Tunnels

by Lesley Downie

  It felt weird to be leaving the fresh air and sky behind. Is there enough oxygen down there? What if there's a gas leak and we just lie down and go to sleep? Or what if some weird carnivore, like a cross between a possum and a big rat, was waiting to eat the flesh off whomever is stupid enough to roam the tunnels?

  Just do it, I tell myself. Fear can't stop me now…I wouldn't let it. I was still shaking when twenty steps or so later, we touched ground and the darkness completely surrounded us. Reaching out to make sure he was there, I gripped his cold arm. And when I peered upward, I saw no hint of light. It was like the trapdoor above us had closed, like we'd reached the center of the earth.

  "So what's the plan?" His face lit up as he flipped on the light of a ridiculous-looking miner's hat. What happened to his Dodger cap? Usually he's not big on hats because it messes up the 'do he's carefully gelled in place. Probably another piece of his dad's rescue team gear. "I only have a few hours, so maximize our time, Cupcake." He rubbed his hands together and stretched, as if he'd dug this hole himself for us to access the underworld.

  "Okay, let's just start walking…there's only one way to go." So we headed south. Whether the Zanja was connected to the tunnel system was still a big question.

  "I can't handle how quiet it is." He threw some ear buds in and I could immediately hear the muted sounds of music.

  "Thanks a lot, buddy," I mumbled. Wish I could say it was exciting from the second I took that first step, but not so much. It was just smelly, damp, and quiet. At least nothing was jumping out at us and it gave my heartbeat a chance to slow down. I felt a little silly for being so scared before.

  It took all my energy to stay on my feet. Super uneven ground was making it hard not to wipe out. The Native Americans used their hands and rough tools to make it, so no wonder it was full of bumps. Not to mention what the irrigation water has done to break the earth down. If you've ever seen the Grand Canyon you'd know what I'm talking about.

  I was getting tired and a little bored about an hour in but that changed when I finally saw something. Yanking on Evan's sweatshirt, I pointed to the wall of the tunnel, about six feet from us on our left. He pulled the buds from his ears and we both stepped closer.

  "Look!" The flashlight was shaking in my hand.

  "Better give me the crow bar," he said as he slipped his backpack off.

  Chapter Nineteen

  LUCKY NUMBER THREE

  "This is the third arch, you know," I said as he took another swing at the bricks filling the archway we'd just found. "I have a feeling we've finally found a way into the tunnels!"

  Despite his work for the last ten minutes, there was still no hole for us to step through to the other side. I tried grabbing the crow bar back from him, but he shook his head and changed positions. Now he swung the bar like a baseball bat instead. Once, then twice. That was it. Dust flew and I waved my hands to clear the air as a bunch of junk spilled out of the wall.

  "Houston, we've made contact," he said. When we were kids, being an astronaut was his big dream. The Houston Space Center in Texas was on speed dial on his toy phone. Hearing him do this again reminded me of when he'd run around with a salad bowl on his head as his space helmet. I kind of missed those days.

  Leaning forward, I directed the light through the decent-sized hole. It was still hard to see much, so we started pulling at the remaining bricks to make a hole big enough to climb through. We plucked the remaining ones out like loose baby teeth. An entryway finally appeared in front of us.

  Grabbing our backpacks, we stepped through. I don't know what I was expecting, but it sure wasn't absolutely nothing.

  "Well that's disappointing," I murmured as we began to walk down a new tunnel.

  "What?" I could hear him crunching on a snack bar as he spoke. "You were expecting traces of your so-called ancient civilization?" He snickered at the end. Maybe it's a boy thing, rubbing it in when you're at your lowest.

  I didn't answer him because deep down I knew he was right, even though I didn't like the sarcasm. How could I expect an instant discovery? I should know by now—just 'cause you want something a whole lot doesn't make it happen. But even knowing this, I still kept hoping some early-man painting would somehow appear on the tunnel walls.

