Peter Bunzl - Shadowsea

Praise for Peter Bunzls

Vivid and gripping.
Kiran Millwood Hargrave

A gem of a book.
Katherine Woodfine

A stormer of a plot.
Abi Elphinstone

A glittering clockwork treasure.
Piers Torday

A blend of Philip Pullman, Joan Aiken and Katherine Rundell.
Amanda Craig

A thrilling Victorian adventure.
The Bookseller

Marvellous fun.
New Statesman

Prepare yourself for the adventure of a lifetime.
Jo Clarke, Book Lover Jo

SECRETS NEVER STAY SUBMERGED FOR LONG

Swept into the bright hustle-bustle of New York, Lily, Robert and Malkin discover that danger lies beneath the citys surface. For there are chilling goings-on A strange boy held captive who needs their help, and a shadowy professor with a treacherous plan. Searching for clues, Robert and Lily are plunged into deep water But will they uncover the deadly truth in time to survive?

First there was darkness.

Then patches of watery green light.

Then fish, whole schools of them.

With luminous fins bright as knives, glowing scales that shimmered like armour.

They swam past the shadow of a submarine base that clung to a cliff edge beside a fathomless trench, which stretched like a scar across the ocean floor.

The base was the shape of a giant rusted wheel, with spokes that ran from the exterior to its centre. Parts of it were unfinished the ties that bound it to the seabed still under construction. Fixed with rope and cable in place of iron trusses, the base bobbed slightly in the current. Rising from the hub was a tower with a turbine at the top, turning slowly.

Through the towers only porthole, a blond boy of thirteen with bright, inquisitive eyes could be seen sitting on the cabin floor. The boy was humming a tune to himself a tune that matched the buzzing in the walls as he worked on a miniature wagon. Jam-jar lids made up the wagons wheels, flattened cans its carriage. It had pencils for axles and wire for its yoke.

When he was done, the boy plucked a white mouse from his pocket and tied it to the wagon. He placed the mouse on the floor and geed it along like a long-whiskered, pink-snouted pony. The mouse tottered forward on tiny red paws, pulling the wagon behind it.

After a moment it broke into a run, skittering beneath a table, where two adults, a man and a woman with the same blond hair and inquisitive eyes as the boy, sat working.

The boy chased the mouse under the table and followed it out the door.

Hot on its heels, he ran down the passageway.

The mouse crossed grates and vents and wove beneath pipes, sticking close to the walls. It clattered its cart past damp bulbous diving suits that stank of the sea, tumbled across galleys and mess halls where crew members sat eating.

Still the boy chased it.

Finally it ran through a crack where a door stood slightly ajar.

In the room beyond, row upon row of mice scrabbled about in cages.

The white mouse stopped in the centre of the spotless floor.

The boy crouched, mouth half-open, stretching out a hand to pick it up.

A swish of a skirt.

A shiny leather shoe stepped across his path.

The boy glanced up. Hey, Aunt Matilda!

A gaunt-faced woman with short slicked-back hair, wearing a white lab coat and goggles pushed back on her head, was putting on a pair of rubber gloves. Thats Professor Milksop to you.

Professor Milksop scooped up the mouse and dropped the cart unceremoniously on the floor. This rodents valuable. You should never have taken it from the lab.

He looked sad, the boy said. I named him Spook, on account of his colouring. He looks like a Spook, dont ya think?

The boy glanced at the mouse, scrabbling in the professors hand.

It squeaked softly.

Dont be naming them, the professor said. Name a thing and you start to have feelings for it. She turned away and made a sharp, jerking motion with her hands.

The squeaking stopped.

Go back to your quarters now, Dane. You shouldnt be here. Could be bad for your health.

The professor kicked aside the cart and headed for a second, lead-lined door at the far end of the room. A door marked:

Above these words was a picture of a snake curled in a circle, eating its own tail.

Dane rubbed away a stinging tear as he watched his aunt go.

Then he narrowed his eyes and stared at the door.

No, he said softly. I wont.

He stepped forward and gently pushed against the sign, peering round the doors edge.

In the room beyond, a large white laboratory, a mechanical nurse with a red cross on her chest was adjusting a square metal machine on a table. A phonograph on a wheeled stand in the corner played ghostly opera music from a wax cylinder.

Ready to wake the dead, Miss Buckle? Professor Milksop joined the mechanical at the table and examined the four glass lenses arranged on the front of the square machine.

Miss Buckle frowned as she checked a tangle of copper wires that emerged from the rear of the machine. They stretched out to a control box and socket inside a lead-lined observation booth on the far side of the room. Is that one of your jokes, Professor? she asked. I can never quite tell. My clockwork doesnt easily compute humour

Forget about it. Professor Milksop laid Spook in a tray on the table in front of the machine and adjusted a blue glinting shard of diamond inside its workings. Then, when she was satisfied all was ready, she pulled down her goggles and stepped away from the machine into the lead-lined booth. Miss Buckle followed her.

Dane peeked further round the door, watching Professor Milksop through the observation booths porthole window as she shut herself and Miss Buckle in. Then the professor pressed a series of buttons on a control box.

Soon, the machine on the table hummed to life as a tidal wave of electricity buzzed through it.

Miss Buckle peered out through the porthole and saw Dane sneaking into the lab.

STOP! she shouted, half at him, half at her mistress.

But it was too late

Crackling strands of blue lightning were already shooting from the four lenses of the machine. They waved around the lab like a tangled ball of angry, energetic snakes. Their lightning strands latched onto Spooks body, engulfing it.

The little mouse writhed and jerked in rhythm, then opened its eyes, wiggled its whiskers and crawled back onto its feet like a newborn.

Soon the lightning found Dane

Winding round him like a nest of vipers

Biting electrically into his skin.

His body spasmed.

His feet danced a random rhythm.

Silver scales burned his eyes.

His limbs scissored and jiggled.

He fell to his knees

Keeled over on the floor

And was still.

The arms of lightning crackled onwards, through the open door, arcing along the passageways of the baseslipping serpent-like around each crew member in turn and dancing them to the same jerky death.