Now he was climbing again; the passage curved and was going up, not down. He was able to stand but desperately needed both hands to steady himself as he crawled over boulders. He paused once to place an arrow, then chose the direction of the dropping water, sensing that the cavern was opening up the farther he went. But then, around the next boulder, he faced it again: a solid wall of rock, as if to say, End of the line, Buck. You shouldn’t be here. How many times do we have to tell you?
He leaned one hand against the rocky surface on his left, panting, huffing out his disappointment. But he could hear…He could feel…Yes! The draft was stronger here, much stronger, so it must be coming from someplace!
He sank to his knees, giving his thighs a rest, and trained the flashlight on the wall to his left, foot by foot, inch by inch. Then the right. There was a ripple in the rock on this side, he discovered, so he began crawling forward, dragging one hand along the rock, looking for any hole large enough to channel the draft through.
And then, just beyond the ripple, the wall seemed to disappear. When Buck trained the flashlight on it, he discovered an opening the size of a closet door—a narrow, vertical drop-off, but how far down it led, he didn’t know.
I knew there was more! he told himself, even as the realization hit that if he had used up his last battery and been wandering here in the dark, he could have walked right off into the space.
His mouth dry, heart pounding, Buck lay down on his stomach and inched his way to the edge of the shaft. A rush of air met his cheek, and a musty scent assaulted his nostrils. Carefully, leaning over as far as he dared, he directed the beam of light straight down. Perhaps fifteen feet below, there was a shelf of rock, but beyond that, the channel went down even farther, and the plip, plip…aplop was loudest of all.
“Yes!” he said softly, as if his discovery might scare it away. He had to explore it. If only David could come down for a weekend and do it with him!
He felt something move in the breast pocket of the overalls, and suddenly he realized that the Skittles were falling out of the box and into the hole below.
Buck jerked himself upright, slapping one hand over the box to preserve what were left. He couldn’t quite believe his carelessness. What if those had been batteries? What if they had been glow sticks, or an extra flashlight? Water? He couldn’t afford mistakes like this when he came again. He just couldn’t.
He took another look around him, then glanced at his watch.
Four-fifty-two. No! How could this be? It seemed only a half hour or so that he had started on this second journey. How could he possibly get home now before five-thirty? Six, even. He was filthy! He turned around and plunged back into the passageway.
WHONK!
Ouch! His head again. That one probably put a dent in his helmet. He had to pay attention now. If he was late, he was late. But he couldn’t be lost.
It was almost five-fifteen when he came to the arrow he had placed on the rock. From here on, the passageway was familiar territory, and when he finally saw his first glimpse of daylight, and better yet, when he popped up out of the hole at ten of six, his eyes could not take the brightness. The sky was overcast, but still it took a while for his eyes to adjust.
He took a minute to see the world through his spread fingers, squinting, as the sweet smell of grass seemed to saturate the air.
Buck looked himself over. It wasn’t just the overalls that were muddy; his legs and arms were streaked with dirt and clay. He took off the overalls and hid them in a plastic bag he had brought, tucked it under one of the rocks. Then he put on the clean T-shirt, headed back through the meadow to his bike, and stopped at a creek several miles away to wash off what he could. All the while he thought of the excuses he’d make. Nobody would want him at the table looking as he did.
•••
He was right about that.
It was almost six-forty-five when he walked in the back door.
“Will ya look at that!” Gramps exclaimed, lowering the sparerib in his hand.
“What on God’s green earth happened to you?” his mom said. “You look like you went down a mudslide.”
Buck tried smiling a little. “S…something like that,” he said.
“You find a good bike trail?” asked Katie.
“N…no, but I tried. Just t…took a mean s…s…skid.”
“Break any bones?” asked Dad.
“Don’t think so….”
“Well, go shower, then,” his dad said, more gruffly this time. “You can’t come to the table like that. You know what time it is, don’t you?”
“Yeah. I’m sorry. Had to rescue my b…bike.”
“Why didn’t you call? You’ve got yourself a cell phone now,” Mom said.
“Didn’t think to t…take it,” Buck told her, and realized that from now on, he had to, even though the Hole was a no-service area, for sure.
Joel didn’t say anything, just gave him a puzzled look, and Buck went on upstairs before anyone could think of something else to ask him.
Buck: dude, i went back
David: in the hole? how far you get?
Buck: don’t know was in it 5 hours
David: jeez, buck!!!!!
Buck: i know all that way and i come 2 a dead end but then i went another place that led to a drop-off and i could see far down there’s water dripping
David: buck listen u leave a note like i said?
Buck: yes
David: man what i’d give to b back there right now
Buck: any chance?
David: zilch next week mom and i are going 2 my uncle’s up in vermont. i’ve been accepted as a junior counselor in a day camp the first 2 weeks of august then grandma’s coming to visit and after that i’ve got survival camp don’t u get stuck in there while i’m away
Buck: i don’t want 2 get stuck either. i’m careful. i had 2 go 20 minutes crawling backwards at that dead end because there wasn’t room 2 turn around. i’m not taking any chances like that
David: so what’s it like? what do u see?