  But then, as soon as I was thinking once again archaeology greatness was slipping further and further from my grasp, the tunnel began to narrow. It forced us to walk single-file, and I was the leader. And then, not too much further, a room appeared out of the darkness.

  "Hold crud! What is this place?"

  Our lights lit up one end of the space to the other. Filling the room was the kind of furniture you see in old movies your grandparents like to watch. A large rectangular table weighing probably a thousand pounds sat in the center of the room. Twelve massive chairs were around it, with one even bigger than the rest…kind of like a king's throne. I dropped my pack and went over to the table and grabbed an edge to lift it, but the wood was solid and didn't budge.

  "What is this? The meeting room for the Knights of the Rectangular Table?" He laughed at his King Arthur joke, but I didn't.

  Then, for some reason, our lights began flickering, even though the batteries were new. His miner hat dimmed and then lit up, which made his face seem as though it belonged in a haunted house. On and off the light went, making it hard to see. So we moved closer to try and get a better look. I ran my hand over the throne. It was made of dark heavy wood, just like the table. And there was a worn pad on the seat which I totally sat on, ignoring the rules of evidence gathering by contaminating it with my DNA. I felt the velvet material of the seat and pushed my finger through one of the many holes in it. Some bugs probably had a few decent meals on these cushions.

  Evan was in the corner fooling with something. When he walked back over to me, I saw he had an old oil lamp. "Think this'll light?" he asked as he pulled out some matches from his pack.

  "Don't know," I answered, as I inspected the other chairs around the table. The important guy probably sat in the big one.

  I heard a match strike and then the room lit up. There was a thick layer of dust on the table, aside from where my fingerprints had touched it. Like no one had stepped inside this room for a gazillion years.

  Along one wall, there was a long cabinet and he let out a slow whistle as he picked up some of the stuff on top. "Come see this stuff."

  Handing a small glass cup to me, we lightly clinked them together. It made a high-pitched sound which echoed through the room. "Sounds like real crystal," he said.

  I had no idea what real crystal sounded or looked like. "Yeah? Well there sure are a lot of them here."

  And there was. Ten glasses surrounded a cut glass pitcher sitting on a long silver tray. There was some gross brown stuff in it. Probably brandy, the stuff my Grandma serves during Thanksgiving desert. Picking up the pitcher, I took out the glass stopper and sniffed.

  "Man, smells disgusting," I said. Definitely what Grandma likes.

  Then I noticed something about the glasses. They had different initials carved into each one of them. F.R., J.D., B.R., and W.C. were just a few. Ten different glass cups with ten different sets of initials in all.

  "Think this might have been a meeting room for a group of people," I said. "But why would they meet down here? Doesn't make sense."

  But I was talking to myself because he'd already gotten bored with the glasses and moved on to one of the side drawers in the cabinet. I noticed then the light was starting to dim and glanced over at the lamp. Looks like whatever oil was left in it was quickly burning and we'd be back in the dark any second. We needed to come back here with more lights because the flashlights weren't enough.

  "Hey I found this," he said as he held up a leather journal just like Pops's. "It's got some initials on the front and someone's notes inside."

  "Let me see," I said, reaching out my hand to him. Thankfully he didn't argue and just handed it over. My stomach did a flip when I opened to the first page. The date, w
ritten on yellowed parchment paper with blotchy ink drops surrounding it, read January 30, 1940. Right out of my favorite decade. The handwriting was small and even, and I felt as though I recognized it. Which was totally silly. That's over seventy years ago. I read the writing next to the date.

  Joe and Babe have joined me for my birthday. Hopefully the rest can come, too. Everyone's been under tremendous pressure with this war on and could use a respite.

  Below the entry it looked like someone was keeping score in a game. The page was set up like a scorecard, with names on top and numbers beneath. Definitely not a journal with a lot of secret confessions; it was just a book with some notes and random stuff.

  "Hey, I hate to say we need to go, but we need to go." Evan shut the drawer of the cabinet. I couldn't help but pull open one more drawer, though. A case sat inside and when I un-zippered it there was a wooden chessboard. I grabbed it and stuffed it into my backpack along with the journal. I'm great at chess so I couldn't wait to get it open, even though it didn't belong to me. It was killing me not to go through the whole cabinet, to find what else was hidden in it all these years.

