Page 117 of He's the One

“Shall I bring a weapon too? Sure a mallet is enough to protect us?”

“Just you will do.” Col crouched down. “Listen.” He tapped his way around the stones. “Notice anything?”

“A different sound. Hollow?”

“I don’t know whether they’ve been put there to cover an entrance or whether there’s a way the whole section will shift. If there is, it hasn’t moved for a long time.”

“What would make it move? If we press the stones in a particular pattern? Fit a jewel into a stone monkey’s eye? Oh, maybe we have to avoid booby traps. Walls that fall in. Floors that disappear. A deluge of rats. Not snakes.”

Col chuckled and smacked the mallet hard into the centre of one of the stones. It shifted inwards slightly. He kept hitting it until it fell back.

Theo gasped and pulled Col into his arms. “There might be a swarm of vampire bats.”

“Or not.”

“That piece of stone is much narrower than the others.”

“You’re right.”

Several minutes later, Col had revealed a tunnel running sideways into the wall and the hole was big enough to crawl through.

“Wow,” Theo said.

“So you didn’t know this was here?”

“No.”

“Are we going to explore?” Col asked.

“Oh yes.”

Col crawled through first, his phone in one hand, his mallet in the other. Theo bumped into him and kissed his backside, which made Col laugh.

“How far does this go?” Theo asked. “Hopefully miles so I can keep bumping into you.”

“Well, I’ve come to a dead end so I guess the answer ishere.”

“Can you knock your way into the garden?”

Col hesitated. “I think you ought to back out in case the roof falls when I do.”

“You think the roof might fall?” Theo shrieked. “The one that’s over us now?”

“It might.”

“Well, let’s get out again. We can try and find a way in from the other side.”

Once Theo had started to back up, Col struck one of the blocks. It didn’t shift so he kept hitting it. He could hear Theo shouting at him to come out but a moment later, Col was able to push the stone into the garden. The light that came in showed him there was a lintel over the stone he’d shifted and the one next to it. That one came out more easily and Col worked on the two below, which were tangled in vegetation.

“Ouch.”

That was Theo. “What’s wrong?” Col called.

“Nettle.” Theo’s face appeared in front of him and Col gasped.

“How did you get in there?”

“Up the ladder, over the wall. I thought I might have to rescue you.”

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