Planet Hell by Joan Lennon Page B

starting up again, getting ready to turn the fan in the other direction.
    He climbed as fast as he could and dragged his foot through the gap just as the blades started to spin again.
    Sam carried on, his heart beating fast as the deadly blades sliced through the air below him.

    One slip
, he thought,
and I’ll be cut into bits. No one will ever know what happened to me. No one will know, and no one will care.
    Sam gritted his teeth, and went on climbing.

Chapter 5

Snip, Snap!
    On the Surface of Hell, a girl called Anna woke up crying.
    Her robot came into her bedroom, sat on the side of her bed and stroked Anna’s long hair.
    Everyone on Hell was cared for by robots.

    The children had to go to school, but the adults could do anything they wanted. All the hard work was done by the robots. The robots took care of everything.
    â€œOh dear – what is the matter?” asked the robot.
    â€œNothing,” said Anna, rubbing the tears from her face. But it was a lie.
    Anna had been having bad dreams again. Dreams about trolls living under the ground who were going to drag her away.
    Anna was angry with herself.
I’m too old to be having dreams about trolls,
she thought.
Only little kids have dreams like that!

    Her robot looked at her. “Are you unhappy? What can I do to help?”
    â€œIt’s nothing,” lied Anna. “I’m fine.”
    But really, she was very unhappy indeed.
    Life on the Surface of Planet Hell was good. Robots did everything to keep the humans safe and happy. In school, the robot teachers said, “This planet is a miracle. The Final War on Earth meant that no creatures could live there any more. The humans had to find another home. When they landed here, they called it Hell because it looked like a world of fire and nothing else. But there
was
something else. There was power. Endless, free power.”
    When Anna was little, she asked, “Where does the power come from?”
    â€œFrom under the ground,” said the robot teachers. “When they first came to the planet, the humans took apart the space ship they’d come in and built robots out of its parts. And with the help of the robots, they built the force fields.”
    Everybody knew how important the force fields were.
    â€œThe force fields keep out the harmful rays of the sun so that we can live on a clean, safe planet,” said the robot teachers. “Without the force fields, the last of the humans would die out. We need the power from under the ground to keep the force fields going.”

    The power came up a shaft from deep inside Planet Hell. There were other shafts too, hidden in caves in the hills.
    The air coming up from these holes was hot and smelled bad, like rotten eggs. And sometimes, if you listened hard, you could hear things. Clanking and bashing noises, or metal sliding across metal with a slicing sound.

    In the playground, the big kids said, “It’s the trolls! When a baby troll is born the mummy troll cuts off its leg, SNIP! and cuts off its hand, SNAP! and then she sews on a metal leg and a scissor hand. That’s their metal legs you hear, clanking, and their scissor hands, slicing. The trolls come up out of the ground in the middle of the night when you’re asleep. They sneak into your bedroom and SNIP! they cut off your leg. Then SNAP! they cut off your hand!”
    All the little kids would scream and giggle.
    Except for Anna. She just screamed.
    Now she was one of the big kids, and she was still scared.
    I don’t believe in trolls!
she told herself again and again.
Don’t be such a cry baby!
    But she couldn’t stop being scared.
    And then things got worse.
    Jen, the biggest bully in the school, found out about Anna’s fears.

Chapter 6

Cry Baby
    Jen gave Anna’s arm a hard pinch. “Did you throw the message in the bottle down the hole like I said? Don’t you dare lie to me!”
    Anna nodded. “Yes! Let go! I did it,