25
Sage
Four hours buried
I stayed quiet for a long time, waiting until I was pretty sure Ms. Jessa had fallen asleep—and until I didn ’ t hear anymore crunching footsteps or tires above my head. By the time that happened, most of the other kids had fallen asleep, too. Bonnie ’ s fast breathing and sniffles had turned into heavy breathing. She ’ d curled her warm, sticky body into a ball and laid her head in my lap.
Careful not to move too quickly, I nudged her, and she made a soft, squeaky sound and sat up.
I whispered into her ear before she could say anything. “ If we stack the mattresses on top of each other, we ’ ll be able to get a lot closer to the top of the hole,” I said in a whisper that suddenly felt loud in the dark room.
She nodded against my ear, so I kept going.
“ Then we can at least try to listen when they talk. Maybe we could even reach the top of the hole,” I said, forcing my brain to remember the details of what it felt like climbing down the ladder. If each rung was about as thick as the mattresses were wide …
“ Hush, Sage,” Ms. Jessa hissed, and I jumped. She was still awake. “ You need to stop—”
“ You can ’ t make me stop,” I hissed back, standing as tall as my skinny frame would go. Ms. Jessa couldn ’ t see me right now, but I hoped she remembered that I was almost a foot taller than she was—even if I was skinnier. She could probably wrestle me to the ground if she really tried, but I was smart enough to know that scrappier beat bigger any day of the week.
Karen, our calico cat, was at least twice the size of the stray, skinny tomcat that sometimes came into our garage, and she backed down every time that tomcat arched its back and skulked over to eat her food.
I waited for Ms. Jessa to protest, to grab my arm, to tell me I was being reckless and putting everybody in danger, same as she had before. To my surprise, though, she didn ’ t say anything else.
Her breathing, no longer quiet and even, sounded like she ’ d just run up the stairs.
I was breathing hard, too. I told myself it was just because I was afraid, but I was also worried there wasn ’ t quite enough oxygen in the stinking, dark room.
I knew from what Jeepers said that there was an air hose at the top of the bunker somewhere, bringing in new oxygen. But how much air could a little hose really bring down here? Was it enough to keep up with eleven people breathing in and out, in and out, all this time? I shoved the scary thought away and locked it up tight, telling myself there was no way we ’ d actually suffocate. The men wouldn ’ t let that happen. After all, they couldn ’ t get any ransom money for us if we were dead, could they? The air felt thick and sour, though. Each breath felt a little harder to pull into my lungs.
“ Grownups think that kids always have to do what they say,” I whispered, not talking to Ms. Jessa anymore, but to Evelyn, and Mindy, and Ben, who were stirring awake. “ Because they think they ’ re the smart ones. And we ’ re just a bunch of dumb kids. Babies .”
A wordless murmur rippled through the darkness.
Ms. Jessa still didn ’ t say anything in response.
Her breathing had gone a little quieter, though. Not calm, just quiet.
I could feel her hating what I was doing, but she didn ’ t try to make me shut up again or tell me to sit back down.
Maybe she was still shocked that I flat-out refused to listen to her. Maybe she could hear the claws in my voice that said I wasn ’ t going to sit down and shut up unless she actually tackled me and pinned my arms and legs—and even then, I ’ d holler and bite her like the tomcat would.
Or maybe she was just afraid of what would happen if the men heard the ruckus down here. And that was the one thing the men were going to come investigate: a ruckus.
Either way, I kept talking, sensing that more kids who had fallen asleep on the dirty mattresses were pricking up their ears to listen. “ Both men are still up there right now—but not close to the hole. If we can get a little closer to the surface, maybe we can hear what they ’ re saying to each other. Plus, it ’ ll be easier to hear when they get in the vans and drive away. Then we can try to find a way to get out of here.” I gulped down another swallow of air. “ We need to know what they ’ re going to do next. And if they ’ re … if they ’ re telling the truth about not hurting us.”
Someone made a tiny whimper that I felt deep in my stomach. Because what if we found out they were planning to hurt us, what could we even do about it?
Rose ’ s voice popped from the darkness from a few feet away. Scared and tiny but eager, too. “ How do you know what ’ s happening up there?” she asked. Not in a mean way, but like she actually wanted to know.
My heart thumped and my skin prickled. I wasn ’ t the only one who couldn ’ t stand just sitting down here, doing nothing.
