Unusually sunny, that day in London. Only a few puffy, white clouds drifted over the outer suburbs where our story takes place. Just the sort of weather for the unlikely to happen.

 

 

 

“Get out that door already!” screamed the woman in that terrace house across the street. “Your late for it again! Now shoo!”

Then out with a bound came a sprinting little girl, racing against the clock. With a school bag on her back and her hair tied up she crossed over the street and turned right towards the bus-stop at the corner. But to no prevail she arrived to late. Her school bus was long gone and she sighed a dis-appointed sigh, an annoyed sigh, a sad sigh.

 

Having looked left and right she realised a troubling truth. Her only way of walking to school was blocked off by construction workers. Any other way would take her ages and she knew she couldn’t get help from her Mother who had just left for work.

 

She didn’t know what to do?

 

That’s when our second character arrived.

A second late child bolted down the footpath and jolted to a holt seconds before running into her. He too carried the same uniform and appeared to be in the same mess.

“Excuse me.” He puffed out of breath “Am I too late… has the bus come yet?”

“Yeah, and the only fast way to school now is locked down for construction.” She moaned.

That was when she noticed something familiar about this acquaintance.

“Wait, I know you, I sat with you once in the school library, you were reading one of those action comic books you carry around. You sat across the room and I came to sit next to you. I don’t really know why, or anything. Just felt drawn to you.”

“Oh yeah,” he replied, smiling softly.

“I’m Penelope Pope. But everyone just calls me Penny.” She introduced.

“Rubin, Rubin Rogers.” He replied.

“Great to meet you. You wouldn’t happen to know a good way to walk to school, would you?” Penelope inquired.

 

“Hmm . . .” he thought hard, looking over her shoulder, glancing at the construction workers as they laid down hard labour for a road restoration.

“I know!” he beamed.

“What?” she answered, eagerly.

“We can get there through the sewers!”

 

                           “What?” she answered?

 

“They can take you any where in the city.” He explained, walking over to the sewer lid and lifting it to realise the stench of the earth but to take no notice of it.

Penelope, however, took plenty of notice, stepping back and holding her nose.

 

“There’s another outlet on the other side off the construction site, we’d pass right under them.” Said Rubin.

 

“Me, in there?” she gasped. “No thanks.”

I can’t say I blame her for being disgusted. Sewers, as you should know are full of rats, bugs and filth.

 

“But it’s the fastest way to the other side and we’re running late.” He protested.

 

Penelope hesitated to speak and thought hard;

“Oh, are you sure it’s safe.”

“Yeah, no problem.”

“Urr . . Okey.”

 

So, with their bags on their backs and Penelope’s breath held they slowly descended down the ladder into the rotting smell of the sewer.

Rubin didn’t seem to mind the sewer but Penelope honestly could have vomited then and there.

She saw spiders, cockroaches, poo and rats. That subterranean labyrinth had an unearthliness to it, as though they were descending into a dark and silent dream.

 

“How come you don’t mind this, its dreadful?” She gasped, walking alongside him.      

“My Dad works for sewer maintenance. He brings me down here whenever he has to fix a pipe, on the weekend.” He answered, casually.  

“Jest sounds like an over glorified plumber to me.” She thought allowed.

 

 

By that time, they had reached the ladder at the other end and as glad as she was to see sunlight once more Penelope actually thought it was pretty cool that she got to go down to a sewer. She was the only school kid she knew who had ever been inside a sewer, apart from Rubin, of course.

 

Once above the ground again they began for school.

“By the way, do you like reading?” he asked, hoping to start a conversation.

“No, I’m more of a video-gamer.” She responded, “I’ve been begging my parents to get me the new “Killer Horse 3” game for weeks but they just don’t seem to want to get it for me.”

“I’ve got it.” Rubin mentioned, suggestively.

 

“REALLY!” she squealed breathlessly. “Could I play it?”

“Sure, you can come over after school.”

“Fantastic!” She cheered. “By the way, you wouldn’t happen to have some deodorant in that bag, would you? That sewer really left a stench on me.”

 

Rubin chuckled “No, sorry.”