My Name Is Mina

Dinosaurs, French Toast & a Journey in the Underworld

We made animals at the kitchen table for much of the day. I started with a worm then a snake then a rat then a cat then a dog then a cow then a horse then a hippopotamus. I made an imaginary creature with wings and claws. I made a baby and rocked it in my hands and sang a lullaby to it. I squashed the clay together and started again and I made an archaeopteryx.

The archaeopteryx was a dinosaur, a dinosaur with wings and feathers. It could fly. Probably not as well as birds can now. It was a bony thing, and probably just made short sharp clumsy flights. But it didn’t die out. It was the only dinosaur that survived, and it’s the ancestor of all the birds that exist in the world today. The blackbirds building their nest in the tree above my head are its descendants!

There are archaeopteryx fossils in the Natural History Museum in London. Mum has said we’ll go to see them, when she has a bit of time, and a bit of money.

She smiled as she watched me molding the clay.

“Archaeopteryx,” she said. “Isn’t it a lovely word?”

“Yes.”

I love sticking my fingers into the clay, bending it and shaping it, ripping it and thumping it and rolling it and squashing it. I love smoothing it with water. I love the way it dries to a crust on your skin and then the way it cracks when you make a fist, the way it turns to dust. I love the way it dries out in the oven. We can’t afford a proper kiln, so the things we make go in with loaves of bread and casseroles and pizzas and curries, so they never get properly baked or properly glazed. That doesn’t matter to us. We think they’re beautiful. We paint them, and we put them on the shelves around us. Sometimes we make little models of each other. Mum has made a little model of Dad – it looks nothing like him, of course, at least not when I compare it with his photographs, but somehow it seems to be more like him than the photographs do[3].

While we were working the clay, I remembered a day when I was small (funny how writing like this makes me keep thinking about what I was like when I was small) and still at school. There was an Art lesson and I got carried away. We were using plasticine in Mrs. Tompkinson’s Art class and I made a little man. I made him walk along my desk. When I thought nobody was looking I picked him up and started whispering into his ear.

“Come alive!” I whispered. “Come alive!”

I concentrated very hard, trying to make him come alive.

There was a boy at the next table (Joseph Simm? I can’t remember. I tried very hard to put them all out of my brain). I caught him looking at me. I stared back like I was asking him, “What do you think you’re looking at?” He shook his head like he thought I was crazy. I pointed a finger at him and waggled it and I rolled my eyes like I was putting a spell on him.

“Please, Miss!” he called. “Mina McKee’s being weird again.”

Weird! Huh! HUH!

When we’d finished working the clay, we washed our hands and had French toast with cinnamon on it. TOTALLY TOTALLY DELICIOUS. My mum is a fantastic cook! We went out for a walk. I told Mum about the blackbirds’ nest and about Mr. Myers’s daughter. His house looked so dirty and dark as we passed by it.

“Wonder who’ll buy it,” I said.

“Somebody who doesn’t mind getting their hands dirty,” she said. “Somebody who can imagine how it’ll be when it’s all done up.”

We walked to Heston Park. We passed very close to the entrance to the Underworld. I quaked inside, and I must have trembled or twitched or something, because Mum came to a halt.

“Are you OK, Mina?” she asked.

The locked steel gate was close behind her.

“Yes, Mum,” I said.

“Are you certain?”

“Yes, Mum.”

I wondered if I should tell her the tale of the day I went through the steel gate all alone. I didn’t. When I think about it, there’s quite a few things I don’t tell her about. Like most kids, I suppose. Sometimes it’s best just to keep things to myself because I don’t want to upset her. Sometimes they’re just too weird to explain. Sometimes I just don’t know how to get the words out. It doesn’t matter. I guess she knows there’s lots of things she doesn’t know about me. But it doesn’t matter. You don’t have to know every single thing about a person in order to understand them.

She smiled and hugged me.

“You’re a strange one,” she said as we walked on.

“I know,” I said.

I’ll write the story of the Underworld for her and maybe I’ll let her read it. Somehow it might make more sense if it’s written down.

Night. Even at night the city rumbles and roars. Traffic drones on the motorway that circles the center. There are machines and engines that can never be allowed to rest. And even the breathing and snoring and whispering must add to the din. And the running of water through pipes, and the humming of electricity, and the chatter of televisions watched by people who can’t sleep, and dogs that bark and cats that yowl. And there are the owls, as always, hooting as they fly over Crow Road and Heston Park. Hello, Owls. Hoot. Hoot. I try to hoot like an owl but it sounds nothing like an owl.

