SPLASH!
Alfred plunged deep into the black water.
He had dropped from so high that the force of the fall took him down and down and down into the depths. It was so dark and cold and dirty that he didn’t know if he were upside down or the right way up.
Gasping for air, he desperately tried to propel himself to the surface to take a breath. But, as much as he tried, he couldn’t. Instead Alfred felt himself being swept along by a powerful current. His body was being twisted and turned by the flow of the water.
THUD!
Alfred’s head had bashed into what felt like a brick wall. It must have been one of the legs of Tower Bridge. As much as he was dazed and confused, he knew that the bridge was the only thing that could save him. The water was pinning him to it. He grabbed on to the bricks with his hands. They were slippery and thick with slime, but the boy just managed to haul himself up.
GASP!
He took a breath. He was alive. But not for long.
Not if those royal guards shooting at him with their laser guns were anything to go by.
ZAP!
ZAP!
ZAP!
The bricks just above his head exploded.
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
With his feet, Alfred pushed himself away from the wall and swam for his life.
The boy was coughing and spluttering, having taken in several mouthfuls of the filthy river water. It was years since any fish had lived in the Thames. It had returned to being little more than a giant sewer for the City of London, as it had been hundreds of years ago.
Hearing something surging through the water, Alfred turned round to see that the royal barge was giving chase.
As fast as the boy could swim, the boat could go faster.
There was only one thing for it.
GASP!
Alfred took a deep breath.
Then he swam down, down, down into the depths of the Thames until his ears went POP!
With his hands, he searched the muddy bottom for something, anything, to hold on to. The riverbed was a graveyard of wrecks. Old cars, sunken boats, even train carriages often poked out of the water at low tide. Finding a long piece of metal, he yanked himself down, and passed through what felt like a window. On the other side of the opening Alfred saw there was an air bubble just above him.
GASP!
He took a breath.
Feeling his way around, Alfred realised that there were rows and rows of seats. He couldn’t believe it! He was on the top deck of a double-decker bus!
One of London’s famous modes of transport, the once bright-red bus must have plunged off Tower Bridge many years before. Now it was an underwater hiding place for a prince.
The boy took slow deep breaths, counting in his head.
ONE…
TWO…
THREE…
He counted all the way to two hundred. Only then could he be sure that the guards on the royal barge would have presumed him drowned and moved off.
By now the oxygen in the bubble of air was thinning.
Alfred took one last breath…
GASP!
…before pulling himself out of the bus and letting himself float to the surface.
GASP!
He was alive!
His head bobbing out of the river, Alfred looked all around. There was now no sign of the royal barge, and the boy felt safe enough to swim again. However, the freezing-cold water was tiring him quickly. He had little energy at the best of times, and this was the worst of times. His arms and legs felt like lead weights, and in seconds he found himself whooshing downriver. The tide was taking him, and if Alfred didn’t do something fast he would be swept all the way out to sea!
At speed, he passed through what was left of the Thames Barrier, like giant clogs in the water. It had been designed and built nearly two hundred years before to prevent a flood. Many years later, the barrier had been destroyed by one. Now it was little more than a mangled mess of metal, rusting in the water. Alfred tried to cling on to part of it, but the tide was so strong it pulled him off.
“NOOO!” the boy cried.
As Alfred was taken further and further downriver, he felt something move past him under the water. It was something fast and silent. At first, he thought it might be a whale or even a shark, but that was impossible.
Could it be some kind of monster?
Alfred was panicking and kicking his legs as hard as he could to escape from whatever was powering through the depths.
However, this thing was gaining on him.
WHOOSH!
What’s more, it was rising to the surface.
WHAASH!
Alfred could feel the water around him being swept aside. Whatever it was, it was right underneath him.
And it was rising fast!
The boy couldn’t bear it and closed his eyes.
He was about to be eaten alive!
