The Tunnel of Hugsy Goode by Eleanor Estes Page A

my right my toes felt more of the wall I was leaning against. Must be a wall of the tunnel, I thought.
    I signaled to Tornid to let out some more rope. He did. I lowered myself some more. I am a human fly, I thought.
    I looked back up. There was Tornid. His face looked large from this eerie angle, halfway down into a—I hope
—the
tunnel. "Can you see me?" I said.
    "Yeah," he said. "You sound funny."
    "It's still me," I said.
    From now on my life depended on Tornid. I knew he would not let me down. Or, rather, he
would
let me down. That's what he was supposed to do. A pun. Get it?
    I tugged three tugs. He let down some more rope. I kept going down. I had a feeling I was near the bottom and would soon touch. It's my ESP. "Pass me down my shillelagh," I said. I needed it to measure the river with, if there was one. Holding onto the rope with my right hand, pressing my stomach against the crumbly wall to balance myself, I grabbed my shillelagh and it was like a sword.
    Tornid looked in. "Hurry up," he said. "Is there a tunnel or isn't there a tunnel? I want to come down, too."
    "I am hurrying, cluck," I said. "Do you think it's easy finding tunnels, lost river, or whatever it is I'm finding? Crud."
    "Are
they
there?" he asked.
    "Who?" I asked, turning my head around suddenly to take
them
—"who"—by surprise.
    "I don't know," said Tornid. "Smoogmen..."
    "Shut up, ya dumb cluck!" I said. "You want them to hear us?"
    The sound of Tornid's voice gave me courage. I knew he would get help come what, come may. So, waving my shillelagh, saying "
Hasta la vista,
" I let go of the rope and dropped. I just decided to drop, that's all.
    I landed on solid pavement, not in a river, not even a stream. I took in my first gulp of tunnel air. It tasted like a long-locked-up cellar. I turned my flashlight around so it would shine into wherever I was. I waved my shillelagh to scatter and terrify all beings, visible and nonvisible ... smoogmen or whatever.... I said, "
¿Como está usted y ustedes?
" because a great deal of Spanish is spoken around here, and if the smoogmen were Spanish, they would know I was a friend.
    My eyes grew accustomed to where I was. By cracky! I was at the beginning of some sort of narrow passageway. It was tall enough to stand up in, not one of the crawl-through sort such as some I had put in the plans.
    "Come on down," I yelled up at Tornid. I needed my pal. I thought I saw eyes up ahead and needed Tornid's good eyes to say yes he saw them or no he didn't. Could be an hallucination ... a tunnel mirage. "Shinny down the rope," I said. "I've untied it from me."
    Tornid's skinny bare legs came into sight, then the rest of him. I reached up to help him down, and he was the second boy to set foot in what we suppose is alley tunnel and to leave footprints here, muddy ones from the hidey hole of Hugsy Goode.
    "Is
this
the tunnel?" Tornid asked. "It doesn't look like the tunnel in the Funny House where I went that time."
    "That's because it's an alley tunnel, cluck!" I said.
    "What am I stepping on?" asked Tornid. "It's hard and cold. But it doesn't wiggle."
    We flashed our lights down. It wasn't anything alive, or even dead like a fossil. It was a key, a huge and rusty antique key, always a good omen when you are on a quest. I picked it up ... I save keys, like Mrs. Harrington saves string ... and I put it in my gunny sack, the first important find in the alley tunnel.
    We took a few steps, and swoosh! Suddenly we found we were walking in water. But, relax. Not a great, sworling, swirling river, just a small, not deep—I tested it with my shillelagh, and it was two inches here—inky black, gurgling stream. That's what we'd heard up top. Probably, just like we'd thought, the great rain had rushed in down here through the hole me and Tornid had dug. Probably, usually rain doesn't get down here, and when we got out, we'd close up our hole tight so no more could come in. No hope for an underworld Venice