The Tunnel of Hugsy Goode (14 page)

We fell into a reverie while untangling and rewinding our string and thread, which were an awful mess. Tornid did not like doing this. I told him that if an old lady like Mrs. Harrington of the age of one hundred and one could wind string and amass a fortune, so could we. "Wind!" I said. I did the untangling, he did the winding. "Wind!" I said, when I had a few inches. And he wound.

Then my mom and Tornid's mom drove up in the blue bus named Chiquita, and they and all the kids spilled out. They gathered at the Alley gate, which was locked. They all had "I accuse you" expressions on their faces. They stood there, at the gate, sighting the sight of Tornid and me sitting in the tree house, winding string.

My mom said, "Where have you been?"

My mom's voice can rend the air as loudly as her whistle or a blast on her cow horn.

I returned blast for blast. "Here!" I blasted.

"You have not!" she blasted. "We were here a little while ago and you were not here. No one had seen you ... no one. You have been out of the Alley..."

"We have not!" I blasted. I put on the surly look expected of me, happy to comply.

But I was indignant and full of righteous feelings. Tornid and me had not been out of the Alley,
under
it, yes, but not out of it, not over to Myrtle Avenue again. You could tell that is what they had supposed, not seeing me or Tornid anywhere around, seeing just the two stranger
grils
jumping their rope and chanting their chants.

We were stared at for a while in silence by those outside the Alley gate. They were baffled. You could tell what they were thinking. Each was thinking maybe we
had
been up here all along, that maybe each one thought another had looked up here or climbed up here to see if we were lying on our bellies, hiding, practicing a ruse.

I smelled an advantage. From my superior position in the tree house I looked down at those at the gate and studied them from under my spectacles. I said quietly, to show how much more civilized than my mom I am, "We have not been out of the Alley."

"Timmy?" his mom asked uncertainly.

"No, Mom. No-o-o-o," he said.

I can read Tornid like a book. He was torturing himself, wondering whether
under
the Alley was
out
of the Alley or not. The moms know we—Tornid, anyway—don't lie. How could we lie to such penetrating moms as these? They might pretend to believe you and say, "I see, I see," then later on, from something they let drop, you know you have not deceived them. They are brilliant moms. But now, puzzled in spite of all their brilliance, they stood with all the others in a silent cluster watching Tornid and me winding our string balls in nonchalance.

We got the picture of what had happened, confirmed later by my
gril
sister, Star. Since there was no "us" around anywhere in the Alley, they'd asked Jane Ives. No, she hadn't seen us. My dad ... no, or he couldn't remember. The two stranger
grils
just said they didn't know the names of everybody yet, and they chewed their gum and jumped their rope, one end tied to Billy Maloon's fence, there being only one turner. Then, naturally, the moms thought the worst—that we had gone off for another spree on the Myrtle Avenue El.

So, off to Myrtle Avenue the whole Job Lots crew had gone, to the A & P, the flea market of the blind man, all interesting places, even to the astrologer's named Madame Fatima, where we would never go,
not
behind the brown curtains anyway. And now, instead of being cross with us any more, they got to be cross with each other. "I thought you'd looked in the tree house." "I thought
you
had..." Hot and tired, they were all putting the blame on some one or another of them. However, black-eyed
gril
studied us with her impenetrable eyes. From up there in the tree house, me and Tornid looked down on the squabblers amiably.

Finally, Tornid's mom said, "Well, don't you want your Job Lots presents?"

It's a custom that the kids that don't get to go to Job Lots, well,
they
get to have a present brought to them to compensate for having had to stay at home and not see the batch of weird remainders—garb mainly—and hear the moms' shrieks of laughter as they try on dusty items. Believe me, you'd love that store, a treasure house. So Tornid and me slid down, reached through the iron gate for our presents, and went back up in the tree house to see what they were.

