29
Sage
Six hours, fifty minutes buried
My heart pounded as my fingertips moved across the rough wood of the ceiling hole.
Plywood. The word popped into my mind, and I pictured the board I ’ d seen when Jeepers closed up the bunker and dragged something heavy across the hole that led up to the chimney.
I could barely press the tip of my finger flat against the ceiling, let alone push it with the palm of my hand, but I refused to let that fact get me down.
Harriet the Spy wouldn ’ t let it get to her. She ’ d think—and keep trying.
And now that Ms. Jessa was on my side, too, I felt sure we could figure something out.
I brushed my fingers along the rough wood surface of the ceiling, back and forth. The wood felt splintery, like there were lots of little pieces of wood smashed together, and some of the splinters were sticking out enough for me to grab hold of them.
As an experiment, I stretched onto my tiptoes as much as I could and used my fingernail to dig into one big splinter and pull.
It came loose under my fingernail with a soft ripping sound.
It wasn ’ t much more than a chip. About the size of a penny. There were hundreds, maybe thousands of those papery splinters holding the plywood together. I was suddenly sure that if I had some kind of knife or tool, I could chip more of them off, little by little. And if I could scrape more of them off, maybe I could make a hole in the plywood big enough for my body to fit through.
“ Is there anything else I could stand on?” I asked, trying not to think about how scary it would be to add yet another object on top of this unsteady tower. The mattresses weren ’ t wobbling nearly as much with Ms. Jessa and the other kids bracing against them, but it still felt like I might topple over any second.
“ What about the bathroom bucket?” Evelyn Marks whispered.
Her suggestion was followed by a few excited murmurs and one “ Ew.”
I listened to hear what Ms. Jessa would say, still waiting for her to change her mind and insist I sit back down on the mattresses.
She stayed quiet, but I could feel her presence a few feet below where I stood, holding the mattresses steady along with the other kids. It made me feel braver, like instead of being Cook in Harriet the Spy she was willing to be Ole Golly, Harriet ’ s nanny and mentor, for a while.
“ There ’ s two bathroom buckets,” I said, thinking out loud. They were wide and big, like the buckets Mom kept in the garage for pulling weeds. If I tipped one of them upside down, I could set it on top of the mattresses and stand on top of it so I could reach the ceiling better.
“ Evelyn, can you get one of the buckets?” Ms. Jessa asked in a shaky voice, and my heart soared. She meant what she ’ d told me earlier. She was going to help me and be Ole Golly. “ If there ’ s anything in it, pour it into the second bucket. Everybody else, keep holding the mattress stack steady with me, okay?”
“ Okay,” Evelyn said, sounding doubtful. A few seconds later I heard something slosh, then the sound of trickling and a soft “ Gross. ”
“ It ’ s okay, Evelyn,” Bonnie piped up, and I was proud of her for how brave she sounded. “ Everybody poops and pees.” I just knew she was quoting that dumb book Mom read us when we were babies. But then she added, “ Sage will get us out. It won ’ t be stinky for too much longer.”
My throat tightened, and I made myself a promise that I ’ d do everything I could not to let her and the other kids down.
“ Here, Ms. Jessa. Here ’ s the bucket,” Evelyn said a few seconds later. “ I dunno if it ’ s big enough to stand on, though. I don ’ t want Sage to fall down.”
My brain was moving faster and faster, even though my body felt so tired. “ Bonnie, could you come up here and hold the bucket steady—like the yoga ball game?”
I knew she ’ d understand just what I meant. Mom kept a yoga ball in her office, and Bonnie and I liked to play with it when she wasn ’ t working. Our favorite game was seeing who could balance on it the longest—no touching your feet to the ground. The other person ’ s job, besides counting seconds to time you, was to wrap their arms around the base of the yoga ball until you said, “ Go. ” That way you had a chance to get your balance before you tipped over.
If she could do that with the base of the bucket, I ’ d be brave enough to stand on top of it. One of the older kids might be stronger, but I ’ d seen Bonnie hold onto the wiggly yoga ball like a barnacle, and I trusted her more than I trusted the others.
“ Oh, yes,” Bonnie said, her little voice as cheerful as if I ’ d just asked her to play the yoga ball game. I felt a pinch of guilt. She ’ d stopped asking me to play that game with her a few months ago, because I ’ d said no so many times. We already play together enough, because you follow me around the whole time at Bright Beginnings, I ’ d said once when she begged.
I crouched and Ms. Jessa handed me the bucket. I felt it with my hands to memorize its shape even though it was dripping with pee. A few seconds later, the mattress pile jiggled a little as Bonnie crawled up beside me.
I tipped over the dripping bucket, shifted it into the middle of the mattress pile, and moved Bonnie ’ s arms around the base. “ Hold on right there, okay? Try not to let it wiggle.”
Without complaining about the smell or asking for more directions, Bonnie sprawled out on her stomach and wrapped her arms all the way around the base.
For some reason, that made me want to start crying again.
“ Thanks, Bonnie,” I said, my voice hitching. Then, before I could get too scared, I put one foot on top of the flat bucket bottom and pushed my body up toward the ceiling where I ’ d felt the plywood.
Like I ’ d hoped, my palm hit the plywood flat. “ I did it,” I whispered excitedly. “ I can reach the ceiling really good now.” I pushed harder this time with my fingernails, scraping away more of the big plywood splinters.
I shifted my weight to my other foot on the bucket, and it tipped just a tiny bit. “ You got it, Bonnie?” I whispered. “ You ’ re doing really good.”
“ Yeah, I got it,” she whispered back, her voice full of pride.
A few more plywood splinters came off in my hand, and I dug for more even though my fingers were starting to hurt. I frowned and tried to think. If I was going to make any progress, what I really needed was a sharp edge.
“ Does anybody have something sharp so I can scrape the ceiling better?” I felt stupid for even asking. We were elementary school kids. We didn ’ t have tools with us.
Concerned murmurs drifted around the dark room. Then Ms. Jessa said, “ I ’ m wearing a belt. The edge of the buckle is sort of sharp. Let ’ s try that.”
I shrugged. “ Hand it up to Bonnie.”
There were more shuffling sounds as Ms. Jessa undid her belt and handed it to Bonnie, moving slowly so the mattress pile didn ’ t shake.
Balancing as carefully as I could, I bent down just far enough to meet Bonnie ’ s outstretched hand.
The second the warm metal of the buckle grazed my fingers, I smiled for the first time.
The process of scraping the splintery wood off the plywood was going to be awful. Even with the belt buckle, my fingers were going to get scratched and raw and maybe even bleed.
Still, this was a tool a spy could use. The perfect size for me to hold in my hands, with squared-off corners I could really dig into the wood.
Harriet the Spy would have been giddy.
And so was I.