Just as Rossi had sworn she would never watch Bo hurt me again, I swore to myself I would not let her die. She couldn’t die now. Not now. We had the gold. We were going to get her bike back. She was going to win. She was going to go to Breaker Bradley’s. She would find a sponsor. She would get to Baja, and do all one thousand miles. Her life was not going to end down here. Not at thirteen years old. Not in this cave. Not in this darkness. Not like this.
I thought of her on the ledge under the full moon, telling me she hoped she died on her bike. Telling me she didn’t care whether she was here or not. Well, I cared. I cared whether she was here or not. And I cared enough for the both of us.
Rossi coughed and gagged. I pushed her onto her side and she threw up a gallon of water. Matthew fell to his knees beside me. He exhaled like he had been holding his breath.
Rossi rolled onto her back, gasping for air. When her breathing finally evened out, I helped her into a sitting position. She fell back against me. “I told you I’d make it,” she said in a hoarse whisper.
“Gus saved your life, Rossi.” Matthew wiped at his nose. “You almost died.”
I couldn’t see her face. She didn’t speak.
“Could someone please help me out of the water?” Jessie cried from under the helmet. “I think a shrimp is trying to eat my exploded foot. And it hurts. Bad.”
Matthew hauled him up onto the ledge, and he cried out in pain as his foot grazed the side. He crawled on all fours to Rossi, still holding the pocket watch in his hand. “Are you okay?”
She nodded slightly. “I just need a minute. To catch my breath.”
Matthew took a few shaky breaths as he composed himself. Then he walked over to where the light was coming out of the ceiling, hunched down so he didn’t hit his head, and looked up. “There’s a hole up there. But it’s going to be hard to get to. We’ll have to push ourselves up using the sides. And it looks like there are bushes growing over it. Hopefully there’s no cactus.” Matthew scowled. “I don’t know how we’ll get Jessie up, since he can’t use his foot. And Rossi—”
“I’ll make it,” she said. “I’ll be okay.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that before,” said Matthew.
“You guys can come back for me,” said Jessie.
“No,” Matthew said. “We’re not leaving you here in the dark. We get out of here together. We’re not leaving anyone behind.”
I left Rossi to check out the hole. “I think we can climb up.” I glanced at the guys. “Anyone been rock climbing?” They shook their heads. “With someone at the top to help pull and someone down here to help push him up, I think we can get Jessie up without him having to use his foot too much.”
“Who goes first then?” Matthew asked.
“You should,” I said. “You’re the strongest. You can pull Jessie up, and Rossi and I can try to boost him up as far as possible. You okay with that?” I asked Jessie.
He looked scared. “I guess I have to be.”
I crouched down so Matthew could climb on my back and get a grip inside the hole. “I can’t pull myself up,” he said. “I need to get higher.”
Rossi crawled over to us and crouched down. Matthew stepped up on her and then climbed onto my shoulders. He was incredibly heavy, and I worried I would fall over, but then Rossi said, “You’re strong, Gus,” and I felt like she infused me with muscle power I didn’t know I had.
I stood up tall with Matthew on my shoulders. “I’m sorry, Gus,” he said as he pulled himself up and stepped on my head. I resisted the urge to grunt and groan.
We watched him climb up the hole, keeping himself from falling by pushing against one side with his legs, his back against the other side. He shimmied up that way and disappeared above us.
Then his head reappeared in the opening. “I’m out!” he called.
We cheered, and Rossi hugged me.
“The good news,” Matthew said, “is these bushes moved easily, like they just blew into the hole.”
I frowned. “Is there bad news?”
Matthew nodded. “I seem to be at the bottom of some kind of pit.”
Jessie groaned. “We’ll never get out.”
“Don’t worry,” I told Jessie. “At least we’ll be outside.”
“Yeah, so the sun can cook us to death,” he whined.
Rossi opened my backpack from behind and pulled out the empty pickle jar, miraculously still intact. Then she knelt down and filled it with lake water.
“Uh, that water will probably give us the plague or something,” Jessie said.
