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No sign of Dervish in the uess he’s still suffering fro on the weekend I want to wake hi, what happened at the hole But instead I decide to let hiether We’ll discuss it when I come home after school, when he can think and focus clearly

Scrubbing hard in the bathroom The dirt doesn’t want to co to, I think about gravediggers-their handsup when I’ve scraped the the face I saw/iles at me It’s not just the fact that there shouldn’t have been a face in the rock at all There’s so else

I’m on my way out the front doors when it strikes htly like my dead sister Gret

The day passes slowly, as if I’ soh thewith Charlie, Leon and Shannon Greeting Reni with a big sht ofoff the incident with the bottle-"A good ician never reveals his secrets"

Bill-E turns up I know he’s itching to discuss the cave with Loch and me, but we can’t speak of it in front of the others, so he slides past silently Loch yells an insult after him, cruder than usual, perhaps to cover up the fact that he’s become Bill-E’s secret ally

Lessons don’t interest hosts for all the i break and lunch The hts, the hole I’ve dug, the face in the rock, the beast I’ back for class after the lunch bell Loch and me are by ourselves Bill-E hurries up to us and says quietly, "Still on for this evening?"

"Sure," Loch says

"No" Both stare at me "Dervish wants me ho valuable got smashed at the party"

Loch winces "Bad luck Guess it’s just me and Spleenio then" He pinches Bill-E’s cheek

"Get off!" Bill-E yelps, pulling away, rubbing his cheek "That hurt"

"Sue hs

Bill-E turns his back on him "Maybe you can coh

Bill-E looks worried "Perhaps I’ll cancel too, leave it till torunts "If you back out now, you stay out This is a joint venture If you don’t pull your weight-and I know that’s a heavy load to pull, you chubby little freak-get lost We don’t need hangers-on"

Bill-E’s fists ball up The rage inside hio for Loch and I silently will hihts back,and Loch will start treating Bill-E as an equal

But then Bill-E looks Loch over, sizes up his height and o limp and he turns aith a weak, "See you later then"

Loch leans over and h for Bill-E to hear, "Do you think anyone would notice if I took Spleeny out to that hole and made him disappear?"

"Shut up, you jerk," I snap and asp

Home No Dervish A note on the kitchen table "Gone to fetchme dinner-still not in the mood for solids"

Hellfire! Of all the times in my life, why does Dervish pick these few days to be Mr Impossible To Pin Down! I wish now I’d hit hiot hoht

Too itchy-footed to wait for hi to kill tie of clothes, a hasty sandwich, then it’s off to the hole to find out what Loch and Bill-Earound the pit when I arrive, jaws slack, staring from the rocks and ain Both are holding shovels limply and look like you could knock theasp playfully "You’ve been working hard"

"We didn’t do it," Loch says numbly

"It was like this e arrived," Bill-Eabout?"

"We haven’t been digging," Loch says, becoo We found it like this"

"But who hohat the heck?" Bill-Ethe mystery The simplest solution, which I offer shamelessly, is that somebody discovered the hole after we’d left and did so themselves Bill-E and Loch dismiss it instantly-there are no shovel marks in the newly excavated sections, and no footprints except our own (I didn’t leave any barefooted prints in the night I ht on ue, who the hell would go digging in the est as an alternative

Snorts of derision We don’t get earthquakes here Besides, even if we did, that wouldn’t explain the earth and rocks piled up around the hole

Loch wonders if a wild animal is responsible

"What sort of aniht be?" Bill-E sneers "A troll or an ogre? Or maybe it was elves, like in the fairy tale with the shoemaker"

Eventually Bill-E comes up with a theory which satisfies all three of us, at least in the absence of anything more believable "Lord Sheftree," he says "If this is where his treasure’s buried, maybe he booby-trapped the entrance with explosives When ere digging, we set the, they didn’t ignite straightaway It took them a few hours to explode, by which time ere safely home, clear of the blast radius"

"I dunno," Lochthe rocks around us "These look like they were pulled out cleanly, not blasted"

"Maybe it was a catapult-typeto his theory "He had all these rocks loaded on a platform, which was set to shoot the They’d crush anyone nearby"

We discuss it further, trying to pin down the exact workings of the trap, wondering if there ht be more than just one I advise caution and propose retreat-we should report this and leave it to professionals to erous hole Bill-E and Loch shout o slowly," Bill-E says

"Carefully," Loch agrees

"If there are other traps, they’re probably slow-burners too," Bill-E argues

"But I doubt if there are h If it was set off, old Sheftree could have simply cleaned up the reain"

In the end, despite the dangers, they decide to proceed Since they can’t be swayed and there’s no profit in cutting rab a shovel and all three of us cliedly and fearfully- in the rocks, Bill-E and Loch fearful of running afoul of the dead Lord Sheftree

We pause every ti in the trees overhead, or when a heavy strea whispers, Bill-E and Loch thinking it ears of Lord Sheftree’s next weapon of radually we adjust to the natural sounds of the forest and stop flinching at every minor disturbance

Bill-E and Loch are more convinced than ever that we’ve unearthed the final resting place of Lord Sheftree’s buried treasure Not ical about this hole It drewout to theme to clear the way for what?

I don’t know I haven’t the slightest idea eour way down to But I’m pretty certain it’s not a rich miser’s hidden treasure

Loch and I work paired, chipping away at the hard-packed earth around the large rocks, prising the the the smaller rocks, pebbles and dirt We’re an effective teah as Loch tires fro out his irritation on hinore it, but he keeps on and on, Spleenio this, fat boy that, dodgy eye the other, and eventually I snap

"Why don’t you lay off him?" I snarl after an especially brutal remark about Bill-E’s dead mother

"Make me," Loch retorts

I square up to him "Maybe I will"

Loch holds his shovel in both hands and raises it warningly I grab the handle and we glare at each other Then Bill-E slips behind me and whispers, "Do him, Grubbs!" It’s so flat, so vicious, so un-Bill-E, that I turn around, startled, releasing the shovel

"What did you say?"

Bill-E looks confused, but angry too "I rowls "He told you to bump me off"

"What if I did?" Bill-E bristles, and now he tries to get round o toe-to-toe with Loch

"Stop," I say firainst the nearest rock wall and concentrate After a few seconds I feel or sense the vibrations of a very faint throbbing A non-hu "We all need to chill"

"Who made you the leader?" Loch barks

"We’re being manipulated" His forehead creases and I start to tell hi our tempers But then I realise how crazy that would sound "The soil," I say instead, inventing quickly "There must be some sort of che us feel and say things we shouldn’t If we don’t stop, we’ll be at each other’s throats soon"

Loch’s frown deepens, then clears "I’ll be dahs

"The sly old buzzard," Bill-E hoots "Cheainst one another Coolio!"

"I thought you wereatI believed you were out to kill rey head, then drops it and clambers out of the pit Bill-E and I follow We find Loch sitting by the edge of the hole, shivering

"Are you OK?" I ask