The Lady Under the Floor

Part One. The Llama in Assembly

On Monday morning, there was a llama in assembly, and it was sitting in the front row.

It sat with its legs folded neatly underneath it, like a cat, and its long neck straight up. It wore a tiny woven hat with a bobble on top, and a striped coat of red and yellow and green. One of its ears was brown and fluffy. The other was gold, and shone in the light from the hall windows.

Nobody had brought it in. Nobody had let it in. But there it was, with its eyes half closed, humming.

It was a very deep, soft hum, like a fridge in the next room. And every time it hummed, the floor hummed back.

"It's a llama," said Kenji.

"It's wearing a hat," said Ollie.

"Excuse me, Mister Llama," said Dot, who is in Reception and has no fear of anything. She patted its nose. "What's your name?"

The llama opened one eye. It looked at Dot for a long moment. Then it spat, very gently and very accurately, on Ollie.

"Why me?" said Ollie.

"Because you stamped," said Felix.

We all looked at Ollie's feet. He had, in fact, been stamping, because he'd had a fight with his shoe. And the moment he stopped, the floor stopped shivering, and the llama went back to humming.

Alex and Felix looked at each other.

"It's the voice from under the school," said Alex.

"Somebody stamped on her floor," said Felix.

Part Two. Up Through the Vegetable Patch

She arrived at break time, and she came up through the ground.

We were all out in the school garden, where Mister Harris keeps a muddy patch with four dead cabbages in it. The earth began to bulge, very slowly, in the middle of the vegetable bed. It swelled up like a loaf of bread. Then it cracked, and a little pile of soil spilled to one side, and a pair of brown hands pushed up out of it.

Then a head. Then shoulders. Then a whole woman, climbing out of a hole like a carrot growing the wrong way.

She was round, and warm, and wide, like a hill. Her skin was the colour of rich soil. Her hair was thick and dark, and it trailed down her back in long braids that looked, if you stared, a bit like roots. She wore a heavy woven shawl, patterned with mountains and rivers and tiny terraces, and a skirt in every shade of green. Her apron had a hundred pockets, and every pocket was full of seeds.

Her badge said Mrs Pachamama, Gardening and Growing.

She brushed some soil off her sleeve. She looked at the four dead cabbages. She looked at all of us, standing in a ring with our mouths open.

"Good morning, little roots," she said. Her voice was low and slow and cosy. It sounded like a warm hug that had been left in the oven. "Who has been stamping on my floor?"

Part Three. Maya Has Every Potato

"She's Pachamama," said Maya.

She was almost too excited to write. She had to start her notebook sentence three times.

"She's from the Andes," she said. "That's the long chain of mountains down the side of South America, in Peru and Bolivia and other countries. The Quechua and Aymara people have honoured her for thousands of years, and lots of them still do. Her name means Mother World, or Mother Earth."

"She's the whole ground?" said Kenji.

"She's the ground, and the soil, and the mountains, and the seeds, and the weather, and everything that grows," said Maya. "She doesn't just live in the world. She is the world. Which means we live on her all the time."

"Even in school?" said Dot.

"Especially in school," said Maya. "And here's the best bit. She gave people the potato."

"I love potatoes," said Ollie.

"There are about four thousand different kinds in the Andes," said Maya. "Purple ones, red ones, yellow ones, spotty ones, some shaped like fingers. And the people there have a very old rule for how to live with Pachamama. It's called ayni."

She wrote it in big letters. AYNI.

"It means giving and getting back," she said. "You help me, and I help you. Pachamama gives you food and a place to stand. So you give her something back. Before a meal, people pour a few drops of their drink onto the ground and say thank you. That's all. It's called sharing a drink with the earth."

"What happens if you forget?" said Felix.

Maya looked at the shaking floor, and the humming llama. "I think," she said slowly, "that she gets a bit upset."

Part Four. How to Plant a Potato

For the first two days, it was the best lesson we'd ever had.

