Gunther's Cavern

by Edward Etzkorn

  Unable to maintain his mother’s gaze, he returned his vision to his potatoes. Her eyes could have been June’s—or June’s could have been hers. Why could they not see the world like Jimmy B—or Zeke? Zeke would never have asked him why he was creating stalagmites with his potatoes. Jimmy would not have noticed.

  “Why aren’t you eating?”

  In a single stroke, he destroyed the cave formation on his plate. “I’m just not hungry, Mom.”

  “And you, June?”

  Reprieve. Gunther glanced at June, to see the same stupid look on her face that he felt on his. He looked at her potatoes—still the same volume as when their mother had distributed them, but not formed into any unusual creation. Just a lump.

  “The potatoes are too lumpy,” she said. “You know I don’t like lumps in my potatoes.”

  Gunther tried in vain to suppress a laugh.

  A mistake. His mother’s eyes shot back to him. “Yours are lumpy, too, Gunther?”

  He squirmed in his chair. “They’re not lumpy, they’re just—pea-y.”

  June choked on whatever was in her mouth—probably just saliva.

  “And would they be pea-y if you hadn’t mixed your peas into them?”

  “No, Mom, then they’d be too potato-y.”

  June choked as if she were about to die. Gunther laughed, then choked, grasping his neck so he nearly fell to the floor. He could have been mistaken, but he thought his dad was fighting a battle with laughter, too.

  Their mother looked annoyed. Then upset. Then angry. She glanced at their dad, then back at him and June. For an instant Gunther feared she was about to cry—the worst of several possible consequences of his actions. Then, without warning, she reared back on her chair legs and sang, to the tune of The Bear Went over the Mountain.

  Potatoes, peas and galoshes

  Potatoes, peas and galoshes

  The pudding’s done when it sloshes

  And won’t it be quite a mess!

  And won’t it be quite a mess

  And won’t it be quite a mess

  The pudding’s done when it sloshes

  The pudding’s done when it sloshes

  Potatoes, peas and galoshes

  Will ruin a pretty dress!

  Gunther never knew how to react to his mother’s songs. As a little boy, he’d loved them. No one but his mom could turn a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic book into song and verse, or make Christopher Robin and Eeyore rock stars.

  And kids at school thought he was weird. They didn’t realize where he’d come from.

  His dad cleared his throat. The look on his face announced that, for the benefit of all present, he was changing the subject. His gaze traveled from Gunther to June and back again. “So I gather both of you have found enough to do on your summer vacation with both Mom and I at work?”

  Gunther knew his dad felt guilty about having to work so many miles away. Financial concerns had forced him to give up his life of repairing farm implements and go to work for a salary at Hunter Mountain ski center. In Gunther’s opinion, there were worse places to work.

  “Yes!” Gunther said.

  “Plenty,” June chimed at the same time.

  “’Cause if you run out of things to do, the weed garden near the old outhouse needs to be cut, and some loose boards around what’s left of the old chicken coop need to be gathered up for recycling. Of course, you’ve got to be careful of nails—be sure to wear your hard-soled shoes up there. Step on the boards the wrong way …” To demonstrate, he pulled his foot up onto the table. “Ouch!!! Oooh, Mama!!!”

  With no attempt to conceal her frown, their mom continued the thought. “And once you finish those things, Luisa Steinmetz has asked for help cleaning up one of the rooms in her house. Jimmy B knows the details. I guess she’s got some premature flies or something buzzing around her windows. The way she goes on, you’d think the whole world should shut down so all six or ten or fifteen billion people could go into her room and fire rockets at the little buggers.”

  “If you look like Luisa, you can make anyone in the world do anything you want,” June pronounced.

  “Ms. Steinmetz,” their dad corrected.

  He, too, rocked back in his chair. As usual, the chair creaked, causing their mom to look at him with alarm.

  “So what are your plans for tomorrow, Gunther?” his dad asked.

