Through the city streets Lob walked.
He was in a mad, noisy place, full of rush and hurry. Cars and lorries and buses growled past, and the pavements were thick with people-traffic. He was hemmed in on all sides, by buildings and roads. Not a tree could he smell, and the sky was chopped into angular shapes.
He followed the current of people to an island in the traffic, a huge stepping stone. Lights flashed red, then yellow. Then the light became a small green man, walking.
Lob had stepped out into the road, but now he stood and stared until the green man faded, replaced by a standing red one. Now vans and lorries were surging at him, snarling. A van brushed against him, swirling him aside like a leaf. Lob leaped for the other side and stood there panting, as if he’d hauled himself out of a churned and treacherous river.
The people hurrying along the pavements didn’t look up at the sky, or notice the pigeons and starlings that fluttered above their heads. They didn’t glance at Lob, or at each other; they were too busy striding, heads down.
Men in yellow had fenced off part of the road ahead. The traffic formed a growling pack. Lob’s instincts warned of danger.
He wasn’t frightened of much, but this was something new and terrifying. Still, curiosity drew him closer. Part of the road had been gouged up, its intestines bared. One of the yellow men jumped into the hole. He picked up a heavy metal tool that racketed into life, throbbing, probing deep.
The noise juddered through Lob’s bones.
Stop … STOP! Head-crashing Ear-cracking Mind-bursting Thought-snapping Heart-booming Feet-clamping Bone-jarring Sense-crazing MADNESS …
Even the people on the pavement found the noise unbearable. They winced at the din, and clamped their hands to their ears. They hurried on by, trying not to breathe.
No one noticed a small, scruffy man, a bit green, a bit brown, a bit tattered, and very startled, clamped in fear by the side of the road. No one saw him bolt into the entrance of the Underground station.
But as Lob teetered at the top of the escalator, someone did see. A very small person called Frankie.
Frankie liked those moving staircases. He liked the way they glided out from under his feet, then dropped into steps. He liked watching the picture-show on the walls on the way down. He even liked scaring himself by thinking what might happen if he didn’t get off in time, and was sucked through the teeth at the bottom and under and round and up to the top again, slithering out as a Frankie-pancake.
‘Hold my hand,’ said Mummy, and he held tight. She’d folded up the buggy, and had it in her other hand.
He’d been frightened, the first time Mummy let him stand instead of being carried, to find himself swept down between smooth walls, without moving his feet. So when he saw the green-brown muddy man hesitating at the top, he understood at once that here was someone who hadn’t seen sliding stairs before.
As he and his mother approached, the man turned, saw them, and stepped aside.
‘Aggit!’ Frankie said, with a friendly wave.
‘Yes, darling,’ said his mother. ‘Escalator, that’s right. No need to be scared.’
Frankie turned to watch as they rode down. The man followed. But he didn’t look at all sure, and was scrabbling with his hands, trying to get a grip on the side wall.
‘Come on, Frankie. Don’t drag behind,’ Mummy said, at the bottom. She lifted the buggy clear, and they turned left to their platform.
Which way would the mud-brown green man go? Frankie loitered, and saw him pitch forward, not knowing he had to step off. He lay spreadeagled like a frog. Frankie yelled out, and tried to drag his mother back.
‘No, Frankie! This way.’
The muddy man picked himself up, looking cross, then followed. Frankie’s mother always kept him well back from the platform edge, but the man didn’t notice the drop until he was teetering above the dark ditch where the rails ran.
‘Own! Own’t!’ shouted Frankie, but his words didn’t always come out the way he meant. Mum thought he was pointing at the big poster on the tunnel wall.
‘Passengers are reminded to keep all belongings with them,’ said a loud voice. ‘Please mind the gap when boarding.’
Now the man had leaped back, and the train came swooshing in, with a blast of hot tunnel air. One of Frankie’s scaring-himself games was to pretend that the train was a monster roaring out of the darkness, that opened all its mouths to swallow him. His legs went quivery. What if it was?