I thought I’d write the story of the Underworld in the first person, and say, “I did this and I did that.” But somehow it’s better to write this in the third person, to say, “Mina did this and Mina did that.” I write it by moonlight, to the hooting of the owls.

She was just nine years old. She was very skinny and very small and she had jet-black hair and a pale pale face and shining eyes. Some folks said she was weird. Her mum said she was brave. Sometimes she seemed very old for her age, and sometimes she seemed just like a little girl. All those things were true. She felt so strong and bold, lonely and lost, and the world seemed very big and she seemed very small. Her mum said that everybody felt like that at some time in their lives, no matter how old they were, but that for Mina it was more difficult because of what had happened to her dad. She said that as Mina grew, she’d feel stronger more often and not feel so small.

Mina’s mum was strong. To Mina she seemed brave and gentle. She had glossy red hair and dark green eyes and Mina thought that if there was such a thing as a saint in this world, then her mum was one.

In the past, Mina had heard her mother arguing with doctors, especially with the doctor who talked about giving pills to Mina, pills that he said would make her feel better.

“They won’t make her feel better!” said Mina’s mum. “They’ll stop her from feeling anything at all. She’s not some kind of robot. She’s a little girl that’s growing up and she can do that without your stupid pills!”

Mina’s school was St. Bede’s Middle, very close to the park. It was a Monday morning in spring. The lesson was called History. The teacher, Mr. Henderson, talked about the city’s past. He said that once the city had been surrounded by coal mines. For hundreds of years, men and boys had gone down into the earth to dig out coal. Imagine that, he said. He laughed. Imagine going into the pitch darkness to bring out stuff as black and bright as Mina McKee’s hair. He said that if they could travel into the earth beneath the classroom, they would discover a warren of shafts and tunnels. His eyes widened. They might even discover the bones of those who had died down there. He said that the days of the coal mines had been very perilous, but people had lived and worked together, and shared their tragedies and joys.

He read some poems about pitmen, and played their songs on a CD player. He sang some pitmen’s songs himself. He said that his own grandfather had been a pitman, and that he had been brought up with tales of the underground, of the men who traveled deep into the earth every day, of ponies they had down there, and of the ghosts they said they had seen down there.

He showed them maps of the city as it used to be. There were pit shafts that plunged hundreds of feet down into the earth. There were tunnels that crept from the city’s fringes towards its heart. He said that very close to the school, in Heston Park, there was an entrance to a tunnel that once was used to carry carts of coal from the coal mines down to the river. He said the tunnel was being repaired. There were plans to reopen it for tourists and for those who wanted to study the city’s past. Maybe when it opened, he said, they’d all go into the tunnel together on a class trip. Then the lesson ended.

Mina already knew about the entrance and the tunnel. She’d seen the ancient solid steel gate behind some rhododendron bushes. She’d seen the girders welded across the gate. Recently, she’d seen that the girders had gone. Men wearing hard hats and carrying big torches went into it. There was a new orange sign there. It said DANGER KEEP OUT and there was a skull and crossbones symbol on it.

In Mina’s mind, the gate, the tunnel, and now Mr. Henderson’s stories mingled with many other stories that she’d heard – stories from ancient times about heroes and heroines who lived in the underground: Daedalus, who built an underground maze with a monster called the Minotaur at its heart; Pluto, the King of the Underworld, and Persephone, his wife; stories about the dead, who were taken from this world to live in the darkness below. And they mingled with the tale of Orpheus, the greatest singer in the world, whose beautiful wife, Eurydice, was killed by a venomous snake. Orpheus would not accept her death. He traveled the world, searching for the entrance to the Underworld. When he found it, he went down into the Underworld, and begged for her to be given back to him.

Mina knew it was silly, but she was only nine years old, and she was often very sad, and in her imagination and in her dreams, the entrance to the Underworld was there, behind the rhododendron bushes, in Heston Park. And she told herself she’d dare to go through that entrance. She’d go down to the Underworld like Orpheus did. He didn’t manage to bring Eurydice back. But Mina would succeed. She’d go down, she’d meet Pluto and Persephone. She’d persuade them to let her bring her dad back into the world.

It happened the following Monday, just after the next of Mr. Henderson’s History lessons. At the end of the lesson, he stood in front of them and started to sing

Mr. Henderson paused for a moment.

