The Tunnel of Hugsy Goode (24 page)

By this time Tornid and me coming from down the Alley, and the guy, limping, coming from up it, were close to each other. I shone my light up at him. He had to stoop over he was so tall, too tall for a six-feet-high tunnel, and they must not have used to grow people that tall except for Abraham Lincoln or they would have made the tunnel higher while they were at it.

"You really Hugsy Goode?" I asked.

"Hugh Z. Goode," he said. "Same difference."

This being a saying of the Alley, we were now convinced, and it was very pleasant to have company in the under alley. "How come you didn't recognize your own tunnel?" I asked.

"I didn't have any matches or any kind of light. And how come it's my own tunnel?" he asked.

So we told Hugsy how it was because of him, the words he had said once—that there probably was a tunnel under the Alley—that Tornid and me decided to find it. We had lots of time, there was a strike on at school, and we didn't have to go, which was convenient.

"No one but us, Tornid and me, and now you, know about this tunnel so far ... oh, and Racky. We don't know yet whether there are any inhabitants down here—smoogmen, skeleton-makers, or what. But so far we haven't met up with any of them, though they might be watching us all right now, from one of the dens or offices..." I said.

"Cripes!" said Hugsy. "Fantastic!" he said, and his voice cracked, he was so amazed. "It's just like the Alley on top?" he asked.

"Yes," I said.

"Like looking in a pond and seeing a reflection of the Alley..." he said.

"Only we're right side up," said Tornid.

"I hope so," said Hugsy. "But let's get out of this creepy place."

Hugsy's ankle hurt him, so I gave him my shillelagh to lean on, and Tornid gave him his to feel the wall with if he wanted to feel the wall.

I said, "This small passage is the J.I. passageway—J.I., named for Jane Ives..."

"Oh, I remember her," said Hugsy. "And Connie ... wonder where she is..."

"Out," I said. "And this J.I. passageway leads under Story Street and all the way to Memorial Hall and goes on to the library."

Suddenly Hugsy's ankle felt better. Hearing the old landmarks mentioned, he felt as though he were near to civilization. He didn't have a see-in-the-dark watch with days on it and also a compass. "What time is it?" he said.

"After ten," I said. "We have to get back."

"What day is it?" asked Hugsy.

"Sunday," I said.

"Still Sunday, at least," he said. "Cripes, even so, I've been down here a couple of hours."

"I know it," I said. "We saw you ... it was around nine o'clock ... on the chair..."

"Saw me? And left me down here?" he screamed.

"We thought you were a phantom or a skeleton-maker..." I said. "I'm sorry."

"OK," said Hugsy. "But I sure never expected to slide down a hole in my own old-time hidey hole when all I was doing was remembering old times. Cripes! Now I know how Alice felt in the rabbit hole." He pinched himself. "You sure this is all real?" he asked. "I did bang my head ... this tunnel's too low.... You sure this isn't a dream?"

"Oh, no," said Tornid. "It's real because we're here."

Then Hugsy said how, in a daze, after falling into this place and knocking his head on the top of it, he had stumbled along and stumbled upon this chair, and it gave him courage. A chair must be somewhere, he thought, where people are. So he wriggled his way into it ... and fellows ... it was dark! Then he felt he was sitting on something, and he felt it all over and he said, "I once had a mini tape recorder, and I pushed the button, and darn if this thing didn't start saying things, so I added my two cents, hoping I'd be heard by somebody who'd come and get me out of here." He felt his head. "I might have a concussion," he said. But he said he felt OK and that he would like to follow through the J.I. passageway and see where the entire thing wound up, since, according to us, he had been the thinker-upper of the tunnel in the first place.

"We've named the tunnel—the Tunnel of Hugsy Goode," said Tornid.

"Well ... gee ... thanks," said Hugsy the Great.