  "It's a long walk back and we're losing light," he warned. "The batteries won't last forever, and we don't want to be caught down here in the dark. Hopefully we can try to catch a late bus because I'd rather not walk home."

  He was right. I hated to leave but had no choice. It wasn't until I was about to put my backpack on again I noticed something I hadn't seen before. "E, is that a ladder?"

  There, in a dark corner (don't ask me how I spotted it) was a wooden ladder which extended about eight feet up the wall. We walked over and pointed our flashlights toward the ceiling. You could see a round outline of a door in the ceiling, just like the other ones I'd found. Evan climbed the ladder and pushed on it. But like all the others, it wouldn't move.

  "It's heavy. Get me the crow bar," he directed.

  Handing it to him, I had my doubts he'd be able to get it open. Then I had an idea. Grabbing one of the chairs, I slid it over next to him. "If you can wedge the crow bar in there, I can take over and hold it in place. Then you can try to push or slide the door open."

  Lots of grunts came out of him as he worked. I could tell he was getting super frustrated because he threw out a couple of cuss words, which is not his style at all. But then, when I thought it was hopeless, sunlight burst through the crack he'd managed to create.

  "Here," he said as he carefully moved the handle of the crow bar toward me. "Hold it open if you can. There aren't any hinges, so it must just sit in the groove of the hole."

  I did as he asked, but like I've said before, me and upper body strength? Not so much. But I dug deep and managed to keep it open. More grunts from us both now and then, miracle of miracles, there it was—a big circle of blue sky staring at us.

  We climbed down to put everything back in place and grabbed our packs. Evan was the first one up the stairs and out of the hole. He reached down and pulled on my hands until I got a foot-hold and was able to climb out.

  And you know what? We were standing in the mayor's garden, facing those totally embarrassing naked statues I told you about before. I'd been right. There absolutely was something hidden underneath the mayor's garden.

  Chapter Twenty

  I SAID WHAT?

  As soon as Evan and I got to the street in front of the mayor's mansion, we saw the last bus for town disappearing around the corner. So instead, we sneaked onto the one being used for the historical tour the mayor had told me about. I held my breath to see if anybody would notice us, but they all seemed too busy gossiping about the mayor's lip implants or something equally gross. It was good we kept quiet because there were thirty or forty sets of ears surrounding us and I'm sure the whole town would know by morning what we'd found.

  I was glad Hansel and Gretel were locked up because they were going nuts, barking and jumping at the tall fence running along the left side of the house. They'd been in the mansion the other night until the governor tripped over one of them. I'm not big on large guard dogs. Not that I couldn't hypnotize them with my super human pet hypnosis if I needed to. Okay, so maybe I'm not Cesar Millan, but I've watched his show. I'm sure I could pull it off.

  Finally the bus took off and it didn't take long to reach the four holy corners where freak-man likes to hang out. The bus stopped and we got off and headed home in different directions. It was already past four o'clock and I still needed to shower and get the grime off me for tonight. Lots of flossing, scrubbing, and brushing needed to happen before I'd let David see me. This meant we had to say a quick goodbye with a promise to talk later about what we'd found.

  "I'm home," I yelled as I walked into the house. I was worried because it was five o'clock. Hopefully I hadn't missed David's call. The battery on my cell phone had died, so there's no way he could have reached me on it. Plus, there's probably no cell reception in the tunnels.

  No one answered but I knew Mom and Dad were home. Dad was working on his old Ford Fairlaine in the garage (lots of engine revving going on), and Mom's car was parked under the big oak in front of the house. Demon boy was glued to the TV, video game controller in hand.

  "Where's Mom?" I asked, figuring she was probably upstairs putting together an evil new menu plan. Of course he didn't answer. He was busy nuking some zombie. The General didn't allow any games where actual people were killed. But Sam never gave up—the latest version of Blow Up the Enemy was on his birthday list every year.

