The Tunnel of Hugsy Goode (22 page)

We couldn't take time, now, to examine any of the interesting things down here (they keep the best of everything in libraries in the cellar, like people do in houses—we do anyway). Besides, we didn't have permission. So we tiptoed past Mr. Tweedy, who slept on, and we tiptoed up the marble stairs to the main floor. The library was still open, students coming in and going out. Instead of going right out, I had the brilliant idea of borrowing two books from the children's collection. We each took one, not even looking at what they were, and took them to the desk to be stamped. They were our alibi, proof we had been in the library.

The man at the desk was a student—his name is Stan—and he lives in the Stuarts' attic. He recognized us, and he did not ask what we were doing over there at this time of night—it was a quarter past nine—and he charged the books out to us. We said, "Thank you." He did not answer. That is a privilege when you get to be nineteen, not to answer and say you're welcome. Showing the lady at the turnstile our books, that they were stamped with this day and year, we went slowly, but twice, through the turnstile to act natural, like kids, and went out.

Here we were then, in out-a-doors nighttime—the seven sisters visible now in the sky—having come all the way from Tornid's hidey hole through Hugsy Goode's tunnel and ending up here on the library porch named the "Canterbury Porch," a copy of one that's over in the real Canterbury, England. John Ives said so. He'd seen it. So had Jane and Connie. All had seen the real porch.

Then with our stamped-out books we tore across the Mall to Story Street. You can't get into the Alley without going through one of the houses, and we didn't have a front-door key. We could have climbed over the Alley gate, but we'd be seen, and anyway we wanted to come in through a front door to make our alibi, the library, even more convincing than just the books, which we might have borrowed earlier.

So first we hid our shillelaghs and other gear in the thick ivy outside Jane Ives's house to pick up later. No one answered her bell. So we knocked on Mrs. Stuart's door. She is one of the nice mothers ... lets us climb her catalpa tree; even lets us walk across new-fallen snow in her yard now that her sons are too old to care whether or not they have first whack at it.

Mrs. Stuart came to the door and seemed surprised when she saw us. It was late for kids, Tornid especially, to be outside of the Alley. She looked at us suspiciously, the way people in the Alley usually look at me, Tornid, too—because he is my pal.

"Do you mind if we go through your house?" I asked. "Locked out," I said.

"OK," she said. She followed us to the back door. "Been to the library?" she said.

"Yeah," I said. No lie. It was true—see the books?

We went out.

"Thank you," said Tornid. All Fabians always say thank you, sometimes two or three times.

We locked her gate behind us without being asked to, so Atlas Maloon couldn't get in her yard. Then we sauntered down the Alley, books in hand that we had just borrowed from the library ... anyone could see that—they had Grandby Library stamped all over them, with date taken, date due, the rules, etc.... Well, we had a foolproof alibi where we'd been. Ask Stan Woodard, the student at the desk who'd stamped us out. Not over to Myrtle Avenue, no sirree, or other forbidden places. So, up the Alley-oh we sauntered to the drain, flooded by the porch light on Billy Maloon's house that lights up the Alley right and left and straight ahead.

In this flood of light, we saw that practically everybody was there at the drain, the moms, the dads, the
grils,
big and little people. It looked like a ceremony of some sort, ancient druid times, because, for a laugh, the moms had donned their Job Lots garb, their "abas," they called them. That word aba is a real word in the dictionary and means (I'll save you the trouble of looking that word up) a long, loose flowing robe ... neat. The
grils
were all flat on their stomachs again, like the same old spokes of a wheel. Our two moms were bent over them, heads cocked, listening. We came up behind, joined in, unnoticed. We listened to the words that held them enthralled. "Coming, Mother. Coming, Mother..." over and over, the whole recording ending up with..."Get me out of here!"

"The voice of the phantom," I whispered to Tornid. "It really was a phantom, not a mirage. And it knows how to reset the mini tape recorder."

"Yikes!" said Tornid. "I'm glad we got out," he said, and went and stood beside his father, who was standing nearby and talking to my dad.

Maybe, I thought, we hadn't been missed. This happens sometimes. Not so. My mom turned around. She looked at us and she took us in, books and all. She pulled on her right ear—she has long ear lobes and pulls on one when puzzled. "Well," she said. "There you are! Where've you been?" she demanded, the sight of us safe and sound making her mad.

Tornid's mom took the cue ... they follow each other closely. One mad, both mad. And vice versa. "Yes," she echoed sternly. "Timothy! Where were you?"

Jane Ives was there, and she looked puzzled. But she didn't say anything. Mr. John Ives was away at a conference, or he would have explained everything, made it up if he didn't know. My mom kept pulling on her earlobe. You could see she was trying to make it all out.

I wondered if right then and there I should reveal the secret of the tunnel because I was scared about the phantom who could get out at
TRATS
if he wanted to. I didn't know how to begin. The moms' strange garb threw me off, and I still wanted to restore the mini tape recorder to Blue-Eyes ... be a double hero, discover of a tunnel and recoverer of Minny. I waited while I thought what to do.

Tornid's mom said, "You boys look as though you'd seen a ghost ... or heard one. Come on, now, where've you been?"

The flattened-out
grils
stood up. Contamination Blue-Eyes looked bewildered. Contamination Black-Eyes fixed us with her penetrating scrutiny. Then says Contamination Blue-Eyes (you remember that all Fabians are honest and fair even when it hurts), well, Blue-Eyes says woe-begonely, as though now all hope was gone ... she says, "We were wrong, Beatrice. They are not down there, wherever
there
is, with my mini tape recorder. Someone else stole it, someone who says scary things."

