A large black bear waded across a shallow stream a mile northeast of Big Pine Lodge. Two cute and playful cubs followed her into the water, snapping at each other and biting at the water as well. The mother bear never checked to see if her babies were following her. Maybe she knew from their sounds or their scent or maybe she just knew because they hadn’t been more than a hundred feet away from her since they came out of hibernation four months ago. She had traveled farther from her cave than ever before in her quest for more and more food. Something was drawing her southwest, perhaps a whiff of wild blueberries reaching the end of their ripening in this warm July weather. Or perhaps she could smell the rotting fish guts that Mr. Jackson regularly threw out for the raccoons after he cleaned fish caught by the lodge’s guests. Whatever the reason, the mother bear was slowly and surely heading for Big Pine Lodge as if she were a regular guest with a standing reservation.
Missy and Kevin stood like statues listening to the two jerks above them struggle to drag a rusty old wood stove over the trap door. Ricky and Lonnie laughed loudly and made a point of stomping out of the cottage and slamming the door. They laughed their way to the shore where they picked up the paddles and helped themselves to the canoe. They took their time returning to the lodge, paddling slowly along the shore instead of cutting across the lake, glancing back at the stone cottage from time to time and laughing their heads off.
“They’re gone,” Kevin said, “but their stupid brothers are down here. Now that our eyes have adjusted to the dark maybe we can see the glow of their lighters and know which tunnel they took.”
Missy nodded though Kevin could not see that, then she whispered, “I still have the little flashlight. We can take the tunnels under the lake and come up through the trapdoor in the lodge’s playroom.” They had discovered this entrance the first week of the summer. Though Kevin had shown Missy the secret staircase to the attic, it was Missy who had found a strange key in the attic. That key had opened the playroom’s hidden trap door down to the caves. The cave tunnels ran like a maze under the lodge and the lake and the high hill beyond. There were two other ways out up through Mount Rocky, as they called that high hill, but that would mean a longer walk home.
Kevin started moving forward out of the cellar and into the dank dark cave. He felt his way with his hands on the cold stone walls. Missy held one arm out in front of herself, her fingertips brushing against Kevin’s back, and her other hand against the stone walls. They took baby steps and rounded the corner. At first it was darker still. There had been a little light seeping through the slats of the trapdoor, but now it was total and complete blackness. They kept up the baby steps. Kevin had impressed Missy the first time they came down here with how well he knew the caves. He never seemed to get lost. Once he had been trapped down here by some awful people who were trying to keep the valuable pictograms undiscovered. He had made his way through the tunnel maze, marking his path choices so he wouldn’t keep going in circles, until finally he reached one of the Mount Rocky exits where Missy and her friend, Jessica, opened an invisible door and rescued him. But now their first concern was avoiding the two older boys who would certainly be meaner than their brothers.
Rob and Dave had entered the caves in a rush to catch their younger brothers and had not seen the box of flashlights. As soon as they had turned the first corner into the tunnels the light from above had vanished and Rob had whipped out his cigarette lighter.
Dave cursed when he remembered that his brother hadn’t given him back his lighter when he was smoking in the car. “They’ve got my lighter. They’re probably way ahead by now,” he said in a low voice. “Give me your lighter. I’ll lead.”
Dave grabbed Rob’s hand and almost burned himself taking possession of the lighter. He moved out in front and started the chase, stopping every little while to close the lighter to try to see another glow and to listen for voices. They were well out of earshot when Missy and Kevin entered the caves, but that would change because they had taken a tunnel that led under the lake, exactly where Missy and Kevin needed to go.
Out on the lake Lonnie and Ricky were having second thoughts. They didn’t care about imprisoning the little kids, but their brothers were going to beat them up bad if they figured out that they were responsible for trapping them.
“Maybe we should go back and move the stove,” Ricky said. “We can tell them that we were trapped, too, and some other lodge guests let us out.”
Lonnie thought about that for a while. “Nah,” he said, “they’d figure out that was a lie, ‘cuz how did we get out and the stove is still there?”
They paddled some more. Ricky was thinking that Lonnie didn’t make a lot of sense and his own idea was all right, but he didn’t want to get into an argument with him. Though Lonnie was small he was a mean little fighter and if Ricky challenged Lonnie’s reasoning Lonnie might just tip the canoe over in anger. The sun shone down intensely, not a cloud in the sky. A crow cawed loudly and flew from one tree top to another before Ricky ventured another solution: “What if we say that we found another way out and then when they make us go down to the tunnels to show it to them we just act stupid and lost and can’t find it again.”
“Yeah, but they’ll want to know where it came out up here.”
“Oh, yeah, well . . .” Ricky thought some more. He stopped paddling and stared at the clear blue sky then he looked across the lake at the lodge and all the little log cabins. “I know! We’ll say that we came up through a trap door in one of the little cabins and ran out. They won’t dare go in somebody else’s place.”
“Yeah,” Lonnie agreed. “We’ll say it was the first one, the one that old Mr. Stark lives in. Yeah, they’ll believe that.”
They began to paddle again, faster, and headed toward the lodge.
Kevin finally decided that it was safe to turn on the flashlight. He got his bearings and they turned down the tunnel that ran under the lake. One of the first times he brought Missy on this tunnel he had turned out the light to show her just how black it was down here. He knew that if the older brothers were down here they would have to have matches or a lighter to have any chance of finding their way.
They walked without talking. Every time they came to a turn or a fork Kevin stopped and motioned to Missy to listen. Then he turned off the flashlight and they both strained to see any glimmer of light that there might be. They became more and more confident that the older boys had not come in this direction.
“Hey,” Rob said, “we’re gonna get lost down here. We didn’t take any string like we used to, to find our way back.”
“What are you? A sissy?” Dave teased. “Ooo, we’re gonna get lost. Haven’t you noticed the little glow-in-the-dark reflector arrows?”
“Yeah, but they were all pointing the way we came from.”
“Right, you moron, so we can find our way out.” Dave laughed loudly and called Rob several humiliating names. “Come on, little baby, we’ll head back. Lonnie and Ricky must have taken a different tunnel. They’re probably out and in our canoe by now.”
“Shh,” Kevin said, “I hear laughing.” He switched off the light and when their eyes adjusted they could see a faint shimmer. Kevin gave Missy a little push and whispered, “Get back around the corner. They’re coming this way.”
They stumbled and felt their way around the corner then flattened themselves against the rock wall and waited. Missy’s heart started its hummingbird flapping again.