  Gunther faked a yawn as he slid back in his chair. “Nothing special, Dad. See if I can help the corn grow faster, maybe.”

  Gunther glanced at June, who performed an even better imitation of a yawn than he had. If he wanted to, he could look straight down her throat. She ran her fingers through her hair and waved her arms about, as if words were simply not worth the effort. “I’ll do my best to help Gunth,” she said at last.

  “I saw a pupa or two up in the back meadow today,” Gunther continued. “Looked like they were about to molt. Thought I might go check them out, see if I can watch them turn into butterflies.”

  June jerked upright and laughed so hard the veins in her forehead looked as if they would burst. Half a minute passed before she could speak. Tears ran from her eyes. “I … the pupa … Yeah, me too.”

  Gunther saw his parents’ eyes travel back and forth between one another and over him and June. “Great way to spend a day,” their father said at last. “Huh, Dicey?”

  A series of gears within Gunther’s brain slipped happily into place when he realized his parents were not going to press him further about his activities of the day—or his planned activities for the next.

  Still twinkling with the remnants of tears, June’s eyes met his across the table and shone with the mischief of a two-year-old.

  “Potato Monster!” she shouted, and as if they were ravenous beasts, she and Gunther devoured their potatoes, lumpy, pea-y or otherwise—within ten seconds.

  They had no idea how many times they would relive this moment over the next several days.

  CHAPTER 6

  “Got your butterfly gear?” June asked. Gunther closed the porch door. As he pulled the door shut it stuck, as usual, so he had to pull it open again and slam it harder.

  “Only the hormone that makes them molt,” he answered.

  “Jerk.”

  “Female jerk.”

  Early-morning sunlight swathed the earth with light that grew greener and more intense as they climbed the back hill. Birds trilled in the trees, while cicadas in distant bushes beat out the rhythm. Hurry, hurry. Hurry, hurry. Hurryhurryhurryhurryhurry. Gogogogo go!

  Sweat bathed their skin as they reached the top of the hill and began the downhill climb toward the stream. The day promised to be hot and muggy, but Gunther paid little attention. Regardless of the temperature above, down below the thermometer would read fifty-two degrees. Caves in every part of the world maintained the average year-round temperature of the land above. And once he and June had crept beyond the cave’s entrance, the humidity would reach nearly one hundred percent. This was true of all other caves in the world, so there was no reason his should be different.

  “You call Jimmy yet?” she asked.

  “Too early.”

  “Got enough batteries?”

  “More than we’ll need.” He did not need to remind her that the batteries had expired two years ago. He continued quickly, before she could expand on that. “I got the second rope, too, and the extra flashlights and a few nutrition bars. We might as well go as far as we can before we come back up. We can have lunch underground.”

  He waited for June to ask him about a sewing kit and a knife. But all she said was, “You know we’ve got to be back at least two hours before the usual time Mom comes home—just in case she gets back early.”

  “No problem, Sis. Probably the two ropes will take us to the end of the cave, anyway.” But he remembered the echoes that sounded as if the cave extended forever.

  “Probably.”

  She looked preoccupied
as they set their packs and equipment on the ground near the rock. “Give me your cell phone,” she said.

  He looked at her askance. “Why?”

  “I’ll call Grandma Cowley.”

  When he started to object, she added, “We promised—remember? I’ll just tell her we’re out for a walk by the spring. I won’t mention the cave.”

  “Okay.”

  “Hi, Grandma,” he heard her say. “Great … No, we’re not in any hurry to get back to school … Just wanted to let someone know—we’re out for a walk in the back, back near the spring. Checking out a pupa, see if we can watch it turn into a butterfly …”

  As on the previous day, he prepared their diaper slings and put them on. He threw the extra flashlights and the food into his caving pack. Using a double fisherman’s knot, he tied the second rope to the first. Mind running faster and faster, he fed the double rope through the runner that he’d left on the lip of his rock and advanced it until the knot lay just to the runner’s left. He had no intention of pulling the rope through the runner from below, since they would need these ropes to climb out of the cave. Just in case, though, it was important to know on which side the knot lay.