So we all headed down the J.I. passageway. We knew our parents, though worried and not even hearing Minny giving out reassuring messages, would soon feel very happy when they learned we had found and rescued Hugsy Goode, who'd missed his date in Paterson, N.J. Now, the only thing wrong was that I didn't have the mini tape recorder to hand over to Contamination Blue-Eyes. "Let's call it quits," I'd say, "us calling you and Black-Eyes 'Contamination.'" "OK with me," she'd say. Now, I couldn't do that. She would still think I had stolen it and hidden it some strange somewhere. Anyway, a real alive missing person, six feet, three inches high is more important than a mini tape recorder, and they'd all have to be satisfied with that ... just plain Hugsy Goode.

On the way up Passageway J.I. to the door marked Memorial Hall, Hugsy said, "I never did like dark tunnels." And he said, "I have always had a sort of claustrophobia." And he said, "Ow," often because he would forget to stoop. And he said, "You sure you know where we're going?"

Finally we reached the door. Triumphantly I shone my light on the sign on the heavy door labeled Memorial Hall. Tornid and me hadn't locked the door when we were here before and I didn't need my key, and this time it swung open more easily. We went at a fast clip now to get to the door marked Library. I tried to open that door. Yechh! It was locked. Someone had come along and locked it—we hoped it was Tweedy. But ... it might have been someone or other on this side, not the library side, that had locked it. I felt uneasy. I searched my gunny sack for the big key. Gone! It might have fallen out in the Iveses' ivy.

No matter what, we had to go back the way we had come, through Passageway J.I. and to the Throne of King Hugsy the Goode. No need to be scared, I said to myself, with the real Hugsy along with us ... just so long as no one has blocked up our only escape route that we knew about ... the hole into the hidey hole. Because now we didn't even have the mini tape to send up SOS calls. Well ... there were still our own voices and the jump-rope chants—that's something. But I felt scared. I hoped Hugsy didn't. I flashed my light on the wall in the J.I. passageway where I had written "
Courage, mon ami.
" Hugsy said, "Very good French ... not one mistake."

But I was scared. I thought I heard sounds. So, before going out into the main part of the under alley, while still in the J.I. passageway but at its beginning, I said, "Lie low, fellows. I think I hear something, something from up near ... I think ... the Circle." A sickening feeling of foreboding swept over me. Here I was about to rescue a real live Hugsy Goode. Instead, now here the three of us were, about to face an unknown new peril.

I spread my arms across the entrance of the narrow J.I. passageway so my friends would not panic and race into some trap, some unknown danger. I covered my light with my sweat shirt and turned it backwards, not into the main tunnel. Suddenly we heard, we all heard, the sound of music.

"Ha-ha," said Hugsy, and gave a nervous chuckle. "Where's that music coming from?"

"Must be the mini tape," I said, and gave a nervous chuckle myself.

"Racky must have come back to the throne and somehow set Minny going again. He is a smart and sport raccoon," said Tornid.

"Doesn't sound like anything that was on the tape before," I said. "Unless you sang into it, did you?" I asked Hugsy. I didn't know whether to call him Hugh or Hugsy or Mr. Goode or what, so I didn't call him by name.

"Sing! Ha-ha," was all he said.

"Sounds like a choir, or something ... a ghost choir, maybe," I said.

"Hey," said Hugsy Goode. "This whole trip is giving me the creeps, and I have a date in Paterson.... Let's get out of here. Let's run for it."

We couldn't run, though. Hugsy's ankle still hurt too much. Anyway, the music sounded louder. The acoustics were almost too good down here ... we could be drenched in music. I was scared. I turned off my flashlight and stuck my head out in the main under alley. I didn't see anything. I turned my light on again and flashed it at the psychedelic head. There was a word written in just plain white chalk under the head, and the word was
HA-HA
. Tornid and me had not written that word.

Hugsy's foot hurt, his head ached, his neck ached from stooping. He sat down on the floor a minute to rest. He didn't think there was anything odd about seeing
HA-HA
on a wall. Said people are always writing
HA-HA
and other words on walls. He just hadn't taken it in that, so far, only me and Tornid and, now, him knew about this tunnel. I began to get mad. Some nervy guy had written
HA-HA
in lots of places on my wall. When I flashed my light to right and left, I saw that everywhere Tornid and me had drawn an important arrow or direction ... so many feet to here, or to there—someone had written
HA-HA.