Probably not the plague, but definitely the trots.
“I know,” she said.
“We don’t know how far we’ll have to walk when we get out,” I said. “It won’t take long for the heat to kill us. We’ll only drink if we absolutely have to.”
Rossi and I worked together to lift Jessie into the hole above us. He kept crying out in pain at every motion we made, and I rolled my eyes at Rossi.
Matthew reached down to try to help pull him up, but there was no way we could lift him high enough, even though he was on our shoulders. “You’re going to have to climb a little bit,” I told him.
“I can’t,” Jessie cried.
“Yes, you can!” I ordered him. “Man up, Jesus!”
Jessie was quiet, obviously startled at my sudden authoritarian approach. “You can do it,” I told him again.
He took a deep breath, gripped the sides of the hole, jumped off of our shoulders and pushed his feet against the wall. He cried out in pain, and I felt bad about having yelled at him.
I looked up at Matthew. He was focused on Jessie. “You can do it,” he told him. “You’ll get through it, Jessie.” It was the first time Matthew had ever called him that.
Finally, he reached a point where Matthew could grab him and help pull him up. And then he was gone. Rossi looked at me. “Gus, you go.”
I shook my head. “No way.”
“How are you going to get up without help?”
I shrugged. “I’ll figure something out. And if I don’t, you guys can come back and get me after the race.”
She shook her head. “No, I want you there.” She touched my shredded pants and shirt. Then she looked down at her own clothing. “Like Rapunzel.”
“You’re going to use your hair to pull me up?”
“No, but that’s the idea. We need something to make a rope.”
“Our clothes?”
She nodded. Then I boosted her up into the hole. She threw her helmet up to Matthew and pushed her feet against the side, but she didn’t move. After a few seconds, she dropped out of the hole. I managed to catch her but fell back. I kept her from hitting the ground with my body.
She shook her head. “I’m so sorry, Gus. I got dizzy.”
“You’ve been through a lot. Maybe we should wait so you can rest longer. I mean, you just nearly drowned.”
“No.” She pushed herself up. “There’s no time for that.” She stood and swayed a little. I held on to her until she was steady. Then I helped boost her back up into the hole. I stood underneath her in case she fell again, but I could see the determination on her face as she pushed herself up the hole. She finally reached Matthew and he pulled her up.
I listened while she argued with Matthew and Jessie. They whined and groaned and finally relented. And then, about five minutes later, a rope made out of boys’ ripped-up jeans and T-shirts floated down to me.
I jumped and gripped it. I heard Matthew grunt as he tried to hold my weight. I climbed with all my might. We’d never done rope climbing in school, but I found it wasn’t as hard as I’d expected—I didn’t have a whole lot of weight to pull up.
Before long, I was completely in the hole and able to use the walls to rappel myself up as the others had.
I climbed out of it, breathing heavily from the effort. I shielded my eyes from the blinding sunlight and tried to make out our situation. Matthew was in his underpants, but Jessie still had his jeans on�
��I guessed because it was too painful for him to remove his shoes. Rossi was sitting on the ground, facing the wall of the deep pit we were in like she had been put in timeout.
We quickly unraveled the rope, and the guys got dressed. When they had all their clothes on, Rossi was finally free to turn around. Jessie raised his spindly arms and flexed them. “Sorry you missed the ultimate display of macho manliness, Rossi.”
She turned in a circle, inspecting the hole around us. “Yes, I am, too.” She looked at me. “You know, Gus, I think you look taller.”
I stood up straight. The truth was I felt taller, like I had grown three inches in that cave. Maybe I’d finally hit that elusive growth spurt everyone else seemed to have gone through except me.
Then we faced the next obstacle in the course—getting out of the pit.
“What is this, some kind of sinkhole?” I said.
Rossi nodded. “We’ll have to climb somehow.”
I checked the pocket watch. “It’s almost eleven already.”
Rossi’s face sunk. “We’ll never make it.”
“Yes, we will,” Matthew insisted. He grabbed at a rock sticking out of the side of the sinkhole and attempted to pull himself up. The rock broke free of the wall, and he tumbled to the ground.
