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CHAPTER 8: A BLOB OF

PHLEGM

image BY the time Artemis had made his way down rom the pylon, Holly had disappeared. He’d eft her by the tunnel mouth, but there was nothing in the spot now except mud and footprints.

Footprints, he thought. Now, I suppose I need to track Holly. I really must read The Last of the Mohicans.

‘Don’t bother following those,’ said a voice from the ditch. ‘False trail. I laid it in case the big human took our LEP friend along for a snack.’ ‘That was good thinking,’ said Artemis, squinting through the foliage. A shaggy shadow detached itself from a hillock and became Mulch Diggums. ‘But why did you bother? I thought the LEP were your enemy.’ Mulch pointed a stubby, mud-crusted finger. ‘You are my enemy, human. You are the planet’s enemy.’ ‘And yet you are willing to help me for gold.’ ‘A stupendous amount of gold,’ said Mulch. ‘And possibly some fried chicken. With barbecue sauce. And a large Pepsi. And maybe more chicken.’ ‘Hungry?’

‘Always. A dwarf can only eat so much dirt.’ Artemis didn’t know whether to giggle or groan. Mulch would always have trouble grasping the gravity of situations, or perhaps he liked to give that impression.

‘Where’s Holly?’

Mulch nodded towards a grave-shaped mound of earth.

‘I buried the captain. She was moaning quite loudly. Arty this and Arty that, with a few mothers thrown in.’ Buried? Holly was claustrophobic.

Artemis dropped to his knees, scooping the earth from the mount with his bare hands. Mulch let him at it for a minute, then sighed dramatically.

‘Let me do it, Mud Boy. You’ll be there all night.’ He strolled over and casually thrust his hand into the mound, chewing his lip as he searched for a specific spot.

‘Here we go,’ grunted the dwarf, yanking out a short branch. The mound vibrated then collapsed into small heaps of pebbles and clay. Holly was unhurt underneath.

‘It’s a complex structure called a Na-Na,’ said Mulch, brandishing the twig.

‘As in?’

‘As in na-na-ne-na-na, you can’t see me,’ said the dwarf, then slapped himself on the knee, exploding in a fit of giggles.

Artemis scowled, shaking Holly’s shoulders gently.

‘Holly, can you hear me?’

Holly Short opened bleary eyes, rolled them around for a while, then focused.

‘Artemis, I… Oh, gods.’

‘It’s OK. I don’t have the lemur… well, actually, I do. The other me, but don’t worry, I know where I’m going.’ Holly dragged at her cheeks with delicate fingers. ‘I mean Oh, gods, I think I kissed you.’ Artemis’s head pounded and Holly’s mismatched eyes seemed to hypnotize him. She still had a blue eye, even though her body had rejuvenated itself in the tunnel. Another paradox. But, though Artemis felt hypnotized, even slightly dazed, he knew he was not mesmerized. There was no fairy magic here.

Artemis looked into those elfin eyes and he knew that this younger, somehow more vulnerable Holly felt the same way at this particular tangle of time and space as he did.

After all we have been through. Or maybe because of it.

A memory smashed the delicate moment like a rock thrown through a spider’s web.

I lied to her.

Artemis rocked backwards with the strength of the thought.

Holly believes that she infected Mother. I blackmailed her.

He knew at that instant there was no recovering from such a brutal fact. If he confessed, she would hate him. If he did not, he would hate himself.

There must be something I can do.

Nothing came to mind.

I need to think.

Artemis took Holly’s hand and elbow, helping her to stand and step from the shallow grave-like hole.

‘Reborn,’ she quipped, then punched Mulch on the shoulder.

‘Oww. Whyfore, miss, dost thou torment me?’ ‘Don’t quote Gerd Flambough at me, Mulch Diggums. There was no need to bury me. A simple broadleaf across my mouth would have done.’ Mulch rubbed his shoulder. ‘A broadleaf desn’t have the same artistry. Anyway, do I look like a fern type of guy? I am a dwarf and we deal in mud.’ Artemis was glad of the banter. It gave him a minute to compose himself.

Forget your adolescent confusion about Holly. Remember Mother wasting away in her bed. There are less than three days left.

‘Very well, troops,’ he said with forced joviality. ‘Let’s move it out, as an old friend of mine would say. We have a lemur to catch.’ ‘What about my gold?’ asked Mulch.

‘I shall put this as simply as possible. No lemur, no gold.’ Mulch tapped his lips with eight fingers and his beard hairs vibrated like the tendrils of a sea anemone. Thinking.

‘How much is stupendous exactly, in bucket terms?’ ‘How many buckets do you have?’

Mulch took this as a serious question. ‘I have a lot of buckets. Most of them are full of stuff, though. I could empty them, I suppose.’ Artemis almost gnashed his teeth. ‘It was a rhetorical question. A lot of buckets. As many as you like.’ ‘If you want me to go any further down this monkey road, I need some kind of down payment. A good-faith deposit.’ Artemis slapped his empty pockets. He had nothing.

Holly straightened her silver wig. ‘I have something for you, Mulch Diggums. Something better than a stupendous amount of gold. Six numbers, which I will reveal when we get there.’ ‘Get where?’ asked Mulch, who suspected that Holly was being melodramatic.

‘The LEP equipment lock-up at Tara.’

Mulch’s eyes glowed with dreams of sky skis and dive bubbles, laser cubes and fat vacuums. The motherload. He’d been trying to crack an LEP lock-up for years.

‘I can have anything I want?’

‘Whatever you can get on to a hover trolley. One trolley.’ Mulch spat a marbled blob of phlegm into his palm.

‘Shake on it,’ he said.

Artemis and Holly looked at each other.

‘It’s your lock-up,’ said Artemis, stuffing his hands into his pockets.

‘It’s your mission,’ countered Holly.

‘I don’t know the combination.’

And then the trump. ‘We’re here for your mother.’ Artemis smiled ruefully. ‘You, Captain Short, are getting as bad as me,’ he said, and sealed the deal with a sopping handshake.