The Storm Pipes

About the Author

K A Parker is from a small town on the western edge of the West Midlands of England. His stories are inspired by the adventures he had with friends growing up in the area. He lists Roald Dahl, J R R Tolkien, C S Lewis and Lewis Carroll amongst the influencers of his stories for young adults.

Copyright Information ©

K A Parker 2023

The right of K A Parker to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781398494343 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781398494350 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2023

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

1 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5AA

20230610

Acknowledgement

With thanks to Steve Williams for his frank and insightful reviews of the early manuscripts and encouragement to complete the book.

Chapter 1

The Fight

It was the first day back at school, the dreaded first day after the long summer holidays. Predictably, we were asked to write an essay entitled: My summer holiday.

An essay written in a sixty-minute English class could not possibly do justice to my most extraordinary summer holiday. I put my name and the title of the essay on the top of the paper.

Where would I begin to tell the story? I simply put:

Football

Fishing

Cricket

One week camping

Swimming

Neighbours’ gardening for pocket money

Watched TV

And stared out of the window for fifty long minutes.

Miss Yates was an old camel of a teacher. Grey-haired and with half-moon wire-rimmed spectacles. She despised lazy pupils and frequently handed out detentions and extra homework for sub-standard effort. I would often daydream during her lessons, her monotone voice sending me into a kind of boredom trance; my daydreams would often involve a camel wearing glasses taking an English class. Miss Yates often noticed me smiling inanely at my own thoughts and would whack my desk with a plastic rule to snap me out of it.

Please finish off now, Miss Yates instructed the class, Hand your work in as you leave the room.

Miss Yates stood by the door as the class filed out, each handing in their work. Everyone was eager to leave the class. It was the last class of the day and rumours had spread around the school that Robert Skinner, reputedly the toughest kid at our school, was to fight Mark Windale, the toughest kid from the nearby Springhill School, in the local park at four-thirty. There was a history of rivalry between Springhill and our school; we all knew Skinner was the toughest kid around and looked forward to putting one over the Spaniels (the nickname for anyone from Springhill the kids from our school used).

I handed in my single sheet of work without looking at Miss Yates and rushed out into the corridor.

ADAM SALT! COME BACK HERE! boomed into the corridor.

I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck prick up as I imagined Miss Yates’ stare grabbing the back of my head. I turned around slowly and sheepishly walked back to the classroom door.

Miss Yates stood stone-faced, with my piece of paper raised in her right hand and said calmly and slowly, This is not good enough—wait in the classroom.

I desperately wanted to see the fight, my mind was racing to find an excuse, and I quickly formed a lie. Miss, my mother’s sick and I need to go to the chemist to collect a prescription. She’ll have run out of medicine by now, I need to get home.

CLASSROOM! she bellowed. I’d rather fight Robert Skinner than argue with Miss Yates in this mood. I sat at my desk and waited as she collected the remainder of the essays and supervised an orderly clearance of the corridors. She closed the door, walked over to me and put my list on the desk.

The child is the father of the man and you’re bringing up a failure, she began.

I felt confused, What do you mean?

I mean, young man, that what you invest in time and effort now will determine the success or failure of the rest of your life. I see very little investment here and you can expect very little in return. It is my job to ensure you invest more to give you the best possible opportunities in the future. I don’t want to waste my breath on pupils like you but it is my duty…

The words began to wash over me and seem distant. I had heard it all before. Miss Yates could preach for England, especially about her views on the value of a good education. I lost all hope of getting out in time to see the fight.

STOP! I shouted, taking Miss Yates and myself by surprise. I like English; I like to write stories, not essays. Your lessons are so boring. Something incredible happened during the holiday and I haven’t told anyone—I’d probably be locked up as insane, no one would believe me.

How dare you interrupt me, Miss Yates glared, if its stories you want to tell you can start right now. You will sit there and write a story while I mark these essays.