“You’re too heavy,” I told him. “I think I have to be the one to climb. Then I’ll bring help back for you guys.”
Rossi shook her head. “That’s going to take too long. There’s no way.”
“I can do it,” I told her. “I’ll be fast.”
I found another rock sticking out of the side of the wall and attempted to climb. I stepped on another rock that was only about six inches off the ground. I looked up, straining to reach a stick higher above.
“Gus,” Rossi said.
“Shhh,” I told her. “I’m trying to concentrate.”
“Hey, Gus,” Jessie said.
“You guys,” I snapped. “I have to focus.” If only I could somehow get my foot up on the rock I was gripping with my hand, then I could reach this root protruding several feet above. I’d probably have to dig out some kind of foothold. Maybe I could use one the of the rocks like a pick or make a spear out of—
“Gus!” Rossi cried.
I dropped down the six inches of progress I’d made and whipped around. “What?”
“Look!” she said, pointing at a rope ladder that had rolled down the other side of the sinkhole.
Mayor Handsome popped his head over the side. “Yoo-hoo! Vhat you doing down dere?”
“Mayor Handsome!” I called. “We need help!”
“Yep. I see dat. Climb up.”
The four of us looked at one another and laughed. We were getting out. We were getting Rossi to the race. And for the first time in my life, I was excited to get back to Nowhere.
“Don’t forget.” I stuck my hand out. “Promise.” The others placed their hands on mine.
Then we climbed up Mayor Handsome’s rope ladder. Jessie even made it without too much complaining.
When I got to the top of the sinkhole, I gazed around, trying to make sense of where we were. I saw Mayor Handsome’s quad nearby.
“What are you doing out here?” I asked him, taking note of the supplies fastened to the four wheeler—mostly different kinds of netting.
Mayor Handsome shrugged. “Just a little shrimp fishing before dee race today.”
I gaped at him. “You get your shrimp out of that lake? Wait, you know about that lake?”
There were different levels of disgust on everyone’s faces. Rossi looked fairly horrified, whereas Matthew looked only slightly appalled but also very amused. Jessie, on the other hand, looked like he had just seen a mutant albino shrimp the size of a cow burst up out of the ground.
Jessie shrieked, and might have even fallen over if Matthew hadn’t been supporting him. “You sell my mom mutant albino dead man cave shrimp! My mom makes mutant albino dead man cave shrimp tacos!” He wheezed like he couldn’t get enough air.
Unfortunately, I had also indulged a time or two in Mrs. Navarro’s mutant albino dead man cave shrimp tacos. I could tell from the look on Rossi’s face that she’d eaten them as well. I mean, they were pretty tasty and I hadn’t died or anything. But still.
“What are you laughing about?” Jessie yelled at Matthew.
“Mayor Handsome,” Rossi said. “You do realize you’re selling shrimp you got out of a lake that has a dead body in it?”
Mayor Handsome waved a dismissive hand. “Pfft. Dere all kinds of dead bodies in dee ocean, and everybody still eating crab legs.”
Rossi stared at him. “So not the same thing.”
“Vhat you kids doing out here anyvay?” Mayor Handsome adjusted his denim cut-offs—they were incredibly short and required a lot of adjusting. “Vhat you kids doing in dee cave? Your parents know you out here?”
We all glanced at one another. We hadn’t worked out a story to tell anyone. Did we need to work out a story? We all kind of shrugged.
“We won’t tell if you won’t,” I said.
Mayor Handsome shook his head. “Not my business.” He looked at his watch then at Rossi. “Vhy you not getting ready for dee race?”
Rossi stepped forward. “Mayor Handsome, how far is it back to town?”
“Mile. Mile and a half.”
“Can you fit us on your quad?”
He removed his giant cowboy hat and scratched at his perfectly coifed hair. He frowned. “I fit maybe one.”
Rossi looked at me, then at Jessie and Matthew. “Go, Rossi,” Jessie said. “You need to get your bike and get to the race.”