Well, Black-Eyes, she said nothing. Since Tornid was a Fabian and born honest, she could not say he had lied about the mini tape recorder. Yet she smelled a rat. It was confusing, even to ourselves, hearing ourselves from down below there, we knew where, though no one else did—and all the while ourselves being up here, alive and well and in the flesh and with two books stamped out a few minutes ago from the Grandby Library if anyone cared to look.

The
grils
did. They looked at the books, examined the dates minutely, and passed them from hand to hand. We saw what the titles were for the first time. Mine was named
A Little Girl's Helpful Hints on Helping Mother.
("Retrogressing," I heard Bayberry mutter, for it was in very large print, and the
grils
snickered in spite of themselves.) Tornid's book was a wow!
Journey to the Center of the Earth.
Tornid and me were stunned at the coincidence, and Tornid's mom looked proud. "A fine book," she said. "And I'm sure you can read it. If not, I'll read it to you."

There the books were all the same, never mind the names, stamped out with today's date on them, and "Fine 2 cts. a day if not returned in 2 wks." Well, Tornid and me didn't have to say anything. The evidence was evident.

I looked at all the people through the lower part of my nonshatterable eyeglasses. There was silence except for the words from below—
GET ME OUT OF HERE
, and
HELP! HELP! SOMEONE PLEASE HELP
! I took advantage of everybody's confusion and said nothing, not that I wasn't pretty confused myself at those hoarse words that kept saying themselves over and over. "Bad as the old days of
DON'T SIT IN THAT CHAIR
," I told myself.

My mom said ... and in her garb, she looked even bigger..."Nicholas! What do you know about Isabel's tape recorder?"

Sternly, Tornid's mom echoed, "Timothy? What do you know?"

Right then and there, I was really practicing in my mind how to begin. Tornid and me might have seen it was fitting and proper—a large part of the population being assembled—to make the revelation, lead the throng, young and old, down into the under alley, lead them in solemn procession, candlelights and all, yet give them a thrill—scare the bee-jeebies out of them with that phantom sitting in the Throne of Hugsy the Goode, amusing himself with Blue-Eyes' Minny, making fools of us all, but—the way things happen! You think you're going to do one thing (I had my mouth open to begin.... "Well," I was going to say, "you remember the time Hugsy Goode said..." and swing into his prophetic words), but then something else happens ... so fast ... and you have to do something else.

A bell rang. And when I say "rang" I mean "rang!" Our front doorbell! You can hear it as far away as Jane Ives's tea kettle, probably over to Myrtle Avenue. My dad went to see who it was. I waited for him to come back so's he'd be present to hear my news. I'd make it flat ... a tunnel ... so what ... sure, a tunnel ... nonchalant.

My dad came back soon with a letter in his hand. "Special delivery," he said. "It's for you, Nicky. I's'pose it's you, though it says, 'Copin.'" He seemed mildly surprised.

I took the letter. It was a long white envelope, important looking, and I don't like the look of this sort of letter. I've had two from P.S. 2 in my lifetime, and the news in neither of them was good. For a time people forgot Minny down below and "Get me out of here," and "Help! Help!" They were curious about my letter.

Well, it is unusual for a boy of the Alley in Grade Six to get a special delivery letter, especially on a Sunday night. And especially when they saw where the letter came from ... Gracie Mansion! For me, all right. Mr. Copin Carroll. It said it on the envelope. The only person outside the Alley who knows my name is "Copin" is the mayor. So, this letter was from the mayor, at last.

"Just a letter from the mayor," I said. "So what!"

I wasn't going to open the letter with all this many people crowding around. Pretending to be angry about nothing special, I stomped into my house followed by Tornid. I took the letter to the dining-room table ... it was clean, no crumbs ... and opened it with a real letter opener—I knew where it was. The letter:

Dear Mr. Carroll:

Your plans suggesting the preservation and the future of the Myrtle Avenue El, naming it and the area all around it a landmark, are creative, imaginative, and intelligent. The 'Myrtle Avenue Feast Line' with a special restaurant in each station is unique. I know of no other such feast line in any city in the world. Let us hope New York can be first in this.

Of special interest, too, is your speculation concerning a lost tunnel in the Borough of Brooklyn. Please keep us posted. And we will let you know what the experts' decisions are regarding the El plan. Let us hope it is not too late. One thing we can be sure of ... it is
not
too late for the Feast Line. With best wishes to your colleague, Tornid Fabian,

Sincerely yours,
Hon. Kenneth M. Woolsey

"Doesn't write his name very well, does he?" said Tornid. "Can't read that name in ink."

"Nope," I said. "Grownups don't write very well. First they learn to write well. Then they get over it. Anyway, you can tell from the envelope, it's not a fake."

Then everybody had to come in and look at the letter. No one had had a letter from the mayor except John Ives. But he gets letters from everybody, the U.S. Senate, the House of Representatives, the governor, besides the mayor, because he writes everybody all the time about how to vote or how they have voted, and complains or praises, if praise is earned.

"Why'd they send it special delivery?" asked Star.

"Says on the radio," my mom said, "that there might be a postal strike any day ... maybe tomorrow ... and he wanted it to get here."