He glanced at Anne. She noticed him looking at her and gave him a crooked smile that told him she knew what he was thinking, but for some reason she was allowing him to do what he was doing.
Olli closed his eyes, enjoying the warmth and the touch and the fact that he was a member of the legendary Tourula Five, then he went back to eating his peanut butter sandwich with such concentration that he didn’t even hear when Karri yelled to them or notice when the others got up and left.
A moment later, he became aware of noises in the undergrowth. Karri was explaining something excitedly. Timi was barking. Olli hurried to where the others were.
There was a dark hole in the ground. The Blomrooses and Karri were gathered around it. It wasn’t easy to see the hole among the grass and roots. It just looked like a dark indentation in the dirt. But when you looked more closely you could see that it was a hole that reached deep into the ground.
“Some animal’s burrow,” Riku muttered. “Is this why you called us over here?”
Leo thought they should go back to the picnic basket before the animal who lived here found it. Olli, Anne and Riku thought so, too.
“No,” Karri said, so firmly that they were startled. He was lying on his belly on the ground with his face in the hole. “This isn’t an animal’s den. This is something completely different.”
“How about we leave it alone, though,” Leo said in his conciliating yet authoritative way. “Look at Timi. He’s barking and staying away from it. There’s something in there with sharp teeth. A badger or something. Maybe a fox. And if you keep spying on it it’s going to bite your face off.”
Anne said, “Come away from there, Karri…”
Karri sighed, looked at Timi, who seemed to have gone off his rocker, and withdrew from the hole.
“Maybe you’re right.”
He stood up and shrugged.
Them Timi sprinted past him.
Before anyone knew what was happening, the dog had crawled into the hole and disappeared.
They waited forever. Or for sixteen minutes, as Riku said later on when they talked over what had happened. “I know because I looked at my watch,” he said. “It was still working then…”
They all squatted around the hole staring into the darkness, unable to speak, hardly even able to breathe. The sounds of the beach were from some other, happier world. A world where children didn’t lose their dogs in a hole in the ground.
The day was growing brighter and hotter.
Timi stayed under the ground.
When you put your hand in the hole you could feel the unchanging coolness of the earth.
The horrified spell over them eased. They started to speak again. Their voices were shocked, solemn. They each peeped into the hole in turn. They shouted threats and promises and persuasions to the dog. Now and then they thought they might have heard a noise.
But there was only dark, impenetrable silence.
Olli was trembling. If Timi couldn’t get back out, he would come to a cruel end underground. They couldn’t do a thing to help him. The thought of it tore him up. But it would have been crazy even to think of going in after him. He might get stuck and suffocate and die. The burrow might collapse.
Olli wished he had kept the dog on a leash, regardless of what Anne said.
He tried not to cry. The others looked at him with the silent, fearful deference instinctively given to someone who’s suffered a terrible loss.
Then Karri said that one of them had to try to help Timi. After all, he was one of the group, a friend to all of them, wasn’t he?
Olli looked at Karri in amazement. Leo nodded and asked Karri what he thought they should do.
Karri said that one of them should go in after the dog—just a little way, so their feet were sticking out—and look to see what was really in there. It could be that Timi was just stuck not far under the surface. If they could get hold of his feet it might be easy to rescue him.
Before anyone had a chance to consider this suggestion, Karri had already volunteered for the job and wriggled into the hole. It was bigger than the opening made it look. The rest of them squirmed uncomfortably. Anne kept telling Karri not to go too deep.
“All right, Karri. Stop now and tell us what you see,” Leo commanded.
Karri was in the hole up to his waist and his answer was a faint mumble. Riku slapped him on the bum and told him to reach as far as he could and see if he could feel any furry dog’s arse.
Leo growled at his brother.
Karri went in deeper. Now all that was visible of him were his shoes, which Olli and the Blomrooses stared at. Shouldn’t he come back to the daylight now, while he still could? Anne started to get nervous. She worried that he might not be getting enough oxygen.
Leo agreed. He tried to grab Karri by the ankles, but just then the boy’s feet disappeared into the hole.
Those left on the surface looked at each other stony-faced. Leo looked particularly pale and stunned.
They peeked into the hole, but they couldn’t see or hear Karri. Riku’s usual impish grin crumbled. He shot a look at Olli that seemed to say, It’s because of your dog, Olli, your stupid dog…
Anne bent over, yelled into the hole and listened. Then she took a breath and, with stiff, robotic movements, wriggled into the darkness.
Olli looked at Leo and Riku, scared.
Riku whispered something that sounded like a curse.
They could see Leo crumbling. He was the biggest and strongest and most confident one in the group. He had always taken responsibility for the others. They thought of him as older than he was, but Leo was still a child—ten years old, just a year older than Olli, Karri and Riku. And now he had lost control of the situation. That had never happened before. His arms hung limp at his sides and he turned to Olli as if looking for help.
Olli felt sick.
Leo got down on his hands and knees and Olli and Riku stood frozen as he, too, crawled into the darkness.
He was stockier than the others and his shoulders tore the hole open wider.
Staying on the surface without Karri, Anne or Leo was a frightening thought. Even more frightening than the thought of dying underground.
Riku and Olli followed him in.
When they returned to the surface they were exhausted and disoriented. The bright light hurt their eyes. The fresh air stung their lungs.
They swayed for a moment in the sunlight, then walked a few metres away and collapsed in the tall grass. They didn’t move or speak, just sighed, enjoying the warmth, the colours and sounds and all the other things above ground; they had been gone so long they had nearly forgotten them.
Gradually they started to see the trees and meadows. A little way off there was a walking path and people passing with towels over their shoulders, rubber rings under their arms, sandals slapping, ankles covered with sand. They were on their way home after a day of swimming.
Olli tried to think. He felt faint and sick to his stomach. Something was licking his face. It was Timi. They really had found him, or maybe he had found them. Anyway, he had come back with them.
The dog was overjoyed. He gave a wet greeting to each of the Five in turn. Then he went back to Olli and lowered his snout onto his master’s leg, his dark eyes filled with gratitude.
They had come out on a hillside that looked out over the city, several stone’s throws from the place where they had crawled in. The sun was shining from a different direction now, lower in the sky. They had been under the ground for several hours.
Olli tried to remember what had happened, but his memories of it fled into the dark like mice.
Then he got hold of one memory: they were crawling through a tight tunnel single file, Karri first, and the others following, with Olli last. They could hear Timi’s voice coming from somewhere, ahead of them or behind them, whining and panting. Olli’s breath rasped in his throat. It was difficult to keep moving. His knees and elbows were torn open and he was running out of strength.