My teeth and fists were clenching tight with frustration; at first I couldn’t write a word. I looked out of the window and saw a huge group from our school heading out of the school gate and turn towards the park. Skinner had his usual posse of thugs around him. A car pulled up quickly at the school gate, several adults jumped out. I could just make out Mr. Sims, our PE teacher, as he stopped Skinner and his gang and then led them back into the school grounds. Clearly, the teachers had heard of the fight. Oh well, I thought, at least I didn’t miss anything. I started to write my story and once I had started, I couldn’t stop. After an hour, I had written about ten sheets but had only begun to tell the tale.

Miss Yates shuffled the essays she had marked into a neat pile and said, Right, throw what you’ve done in the bin and go home.

No way! I protested.

Let me see, Miss Yates held out her hand requesting to see my work. She read it and handed it back to me.

Do you want to finish it? she suggested.

There’s so much to tell, I said.

You have a furtive imagination, she said.

Everything I’ve written is true.

Of course it is. It is very good; some of the grammar and spelling could be better, but interesting none the less. I’ll help you finish it if you want?

I stayed behind every Tuesday and Thursday and added to my story. Miss Yates read every instalment and put a few things right. Around May I had finished.

Many years later, whilst clearing my loft, I discovered the story I’d written as a schoolboy. I read it from start to finish in one sitting and felt that with a little effort it would make a good book.

What follows is the rewritten and embellished story. Where I was there, I have written it as it happened; when I wasn’t there, it is based on conversations with people that were, or I made it up!

I hope you enjoy it.

Chapter 2

The Dare

Let’s do something, said Matthew. The tone suggested desperation. This was the fifth week of the long summer holiday and boredom had well and truly set in.

Like what?

I dunno, Matthew raised his eyebrows as he always did when searching for inspiration, Fishing?

We always go fishing, it’s boring, and we never catch anything anyway.

You think of something, Matthew retorted, his feelings slightly pricked by my rejection of his favourite pastime, and pass time it certainly did.

We had spent endless hours of our summer break impaling maggots on hooks and watching for the slightest twitch of fluorescent floats.

Matthew reckoned there were huge carp and pike in the quarry pool and if we caught one we could get into the Guinness book of records.

Hiya, we heard a voice call. We both sat up out of the long grass of the quarry bank. It was Melissa Hamilton. Her hair was golden and it shone in the glorious sun. She was without doubt the prettiest girl in our year. I always fell dumbstruck when she was around, or would say something completely out of character and feel awkward and foolish. Matthew never said the wrong thing. He had this knack of making girls laugh. I’m sure if I’d been on my own she would have walked straight past.

Hiya, Matthew returned, Come on he said, as he tapped me on the shoulder as a signal to get up. I did and we made our way down the bank to Melissa.

We started to amble along the dirt track.

Matthew immediately struck up conversation with Melissa. Where you going?

Nowhere really, my gran’s staying at our house, I just had to get out, she drives me mad.

I know what you mean. My gran’s forever nagging me, she says my hair’s too long, my nails need cutting, my shirt needs tucking in, my bedroom needs tidying, she reckons they should bring back national service, whatever that is?

Melissa and Matthew swapped horror-gran stories as we walked. I was going to chip in with a few stories about my gran, except I couldn’t think of anything interesting. In fact I quite liked my gran, she visited every Wednesday and bought me a chocolate bar every week without fail. At Christmas she let me have some of her Stout when mum and dad weren’t looking. It was pretty disgusting if I’m honest.

I tagged along as we made our way out of the quarry and back towards the park. The dirt track joined the tarmacked park path.

Matthew and Melissa eventually stopped at one of the park benches. They sat down, I’d somehow ended up about twenty yards behind them. I realised that I’d been daydreaming; it was easy to do on such a perfect day.

As I caught up Melissa said, What do you think Adam?

Think about what? I’d obviously not been party to the current conversation.

Matthew reckons… Melissa began to explain.

Let me guess, I stopped her short, Matthew reckons that there are huge carp and pike in the quarry pool and he thinks we could get into the Guinness book of records.