‘Oh, it’s not too full,’ said Mummy. ‘Plenty of seats.’
It was safe after all. They got on. Mummy opened up the buggy, sat Frankie in it and fastened the straps.
‘Ook! Ook!’ He looked round wildly for the mud-green man, and saw him huddled under a bench on the platform.
‘Yes, I know. It won’t be long,’ said Mummy. ‘Only eight stops.’
Frankie saw green, green eyes staring back at him; he smiled and waved. If he’d known enough words, he’d have said, ‘Come with us! It’s OK. I’ve done it loads of times. You don’t have to be scared.’ What came out was, ‘Ugglebuss!’
At the last moment, just as the doors began to gasp themselves closed, the man squirmed out from under the bench, and bolted into the carriage.
‘Eep! Eep!’ Frankie squealed in delight.
‘It’s only the doors closing, Frankie,’ said Mummy.
The brown-green man looked up and down the length of the carriage, then crouched on the floor near Frankie. Frankie squeaked and laughed, and waggled his fingers. No one else took any notice. The other passengers were reading their newspapers, dozing, chatting, looking at their fingernails.
‘Look! Here’s Muffet,’ said Mummy, twirling the fluffy blue cat out of her bag. ‘Play with Muffet.’
Frankie didn’t want Muffet. He had a new friend now. The train moved off into blackness. The brown mud man tried to dig into the floor with his nails. Soon the train had rushed into the brightness of the next station; people got off, people got on. The man, buffeted by feet and legs, clung tight to the buggy. Then he clambered into an empty seat opposite. Frankie waved and kicked.
The train whizzed into the whooshy dark, and now the man was boggling at his reflection in the black window.
‘Week!’ Frankie tried to explain, but the greenyman wasn’t listening.
Another stop, and the carriage filled up. A nice lady smiled at Frankie, and someone else tried to sit on top of the man.
Spluttering in outrage, the man wriggled free. Frankie could hardly see him now, there were so many bags and briefcases and standing people.
The man was going. Ducking between legs, under elbows and over bags, he was past Frankie and out onto the platform as the doors squeezed shut.
‘Eye bye,’ said Frankie, sadly. And as the train moved on, he began to cry loudly for the loss of his friend.
No matter how flustered his mummy was, no matter how she tried to console him with Muffet and tickling, he wept and he sobbed and he bawled.
Lob stood panting on the platform. It wasn’t safe down here.
The roarer sighed, clamped its mouths, and slid away. Lob stood on the platform in the echoing quiet.
He wasn’t easily scared, but he hadn’t liked being in that tunnel-snake. The thought of being trapped underground, away from air and trees and wind, was the worst of all possible fears, for Lob. Being dumped in oily water and buried in shallow earth had been quite pleasant, compared to that.
How to get out, back to the air?
Round a corner he saw more of those gliding steps. He climbed on. Ahead, daylight showed him the way to freedom. He crawled under the slapping-gate, climbed some steps, and found himself out under the sky, breathing real air. Air. City air, but better than the black dusty stuff trapped underground, and the hot snake breath.
This was another busy street, but now the cars and the buses and the people hardly bothered him at all. Not after the adventure he’d just had. He felt brave, heroic. He stepped out, with a bit of a swagger. These people had no idea what dangers he’d faced, or how clever he’d been to escape.
Walk. That was the thing. Nothing like it.
Beyond the canyon of buildings, he sensed grass, and trees, and water. It cheered him. People built their cities, they covered acres of land with concrete, they dug roads and snake-tunnels. But always there’d be green and wildness beyond.
When he reached a pair of big gates standing open, and a path leading across grass, he turned in and walked towards a lake. Beside the path was a splendid beech tree, grown proudly to full height. Cool shade spread beneath its branches, an invitation.
Lob couldn’t resist. Leaning comfortably against the trunk, he slept.