Mrs Pachamama took over the garden. She pulled up the four dead cabbages in one go, and shook them, and said, "Rest now." She dug up a long bed with her bare hands. And then she opened her apron, and shook out a pile of lumpy brown potatoes in every shape and colour. Some were purple as plums. Some were red as strawberries. Some were bright yellow, and one was spotted like a leopard.

"Everyone takes one," she said. "But first you say hello."

"To a potato?" said Ollie.

"To a potato," said Mrs Pachamama. "It's a seed with a lot to offer."

We sat in a row. Dot held her purple one up to her ear and listened. "It says it's sleepy," she reported. Kenji named his Gerald. Ollie ate a bit of his, and had to be given another.

Alex and Felix shared the spotted one. Alex dug the hole. Felix put the potato in. Then they both patted the soil down with the flats of their hands, together.

"Now say thank you," said Mrs Pachamama.

"Thank you," said Alex.

"Thank you," said Felix.

The soil, under their hands, felt warm. And for just a moment, a tiny green shoot pushed up out of the spot where they'd patted. It curled, and waved, and went back down.

"She knows," whispered Dot.

"Of course I know," said Mrs Pachamama, and she laughed, a big deep laugh, and the ground laughed with her.

Part Five. The Digger

It was on Tuesday afternoon that the digger arrived.

Mister Harris had been waiting for it for months. The school had won a grant. It was going to build a new Sports Hall extension, on the big field at the back, and he had been talking about it so much that his tie was beginning to look like a blueprint.

The digger came in on a lorry. It was yellow, and as big as a house, with teeth on the front like a dinosaur. It rolled down the ramp with a roar, and a driver in a hard hat climbed down and waved at Mister Harris.

"Where d'you want it?" he shouted.

"Over there!" shouted Mister Harris, happily. "The whole field!"

The digger lowered its teeth. It dug into the grass. And the ground gave a long, low groan.

We were all at the window. We felt it through our feet. We saw Mrs Pachamama, in the garden, look up. Her face did something very quiet, like a cloud passing over a field.

"They didn't ask," said Alex.

"They never asked," said Felix.

"Is that bad?" whispered Dot.

"I don't know," said Maya. "But I don't think she likes it."

Behind her, in the corner of the classroom, the llama had stopped humming.

Part Six. Small Shakes

It started with the cups.

On Wednesday morning, the cups in the staff room began to rattle on their hooks. Then the biscuit tin walked three inches across the table. Then the spoons in the drawer began to clink, one by one, all by themselves, like a very small marching band.

"It's the digger," said Mister Harris.

"It isn't," said Miss Pele, from the corner, steaming gently. "I'd know. I'm the shaker round here. This is somebody else's."

It was worse in the playground. The pebbles jumped on the ground. The swings began to swing on their own. The goalposts leant a little to one side. And in the garden, the green shoots that had popped up so happily on Monday, began to wilt. One by one, the spotted potatoes and the purple potatoes and the little red ones flopped over, and went the colour of old tea.

"My Gerald!" cried Kenji.

"What's happening?" said Ollie.

Mrs Pachamama was sitting on a tree stump in the middle of the garden. Her hands were in her lap. Her braids were drooping. The llama sat beside her with its head on her knee, and neither of them said a word.

"It's not the potatoes," she said, at last, very softly. "It's me. When the ground is sad, everything that grows on it is sad. I'm trying to be cheerful. I can't."

"What's wrong?" said Alex.

She looked at the digger, which was still digging, hundreds of metres away. She looked at the school.

"I gave you a lovely garden on Monday," she said. "I gave you potatoes. I gave you the floor under your feet. Nobody has said so much as a thank you since."

Part Seven. The Big One

That's when the ground cracked.

It happened on Thursday, at lunchtime. We were all in the playground, eating sandwiches. The sun was out. The sky was blue, without a single cloud.

And then the earth gave a huge, rolling lurch.

We all fell over. Sandwiches flew. The swings jangled. The climbing frame wobbled like a jelly. From the far end of the field came a long, ripping, tearing sound, and a black line ran across the grass, from the Sports Hall site to the playground, zig-zagging like a lightning bolt.

