“Is that all?” Bill grumbled disgustedly. “Well for pity’s sake, put up your raincoat collar so you don’t scare me like that again. And don’t yell out again unless it’s something serious.”
“That’s serious. I could catch pneumonia—or something.”
“Cut it out, Phil,” Ronnie protested. “We’ve got to think. Can’t you get it through your thick skull that we’re in serious trouble?”
“Sure I can. I just want to die smiling. I think Jacob’s skeleton was smiling.”
Ronnie was tired of Phil’s chatter, and he was tired of staring into the blackness and seeing nothing, too. So he closed his eyes and rested his head back against the hard, uneven brick. He wanted to think. But he couldn’t rid himself of the feeling that he was all alone, a thousand miles down in the bowels of the earth. He put his hand out and found Bill’s shoulder and left it there because he felt some comfort in knowing that his friend was so close. Bill shifted his position closer to Ronnie. “Keep your chin up, Ronnie,” he heard Bill whisper. “I’ve got an idea. It might just work.”
Bill leaned over closer to Ronnie so his mouth was only a few inches from his friend’s ear. “Here’s the pitch,” he said. “Remember the first end of the culvert we visited—not the one by the river?”
Ronnie nodded. “Yea,” he said, remembering Bill couldn’t see him.
“And remember how it was all cave-in, just a big mess of broken brick and dirt that had fallen in with it?”
“Yea,” Ronnie said again.
“Well, when I was flashing the light about, I noticed one place big enough to crawl up into. It looked as if it went quite a way toward the surface. Now, I was thinking maybe we could dig through to the surface from there.”