The Goonies by James Kahn

at that moment.
    Andy shouted up to him. “Yeah, Troy, it's me! I'm stuck down here!”
    “Who's that with you?”
    “Stef and Mikey and Mouth and… Brand…”
    “Those Goonies?”
    “Troy, just send down the rope and bucket and save us, for God's sake.”
    “What have you been
doing
down there?”
    “Troy, this is no time for show-and-tell. Now, please!”
    “And how'd you
get
down there?”
    She was gettin' real fed up, I could see, and nobody else wanted to say anything, 'cause how can you talk to a jerk?
    “We got here through the lighthouse and into the tunnels,” she started out, real patient, “and then we banged on the underground
     water pipes, but nobody heard us.…”
    “Pipes? The pipes under the Country Club? Was that
you
banging? Do you have any idea how much trouble you caused?”
    “Trouble
I
caused?”
    “Damn right! We had sewage going through the shower lines, we had water fountains getting sucked into the ground, we had toilets
     exploding…”
    “Well, we had falling boulders and bats and… why are we discussing this while I'm trapped at the bottom of a well?” she screamed.
    She got her point across, I guess. In a few seconds we heard the bucket being lowered down to us.
    All the guys were pretty excited, but I stood off alone, still staring at the medallion. “I know I can beat you, Willy. This
     is just one of your games.”
    The bucket reached us, at the end of its rope, and everyone gathered around as Andy started to put her foot into it. I got
     real sad all of a sudden, like somehow all of this was going to disappear—almost like it had never happened at all—as soon
     as Andy rode the bucket up.
    So I grabbed her arm. “Andy, wait! We've got this other clue now… and Chester Copperpot never got this far, so we have a chance
     to—”
    “A chance at what, Mikey?” she said. She was lookin' right at me. She was real serious. “Getting killed? Look, if we keep
     going like this, somebody's gonna get dead. Boulders, bats… I don't even want to
imagine
what other things are down here. Besides, we've got to get to the police.”
    “Chunk probably already got to the police,” I said.
    “Unless he's already dead.”
    “Don't say that! Don't
ever
say that,” I snapped at her. “Goonies never say die.”
    “I'm not a Goony,” she said quietly.
    “Right, I forgot for a second.” I turned to the others, who were just standing there watching us, like we were gladiators
     or something. “But
you
guys understand what I'm sayin', don't you? The next time you see the sky, it'll be over another town. Next time you take
     a test, it'll be at some other school. Our moms and dads want the best of stuff for us, but they gotta do what's good for
     them because it's their game, it's their time, but down here, it's
our
time. Our time and our adventure and our rules and plans. But the minute we ride up Troy's bucket, that's all over.”
    They were all lookin' at me with their whole bodies, like maybe they were hearin' for the first time the melody I'd been hearin'
     all along. I tried to make 'em hear it another way.
    “Look, a couple years ago my mom and dad got on that big game show. Remember, Brand? Mom spent a month makin' those funny
     costumes. She was a giant egg. Dad was a frying pan. Dad kept sayin' we were gonna live on Easy Street. So we drove all the
     way to Hollywood. When we got there, they put us in this big audience with all these other people in funny costumes. Then
     some dude with lipstick and sprayed hair came down the stairs. He walks up to us, right? First he makes Mom guess how much
     toilet bowl cleaner costs, and she gets it right. Then he makes my dad guess what a jar of Ragu spaghetti sauce weighs, and
     he gets
that
right.
Then
he asks my dad, ‘Is the Big Prize behind Door Number One, Door Number Two, or Door Number Three?’ Now, my dad's lucky number
     was always two. He got married on August second. He got his job on June second. He's got two