It widened. It opened. A crack as wide as a bus, and deeper than anything, opened in the middle of the school field. The big yellow digger tipped slowly over the edge, with its driver shouting.

"Dot!" yelled Maya.

Dot was on the wrong side. She had been running to get her coat, and now she stood on a patch of ground that was breaking away from the rest, like an iceberg. It tilted. It sloped towards the crack. She skidded.

Alex and Felix ran. Together, they ran, side by side, and flung themselves flat on their stomachs at the edge. Alex caught her left hand. Felix caught her right. They dug their toes into the grass.

"Hold on!" shouted Alex.

"I'm holding!" shouted Felix.

"I'm not scared," called Dot, in a wobbly voice. "I'm just very low down."

Behind them, in a neat little line, a very small hairy shape lay down on the grass and bit the back of each of their coats. It was Willow. She was heavier than she looked.

Part Eight. What We Tried

The staff were trying everything.

Mister Heston ran for his anvil. The Caretaker rushed for a rope. Mister Hadad shouted at the sky. Miss Pele put her hands flat on the ground, and said, "Stop shaking!" and the ground replied with a shake that knocked her over. Mister Maui swung his fish hook round his head, but there was nothing yet to catch. Baba Yaga banged her ladle on the tarmac, and said something in Russian that Maya refused to write down.

"It won't listen!" shouted the Caretaker.

"We can't force it!" shouted Mister Harris, who had lost a shoe. "Do something clever!"

Dot was hauled back onto solid ground, with her feet kicking. She flopped in a heap and hugged both twins at once.

"That was the second best thing that ever happened to me," she said.

"What was the first?" said Alex.

"Chips," said Dot.

Maya was kneeling by the edge, scribbling like mad.

"Ayni," she said. "Ayni. That's it. It's giving and getting back. Pachamama has been giving us everything this week. And we haven't given her anything. We've only taken."

"We can't force her to stop," said Alex, slowly.

"No," said Felix. "We have to ask."

"And say sorry," said Alex.

They turned, with the crack yawning behind them.

"Come on," said Felix.

Part Nine. Sulpayki

She was still on her stump in the garden.

The crack hadn't reached it. The ground there was quiet, and still. The wilted potatoes were scattered round her feet like dropped toys. She had her head down. Her braids were tangled. The llama was lying with its chin on her shoe, its golden ear drooping.

"Mrs Pachamama," said Alex.

She looked up.

"We're sorry," said Felix.

"We didn't say thank you," said Alex.

"We just took everything," said Felix.

"We took the potatoes," said Alex. "And the floor."

"And the field," said Felix. "And we never gave anything back."

Behind them, the others had come, one by one: Maya with her notebook, Dot with her hair full of grass, Kenji and Ollie holding hands, and Mister Harris, panting, with one shoe.

"Thank you," said Mister Harris, in a small voice, before he had even thought about it. "For the floor. I hadn't realised I was standing on it."

Mrs Pachamama looked at all their faces. And the corner of her mouth, which had been drooping for days, twitched.

"It isn't about a lot," she said. "It's only about remembering. Do you know what sulpayki is?"

"Thank you," said Maya. "In Quechua."

"Then say it," said Mrs Pachamama. "And mean it. And give me something small. Not because you have to. Because that is how we stay friends."

Part Ten. The Little Gift

We did it in the garden.

Alex and Felix dug a small hole in the soil, one on each side. Maya brought a crust of bread from her lunchbox. Kenji brought a few grains of corn. Ollie, after a long struggle with himself, brought half a biscuit. Dot picked a dandelion. Mister Harris, very solemnly, produced a cup of tea from his flask, and poured a few drops into the hole.

"This is for you," said Felix.

"Sulpayki, Pachamama," said Alex.

"Sulpayki," said everyone else.

We covered it over with soil, and patted it down. Willow put her paw on top, to seal it. And one by one, the rest of the school came. The Caretaker brought a nail he'd been saving, which he said was a good one. Mrs Oshun poured a little honey. Mister Ketz, the cook, offered a handful of corn flour. Mister Väinö played one low note on his kantele. Madam Simurgh shook a single seed from her tail. Even Mister Hadad squeezed out one small, apologetic raindrop.

