Mrs. Kenton reported this and then, after listening for several seconds, she finally hung up. “He says that he’ll call back to headquarters and get an emergency truck here as quickly as possible. But he can’t be certain that it will get here in time either.”
Jill began sobbing. Ted could see his mother’s lips trembling, but she was trying to be brave. Mrs. Kenton hugged Jill to her, trying to calm her. Ted saw Randy fidgeting nervously. His own stomach felt queasy, and waves of terror went through him as he thought of the consequences of running out of air.
“Come on, Ted,” Randy said finally to his friend, going from the hall into the living room. “We’ve just got to find that leak. If we can find it and plug it, the house pressure will rise to normal in a couple of minutes. I remember our own place doing that once before!”
“But we’ve gone over the whole place twice!” Ted argued. “There’s no hope!”
“Either we’ve passed the leak without seeing it,” Randy went on, “or the leak is in a spot that we didn’t look at.”
“But there isn’t any place we didn’t look!” Ted said. “Of course, there are some places we couldn’t get to, like....”
They both thought of it at the same time. Both boys’ eyes shifted to the drainage hole in the center of the plastic floor. Here was one spot they had not been able to check. There was a grillwork molded into the plastic that was not easily removable.
“Suppose it is the drain hole, though,” Randy said. “How can we find out?”
“I’ve got it,” Ted answered. “We’ll plug up the whole thing with a sealer, then check the room gauge to see if the pressure builds up.”