Read Online The Deptford Mice 1: The Dark Portal by Robin Jarvis - Free Book Online

turned to look and tutted.
    ‘It’s only your scarf on a nail! Come on, be serious. AUDREY!’ he called.
    ‘Not so loud!’ hushed Oswald. Twit wriggled into small spaces and searched the inside of the paper rolls but there was no sign of Audrey.
    Oswald stood before the Grille. From the deep sewers a draught stirred his fur. He swayed slightly, mesmerised by he power that flowed from the darkness. Shadows and enchantments lay behind the grating. A chill slowly crept under Oswald’s skin from the base of his tail up to the top of his neck and made him all goose-pimply.
    Gradually the Grille gathered the other two before it.
    They gazed long at the iron leaf pattern, tracing the curling and sprouting foliage around and around until they found that they were all staring at the rusted gap in the comer.
    ‘’Tis a remarkable thing to be sure,’ remarked Twit. They all sensed the grandeur and menace of it.
    ‘You realise, that if Audrey isn’t here or anywhere in the Skirtings . . .’
    ‘No, Arthur, not through there,’ began Oswald, but his words failed him as the teasing, tantalising force of the Grille worked in him. Soon he found himself nodding in ready agreement. Without another word the three mice stepped through the Grille and were swallowed by the darkness.
    The sewers never changed, always dark, always slimy – always grim.
    Oswald’s spirits were very low. He knew what his mother would say if he could see him there – her cries of alarm and shrieks of dismay would ring in his ears for weeks, yet he felt that he would rather be in the Skirtings suffering them than down here in the darkness.
    Twit peeped around Arthur who was in front of him. The tunnels branched out endlessly.
    ‘I never thought it was like this,’ said Arthur. ‘So dark and damp.’
    They progressed in this way for some time, each clutching their sticks and cautiously looking from side to side, trying to remember the way back. Arthur led, with Twit behind him and Oswald bringing up the rear. All they heard were echoes, and the rush of the sewer water. There was no sign of Audrey.
    Shall we call for her?’ suggested Arthur.
    ‘Please don’t!’ Oswald replied. ‘Think of all the dark slimy things that will come at us out of the walls. Nasty slithery horrors.’
    But Twit was not to be put off. He cupped his mouth in his paws and called out, ‘AUDREY!’ as loud as his little voice would go. The call echoed along the tunnel, distorting strangely as it went. Then there was silence.
    ‘Oh Twit,’ Oswald wailed, ‘you’ve done it now!’
    And he was right.
    Immediately there was a howling and a whooping. Out of the darkness, a pack of three rats came rushing towards them.
    ‘Run!’ cried Arthur. The mice bolted along the sewer ledge, half-running, half-slipping. Oswald kept letting out little squeals of fright.
    The rats were used to the sewers and they were swifter. Twit looked back. They were gaining.
    He had never seen anything so dreadful. The rats were large and ugly. One had a patch over one eye and clenched a sharp steel point in his claw; another gnashed his broken yellow teeth – he was doing most of the whooping, gleefully enjoying the chase; but the last, Twit noted with horror, had one of his claws missing and in its place, bound tightly to the stump, was something that made the fieldmouse squeal like his cousin – a peeler.
    ‘Ha!’ cried the rats.
    ‘At ’em lads.’
    And, ‘I bags the fat’ one.’
    Arthur realised that they would never be able to outrun them.
    ‘We’ve got to turn and fight,’ he called to the others.
    ‘What? How?’ squeaked Oswald.
    ‘Use your sticks!’
    So, when the mice reached a corner in the tunnel they turned and faced the enemy, brandishing their sticks as menacingly as they could. But where were their pursuers?
    ‘Maybe they’ve gone,’ suggested Oswald.
    ‘No, they’re playing with us,’ said Arthur. ‘Watching and waiting for a chance to leap out when we’re not