Planet Hell by Joan Lennon Page A

bashing out a new tunnel nearby. BAM … BAM … BAM …
    Sam lit an electric candle and looked down. He still had the bottle in his hand. Suddenly, he saw something inside the bottle …
    He took the top off the bottle, turned it upside down and shook it. A piece of paper fell out. It had writing on it in large letters.
    Hey! Trolls!
    If you’re really down there, come and get me!
    I’m not afraid of you!
    Sam turned the piece of paper over. On the back in much smaller writing it said:
    I only wrote that message
because they made me. If you are real,
please, please don’t come up!
    Sam read it three times. It didn’t make any sense.
    Who can have written it?
he wondered.

    Sam’s dad had taught him how to write all the letters – but not like this. Not with all those loops and curly bits. Sam didn’t know anybody in the Mine who could write like that.
    It was almost as if somebody from the Surface had written the message. Put it in the bottle. Thrown it down the air shaft.
    But that’s just stupid – no one can live on the Surface!
Sam thought. Of course, there were lots of stories about horrible monsters living up there. They had no eyes and ate rock and drank each other’s boiling blood. But the stories were just to scare little kids.

    His dad had told him all about what it was really like on the Surface. There was blazing sun and terrible heat. The air was full of poison. The land was all burned up.
    â€œThat’s why they called this Planet Hell,” his dad had said.
    Sam shoved the bottle into his pocket. He just wanted to go home. He crept along the air shafts until he came to a secret opening at the back of his cave. It was covered with a metal grill. He reached out to pull it open – and froze.
    He heard a sound.
    Sam peered into his cave. He’d left an electric candle lit, but it was dying now. The room was almost dark. Then Sam saw a shape move in the shadows.
    The Gang had got there before him.

Chapter 4

Going Up
    Sam tried to stop shaking.
    What could he do? The Gang knew every part of the Mine. There was nowhere to hide.
    He looked at the bottle with the message inside.
    Everyone says that nobody can live on the Surface,
he thought.
But what if everyone is wrong? I could go and find out. After all, what have I got to lose?
    There was no way but up.
    * * *
    Sam started to climb through the air shafts. The air for the Mines came from the Surface. There were filters to take the poison out of it. And there were huge fans with sharp spinning blades to blow the fresh air into the tunnels.
    The blades made cutting sounds as they slid past each other. Shiiiip. Shiiiip. Then the blades would stop dead for a moment, and then start spinning the other way, to blow the used air out again.
    That will be my moment,
thought Sam.
When the blades stop. That’s when I’ll climb through.

    The air shafts ran for miles. It would be easy to get lost. But Sam’s dad had taught him how to see the whole Mine in his mind in 3D. Like a map, only better.
    Sometimes the air shafts passed by other Miners’ caves. Sam could hear people talking and moving about. It made him feel lonely.
    It made him want to turn back.
    Then he felt the bottle in his pocket.
Come on, Sam,
he told himself.
Keep moving.

    Suddenly he heard it. The sound he had been dreading.
    The sound of the fan.
    The blades of the fan sliced through the air at a terrible speed. Sam listened hard, waiting for the sound to change.
    There! The blades were slowing down. The fast slicing sound was becoming a slower shiiiiip … shiiiiip …
    Now! Without stopping to think, Sam scrambled up the air shaft towards the fan.
    Shiiiiippppp …
    And silence. The fan was still.
    With shaking hands, Sam reached up and touched the razor sharp metal. He pushed the blades apart and started to pull himself through the narrow gap. He felt his shirt catch and rip. Then he heard the fan’s engine