Pyramid
Production Notes
This started out as an adventure novel for teenagers but has developed into a film-script. The story's entirely set in north Essex and Fenland over one night.
Rhea is the youngest of four sisters. Tonight is her 13th birthday and as her family have been through it three times before it's not considered a very big deal. The house is mostly filled with friends of her parents and each of her sisters. The only ally of her own, other than some dull classmates, is her extremely serious and intimidating grandfather whom she barely gets a word out of when he visits - what he does say has a huge influence over the way she lives her life. Frustrated and miserable Rhea finds her way into a hiding spot she discovered as a young girl, a short fat tree with a hole she can climb through to get to the rotten space inside.
A little older now she can only just fit and hide in the hole, but it's still big enough to get away from everything and everyone. But on this not-so-special but very quiet night she discovers something she's never found before. The ground sounds hollow. After stamping quite a few times Rhea decides the ground is not made of tree at all, but metal. After scrambling about for a while she turns a wheel-shaped handle and the ground opens up beneath her.
There is a small gloomy looking concrete bunker beneath her hiding tree. Fascinated by the dimly lit room (powered by a grumbling generator in a corner) she circles it over and over until she hears her name being called from the house - birthday cake time.
Excited by her find and unable to keep quiet about her find she encourages everyone to come a see the bunker. Not until her family have made her go through the motions of cake eating and emotionless birthday songs. When she finally gets to lead the sceptical group back down to the tree Rhea finds the hole has somehow been filled in. That is to say, the hole's still there, but the space inside now has a large thick branch wedged inside of it.
Embarrassed and angry she does not join the rest of her family and friends back at the house. Seeing that there is no physical way to get a branch that big into the hole she investigates the rest of it. Bark is all over the grass on the opposite side and with a bit of scraping and pulling the back of the tree falls open and the large branch almost lands on her. It doesn't matter as she can at least get back into the bunker, determined now that it serves a purpose that someone wants to be kept secret.
Rhea discovers this secret and in doing so alerts a long-forgotten about division of the US government, an even older society whose entire existence is to protect what this young girl has found, and with the help of her mysterious grandfather she only has a few hours to get this artefact to a new hiding place before anyone else can get their hands on it.