“I think all I’ve got is homework,” Laura said. “That, and that communicator Agent Larson gave us.”
Nevertheless, she shouldered off her backpack and unzipped it. They all stooped down on the ground as they emptied the contents to get a better idea of what they had to work with.
“Yeah. Just pens, pencils, a notebook, and my social studies book,” Laura said. “What about you, Jesse? What do you have?”
“A Trapper Keeper, a gum wrapper, and my math book. Henderson?”
“Um, just my gym shirt.” Henderson pulled it out and tossed it on the ground with the rest of the increasingly useless pile of items.
“Ew, gross!” Jesse said. “That thing smells totally disgusting. Why is it in your backpack instead of your gym locker?”
“My gym teacher said it was the worst smelling thing in the locker, so he made me take it home to wash it.”
Laura gingerly picked it up and handed it back to him, then started putting her own things back in her pack. “What about you, Murky? Knowing the way you squirrel away things, you’ve got to have something in there that isn’t homework.”
Murky reached into her backpack and pulled out the only thing inside that seemed like it could possibly be useful. “I’ve got a bag of marshmallows,” she said.
Laura gave her a look like she thought Murky was crazy while Henderson threw up his hands in disgust. “Great. Marshmallows. I’m sure that will come in real handy against the army of alien ant creatures,” he said.
“Why do you even have those?” Jesse asked her.
Murky shrugged. “Just in case I need something to roast over a campfire.”
“Why would you expect to just randomly run into campfires?” Henderson asked.
She shrugged again. “You never know.”
“Okay, so what if we’ve got nothing useful,” Jesse said. “We can still do this, right?” He didn’t sound like he believed it. Rather, it sounded like he wanted someone else to convince him, but no one else responded.
“We at least have this,” Laura said, hefting up the heavy communicator device. “It’s not going to be fun to lug it around, though.”
“Man, that agent lady probably should have given us flashlights instead,” Henderson said.
“She shouldn’t have had to give us anything,” Jesse said. “We’re just kids. It shouldn’t be us that are doing this. It should have been all the people up top with huge guns.”
“You sure weren’t acting like you didn’t want to do this while we were still in the tent,” Henderson said.
“Yeah, well that was before I saw all the empty houses and the creepy hole and climbed down it to hang out with who knows what,” Jesse said.
“Yeah? Well, what did you expect?” Henderson asked. “The adults to actually be useful? When have you known adults to treat kids like anything other than crap?”
“Our parents treat us good,” Murky said softly.
“Yeah, well your parents are the exception,” Henderson said. “My dad… he’s…” He stopped for a long time before continuing. Somehow, the other three all knew not to speak up yet. “I guess he tries. Sort of. What if he’s dead? What if he’s gone now too and I’m alone?”
There was a long pause as the other three tried to think of something to say. “I’ve met your dad,” Jesse finally said. “He wouldn’t give up without punching a few ant people on the way down. And my mom would bash them over the head with a frying pan. They’ll be fine, as long as we can get to them.”
“We can do this, right?” Laura asked. Everyone stared at her, but she wouldn’t look back at them. Instead she stared up at the green glowing ceiling as though it held all the answers if only she stared at it hard enough. Finally, when she did look at them, she had a look in her eye that Murky knew well. That was the look her big sister got when she felt too stubborn to let other people tell her what to do. It wasn’t a look she pulled out often, but Murky had seen it enough times that she both respected and feared it. “We can do this. We will do this.”
As they finished putting all their things back in their backpacks, no one dared question her. Still, even with her sister’s determination, Murky wasn’t so sure they were going to be going back up those stairs into Kettle Hollow ever again.
Chapter Five
Murky found herself tiring of all the walking pretty quickly. All four of them were in good shape for their age, but considering they had just run down a set of rock stairs deep into some underground dimension, and it was also getting to be past her normal bedtime, it made sense that she was going to be low on energy. She reached around to her backpack and pulled out a few marshmallows, eating one and then offering the rest to the others. They all accepted, even Henderson after the way he had mocked her for having them. Murky felt pretty good about that.
Their first major obstacle occurred after about fifteen minutes. The tunnel had expanded into something roughly large enough for a semi to drive through and then forked into two different directions. They all stopped and considered the branching paths, but it was obvious to Murky that they were all waiting to see what Laura would say they should do.
“I don’t have the slightest clue which way we should go,” Laura finally said.
“Maybe now would be a good time to take out that communicator phone thing,” Jesse said. “Agent Larson has got to know more about this place than we do, right?”
“She didn’t sound like she knew that much when we were talking to her earlier,” Henderson said.
“Still, it can’t hurt to try,” Laura said. She unshouldered her backpack and