Buck: a possum’s skull, mud, clay, mold came home all filthy tonight and they thought my bike rolled down a ravine
David: and how many more times can that happen before they suspect?
Buck: none
A carnival was coming to town the middle of August. Fergus Brothers Fabulous promised fourteen different rides, as well as the Human Scarecrow, Fortunes of Fate, cotton candy, strawberry slushies, and more.
It came every year, and always in the same place—the large field behind the Super G market that had been closed for over a decade. There were Fergus Brothers Fabulous posters, however, plastered all over the store’s grimy windows, and on a sweltering seventh of July, Buck and Nat stood in front of one of them trying to decide if the most distant ride in the background was part of a Ferris wheel or a roller coaster.
“I like bumper cars. They always have those,” Nat said. His dark red hair clung to his forehead. The back of his neck was sunburned, and he shielded it with one hand. He and Buck both were sweaty from a bike ride in the afternoon heat.
“There’s n…never been a roller coaster,” Buck said. “But I hope they s…s…still have the Loop-the-loop.”
“Not me!” said Nat. “Any time I go upside down I get sick.”
“Remind me n…never to sit below you,” Buck told him.
“You going opening night?”
“Sure. G…go with us, if you want,” Buck said. “My brother will d…drive.”
•••
The next evening, when Buck plunked down beside Katie on the porch, she put her magazine aside and, placing her hands on each of her thighs, spread her fingers wide. “Look,” she said, grinning.
He looked at her brightly painted nails, each one a different color, and saw that—beginning with the pinkie on one hand, thumb on the other—every nail had an elaborate letter painted on it: C-O-L-B-Y, C-O-L-B-Y.
Buck rolled his eyes and she giggled.
“So,
C…Colby got your name tattooed on his backside?”
She swatted his arm. “How would I know?”
“Mom notice?”
“No. And she just thinks he’s a friend.” Katie dug her heels into the floorboards and the glider slid back and forth, a high squeak with each forward movement, and Buck helped a little.
“It’s not fair, you know?” Katie said, folding her hands over her stomach, fingers interlaced. “What’s so magical about sixteen that I can’t have a boyfriend till then?”
Buck shrugged. “Search me.”
“Is there anything you have to wait until sixteen to do?”
Probably couldn’t have a girlfriend till then, not that he wanted one. They both had to wait until they were sixteen to drive, but he’d known a few boys of fifteen or even fourteen who drove their dads’ cars or pickups on short errands around town, and nobody stopped them. “N…nothing I can think of,” he said.
“That’s because you already have an older brother,” said Katie.
“What’s that g…got to do with it?”
“If I had an older sister, she’d pave the way for me. She’d fight all the battles about when she could have a boyfriend or wear makeup, and how late she could stay out. Then when I came along, it would be a done deal. Instead, I’ve got to fight them all myself.”
Buck laughed and pointed to her fingernails. “That’s a start.” And when she didn’t respond, he said, “You’ll see Colby at the c…carnival, right? You can be with him then.”
“Yes! And I’m going on every single ride that he does. I’ll tell Mom I’m with Amy and Sara. They’ll be there too, so it’s not a real lie. Okay?”
“Don’t need to ask m…my permission,” said Buck. What he was hoping was that he could be hired at the carnival as one of the helpers—set up bottles at the ball toss, wipe off the horses on the merry-go-round….There were a number of two-dollar-a-day jobs the carnival offered kids twelve and over, just to make a community happy and get the folks coming.
He actually hoped he’d have the money to buy the headlamp soon, long before summer was over, but if he wanted a good one—and he didn’t want to waste his money on something cheap that didn’t work right—it would be around forty dollars, counting postage and handling. He’d already found the one he wanted online, with LED lights and night vision. It might take a few more weeks, a few more rows to hoe, a few more Friday five-dollar bills from Jacob, before he’d have enough—he’d been spending too much on soda and snacks and movies at the Palace. The real problem was how he could order it, since he’d need something he didn’t have—a credit card.
•••
The next day there was another letter in Jacob’s box from the woman who had written before. Buck recognized the handwriting when he pulled the envelope, along with bills and catalogs, from the box: Karen Wall Schuster, read the sticker in the upper left-hand corner. Beside Jacob’s name in the address, she had written Personal and underlined it.
Buck tried not to look at it as he shuffled the envelope into the small clutch of mail he carried to the house and gave to Jacob when he went in.
Jacob glanced at the envelope and laid it aside without comment. “Let’s get to work” was all he said.
So far, the hardest part of Jacob’s therapy was getting over here three times a week without anyone asking where he was going. They understood he liked to ride around on his bike, though—the only form of transportation for anyone who couldn’t drive—and summer was the time to be with your friends, always something going on at the grassy median in the middle of Center Street.
“That boy sure does like to be out and about,” Gramps said of him once to Mom. “One way to catch a breeze.”
If there was improvement in his speech, Buck couldn’t tell yet. Jacob never praised him for reading a sentence through without stuttering, only when he “stuttered well,” as Jacob put it, meaning easily, effortlessly, without all the facial contortions and jaw clenching, the shoulder shifting and eye blinking, or any of the other little mannerisms Buck had used unconsciously to take the attention off his lips and tongue. The only way he was able to tell what he was doing was to watch himself in a mirror while he read, and then, only if someone else was listening. As Jacob said, “It takes two to stutter—one to talk and one to listen.”
