Description
Caught in a tunnel collapse, Liam and Imogen have to use all their wits to survive in this gripping novel.
When you stood deep inside the tunnel, you could hear the mountain groaning overhead. That's what Liam Geary's father had told him, anyway. It sounded stupid, till you stood inside a big tunnel; felt those billions of tonnes pressing in from above and the sides; heard water dripping from ceilings, or even trickling like something's blood behind the concrete walls; sensed the blackness that lay beyond the TBM's blazing lights as it ground its slow way through the stone ahead. Then you knew that a major tunnel like the Puketapu was a place of power, somehow; that darkness and danger lurked all around.
When Liam dares his classmate Imogen to come on a forbidden tour of the railway tunnel being drilled through a nearby mountain, he hopes she'll quit protesting about it damaging the environment - his dad is an engineer working on the tunnel, after all.
Just as they reach the huge tunnelling machine everything goes horribly wrong. When the rocks stop falling and the dust settles, they are trapped, kilometres below ground, in the dark. Water is trickling in and beginning to rise. And nobody knows where they are.
Can they stop arguing and start working together to escape before time runs out?
Review
New Zealand author David Hill has produced another exciting page turner set below the ground when a tunnel collapses.
Liam Geary’s father is an engineer on the Puketapu tunnel. Liam’s nemesis at school is Imogen Parkinson - her parents are climate activists and she believes such tunnels should not be built as they harm nature.
When there is a temporary shutdown of the tunnel, Liam persuades Imogen to go into the tunnel with him, certain that the amazing engineering will get her to see the light. But nobody knows that they are in there, and when the tunnel collapses their situation and chances of survival are grim…
Fortunately, they are trapped in a sizeable area with Lucia, the monstrous tunnel drilling machine, and the supplies that she has stored in her to help in such emergencies. They have water and a small supply of food that they ration out to last for a week. But will they die from the constant smaller collapses, the water that is coming into the tunnel, or eventual starvation?
This is a real edge-of-your-seat thrilling adventure story, where two people with different opinions are trapped together for days. Will they learn to see each other’s point of view? It has themes of the environment, progress and survival, making it a terrific novel for middle grade readers in lower secondary and upper primary.
Reviewed by Rob
