The Tunnel of Hugsy Goode (15 page)

"Garb" is a real word, not one of our code words "brag" spelled backward. If you don't know what a "garb" is, look it up in the dictionary. That's what John Ives says to do when you come upon a strange word in a book. He says, "When I was a boy, I never read a book ... all the works of Dickens, all the works of Sir Walter Scott—how I loved
The Heart of Midlothian
—without a dictionary right beside me."

So, the tired moms were probably napping or trying on their garbs, and the tiny weenie Alleyites were probably napping, too. All along we had worried about a tiny Alleyite, Holly, maybe, climbing into the hidey hole to play and falling through our entranceway into the tunnel. I told Holly there were witches under the squash vines and to pass the word along to Lucy, so they'd stay away, and they had, so far.

No sign of the main
grils,
either ... Beatrice, Isabel, and Star. They were probably busy with whatever they had gotten at Job Lots. The only people around right now were the same two stranger
grils,
still jumping rope, and my sister
gril,
Notesy, who'd joined them. Notesy's dreamy. She doesn't know what's going on half the time, though once she did spot a ten-dollar bill before anyone else that was blowing around a vacant lot on Larrabee Street.

So, it was lucky for us it was dreamy Notesy and not black-eyed
gril
who had come out to play with the new
grils
at the rain drain, because that black-eyed
gril,
for instance—she just does not miss one single trick, no sirree. And if we had not seen her drive off with the others this morning, we would have suspected her of having tracked us, and followed us, and peered down into the tunnel glooming after us—even of having slid down behind us and spoken the creepy words,
DON'T SIT IN THAT CHAIR!

Then, all day, she would have gotten that awful look on her face that means "I know something," then maybe spill it at good-manners mealtime at the Fabians' when it would be potent and be hard to contradict, say, "I know where Tornid and Copin were this morning..."

Yechh!

The two new
grils
have no looks, awful or not on their faces—no smile, no frown. You don't know whether they see you or not. They keep their cool and chew their gum ... rot their teeth. And believe me Tornid and me keep our cool with them, too, because we haven't got their number yet.

All told, it was a good time for Descent No. 2.

"
Courage, mon ami,
" I said. We jumped into the hidey hole, readjusted our gear, balls of string ready to tie, as before, got our shillelaghs in proper position for Descent No. 2, and down we went. The descent was easier this time because now we knew how far it was to down. But it was even scarier because of the words.

Once down, we stayed at T.N.F. a while to see if the sayer of the words would come and get us or was watching us nearby. We were scared, but I said, "I see you. Come out, come out wherever you are!" No one came. We flourished our shillelaghs and flashed our lights everywhere. Then we turned our lights off and examined our neat watches. The hands were large and bright. The compass needle shone, too, and it was still pointing to where, above, north was, toward the Empire State Building. It was still Saturday.

We turned on our lights again and took a minute to admire this man-made tunnel. Now that we were getting to know it, we saw how neat it was. You could carry on business of almost any sort down here, have a store, a school with report cards, a library with hours posted when open—everything you can think of—a mush room for LLIB to grow mushrooms in. Each child could have a den. We could have a little village down here—if only that certain person, the sayer of those creepy words, hadn't gotten here first, maybe had laid claims to it, though he had not named the chair. We had. But we didn't want this Tunnel of Hugsy Goode run by some creepy voice—like a computer. That bugged us.

So, saying the magic words again,
Courage, mon ami,
we proceeded on our creepy journey to where the Throne of Hugsy Goode was located. We kept our beams steady on it. Then, I'm not kidding—ask Tornid—we saw that something was sitting in it. Me and Tornid took root where we were. We kept our flashlights steady on the whatever-it-was to blind it and so it could not see us. You can always sense when something is alive or not. This was alive, man, alive. But it was not human.

If you read as many books as I do every year, you probably have already guessed that this alive thing sitting in Hugsy Goode's chair was ... right ... the raccoon, the unique and, maybe, the one and only raccoon in the whole world who is as curious about the underground as he is about the upper. Probably when he looked in on me and the Fabians that night and saw how cosy it was with people sitting in chairs and eating, he thought this chair down here could be his. He sat there, looking at us from under the arm of the chair, like a raccoon king of the underworld.

The first thought that struck me was this. If a raccoon is as unnatural as this one, who likes the underworld so much he spends all his time here, sometimes sitting in this now famous chair instead of in his shaggy nest in Miss Alderman's tree, maybe he might be unnatural enough to be able to speak the human language—English—too. He
might
have said the words,
DON'T SIT IN THAT CHAIR!

Wrong! Because the words, seeming to come from some presence hovering
above
the chair, like words printed in the balloons in comic books, came again—the same identical words,
DON'T SIT IN THAT CHAIR
! "Sit-in-that" was blurred together and sounded like one word ... sitinthat. Then there came a counting, breathless counting ... one ... two ... three ... four...

"Scram!" I said to Tornid. However high up the numbers were going to go, perhaps ten—that might be the death knell for us. We didn't wait to see if the raccoon scrammed or not. We just plain scrammed as fast as we could, got up and out and back up in the tree house—our second retreat in one day from the Tunnel of Hugsy Goode.

Now, how could we ever go back down there with that creepy voice that'd said the same thing to us twice in one day? Each time it had waited to speak until we got near the chair. We should close up the hole so it couldn't get out and get us. But we didn't want to trap the raccoon down there in case this rare example of a raccoon wanted to get out, too. Cripes! Who wouldn't want to get out, be he raccoon or be he human? Cripes! Who wouldn't?

Tornid said, "It's funny that that raccoon was not scared of the words."