Melissa and Matthew looked strangely at each other for a second and laughed. It was clear my guess was wrong, I felt my face go red, embarrassed at my error.

What are you on Salty? said Matthew, teasing me. We were talking about the storm pipes. You know, the ones that run into the quarry pool.

What about ’em? I regained my composure and felt the redness calm from my face.

Melissa began again. Matthew reckons that they’re haunted or something and if you go to the end of them at night you can hear the ghosts.

Don’t be daft, those tunnels go for miles, there’s bound to be some noise echoing from cars going over manholes and stuff. I launched into my sensible, rational arguments to explain away the ghosts.

Even so, I bet you wouldn’t go up there, Matthew challenged.

I would, came out of my mouth before I realised that I had committed myself to the dare.

You never would! Melissa said in a hushed but excited voice. She seemed impressed.

I was digging myself deeper into the hole. I had been to the ends of the pipes at night. The echoey sounds that emerged from the two huge tunnels were eerie to say the least. You could bang keys or stones against the iron grids that protected the entrances of the two huge openings and the metallic clank would reverberate, echoing back from deeper and deeper into darkness.

Let’s go there now, Melissa sounded excited.

Okay, Matthew and I said together. I had agreed quickly to continue the pretence of bravery. I think Matthew said it quickly because he too was excited at my acceptance of the challenge.

We walked quickly back to the quarry. There are some concrete steps down to the top of the storm pipe entrances. A metal service ladder leads to the bottom. We all made our way down the ladder. We stood in front of the cavernous openings. Somehow they did not seem so frightening in the bright sunshine. There had been no rain for weeks and the water that gushed out of the tunnels after a downpour had dried to a trickle. Green algae had formed where the water runs along the bottom of the pipes. The smell was unpleasant but not unbearable.

Hello ghosties, Matthew bellowed into the first tunnel as he stood on the bottom rung of the metal entrance grid. His voice echoed back three, maybe four times.

Melissa and I climbed onto the grid alongside him. We joined in the attempts to wake the ghosts. Then shouted anything we could think of. It was good fun seeing who could get the best echoes back.

The gaps in the grid were too narrow to allow entry. I used this as my excuse. No problem, said Matthew, We’ll come back tonight. My dad has some big spanners, we’ll open the grill. He said pointing at the large nuts on bolts that protruded from the concrete surround.

We’ll get into trouble, I protested.

Not gonna chicken out are you? Matthew taunted.

I looked at Melissa, she seemed unsure, Let’s get outta here, she said. This seemed to diffuse the situation. We scrambled back up the ladder.

Melissa lived close to the quarry and said she’d have to go home. See ya Matt, See ya Adam, she said as she turned for home. I felt sure that she let her gaze linger slightly longer than usual and smiled a little friendlier than usual as she said my name.

We walked back towards the park. You fancy her don’t ya, Matthew said, smirking. He was right, I couldn’t stop thinking about her all the way home. Matthew had been talking to me about how he’d sneak his dad’s toolbox and torch out of the garage. I wasn’t really paying much attention, just nodding and umm’ing in the right places.

See you at eight then, Park gates. Matthew said as I turned into the drive of my house. Matthew’s tone indicated that this was confirmation of some pre-agreed plan.

Yeah, right, I called as Matthew ran off up the road. He only lived around the corner, no more than a hundred yards.

Chapter 3

Into the Storm Pipes

I don’t have to do it. I don’t have to do it. I don’t have to do it. I repeated the words over and over in my mind but occasionally yes you do would pop in, in Matthew’s voice, and not scared are ya? and then Melissa’s face. I’m sure she began to like me when she thought I was brave. When she thought I’d really go into the haunted storm pipes at night. What am I afraid of? I said out loud.

You okay Adam? my mum’s voice came from the landing.

Yeah, no problem, just talking to myself.

Are you going out tonight? My mum always wanted to know what I was up to.

Yeah, I’m going to the park with Matthew.

Don’t be too late. Be back before dark.

"Mum, I am nearly fifteen you know, I can look after myself. I’m going