“Coorie doon means to snuggle down,” he said. “My grandpa sang this song to me to help to sleep when I was a bairn. Imagine me as a bairn! And imagine my tough old tender grandpa singing at my side.”

He sang on. He ignored the stupid ignorant kids that rolled their eyes and giggled, especially the stupid ignorant boys that thought they were so tough. And as he sang, Mina closed her eyes and imagined that the singing voice was her dad’s.

Mr. Henderson smiled as he wiped his eyes.

“You must always remember,” he said, “the men and boys that dug out the stuff as black and bright as Mina McKee’s hair.”

That lunchtime the kids in the yard were rotten to her. They laughed like hyenas and called her Coaly McKee and Teacher’s Pet and told her to get herself back to the underground where she belonged. She clenched her fists.

“You stupid bloody hyenas!” she said.

“Ooooh!” they said. “Mina McKee’s swearing! I’m going to tell the teacher!”

“You are!” she yelled. “You’re bloody stupid bloody hyenas!”

And she ran straight out of the school gate and into Heston Park. She slowed down. She listened for footsteps behind. She listened for her name being called, but there was nothing. A few men sprawled on a grass verge in the sunshine, reading newspapers and eating sandwiches. Their hard hats lay on the ground at their sides. They hardly looked up as Mina walked by. She walked towards the rhododendron bushes, then through them towards the steel gate. A stone had been put against the gate, but it was open, just a few inches. Mina looked at the skull and crossbones and quickly looked away. She was a small thin girl. She only needed to ease the gate open a few more inches, and she slithered inside.

Yes, it was very dark, but there was a pale light dangling close to her head. It lit steep steps that headed down into the earth. She followed them, twenty crumbling steps or more. Then she was in the tunnel itself, where another bulb dangled, and more bulbs dangled in the distance, showing the tunnel that stretched away to right and left. It was higher than her head. There was rubble on the tunnel floor, and a trickle of water. There was the stench of damp and rot and of what she thought must be death. She thought of the sun shining brightly in the outside world so nearby, and she had to tell herself not to run back up there in fright. She thought of Orpheus and of her father. She thought of the stupid hyena kids. None of them would dare to do something like this! She took a deep breath, and steeled herself, and headed down into the earth. She kept stumbling on the rubble, stretching out to steady herself on the damp walls. She kept expecting her voice to be called but there was nothing.

“My name is Mina,” she kept on whispering, and her words echoed back to her. “My name is Mina. I am very brave.”

There was a dull roaring sound from far away. She stopped and listened. Maybe it was water, or could it be the yelling and groaning of the dead?

Something brushed against her leg. She leapt away and screamed in horror and looked down and it was a black cat, weaving its way around her legs.

“A cat!” she gasped. “A cat!”

She couldn’t stop shuddering as she leaned down to it. She stroked its dense dark fur and felt the heat of its body and she began to be soothed and calmed.

“My name is Mina,” she whispered, and the cat mewed and purred in reply, and Mina knew she’d found a friend down here in the dark.

She moved on with the cat at her side. In places the walls of the tunnel had broken. Stones and bricks lay in untidy heaps. She imagined the world above, and the thickening layer of earth, stones, soil, bones, roots between herself and it. She imagined the whole tunnel collapsing onto her, as the tunnels could collapse onto pitmen long ago.

And then there was a ditch, crossing the route of the tunnels. By the frail light of the dangling bulb, she saw the stream rushing through the ditch. Mina caught her breath. She stroked the cat. This must be the river that Orpheus had to cross, the river between the world of the living and the dead. Suddenly, the cat drew back. There was a growling, and on the other side of the stream two eyes had begun to shine. This, thought Mina, is the monster, the guardian of the Underworld, that Orpheus had to tame. It came closer, and showed itself to be a shaggy, thickset dog that snarled at them across the ditch.

Mina crouched down. She held out a friendly hand towards the dog, and in a trembling voice she started to sing, just like Orpheus did so long ago.

The dog growled more softly. The cat came back to Mina’s side. Mina went on singing and the dog lay down, as if it was asleep. Mina looked along the tunnel, which seemed to slope away endlessly. She was about to cross when there came a bellowing.

“Jasper!”

The dog stood up. Its ears twitched. It growled.

“Jasper! Where the hell you got to?”

There was a shadow far down in the tunnel, a deep dark shadow in the shape of a man.

“Jasper!”