"Maybe he does not understand the human language," I said. "Or ... he's mesmerized. Perhaps rattled."

We sat there in the tree house again, in glumness and in gloom. The Alley was still very quiet. Many small ones watch television at this time. But now there were five
grils
playing jump rope, being perfectly satisfied—I mean it—to play a jump-rope game hours on end, while all the time, right under them, a creepy business goes on.

They wound up one jump-rope song—the one about how many hearses will I have?—and after a rearrangement of who was turning and who was jumping, they began on another. This was a new one to me. The new
grils
must have brought it to the Alley from Staten Island, where they used to live. I'd never heard it. The words gradually seeped into me.

"The king goes here,
The king goes there,
The queen goes here
And everywhere.

"They sit on a throne,
They sit on a chair.
No one else can sit
On that chair.

"Someone tries,
Someone dares.
Then says the king,
DON'T SIT IN THAT CHAIR!

"How many lashes shall he have?
One,
two,
three,
four,
five..."

I said, "Tornid," I said. "You half asleep while the whole plot is unfurling?"

He said, "I'm not sleeping. I'm waking."

I said, "All right. Then what are those clucky
grils
saying as they turn and jump rope?"

"They're counting," said Tornid.

I said, "Now listen carefully, Tornid. Because now, it's another
gril's
turn."

"I am listening," said Tornid. "Carefully."

They got up to
DON'T SIT IN THAT CHAIR
and said it. That's what they said, all right. Tornid's large gray eyes widened. "Hey!" he said. "They been down in the tunnel. In our tunnel! I'm going to tell Mommy! They been scarin' us."

You have to hand it to Tornid with his ESP for figuring things out. Some obscure things are as clear as daylight to him, and without his knowing it, I study every remark he makes for clues or meanings I might miss. Well, that's why he's my pal—forget the age gap. So I thought over what he'd said. All the
grils
might know about us and the tunnel. The new
grils,
being new, could be the top lookout people, while the real
grils
went below. They might even have discovered a different entrance to the tunnel. They might have told the new
grils
about it to show that they were friends and not to be scared because they were new any more ... they were in friendly territory. Neat as this theory was, I could see it was wrong, because the first time we'd heard the words, they'd all been at Job Lots and only the new
grils
had been jumping.

"No, Tornid," I said. "You're not right. The
grils
did not follow us down there. It wouldn't be as creepy if they had, but they couldn't have, what with Job Lots and all. I think I have a clue about the words. Come on. We have to go down again."

"Again?" said Tornid. "You mean to say we have to go down in the tunnel ... again? Three times in one same day?"

"Whassa matter?" I said. "You tired?"

"Me? Tired? I'm never tired. I stay awake all night sometimes, I'm that much never tired."

"Come on, then," I said, and we slid down the slide from the tree house for Descent No. 3.

This time, for Descent No. 3, we left our string and thread behind because they were all tangled again and we didn't need them anyway since this time we planned to go only as far as the Throne of Hugsy the Goode. By now we knew that path very well, could have found it in the dark, ha-ha.

Of course, if my hunch was right about the words, we could keep on with our tunnel exploring. If wrong, back up we would have to go to consider new strategy. Anyway, the psychedelic chalk marks on the walls, arrows pointing this way and that, were more convenient than string. I threw my ball of string down to Dorothy, one of the Fabians' cats, to play with. Tornid saved his for their other cat, George, so there'd be no jealousy.

We slid down the slide. "
Courage, mon ami.
" We said it together and reserved the wish we could have made for when we got back to the upper Alley—if we ever got back. This made two wishes saved in the wish bank.

"I feel creepy," said Tornid. "Twice we heard those same words."

"You won't feel creepy, soon," I said. "In a minute you'll be able to put two and two together."

"How come?" he said.

"You'll see," I said. "I hope..."

We went straight to the chair. The raccoon wasn't there any longer. He must have gone somewhere else into the glooming, because we hadn't seen him come out of the hidey hole and return to his natural habitat, his nest in Miss Alderman's tree.

We stood back to back in front of the chair so our flashlights could be beamed in every direction. We didn't touch the chair, much less sit in it. Then, just as before, came the familiar words...
DON'T SIT IN THAT CHAIR!

They sounded just as muffled and as creepy as before. We listened carefully. "How many lashes shall he have? One..."etc.

"Oh-ho," said Tornid. "It's the jumping
grils.
"

"Right," I said. "Those words are coming from the rope jumpers up there at the drain."

And we were not afraid.

"I'll sit," said Tornid boldly. "They can't lash me, because I'm down here and they're up there."

"Brilliant," I said.

Tornid sat. Then he got up. "There," he said. "I've sat in the Throne of Hugsy the Goode, and nothing happened to me."

Then I sat down.

The whole chant floated down to us. This time, from the z's, I could tell whose voice I heard. Beatrice, the black-eyed
gril.
"Don't zit in that chair..." she said.

Why could Tornid and me hear voices from the upper Alley so clearly through the ceiling of the tunnel that we could even tell what words were said and even who said them? Because up there on top, the drain, at last, after the big rain that created ponds in people's backyards, had been cleared out. It had been a great morning for the teeny ones—reclaiming soggy, soaked stuffed animals, rusty toys, and pieces of dolls, a lovely day with lots of loud accusations and crying and charges and countercharges about who owned what.

Cleaning out the drain, even though, naturally, it does not open into the tunnel, helped the accoustics, and the words sounded good and loud in the tunnel. We deduced the drainpipe up top was located just the other side of the brick wall of the tunnel behind Hugsy's chair, making a good funnel for carrying voices down here.