  At last he pulled on his caving jacket and locked the free ends of the rope into the carabiners across his chest. He donned his pack, helmet and headlamp, then looked to June for her nod of approval. “Give me ten or fifteen minutes to scout around, then I’ll be back up and it’ll be your turn.”

  “All right. But make it a short ten or fifteen minutes.” She gave him a thumbs-up and they spat on their thumbs, rubbing them together before he pulled on his gloves.

  “Farts be with you,” they chimed.

  The instant his feet touched the slide, he rappelled down the rope as if he were flying, touching the ground as lightly as possible. The smell of yesterday’s dust still hung in the air. When his feet felt as if they had reached the slide’s end, he braked the rope and held it tight until he was sure his feet had alighted on solid ground. Trembling with excitement, he fumbled for the switch on his headlamp.

  As on the previous day, his head spun for an instant as the world around him came into focus. With relish, he breathed in the scent of rot and alien life. So gently had he trodden the stone carpet, only a trace of dust marred his view.

  Again his headlamp produced images of white and red and brown. The same ceilings of white and gold demanded his attention, the same curtains of flowing rock. Again he listened to the ageless silence, the only sound that of dripping water somewhere far ahead.

  Shutting his mind to the faraway images, he reeled in his vision to the closer world of the pebbled carpet on which he stood. He could not have gauged his progress down the slide any better. One step further and he would have been dangling in mid-air. He was standing on the edge of a cliff.

  Unable to see the bottom, he found a loose stone with his foot and nudged it over the edge. For a full second he heard nothing, then the clack of the stone bouncing off a rock below and finally the duller thump as it landed—probably in a mound of dust.

  With a deep breath, he guided his feet over the edge, then turned around to face the cliff. He kicked out until his foot caught a protruding rock. Little by little he slid his rope through the carabiners across his chest, and step by step walked down the near-vertical rock wall.

  Although only a minute or two passed before his feet touched something resembling solid earth, it felt much longer than that. Small rocks beneath his feet wobbled, and he held tight to the rope until he was sure the rocks would remain stable. His headlamp illuminated a small, but nearly horizontal rock flow at the base of the cliff he had just descended.

  Shining the light around, he could see only cliffs in every direction but one. No longer could he see the endless ceilings he’d seen from above. Although a haze of dust had filtered down from above, the rocks felt slick to his touch. Water vapor made the air feel as if he were breathing through a sponge. And despite the sweat that ran down his face, his arms were covered with goose bumps.

  The only direction in which he could walk led ninety degrees right of the slide on which he’d landed. His headlamp illuminated a huge room whose ceiling he could not see. The room resembled a war zone—a no-man’s land planted with coarse black rocks and glistening sand. No video-game maker could have conceived a crueler scene.

  Keeping to the base of the wall, he walked slowly ahead, his only goal that of finding an opening that led further into the cave. Demons of fear within him tried to feed on his ancestral terrors, and the drip-drip-drip of water farther within the cave echoed louder, like voices beckoning him to his doom. They’re not real, he told himself. Not real. The world in which he was walking had never been tread by man or animal. No ghosts existed here. No dire wolves or ogres waited to attack him. Nothing more fearsome lived here than beetles and crickets that scurried from the light.

  At last, after circumnavigating nearly the entire room, a mere two or three meters from the base of the slide on which he’d landed he found what he was looking for. The opening was the size of a cellar window, perhaps seventy by fifty centimeters—two feet by a foot and a half—and ragged as the teeth in a dragon’s mouth. From far ahead came the ping-ping-ping of the dripping water. Through it his headlamp revealed a long, wide crawlspace that reminded him of the space beneath Grandma Cowley’s porch.

  Deep within the porch, the headlamp’s beam caught something else—something shiny. Something that gleamed back silver.

  With sweat obscuring his vision, he tried to zero the beam in on the object. Yes, it was silver, and looked manmade. No way. No way!