“ I ’ ve been listening really hard for clues,” I said. It wasn ’ t easy to hear what was going on all the way down at the bottom of the bunker. The ceiling was at least eight feet high. You had to really pay attention to the sounds coming from beyond the hole and the wooden chimney. And even then, it was tricky to hear much.
Ked piped up. “ If Sage can ’ t hear them very well, that means they can ’ t hear us very well, either. We don ’ t have to be that quiet.”
“ Yeah, exactly,” I rushed. “ They won ’ t get mad at us for stacking the mattresses, because they won ’ t know we did it. We can knock them down if we hear them opening up the hole.”
My mind rewound all the information I ’ d gathered so far, trying to remember if I ’ d said everything I wanted, waiting for Ms. Jessa to start blustering any moment.
She didn ’ t.
So I kept talking.
“ Are they right above us?” Bonnie asked, sitting up.
“ No,” I said, hoping I was right. In the short minutes between getting out of the gray van and being forced down into the dark earth, I had seen that this hole in the ground was on the edge of a huge junk pile. It wasn ’ t really close to anything else except all that trash and dirt. So unless the kidnappers were going to sleep right in the dirt, on chunks of broken rock and metal, they weren ’ t directly above us. “ I ’ m pretty sure the men are over by the vans.”
“ Where are the vans?” Ms. Jessa asked, her deeper grownup whisper louder than anybody else ’ s.
I blinked in surprise and turned toward her voice. “ They ’ re on the dirt road with the gravel,” I said. “ Not that far away, but far enough. That spot where they first let us out.”
“ And how do you know that?” she pushed, like this was a test.
“ Because there ’ s sharp stuff all over the dirt out here.” I remembered the feeling of my sneakers slipping over loose gravel, shards of plastic, and big pieces of trash. “ Stuff that could pop a damn van tire,” I added, throwing in the swear like I ’ d heard Grandpa do when he forgot me and Bonnie were in the room.
Swearing in front of a grownup made my face flush hot, but I didn ’ t want to take it back, either.
“ And you think both men are up there right now?” Ms. Jessa asked. Only this time, it didn ’ t sound quite as much like she was hoping I ’ d give the wrong answer. This time, it sounded like she might actually want to know the answer.
“ Yeah, I ’ m positive,” I said.
After I ’ d heard the sound of approaching tires crunching on the gravel above us, there was the slam of a car door, then two faint sets of footsteps crunching around for a few minutes. Then mostly quiet. The last thing I ’ d heard was the faint sound of Greasy Hair ’ s laugh from the direction of the dirt road.
The sound of his laugh was sharp and quiet at the same time. It made me think of the ugly, raspy noise the dried corn stalks made in the wind at a Halloween carnival called The Thicket that Mom took us to in Declo last year and was way too scary for Bonnie.
I hadn ’ t heard any more tires crunching since then, and I ’ d been listening as hard as I could.
While I talked, I was getting more and more sure about a new thought knocking around my brain: The men were going to leave us alone at some point.
It was the only thing that made sense. They ’ d gone to a lot of effort to put us down in this hole. They seemed so pleased with themselves that they ’ d made such a good trap. They weren ’ t worried about us escaping, at all.
They left us lots of food and water and even a bathroom, which meant they didn ’ t plan to check down here any time soon.
They ’ d told us to shut up again and again, tying up our hands while we were locked in that van. But when they sent us down here, into the ground, they just smiled like my teacher Mr. Heller did when he caught you red-handed, trying to sneak a peek at your phone during class. Gotcha. Now you ’ re mine.
Those two guys didn ’ t want to sit out here all day and all night. They just wanted to leave us down here. Maybe they’d even drive away at some point, just for a little while. To eat, to sleep, or see their families.
And when they did leave, I was going to be ready. Not sit down here like a dope.
“ But there ’ s only four mattresses,” Crosby Neville said, breaking into my thoughts in a grumbly voice, sounding just like he did anytime he got on the bus and saw somebody sitting in his usual seat.
“ We can fold them in half and make them twice as thick,” I said, making sure my voice wasn ’ t getting too loud. What had started as a scared whisper was getting stronger.
Crosby made a satisfied “ Mmm hmm” noise.
“ Oh, yeah, good idea, Sage,” Rose added, almost sounding excited.
“ Can you all help me move the mattresses?” I asked nobody in particular.
There were scuffling noises as other kids stood up, started to shove the mattresses around, whispering back to me.
“ Yeah, where?”
“ We ’ ve got one of them folded up, Sage!”
Ms. Jessa kept quiet and stayed where she was. She didn ’ t help. She didn ’ t try to stop us though, either.