Tunnels 01, Tunnels

gave them a reassuring smile and then added, "Or calm down."
    "Calm down about what?" Rebecca ventured. "Why would our father need to calm down?"
    The officers looked a little surprised, glancing at each other and then back at Rebecca.
    "Well, after the disagreement with your mother," the policewoman said. Will was waiting for her to say more, to explain exactly what the argument had been about, but she turned to the other officer. "Right, we'd better be off."
    "Ridiculous!" Rebecca said in an exasperated tone after she had shut the door behind them. " They obviously haven't got the faintest idea where he's gone or what to do about it. Idiots!"

     

12

    "Will? Is that you?" Chester said, shielding his eyes from the sun as his friend emerged from the kitchen door into the cramped back yard behind the Rawlses' house. He had been whiling away the time that Sunday morning by swatting bluebottles and wasps with an old badminton racket, easy targets as they grew lazy in the noonday heat. He cut a comical figure in flip-flops and a beanie hat, his oversized frame accentuated by baggy shorts and his shoulders reddened by the sun.
    Will stood with his hands in the back pockets of his jeans, looking a little preoccupied. "I need a hand with something," he said, checking behind him that Chester's parents weren't in earshot.
    "Sure, what with?" Chester replied, flicking the mutilated remains of a large fly off the frayed strings of his racket.
    "I want to take a quick look around the museum tonight," Will replied. "At my dad's things."
    He had Chester's undivided attention now.
    "To see if there are any clues... in his office," Will went on.
    "What, you mean break in?" Chester said quietly. "I'm not..."
    Will cut him short. "I've got the keys." Taking his hand from his pocket, he held them up for Chester to see. "I just want to have a quick look, and I need somebody to watch my back."
    Will had been completely prepared to go it alone but, when he stopped to think about it, it seemed natural to enlist the help of his friend. Chester was the only person Will could turn to now that his father had gone. He and Chester had worked very effectively together in the Forty Pits tunnel, like a real team -- and, besides, Chester seemed genuinely concerned about Will's father's whereabouts.
    Lowering his racket to his side, Chester thought for a moment as he gazed at the house and then back at Will again. "All right," he agreed, "but we'd better not get caught."
    Will grinned. It felt good to have a real friend, someone other than his family he could trust, for the first time in his life.

    * * * * *

    After it had grown dark, the boys stole up the museum steps. Will unlocked the door and they slipped in quickly. The interior was just visible in the zigzag shadows thrown by interlacing bands of weak moonlight and the yellow neon from the street lamps outside.
    "Follow me," Will whispered to Chester and, crouching low, they crossed through the main hall toward the corridor, dodging between the glass cabinets and grimacing as their sneakers squeaked on the parquet flooring.
    "Watch the--"
    "Ouch!" Chester cried as he tripped over the marsh timber lying on the floor just inside the corridor and went sprawling. "What's that doing there?" he said angrily as he rubbed his shin.
    "Come on," Will whispered urgently.
    Near the end of the corridor, they found Dr. Burrows's office.
    "We can use the flashlights in here, but keep your beam down low."
    "What are we looking for?" Chester whispered.
    "Don't know yet. Let's check his desk first," Will said in a hushed voice.
    As Chester held his flashlight for him, Will sifted through the piles of papers and documents. It wasn't an easy task; Dr. Burrows was clearly as disorganized at work as he was at home, and there was a mass of paperwork spread across the desk in arbitrary piles. The computer screen was all but obscured by a proliferation of curling yellow Post-it notes stuck around it. As they searched, Will focused his efforts on anything that was written on loose-leaf pages in his father's barely legible scrawl.
    Finishing the last of the piles of papers, they found nothing of note, so they each took one side of the desk and started searching the drawers.
    "Wow, look at this." Chester produced what appeared to be a stuffed dog's paw fixed to an ebony stick from among a load of empty tobacco tins. Will simply looked at him and frowned briefly before resuming his search.
    "Here's something!" Chester