  He realized the voice had been calling him for some time. June’s voice, from what sounded like the other side of the globe.

  “Gunther! Gunther! My turn! No fair!”

  With a sigh, he turned back toward the cliff. She was right—he had promised. “Coming!” he called up to her.

  The instant his head popped through the hole they both started talking.

  “Gunther, you’re filthy! You look disgusting!”

  “June, there’s something shining in there—like a candy wrapper!”

  “How far does it go?”

  “It’s incredible! It keeps going and going.”

  “Haya mix scroy-yee munch.”

  It took him a second to orient himself. While the sound of their secret language was always reassuring, with no one else around there was no need to use it. Our own little world to share together, she’d said. “Munch scroy-no fava cove,” he added. More like sharing our own giant universe.

  “Di-dee phayno shoove-ja kunk.” No fair—I wanna see!

  “Don’t worry—you’ll see.”

  Pulling himself to his feet, he grabbed her shoulders. She did not draw back at the touch of the grime that covered his hands.

  “June, it’s incredible! There’s an almost-horizontal slide at the bottom of the cliff. You go down first and I’ll follow. We’ll have lunch down there. The next section looks easy, except we may have to crawl to get through. We’ll go as far as we can and still make it back up in plenty of time before Mom gets home.”

  As he’d feared, the expression on her face changed. Her eyes became orange caution lights that blinked on and off.

  “Gunther, I …”

  “One time,” he reassured her. “Lunch underground, a quick trip through the Cellar Door, a skip into Grandma Cowley’s porch to see what the shiny thing is, and a view of where the cave leads next. That’s it. Then we come back up, tonight we tell Mom and Dad about the cave, and tomorrow we come back with Jimmy B.”

  Her eyes turned at once from flashing orange to hesitant green. “Cellar Window? Grandma Cowley’s Porch?”

  “You’ll see. If you don’t agree with the names, we can change them.”

  “Promise we tell everybody tonight. Tomorrow we get Jimmy B to drive us to Zeke’s place and get the rest of the equipment we need, and then together with Jimmy B, we
…”

  “Promise.”

  She was a soft-sell. “Okay, let’s go. You got everything?”

  He took a quick look around, but already knew he hadn’t missed anything. “Got it.”

  Although it was only minutes, it seemed hours that he waited for her to rappel down the slide and reach the bottom of the cliff. Even with his ear to the ground, her “Off rope!” sounded as if it came from miles away.

  Without hesitation, he slid through the hole, barely noticing the instant of claustrophobia. Feeding the rope through the carabiners on his chest as fast as if he were pulling thread through a needle, he glissaded down the stone carpet and dropped over the edge of the cliff. With his mind on Grandma Cowley’s porch and the cave beckoning beyond, the sensation of something slipping from above took him totally by surprise. It was the sensation one might feel sitting uphill on the first hill of a roller coaster when the chain lets loose for an instant before grabbing again. Deep within the earth, the sensation was unnerving. One second Gunther felt securely tied in to his rope, the next second he was in free fall. Holding tight to the rope, he scrambled about with his feet until he found a protruding rock. Ignoring the pounding in his chest, he pulled on the rope to satisfy himself it was secure. Yes, he could depend on it as much as any caver could depend on his equipment. After allowing himself a few deep breaths, he continued his descent down the cliff face—a little slower than before.

  Caver’s instinct told him he was nearing the end of the cliff and about to reach the rock slide at its base. His heart was just beginning to slow its rhythm when his world let go and he found himself tumbling through vacant air. Instinct made him pull on the rope and grab his carabiners, but no movement could stop his free fall. As if in a dream he heard June’s voice, magnified by the echoing voices of the cave: “Gunther!!!”

  He grabbed the rope tighter—and tighter still. But still he kept falling. Then his feet struck something solid, and he rolled over backward. Once, twice, three times. His body stopped moving, but his mind continued its tumble.