The dog turned, and headed down towards the shadow.

“Who’s that?” the shadow called. A deep cruel-sounding voice that boomed and echoed off the tunnel walls. “Is somebody there? Show yourself if you’re there!”

Mina crouched low. She slithered back up the tunnel, keeping low, trying to keep her feet silent. Beyond a pile of fallen stones she stood up and ran.

“Who the hell is it?” yelled the shadow’s voice. “What are you? What do you want down here?”

Mina kept on running, stumbling, reaching out to steady herself on the walls. The dog barked, the shadow called. In Mina’s mind these were the voices of the dead and of a guardian monster. She could hear heavy thudding footsteps coming after her. She came to the foot of the ancient crumbling steps. She climbed them swiftly, slid through the steel gate into the sunlight again. She pushed it shut. The black cat disappeared through the rhododendrons. She went through them herself. The men still lay on the grass verge, still ate sandwiches and read newspapers, as if she’d been gone from the world just a few short moments. Again, they hardly looked at her as she passed close by. Her heart thundered as she tried to stay calm, to stay ordinary, to stop herself from bolting in fright.

And then there came first the screeching voice of Mrs. Malone, followed by Mrs. Malone herself striding through the park gate.

“Mina McKee! Mina McKee! Get yourself here this instant!”

Mr. Henderson was behind her. He was much more calm.

“Come back, Mina,” he said. “Come back and we can all talk about it.”

Mina’s mum was called in, of course. They all stood in Mrs. Malone’s office. It was the kids in the class, said Mina. It was the way they looked at her and the way they spoke to her. What was all the dirt on her? Why were her shoes so scuffed? She didn’t know, she said. She told them that she had just been walking in the park, that she had climbed a tree. How could she tell them that she had gone like Orpheus in search of the Underworld? How could she tell them that she had charmed the guardian of the Underworld with her singing just like he did? How could she tell them that she had failed to bring back her loved one just like he did? How could she tell them that the gates to the Underworld could be found in Heston Park?

In the end she just said,

“All I did was to run away for a few minutes! All I wanted was to be free!”

Her mum took her home that afternoon.

“Maybe there’s another way,” Mum murmured as they sat together on the sofa. Mum stroked her head. They listened to the birds singing outside.

Mina thought of telling her mum exactly what she’d done. She knew her mum would understand, or would be able to imagine. But she knew that what she’d done was very scary. And she didn’t want to frighten her mum, to make her think that Mina would do something so dangerous.

Afterwards, Mina tried to think of ways to tell the tale. Then she thought that maybe it’d be best to write it down, which is what she did.

EXTRAORDINARY ACTIVITY

(THIRD-PERSON VERSION)

Write a story about yourself as if you’re writing about somebody else.

(FIRST-PERSON VERSION)

Write a story about somebody else as if you’re writing about yourself.

Did I really believe that the tunnel would lead to the Underworld? Did I really think that I could bring Dad home again? I’m the one who did it and even I don’t know. I was a little girl. Awful things had happened and I was confused. Sometimes I wish I could go back there as if I was a big sister, and hug myself and say, “Don’t worry, Mina. I promise that things will get better and you will feel stronger.”

The tunnel still hasn’t been opened to the public. Mum said that they discovered it would cost a fortune to make it safe. In places the tunnel had collapsed into unknown caverns. There were side tunnels that ended in rock falls or seemed to go nowhere. I never tried to go back again, of course. I never found out who the shadow in the shape of a man was, or what the dog was. I tried to tell myself that they were just part of the team trying to fix up the tunnel. But why would there be a dog? I tried to think that maybe it was just an ordinary man walking an ordinary dog and they’d gone into the tunnel just to see what it was like. But that seemed pretty unlikely. They haunted my dreams for weeks afterward. I still look out for them whenever we go to the park. Sometimes I think that Heston, the place where we live, is like ancient Greece, and that the Underworld is in the earth beneath us. I think of the King of the Underworld, Pluto, sitting on his throne deep down below. I think of his queen, the kind Persephone. Sometimes I think that I really did see something down there, something deep and ancient, and I wonder what would have happened if I’d kept on going, if I’d crossed the stream, if I’d walked toward the shadow in the shape of a man, if I’d said,

“My name is Mina McKee and I’m searching for my dad.”

The best thing to come out of it all is the cat. I see him everywhere. His fur is even blacker than my hair. I call him Whisper. He is lovely. He is Whisper.