Slowly, slowly, the ground stopped trembling.

The crack in the field stopped growing. The wobbling swings went still. A faint warm breath rose out of the earth, smelling of rain and bread, and the tallest grass in the garden began to stir.

"Oh," said Mrs Pachamama. She put one hand on her chest. Her eyes were wet. "Oh, my little roots."

Part Eleven. Mister Maui Goes Fishing

But the crack was still there, and the digger was still in it.

"We have to get it out," said Mister Harris. "We have to put the field back."

"I shall deal with the digger," said Mister Maui, rolling up his sleeves. "This is my sort of thing."

He took out his great fish hook. He swung it round his head, three times, four times, five, until it hummed like a bee. Then he let it go. It sailed out across the field in a silver arc, over the crack, and hooked itself neatly under the front bucket of the digger.

"Heave!" shouted Mister Maui.

We all took hold of the rope, the whole school in a line, with the Caretaker at the front and Dot at the back. Alex and Felix held the very end of it together. Ollie held Kenji. Willow held the rope in her teeth.

"One, two, THREE!"

We hauled. We leant back. The rope creaked. And slowly, majestically, the huge yellow digger rose up out of the crack, with its driver still gripping the steering wheel, white-faced, wearing his hard hat the wrong way round. It swung through the air, and landed on the grass with a gentle bump.

"Thanks," said the driver faintly. "I'll go home now."

"And we shall have the field back," said Mrs Pachamama, getting up from her stump. She raised both arms. "Come on, my dear."

The crack in the field began to close. Slowly at first, then faster, like a zip. The earth knit itself together. The grass grew over it. In ten seconds, there was nothing there but a gentle green hill.

Part Twelve. A New Plan

"I owe everyone an apology," said Mister Harris.

He stood in the middle of the assembly hall, in his one shoe, holding his clipboard. The whole school was there, and all the staff, and a llama.

"I made a plan without asking," he said. "I didn't stop to think about the ground, or who it belonged to, or what it might feel. I wanted a Sports Hall. And I don't think I have to give it up, but I think I should have asked first."

"You may build it," said Mrs Pachamama.

Everyone gasped.

"Not on the field," she said. "On the car park. It is already flat, and already grey, and nobody will mind. The field, we shall keep as a garden and a meadow. And in return, I will make sure your new building has the best foundations in the whole country."

"Done," said Mister Harris, swallowing.

"And one more thing," said Mrs Pachamama. "Every day at the start of lunch, I'd like a little something poured on the ground. Not much. A spoonful of juice. A crumb. And a small thank you. Just so I remember you remember."

"Every day," promised Mister Harris.

"And the leftover food from the dinner hall," said Mrs Pachamama, "will go into the compost, instead of the bin. So it can come back round as soil."

"That's a good idea," said Mister Ketz, thoughtfully. "I've always hated the bin."

At the back of the hall, by the door, stood the digger driver, with his hard hat the right way round and his hands twisting together.

"Sorry about your field," he said. "I'd like to help dig the compost heap, if that's all right. I'm good with a spade, too."

"The ground would like that," said Mrs Pachamama, and she smiled at him.

Part Thirteen. The Potato Feast

On Friday morning, we woke up to a miracle.

The school garden was gone. In its place was a jungle. Potato plants stood waist-high, covered in white and purple flowers. Beans were climbing up the fence. Pumpkins had rolled out across the playground. There were carrots as big as arms, and a sunflower taller than the school gate, and the four dead cabbages, which had somehow grown back, were round and green and rather smug.

Mrs Pachamama stood in the middle of it all, humming. The llama, beside her, was wearing a ring of marigolds.

"I couldn't help myself," she said, cheerfully. "I was so happy."

We dug up the potatoes together. There were purple ones and red ones and spotty ones. Alex and Felix found their own spotted potato at the bottom of the bed. It was the size of a football. Dot hugged hers. Kenji found Gerald, and was overcome.

