hands slip free and my body dropping through the air.
A few seconds later, I come to rest on something very soft and squishy.
I can’t believe it - I’m still alive!
I open my eyes and realise I’ve landed right in the middle of Oscar’s rubbish bin ... in a pile of rotten tomatoes! I’m soaked in sticky red juice, but it doesn’t bother me one bit! I jump up and look over the edge. Oscar’s sitting on the road looking up at me. As soon as he sees my face, he jumps up and down and wags his tail so fast it goes blurry.
‘You’re the best, Oscar!’ I say. ‘You’ve saved my life - again!’
I clamber over to the side of the bin and onto the road. Angry drivers honk their horns and say rude things to us, but all I can do is laugh. When we reach the footpath, I pick Oscar up and give him a big hug. Soon, he’s covered from head to tail in tomato juice too!
Unfortunately, we don’t have long to enjoy the moment. Across the road, we see the doors of the photographic society swing open. Selby and his team storm out onto the street with very angry faces. It doesn’t take Selby long to catch sight of us and yell impolite things across the road.
‘Uh-oh,’ I say to Oscar. ‘I think we’re in trouble again. It didn’t take long!’
All we can do is run ... and hope the traffic slows them down. Just before we take off, though, I have an idea to slow them down even more. As Selby and his team reach the opposite gutter, I dash onto the road, and with Oscar’s help, I give the bin a big push. It’s incredibly heavy, but we manage to tip it onto its side and spill rotten tomatoes all over the road.
We run back to the edge of the road and take a quick look back. Selby and his team are sliding across the road, tumbling into the sticky red tomato sludge. I don’t think they’ll be catching up with us any time soon!
Oscar lifts up a paw and I give it a high-five. I take a deep breath and we run as fast as we can towards the Skyburb Up-station.
