THE LONDONERS: The Secret Underground City

Chapter 1. NOTHING IS COMPLETELY SECURE

London, England. An unexpected storm of titanic proportions pulverised the city. Gales, rain, lightning and thunder. The black storm had it all. Urgently, a team of City of London engineers raised the Thames Barrier as the storm combined with a high tide threatened flooding. But the rain was relentless, and it fell like a never-ending sea. If anything, the Thames Barrier was keeping water in as much as it was keeping it out. Heavy flash flooding started to swamp the whole of the London area. The roads along the banks of the River Thames all the way to the estuary were the worst hit.

In South Ockendon, just north of the Dartford Tunnel not too far from the Thames estuary, four children were enjoying the storm. In order of the oldest to the youngest, they were Catherine, Kevin, Sean and Libby. Catherine was aged twelve and the oldest. Kevin was eleven. Sean was also eleven but about six months younger than Kevin. And last but not least, Libby was the youngest, aged nine. Catherine, Sean and Libby were siblings and Kevin was their cousin. They were all Campbells and they were highly adventurous. They called themselves "The Londoners"-and so did everyone else.

Of course, "The Londoners" had no idea that the aftermath of the storm was going to provide them with the greatest adventure of their lives. But just at the moment they were in Catherine, Sean and Libby's living room enjoying the storm.

"Did you see that?" exclaimed Libby, as a blinding flash of sheet lightning lit up the sky just outside the living room window.

"Duh! How couldn't we?" asked Kevin, who was on an armchair watching the BBC news channel.

"She was just saying," said Catherine. "Why are you watching the news?"

"It's covering the storm."

"Really? It must be quite a storm then." Catherine relaxed back into the settee.

Just then, the lightning's thunder hit and shook the house...

Boom!

"Blimey!" shouted Sean, as the roll of thunder raced away. He was helping Libby with a jigsaw puzzle on the floor. He couldn't but help seeing Libby's hands shake and her eyes light up with fear. "Don't worry, Libby, it's only noise."

"I know," said Libby, with a nervous giggle. "But I thought the house was going to fall down."

"Maybe if there was an earthquake-but not from lightning and thunder," said Catherine.

"I hope Courtney's not caught out in that storm," said Sean. "She never was the world's greatest swimmer." Courtney was Sean's older sister-at sixteen, she was too old to be a member of "The Londoners".

"She's okay," said Catherine. "I just got a text from her. She's in a coffee shop in Convent Garden. I think she's singing there later tonight. She's just talking about the preparations and stuff with the manager of the shop."

"And how much she'll get paid!" added Sean, rubbing his forefinger and thumb in a show-me-the-money gesture.

"Where's Convent Garden?" asked Libby.

"It's in the City of London," said Kevin.

"I got a text from Dad too," said Catherine.

"And?" asked Sean.

"He's in Barry's office trying to mend his silly laptop computer again."

"Why doesn't Barry just get a new laptop?" said Libby. "He's spending half his life trying to get Dad to fix his out-of-date laptop. His laptop's operating system is older than me! It's ridiculous!"

"That's the wonder of life," said Catherine.

"Even his viruses have viruses," said Sean.

"He should get that new operating system that's coming out soon, Windows Infinity," suggested Kevin. "The claim is that the Windows Infinity operating system can protect a computing device from all possible viruses."