He also found that he could dispense with the warm-oil-sliding-over-the-head-bit and get right to the ploh, ploh, ploh. When he knew what to look for—what to feel—it was easier to relax the right muscles. The big leather armchair across from Jacob was beginning to look more friendly. Welcoming, even.
And today, he was an exceptionally good student. Jacob asked him to say, “I’ll be returning to school on September third,” and, as always, to begin stuttering on a word when Jacob raised a finger, and to continue to stutter until the finger went down. Buck referred to it as the “giving me the finger” game.
He sat in front of the big mirror, his eyes on Jacob right behind it.
“I’ll b…be returning…”—the finger went up—“…t…t…t…t…”
“Don’t fight it,” Jacob reminded him. “Loosen your jaw and let it come out easy, Buck.”
“…t…t…t…tttttttttt…”
“Good!” The finger went down.
“…to”—finger up—“…sssssssssss…”—finger down—“school on”—finger up—“SSSSSSSSSSSSSSS”—finger down—“SSSSeptember third.”
For the first half hour, they worked on stuttering more easily, as they usually did. Then Jacob reached around behind him, picked up the phone, and set it on the stool beside Buck.
Instantly Buck tensed. It was only a simple telephone with black numbers on white buttons. But Buck would have preferred a snake coiled there beside him. He watched as Jacob adjusted his glasses and fumbled with the phone directory.
“I want you to dial this number—it’s a pizza place—and ask the price of a large cheese pizza. But I want you to stutter and hold it whenever I raise my finger, no matter how long I keep it up.”
Was he insane? Buck wondered. Just asking the question was torture enough, without purposely stuttering and holding it forever.
“Nice and easy,” Jacob said. “Just give me that slow, effortless stutter you were doing a while ago before I lowered my finger and you could go on.”
Buck felt himself bending stiffly toward the phone, felt his hand grip it, his index finger punching out the numbers as Jacob read them off. Saliva gathered in his mouth, making him swallow in a sudden frantic gulp, when a loud voice on the other end of the line said, “Mario’s. Help you?”
Buck’s mouth felt like a steel trap and he worked to unclench his jaws. His teeth rattled. He could hear them clicking against each other. Jacob was nodding at him.
“Mario’s!” the voice on the phone said more loudly. “Can I help you?”
“Y…yes. H…how much is a large…”—the finger went up—“…ch…ch…ch…ch…chchchchchchchch…”
“You want a pizza?”
“Keep stuttering,” Jacob commanded.
“…chchchchchch…”
“Look. Call me when you know what kind you want, okay?” the man said, and hung up.
Buck slammed down the phone and glared at Jacob.
“This is stupid!”
“Actually, it’s real life, Buck. Call them back.”
“What? They hung up on mmmme.”
“Call them back. Sitting here talking with me is one thing. Stuttering freely…easily…without fighting it when you’re out in public is the real world, and that’s what this is all about.”
“In the r…real world…I don’t order p…pizza over the phone,” Buck said hotly.
“And why is that?”
Buck slumped against the back of the chair without answering. Jacob pushed the phone toward him again and gave him the number.
“Mario’s. Can I help you?”
“How mmmmuch is a ch…cheese…”—the finger—“…pppppppppppp”—
the finger went down—“pizza?”
“Large, medium, or small?”
“Large.”
“Six eighty-five, six bucks with a coupon.”
“Th…th…thhhanks,” said Buck, and put the phone down.
Buck was through with this assignment, but Jacob wasn’t. “Here’s another. It’s a dry cleaner’s. Just ask what time they close.”
Annoyed, Buck punched in the number Jacob gave him and took a deep breath.
“Don’t hold your breath. It’s not an execution.”
“Not to you, mmmmaybe,” Buck said.
The phone rang twice and a cheerful woman answered. “Valley Dry Cleaners.”
“W…what t…t…time do you…?” He’d almost made it when Jacob held up his finger. “Cl…cl…cl…?”
The woman made it easy for him. Too easy. “Close? Six o’clock,” she said.
“Thanks,” Buck told her, and pressed Off.
“Wasn’t so hard, was it?” Jacob thumbed through the yellow pages of the short directory again. “Here’s a service station.”
“Aw, come on!” Buck said irritably.
“You don’t have a choice, sailor,” Jacob said.
Glowering, Buck picked up the handset.
“Ask the price of super unleaded,” said Jacob. He read the number and Buck punched the keys.
The phone rang several times, which probably meant someone was super busy. But finally, “Ed’s Gulf,” came a familiar voice. “Can I help you?”
It was Ed Ketterman’s service station, and this was the unmistakable voice of Pukeman Pete himself. Probably there helping his dad.
“W…w…what’s the p…p…price of…” The finger. “S…s…s…s…s…s…s…s…super.”
“Who’s this? Buck?”
Buck looked helplessly at Jacob, but Jacob thrust his finger forward, meaning to keep at it.
“Ssssssss…”