I wish I could fly!

Suffocating. She’s dragged us out of warm beds on yet another hair-brained scheme that will take us who knows where without so much as a by your leave and now, I swear, I’m eating mud! This tunnel must have been dug when Noah was a boy! Hidden elixirs, poncing pirates, slow boats to China, we must want our heads looking at, we’re as barmy as she is if not worse! Uggh. Moles make wider tunnels than this, in fact I bet she’s pinched it or won it at cards. Oh great! All I need, something coming the other way.

“Evening. Bit tight for yer ent it, yer covered in mud. Yer wants to be heving yer hands out en front of yer and work through it yer does, like a sapper, jest like a sapper en then yer’ll be fine.”

“Thanks for the advice, how do you propose to get by me?”

“Now then, tha’s a good question that es but et’s not me I’m frettin’ ’bout, yer’s the one en a pickle. I’m a mole see and we’s  good when et comes to tunneling, aye there’s many a tunnel en these ‘ere lands made by me, spen’ my life tunneling I has.”

” No kidding! Were you called to it as a vocation or possibly born to it on account of your being a mole?”

“En the blood. Aye, definite es that, en the blood. My family famous for it en these parts, ask anybody en’ they’ll say the same, ent no better tunnels made than by the Noels, we’s known fer it far en wide we es, far en wide.”

“Tell me, you wouldn’t happen to know if I’m getting closer to the sea would you? I mean, with all the tunneling you’ve done there must have been one that came out near the sea.”

“Ohem, the sea, now et’s the sea yer’s wantin’ es et, the sea. I ent never had much truck with et, the sea. Ent much call fer a mole to spen’ time et the sea ye see so’s I can’t help yer  wi’ tha’ en tha’s the truth. I’s can help yer wi’ one thing though I thinks, but jest the one.”

“Wonderful, any help is welcome considering that I’m choking to death and seem to have wandered into this surreal ‘Wind in the Willows’ scenario. Go for it, tell me the one thing that might just help, please!”

“Yer’s en the wrong tunnel! Yer’s come down from yon Abbey ent yer, thinkin’ ter find treasures en all sorts. I been in them tunnels a couple o’ times; grand, grandest thing I ever seen. En big, big es yer like, no mud there,  jes wide open spaces en such.”

“Well, the hits just keep on coming! The wrong tunnel. I’m in the wrong tunnel, wet, eating mud, passing the time of day with Noel the mole, suffocating, no idea how to get to the sea and all the time I’m in the wrong tunnel! So where’s the right… where’s… where’s he gone? Oy, mole, Noel, come back here.”

I can’t believe it, he’s left me here in no man’s land, choking on mud and clueless.

“A life on the ocean wave

Is better than being in a cave 

You’d better follow me,

I’m going down to the sea!”

I located my pouch and saw the gleaming light, the anchor was singing again. I wriggled about until he was safely in my hands.

“Anchor! What do you mean? Are you going to the sea?”

“I’m an anchor, where else would an anchor be going if not to the sea? I’ve been cramped up in that pouch yelling my head off, singing fit to drop! Are you deaf?”

“My ears have been full of mud half the time! So, what are we waiting for, can you lead us to shore, are we lost?”

“Nope, in fact I can smell it and hear it, you’ve been very lucky. Try to dig upwards a bit and then push hard with your head. I bet you can see the boat from here, get digging.”

I scrabbled away with my hands like a trapped rat and then pushed my head against the roof so hard I thought I’d pull it off my neck. Soil was splatting into my face but I was sure I could feel a slight breeze and then… I was through. I was through and could smell the grass mixed with fresh air and salt, sea water, we had to be so close, one more push and I would be able to see the beach.

“Anchor! Where are you? Look, look, the sea, The Calabar.”

“I can see the sea thank you, it looks like any other sea, watery. What’s happening to you, that’s what’s really puzzling me?”

“What? Oh get back in the pouch, go on, get in…. Squackkk! Who’s a clever bird? Hang on Anchor, we’re flying down… squackkk!

Jacam?