“No.” Rossi turned to Mayor Handsome. “Jessie needs to get to a doctor. Can you drive him back?”
Mayor Handsome nodded. “Of course. You kids have vater?”
We all shook our heads—at least not water that wouldn’t make us seriously ill.
Mayor handsome clucked his tongue and pulled a gallon milk container filled with water off his quad. Matthew helped Jessie limp over and onto the four wheeler.
“Pew!” Mayor Handsome cried out. “You stink, Jessie!”
“Yeah, that’s not all dirt on his clothes,” Matthew said.
“I’m not the only one covered in poo,” Jessie muttered. “At least I don’t also have Twinkie filling all over me.”
Mayor Handsome handed the jug to Rossi. “You kids die valking back to town vidout vater.”
Rossi looked at me, her eyes filled with urgency. I took a deep breath. “More like running.”
We followed a large wash from where we were, as Mayor Handsome had instructed. And run we did . . . for about ten seconds before we totally gassed out from the overwhelming heat and exhaustion. We had to stop a couple of times for Rossi to catch her breath, and I worried about her making it.
We tried to take our minds off of our misery by making jokes. “This is how Mrs. Lopez speed-walks through town.” Matthew pumped his arms up and down over his head and shook his butt in an embarrassingly exaggerated way.
“No, like this.” I handed the jug of water to Matthew, stuck my butt out, and wiggled my hips while pretending to lift small weights with my arms. The ninety-year-old woman was a great source of entertainment for everyone as she exercised her way through town every day. She was probably the only person in Nowhere who exercised. Which was probably why she was the oldest.
Even Rossi got into it, impersonating the prancing exercises of Mrs. Lopez as we moved as quickly as we dared in the heat. We took turns passing the helmet and jug around and taking large, gasping gulps as we speed-walked. We used the lake water to dump on our heads and shirts. The drinking water was gone before we reached town, but I could see the Nowhere Market and Ostrich Farm as we made one last turn around the mountain, the ostriches lounging in the shaded part of their enclosure, hiding from the heat of the day. As though anyone could hide from it.
We walked quietly the last hundred yards or so, too tired and hot to joke anymore. I’d never felt such
an overwhelming need to lie down. And I think I would have given all my gold to have a cold shower right then—a genuinely cold shower.
As we walked around from behind the store and made our way onto the lumpy, cracked blacktop of Nowhere’s only paved road, we ran right into Bo.
“What the heck happened to you guys?” He sat on his dirt bike in the middle of the street. Jacob Asher sat on his own bike next to him. They were slurping at big, melting Popsicles. I hoped Bo was enjoying the last free Popsicle he would ever have.
“Did you hear what I said?” Bo barked, red Popsicle juice bursting from his mouth. The juice dripped down his chin, making him look like a vampire—a mean, ugly middle school vampire who preyed on anyone he suspected was smarter than a kindergartener.
The three of us glanced at one another. “We went into the mine,” I said. “Just like our deal.”
“Did it cave in on you or something?” Bo said, and he and Jacob laughed.
“No. We just worked really hard to get you what you wanted.”
Bo’s face was incredulous. “You actually found gold?”
I nodded. “Yep.”
“So where is it?” Bo smirked and held out his hand. “Where’s my gold?”
I reached into my pocket and pulled out the piece we had agreed to give him. I walked to him and slapped it into his hand. “Here. Now give us Loretta.”
Bo turned the gold over in his hand, his smirk gone. “Is this for real?” he asked Matthew. “He found this in the mine?”
“Yeah,” Matthew said. “It’s for real. I saw him find it.”
Bo grinned. “I bet he found more, too, if he found this piece.”
“I didn’t,” I insisted. “That’s all there is.”
“Well, that’s too bad.” Bo pocketed the gold. “Because the price for Loretta went up overnight. She now costs two pieces of gold.”
“You’re such a liar,” Rossi said through gritted teeth. “Gus went into the mine and did what you said. You can’t renege on your deal.”
renege: go back on a promise or contract
24 Hours in Nowhere Page 13