That night, Mister Ketz roasted them all in the school oven, with butter and salt and a sprinkle of herbs. We ate them under the stars, in a long row, with the staff gods all round us. Mrs Oshun brought a bowl of honey. Madam Simurgh brought a basket of seeds. Mister Susanoo, very carefully and quietly, carried the plates.

"This is the best potato I've ever eaten," said Ollie, with his mouth full.

"It's the only potato you've ever eaten," said Maya.

"It's still the best," said Ollie.

Part Fourteen. What She Said to the Twins

After the feast, Mrs Pachamama sat on the grass at the edge of the garden.

The sky was dark blue, with the seam of colour glimmering faintly across it. The llama was dozing against her side. Alex and Felix sat on her left, and Maya and Willow sat on her right. Dot was asleep with her head on a pumpkin.

"I have something to tell you," said Mrs Pachamama. "Because you were the ones who dug the first hole."

"What?" said Felix.

"The ground holds you up," said Mrs Pachamama. "Every single day. You never have to ask it to. When you are happy, it holds you up. When you are sad, it holds you up. When you fall over and cry, it is the first thing to catch you. Whenever you feel as if you might fall, put your feet down flat, and breathe, and feel it."

Alex and Felix both put their feet flat on the grass. They felt it. It was warm, and solid, and very quiet.

"You are held," said Mrs Pachamama. "Always. It's a fact."

"And what about thank you?" said Alex.

"A thank you is a seed," said Mrs Pachamama. "You plant it, and it grows. Say it often. Say it to the ground, and the sun, and the rain, and the people who make your dinner. Say it even when you don't feel like it. Especially then. You will find the more you give away, the more there seems to be."

"Like potatoes," said Felix.

"Exactly like potatoes," said Mrs Pachamama, and laughed her big, deep, earthy laugh.

Maya wrote it down. She drew a potato in the margin, with a smile.

Part Fifteen. The Last Evening

The next evening, Mrs Pachamama went back under the floor.

She did not leave. She said she'd be just below the vegetable patch, in case anyone wanted her. She took the llama with her, who walked in a circle three times, and curled up neatly in the hole, humming.

"Don't forget the spoonful," she said.

"We won't," promised Alex.

"We never will," promised Felix.

She waved. She sank slowly into the earth, up to her waist, then her shoulders, then her chin. At the last moment, she gave a wink, and a gold ear flicked once, and she was gone.

The soil closed over her. A small, bright, spotted potato flower pushed up through the place where she had been.

We stood round it in a ring, as the sun went down. It was a quiet, golden evening, and the whole school smelled of roasted potato, and wet grass, and flowers. Each of us poured a drop of water onto the ground, one after another.

"Sulpayki," we said.

Part Sixteen. The Ending, with a Hook

Alex and Felix walked home through the dusk, with Willow between them.

Maya trailed behind, drawing a potato with a face. The seam in the sky had faded to a faint glimmer. The first stars were coming out. The air was cool and sweet.

At the gate, Felix stopped.

"Listen," he said.

It was a very soft sound. It came from the bushes at the edge of the playground. It was a low, snuffling, grunting sound, and under it was another, a sort of soft growl.

"Is it the llama?" whispered Maya.

"It isn't," said Alex.

We crept forward. Willow went first, with her tail up. We parted the leaves.

Sitting in the shadows under the hedge were two animals. One was a very large, very round brown bear. The other was a tiger, striped and magnificent, with her chin on her paws. They were both sitting upright, side by side, like two people waiting for a bus. Between them, on a flat stone, was a big pile of garlic, and a bunch of long, grey-green leaves.

The bear looked up. She had kind, tired, honest eyes.

"Excuse me," she said, politely. "Is this the school that takes in beginners? We would like to learn how to be people."

The tiger gave a long, impatient sigh. "I said it would take too long," she muttered.

Alex and Felix looked at the bear and the tiger, and the bear and the tiger looked back. Then they said, at exactly the same time, "Monday."

The End.