The Hole in the Wall - Lisa Rowe Fraustino [43]
“Okay, this is one of my fantasies, isn’t it,” I said, and pinched myself on the arm to wake up.
“You’re gonna have a bruise there tomorrow, goofaling,” Barbie said.
The envelope must have been there for a while. The damp paper wilted a little in my hand. The surface felt grainy with dust.
“You gonna open it?”
I turned the envelope over and looked for a spot to slip my finger under the flap. The glue had stuck so tight in the dampness that there wasn’t any place to fit my stubby finger. I had an urge to tear open the envelope, but I was afraid of ripping whatever was inside, too. I held the envelope out to Barbie. “Here, you do it. You have nails.”
I held the flashlight while Barbie carefully worked a fingernail under an edge until the flap peeled up. She pulled out a piece of folded notebook paper and read the letter out loud.
DEAR SEBBY (& BARBIE IF HE DIDN’T ESCAPE YOU),
IF YOU FIND THIS NOTE, THAT MEANS YOU HAVE FOUND THE WALL BEHIND THE HENHOUSE THAT GRAMPA OR SOMEONE BUILT TO KEEP PEOPLE OUT OF THIS PLACE. GO BACK HOME AND NEVER COME INTO THESE CAVES AGAIN! DO NOT, I REPEAT, DO NOT GO BEYOND THIS POINT. YOU WILL BE SORRY. BELIEVE ME, I AM. MAYBE SOMEDAY I’LL BE ABLE TO TELL YOU ABOUT IT. I HOPE SO. BUT UNTIL THAT DAY COMES, YOU’ RE JUST GOING TO HAVE TO LISTEN TO ME. ARE YOU LISTENING? I MEAN IT, YOU TWO! PUT THE ROCKS BACK WHERE YOU FOUND THEM, BOARD UP THE STORAGE CLOSET IN THE HENHOUSE, AND FORGET YOU EVER FOUND THIS PLACE. YOUR LIFE MAY DEPEND ON IT.
LOVE,
YOUR BROTHER,
JED
13
I couldn’t stop turning the flashlight to look at the looming wall of stones, and Barbie had to keep grabbing my arm to see the paper. By the time she got to the end of Jed’s letter, Barbie was practically hyperventilating. I couldn’t tell whether she was terrified or excited. Maybe she was both. I sure was, to see what was on the other side of that wall. I inched my fingers around the smallest rock in front of our faces, trying to make a window.
“Duh, Seb, didn’t you hear what Jed said?”
“Yeah, he said not to go beyond the wall. He didn’t say anything about just looking.”
“Oh . . . true,” she said. “But those stones are packed too tight to move any from the middle. We’ll have to take them from the top.” Which was out of our reach. So I got down on all fours to become a scaffold, with the flashlight propped beside me like a spotlight. Barbie climbed up on my back, and pretty soon the first rock hit the ground. It made plain white sparks and a big CLUNK!
While she worked, I thought out loud. “He must’ve meant Grampa built the other wall to keep people out. Jed must’ve built this one to keep us away from wherever the tunnel goes. Then he left the letter, went out through the henhouse, and replaced that wall to seal the tunnel before he ran away.”
Barbie paused, with a big rock in her hands, I guessed from the weight of her. “Unless he sneaked back and did it recently.”
“After he ran away? You think Jed has been back home? And are you gonna drop that rock or are you trying to break my back?”
“I dunno, just an idea.” Barbie tossed the rock. “Okay, I think I’ll be able to see out now.”
I craned my neck to watch her poke her head out through the opening. I could see her silhouette even though the flashlight had fallen down and was glowing straight into a stone. That meant—
“Hey, there’s light on the other side, isn’t there?”
“Yeah, a sunbeam hits the ground up ahead a bit.”
I shimmied to shrug Barbie off my back. “Get down, Shish, I wanna see.”
She jumped off me, and I climbed up onto some rocks she’d thrown on the floor. While poking my head out through the opening I remembered something else and turtled back inside. “Thanks,” I said, grabbing the magic glasses off the top of Barbie’s head.
“Wish I’d thought of that. Now what do you see?”
“The blinking colors aren’t all over the place like in the cavern, but they do run along the tunnel in veins like we saw on the way down,” I told her. Then I couldn’t help it, I had to tear away more rocks.
“Uh, Seb? Supper is that way.” She pointed backwards.