You'll never believe it! What me and Tornid got in one fell swoop! Each one of us got a wrist watch—identical—that shines in the dark, has a minute hand, a compass, and tells the day of the week, all—I mean it—on one wrist watch! It must have taken all the plaid stamps of a whole year, plus the acorn stamps, too, to get these two watches. We'll never complain again about sticking the stamps in books, or anything else. We didn't even think to ask what the members of the expedition had gotten—probably some small item—we were so happy ... and surprised!

"Gee, thank you," Tornid called down to those still at the Alley gate, and I said it, too.

"Not even anyone's birthday or anything," I said.

"I know," said Tornid. "And they could have bought an electric carving knife, even," he said. "For themselves."

"But they didn't," I said.

Those outside the Alley gate disappeared. Tornid and me hardly noticed. We were setting our watches, day ... Saturday ... and all. North pointed to the Empire State Building, so they were accurate. We watched the hands of our big watches slowly move. I put mine inside my T shirt. The hands shone. Tornid said he was going to stay awake until midnight to watch his change from today to tomorrow.

Consider the help that, unbeknownst to them, the moms had bestowed upon us for our under-alley expedition! While we had been sitting in the tree house, shivering, shaking with fear over the words spoken below...
DON'T SIT IN THAT CHAIR
...trying to bolster up our courage with foreign French words,
Courage, mon ami,
to go down below again, see what the moms had been doing for us—buying us these neat watches that tell you everything you need to know!

Thusly had the moms steeled our
courage
for come what, come may, below.

Nerves quieted now, spirits high, we began to take stock of the tunnel knowledge we had so far, taking it in that it really existed in real life and was not something Hugsy Goode had made up or that we had drawn maps of and stored under the Ives's television.

We especially pondered about the chair and about the speaker of the words. I hadn't drawn a chair on any of my charts and plans—a chair just being there at the best central spot of the alley tunnel under the drain above. Rooms, offices, a
PIT
, studios, bunks in barracks for unearthly little men at war with other unearthly little men from other pits and bunks ... smoogmen ... I'd drawn all these. But I'd never envisioned a chair like an Uncle Ham chair with words hovering over it in tunnel air saying not to sit in it. And just before the descent, we had imagined many things that had proved not to be right. The swirling, sworling lost river, for instance. A Grand Canal with small canals, maybe, going off into narrow passageways where you'd have to stoop to get to places of business, possible to reach only by gondola. No. So far this was a tunnel that looked like the Alley on top except that it had one chair in it and a creepy voice above the chair that said words ... in English.

Why didn't the voice rope off the chair if it didn't want anyone sitting in it? Who would think not to sit in a chair, the only chair so far, down there in the under alley? We mulled this over every which way. Then it dawned on me.

"Oh, now I get it, Tornid," I said. "That chair down there, that chair that we've named the Throne of Hugsy the Goode, was put down there when this tunnel was built, so that an antique lady like Mrs. Harrington is now, only not her, some other lady who was antique in that day and age, could rest, sit in it, then go on her way to wherever the tunnel goes."

"Goes, yeah?" said Tornid.

"Well, Tornid," I said. "What was the reason for the tunnel? And why has it been closed up, sealed up tight all these years waiting to be discovered by us, us who got the hint from Hugsy Goode that there might be one?"

"Uh-h," said Tornid. "Maybe they wanted to get out of the snow?"

I said, "You're right, Torny, old boy, old boy. You're pretty bright, and you should skip a few classes, get into some V.R.A. (Very Rapid Advancement) class and come on along up with me in Grade Six."

Tornid laughed. His eyes shone. "I got four A's, three B's," he said.

"Well, Torny, as you were saying, '...get out of the snow.' You ever heard of the great blizzard of '88? People still talking about it, and these houses were built before that. That's why they should be landmarks. You heard about that famous blizzard, Torny, old boy, old boy?"