"The skeleton-maker?" asked Tornid.

"Doesn't seem like something a maker of skeletons would do—write lots of ha-ha's on Hugsy Goode's wall, and not even in good chalk, not psychedelic chalk, just plain chalk. Besides, where's the mini tape recorder, anyway? Where'd Racky go with it?" I said.

Hugsy said, "If Racky is as much of a sport raccoon as you've made out—likes the underworld better than the world on top—maybe he could have written
HA-HA,
too, and also recorded a choir of those guys—whatcha call 'em—smoogmen, a choir of the under alley."

This sounded like the old Hugsy Goode, the boy I remembered from long ago who'd had the ESP about the tunnel, and not some college guy with a sore ankle and a bumped head, late for a date in Paterson, N.J. I listened carefully to what he said for some sign of the old ESP.

Then my flashlight conked out—battery gone. All we had now was Tornid's feeble one. If we wanted to get back, we should go now before his conked out, too.

I said, out of respect for possible ESP of Hugsy Goode, "If that music we hear from far away is really a choir of smoogmen, it shows—it
is
still Sunday—that they are in their music den, making music and not dangerous now. Am I right?" I asked Hugsy.

"Sounds right," said Hugsy. And he said, "You and your friend are good explorers, good charterers of expeditions."

"Like Mr. Jenks and Mr. Lee," said Tornid. He laughed his first laugh. He felt safe. In the dark he could almost think Hugsy was his father—he was that tall. And home was just around two corners—no, three, and then his mom and his dad.

"Do you think you can walk, hobble, now?" I asked Hugsy. "Or I could get my dad to help. We're going to tell them about the tunnel the minute we get up ... will they ever be surprised!"

"Great!" said Hugsy. He stood up. "I do want to be on my way ... date in..."

He didn't finish. From up the under alley, the Circle end again, there came words now, not music now, not smoogmen choir. These were real live words spoken by live somebodies ... perhaps thieves who'd stolen rare books from the Grandby Library. That new thought struck me now. Someone had locked the library door to the tunnel. Who? Book thieves?

"Get behind me," I said to Tornid and Hugsy again. I was determined, now that we had found Hugsy alive, to get him back alive. "My shillelagh," I said. Hugsy handed me mine. "Lie low, you guys," I said. "Don't say anything, not even anything funny."

Then I whispered to Hugsy Goode, "Me and Tornid never met up with anybody down here before you..."

Suddenly a whole lot of lights came twinkling on, way up at the Circle end of the tunnel. We couldn't see who was behind the lights. "Turn your light off," I told Tornid. He did. All three of us ... never mind the generation gap ... crouched in the dark entranceway marked J.I., hoping the invaders—or tunnel occupants—would not come our way.

Now. Now, I thought, now we'll see who occupies this tunnel. Having a college boy with us, beard and all, even one with a twisted ankle and bumped head, I felt brave. "
Courage, mon ami,
" I whispered.

Tornid and me and Hugsy Goode—we were still crouching down close to the J.I. wall—we lay low and listened.

"Sh-sh-sh," said a voice. "They went in there..."

"You must have been mistaken, Beatrice. You always think you hear sounds ... even in the attic, let alone a neat tunnel like this."

A familiar voice, but it might be a put on—smoogmen imitating voices from the world above to deceive us. The next comment persuaded me it was not a put on.

This voice said, "No, Izzie. I'm zure I heard zoundz. Not the mini tape ... we have that, and it iz played out, nothing after it zaid, 'Get me out of here.'"

That was the voice of black-eyed
gril.
Fright had brought on a relapse into the "z" habit.

A quavering voice said, "I wish I hadn't come."

"Play it's Halloween, only without a moon. And I am a ghost," said a little whispering voice.

"Holly!" I whispered to Tornid.