  Strolling out to the kitchen, I went over to the pink While-You-Were-Out pad to see if there were any messages for me. Yes, we actually have one of those. Leftover from when Mom was going through her selling-cosmetics-at-home phase. Did you know they actually have parties to try to get people to buy that stuff? In my opinion, the only good thing about those parties was the leftover treats—Mom so didn't make her customers eat stuff like Veggie Delight or edamame (ew).

  But no messages and no red light blinking on the answering machine. Weird. David was supposed to call at four about tonight. Should I call him? Maybe not. Could be he's just running late. I needed to get in the shower ASAP anyway.

  When I got to the top of the stairs, I could hear Mom's weird yoga flute music coming from my parent's bedroom. I knew she was totally doing downward dog right now, so I didn't knock on her door. Once in my room, I plugged my phone into its charger and grabbed my robe.

  I must have been in the shower for a half hour before I made myself get out. Not sure if a shower has ever felt so good, the hot water like magic fingers on my muscles. It's surprising the Water Nazi (aka the General) hadn't banged on the door, because water rationing was one of her latest causes. One day I expect to come home from school to find the front yard stripped of all the green, with cacti and other desert flowers planted in some weird design. The General's all about design.

  After drying off, I noticed there still weren't any messages on my phone, so I decided to finally give him a call. I was getting worried about him. What if he got hurt being a hero? So when he didn't pick up his cell, I dialed his house.

  "Hello?" Definitely Mrs. Perkins answering. She sort of talks through her nose, so it's easy to tell when it's her.

  "Hi, Mrs. Perkins, this is Kat—"

  "I know who this is—what is it you want?" Whoa. What's up with the attitude? Then I heard David in the background, telling her he didn't want to speak to me again. Again? What did he mean?

  "Um," I stammered, "Is there something wrong?"

  "Why, Katherine Goldstein, you should know quite well what's wrong." She laughed then. Not a funny-ha-ha laugh, but more like when you're angry and you're about to tell someone exactly what you think of them. "Not even an hour ago David called you and you told him to leave you alone." She paused. "I think you used the words, 'Quit annoying me, you flippin' loser'. What kind of language is that for a young lady?"

  Huh? What was she talking about? I was about to ask, but the line was dead.

  Chapter Twenty One
r />   PARTY OF ONE AGAIN

  or better yet

  THE DAY THAT SUCKED BIG TIME

  "So in conclusion," Kelley said from the podium on the cafeteria stage, "I'll make sure we switch from frozen to fresh pizzas and there'll be music and smoothie carts on Fridays at lunch."

  The crowd began hooting and clapping. I was nauseous from just hearing her voice. The last thirty-six hours had been some of the worst I've ever had, and she wasn't making it any better. Having David mad at me and sitting through a speech full of lies by Kelley was way worse than any veggie soufflé. Or wearing ugly clothes to dinner at the mayor's house. At this exact moment, I hated her for what she stood for. I hated she was popular despite the fact she was mean and a liar. I hated people accepted her for who she was and how she always had boys who liked her and friends, no matter what she did.

  "Now, before we all go back to class, I have a little piece of entertainment to show you." Kelley nodded to the guy who was working the projector.

  The lights went out and the typical cat-calling that happens in the dark began. Mad and bored, I thought about all the speeches filled with lies just to get our votes for student body reps. Kelley was trying to win the golden Class President title. The others promised stuff like no homework, longer lunches, and unlimited texting, even during class.

  Suddenly the screen on stage lit up. My eyes were tired ‘cause my sleep so sucked last night. Something about having the-best-boy-like-you-for-one-day-and-who-hates-you-now-for-some-unknown-reason makes it super hard to fall asleep. But when I did focus, I wished I and the rest of my class were blind. There, in full view for the whole student body to witness, blown up so the people of Siberia could see if they wanted to, was my note. But not just my cryptic answer of D.P.C.B.E. Below each letter was the rest of each word.