"No. I was born in Arlington, Mass. 02871, on 8 Howe Street at two o'clock in the morning, and they don't talk about famous blizzards there ... they talk about famous hurricanes. And I was born in one. It was named after some
gril.
"

I said, "Well, this tunnel was built in the age of the great blizzards, not great hurricanes. Old people and young people of that antique time could sit down there, have a cup of tea, visit with each other, sit in the Throne of Hugsy the Goode, not born yet, take turns and rest, before wending their way down the alley tunnel to where it wends. Mrs. Harrington would have been young then, Miss Land, too, another ancient lady of the Alley, a teller of stories and a foreteller of fortunes by tea leaves. They could have their cookies and tea and Mrs. Harrington wind her string amassing her fortune, and Miss Land
telling
her her fortune by the tea leaves, and they could talk or guess, maybe, how many feet the new blizzard up top would be, hope it would beat the biggest so far, the blizzard of '88."

Tornid said, "You mean this underground alley was just for old ladies to sit and wind string in? And talk? An old ladies' tunnel, not for sewing ... my gram sews ... but for winding string? No boys allowed, maybe?"

"Oh, no," I said. "It was for everybody. Perhaps the men, old and young, bowled, sending the balls all the way to the end ... and the boys played miggles..."

Tornid said, "How did they see?"

I said, "Not gaslight. Too dangerous ... get asphyxiated."

"Kerosene lamps?" said Tornid. "Like Uncle John's farm in Maine?"

"Too dangerous," I said. "By candlelight, cluck. Candlelight. This college has always been hipped on candles. Candlelight ceremonies ... yop, that's it. Candlelight ceremonies are part of the past, present, and future of Grandby College. Miss Land ... she writes poems ... she made up a song about it all, and they sing the candle song every chance they get."

"Don't sing it," said Tornid. "Because it's day ... on top."

"How can I sing it, cluck! I don't know the words of it. They might have crowned the Snow Queen at Hugsy's throne, in bad weather above ... they have to crown a new one every year..." I said.

"It would be nice to parade through the tunnel with lighted candles singing the candlelight song. Carols, too. Down there in the creepy dark, you don't know whether it's Christmastime or what. It's just tunnel time," said Tornid.

"Well," I said. "Now we'd know because we have the watches that tell the day..."

"Those were the days, though," said Tornid. "The olden days of the tunnel. Carols above in good weather, carols below in any weather, all gather in the Circle, if there is a Circle, at the end..."

I said, "Well, we'll find out all those things, including information about the sayer of the words,
DON'T SIT IN THAT CHAIR
! That sayer may have been the guy who scared the antique ladies and all the others out ... in olden days. The Snow Queen might have been about to sit down, having been crowned by the then president, and the Voice spoke,
DON'T SIT IN THAT CHAIR
. So everybody fled, had the tunnel sealed up, and no more candlelight processions. Well, we have to rescue the tunnel from the voice of the chair ... worse than ordinary smoogmen ... may be the chief smoogman. That's what we have to find out ... so the tunnel can be used again."

Tornid said, "You mean we really are going back down in the tunnel ... again?"

I said, "Of course we are, cluck, and
right now.
"

"That's what I thought," said Tornid. "Because we have the watches now, and if we get caught, we will know the day ... mine still says Saturday..."

A great guy, Tornid is. What other boy, aside from me, would have the courage to go down into the alley tunnel after that creepy voice saying those creepy words?

"Come on, Tornid," I said.

"
Courage, mon ami,
" he said.

We slid down from the tree house, and we listened. No sound or sign of the moms. Napping, probably. Job Lots expeditions are wonderful but tiring. All that strange garb the moms try on, studying which will make the biggest hit when they come home, put it on, and pay a surprise visit to Jane Ives or Cornelia Crane, Lucy's mom. Cornelia also appreciates strange garb and sometimes even goes to Job Lots with them, encouraging them to buy some dusty wig or a dress of olden times—the twenties—with fringes or feathers.