The Sleeping Army Awakes

Part 15 Important Lessons

The two boys had reached the boathouse and they were relieved, as always, to see the familiar outline of Fish-sub, still sitting there. Fish-sub and "The Book" were their proudest possessions and there was always the nagging doubt that someone would try to steal the craft, as she neared completion. Her hull had been more or less watertight for weeks now. They needn't have been worried because nobody else around was small enough or had the knowledge to operate her.

"I wish that this lake were deeper!" Bláznivý Marek bemoaned. "Poor Fish-sub won't have much water to swim in."

"Maybe one day we follow river down to sea!" Slepý Bobek suggested. "Then she would have all water that she need!"

"No she is fresh water fish!" Bláznivý Marek asserted, "maybe she rust if we take her to salty sea?"

Despite their apparent bravado, both boys suspected that it was probably rather fortunate that the lake was as shallow as it was. If the little submarine had been able to dive to any great depth, then she would almost certainly have leaked like a proverbial sieve because of the increased pressure. And if she didn't leak then she could have crumpled because the materials that she was built from were not substantial enough to stand the weight of the water. After all, the ventilation ducts it had been made from, had only been constructed to transfer clean air from above in the mine to below.

"Isn't it time that you two were in school?" Eliška's voice resounded in their heads.

"We thought that we would give others chance to catch up!" Bláznivý Marek said aloud. "Like in film!"

Slepý Bobek nodded in approval.

"That's not what your teacher tells me. She says that you haven't attended any of your English lessons and without English you won't be able to get job with Lord Percy."

"We don't want job with Lord Percy!" Bláznivý Marek said.

Slepý Bobek nodded in approval.

"And neither of you have been attending psychic school." She chided.

"We are scientists!" Slepý Bobek retorted. "We have no need for mumbo jumbo."

"Well my little scientists! Do you know what I will do to your precious book if you don't go right now?" Eliška asked, projecting the boys the concept of her gleefully mashing their book into papier mâché in Auntie Sacha's cauldron.

"You wouldn't!" Slepý Bobek protested.

"I would take great pleasure in doing so and if you really annoy me then I will erase any memory of the book from your minds." Eliška said.

"You couldn't do that." Slepý Bobek protested.

"I won't take chance on it!" Bláznivý Marek said. "Girls can be vicious!"

"Boys can be vicious too!" Slepý Bobek threatened.

"Not as vicious as me!" Bláznivý Marek said.

"You shouldn't have told me where book was." Eliška laughed. "Come on boys move! Ras Dva, Ras Dva." Eliška commanded, deliberately using the Slavik military equivalent to left right, left right to get them to march on. It reminded them of where they had foolishly hidden the book.

Since there was no way of evading Eliška because of her telepathic powers, the two boys looked at each other in resignation and reluctantly left their Fish-sub, to make their way back up the hill and along the muddy path to the local school.

The school was held in what had once been a barn that stored hay for mine ponies. The ponies had been used originally to haul the trucks up and down the tramway. As barns go, it hadn't been a very large building in the first place, but now only roughly half of the roof, still had its rusting corrugated roofing panels and only half of the roofed area was really waterproof. By the time that the boys ambled in, several huddled classes were already in progress at the far end where it was less likely to be wet.