The Good Part(70)

Following his directions, we find a small stall selling a few wilting tulips, and just as Crouch Pouch promised, a brown door with a dusty sign that says, ‘Dave’s Depot’.

‘This is it!’ Felix says, pushing open the creaking door. On the other side is a metal grate leading to a rusty spiral staircase, heading down into the bowels of London. Felix runs ahead, fearless, and each of his steps echoes with a metallic clack throughout the windowless, brick cavern.

‘It’s a bit dark,’ I say, nervously following Felix down the winding staircase. ‘Maybe we should wait.’ Suddenly, this all seems like a bad idea. What if that website was really a people trafficking site, and we’ve been lured here under false pretences? What if I get Felix kidnapped? Or me kidnapped, for that matter? Just as I’m about to suggest we turn back, Felix shouts, ‘It’s here!’ from further below me on the staircase. Hurrying down the final few spirals, I come out on solid ground to see a second set of huge brick rail arches, built beneath the ones at ground level. The cavernous, curved space in front of us is jam-packed with old arcade games and dusty fairground curiosities. It’s an awesome sight, like discovering Tutankhamun’s tomb (if Tutankhamun had been around in the eighties and obsessed with video games). I pause for a moment to absorb the sheer unexpected spectacle of the place.

‘It’s going to be here,’ says Felix, running towards the jumbled aisles of ancient technology.

‘Hello?’ I call out, worried we might be in trouble for wandering down here uninvited, then remembering the guy from the forum’s warning that Arcade Dave ‘could be a bit of a funny fella’. What does that mean, that he’s a com-edian or that he’s a psychopath?

A man in filthy overalls with a messy, auburn moustache, stands up from behind an old PacMan machine, eyeing us suspiciously.

‘Arcade Dave?’ I ask, furnishing him with the best please-don’t-be-a-psychopath smile I can muster.

‘Who’s asking?’ he says.

‘I’m Lucy and this is Felix. Crouch Pouch sent us.’

‘It wasn’t Crouch Pouch, Mummy, it was Crock Pouch,’ says Felix, his eyes darting nervously to Arcade Dave.

I imagine this name is going to act as a Masonic handshake in this underground lair, but Arcade Dave simply says, ‘Don’t know ’im,’ and gets back to work on his machine.

Felix, undeterred, strides over to him.

‘We’re looking for a wishing machine, it’s like a million years old.’

‘It’s not a million years old,’ I clarify, ‘it’s probably from the seventies or eighties, maybe the fifties. Definitely twentieth century.’

‘What does it look like?’ Dave asks, wiping his nose with an oily rag.

He listens attentively as I tell him everything I can remember, then beckons us to follow him. Felix bounces along behind, unable to contain his excitement. He turns around and mouths to me, ‘He has it!’

Dave leads us to a machine covered in a sheet, and I brace myself as he reaches to unveil it. What if this really is it? But when he pulls off the dust sheet, he reveals a square glass case with a scary-looking genie holding a giant crystal ball. Felix looks at me expectantly, though he knows I never mentioned a genie. I shake my head. ‘No, that’s not it.’

‘Ain’t seen anything else like you’re saying,’ Arcade Dave tells us, shaking his head. ‘Collectors, are you?’

‘Kind of,’ I tell him, narrowing my eyes at Felix to stop him from launching into a time travel-themed explanation.

Arcade Dave sneezes on his oily rag, then hands me a greasy business card from his overalls. ‘Leave your number. I’ll ask around. If I hear of anything, I’ll let you know.’

Perhaps sensing Felix’s disappointment, Arcade Dave then says, ‘Hey, kid, you want a quick go on a Robotron 2084 that I just got working?’

Felix nods enthusiastically.



When we finally emerge back into daylight, I can tell Felix is still disappointed.

‘I’m sorry it was a dead end,’ I say, but he shakes his head.

‘That was just one stage in the quest. Quests always have multiple stages. Dave has your number now.’

‘I don’t know, it felt like a dead end to me.’

Felix shifts his weight between his feet, then looks up at me nervously. ‘Do you think he knew I thought his game was boring? I didn’t want to be rude. I was trying to pretend it was fun.’

‘Well, you did a good job then. You looked like you were having fun to me,’ I say, putting an arm around his shoulder.

It’s a sunny day and I don’t feel like getting back on the bus just yet, so I suggest we walk for a bit. Despite our mission’s failure, Felix is surprisingly buoyant and talkative. I am learning that Felix likes everything to have an opposite, and that he is very interested in knowing what might kill you if ingested. When we get to Vauxhall, I ask Felix if he would like to see where I used to live, and he says he would.

‘That was your flat?’ Felix asks as we sit down on a bench on the opposite side of the street.

‘Yup, third floor.’ I point up to my old window. ‘I lived up there with my best friend Zoya, and two others, Emily and Julian.’ I feel the tug of nostalgia, thinking about all the conversations had sitting up in that window seat; all the cheap wine drunk, the books read, and the dreams shared. Zoya once made Emily, Julian and me sit up there in the dark beside a propped-up torch, so she could draw silhouettes of our heads. ‘It was always messy and squashed. We never had loo roll, but we did have a lot of fun.’