As the growling grew louder and the snorts produced some foggy, and stinky, hot breaths, I slipped over the side of the cliff. Old Miss or Mrs. Jackson was already below me, going down faster than you’d think an old lady could go.
The crash of the waves below told me when I was near enough to look down. It’s not a good idea to look down before you’re still far enough to break a bone. I caught some good footing and finished the drop by swinging into a cave. Yes, convenient, I know.
“Watch out,” Miss Jackson said as she grabbed me around the waist and kept me from landing in, or rather diving through, the hole in the cave floor. “Now listen.”
The language we heard coming from the steamboat and the raft was really, really old fashioned. Kind of like the black and white movies my grandparents think we like to watch with them.
There was cussing and a whole lot of “the n word”. I was really shocked, but Miss Jackson just kept scribbling notes. My cousin has some really nasty rap stuff he let my brother and me listen to. That is, until mom walked in. Anyway, this sort of sounded like that, but I didn’t think my mom or grandma would have minded this as much. It wasn’t said mean-like or nothing. Somehow it fit.
“Start writing! They trust us. We’re doing good here.” Miss Jackson hissed, thrusting her paper and pencil at me. She turned on her recording device and started capturing the dialogue. I didn’t see the point in my taking notes. I couldn’t write near as fast as she had been, or as well. Still, I got myself out of the tangle of the ropes and gave it my best shot.
It seemed to take hours and when I looked up we weren’t outside at all. We were standing in an old-fashioned farmhouse bedroom, peering out from a crack in the nearly closed closet door. An old woman with a bonnet on her head was shaking her finger at a boy coming out from under the bed, another boy was huddled under the sheets.
“Enough,” Jackson whispered, dropping her device into her bag. She held it open for me to toss in the paper and pencil. Then she stepped back and disappeared through a hole in the floor.
But not before she grabbed my ankle. I flew after her, bumping against the smooth sides of yet another tunnel.
You have finished the first 5 chapters of NICK BAZEBAHL AND THE FORBIDDEN TUNNELS. This book is available in paperback as well as in digital e-book form. The TUNNELS series continues with
NICK BAZEBAHL AND THE RED TUNNELS,
NICK BAZEBAHL AND THE WORMHOLE TUNNELS,
NICK BAZEBAHL AND THE MINING TUNNELS,
NICK BAZEBAHL AND THE CARTOON TUNNELS,
NICK BAZEBAHL AND THE FAKE WITCH TUNNELS, and more.