My father nodded, leaning forward. “Feel better, kiddo.”
“Thanks, Daddy.”
My mother helped me into bed, then folded the blanket up under my chin. “I’m going to back to the mess hall,” she said. “Lunch will be over in an hour and I promised Margie Baker that I’d help with clean-up duty. Do you need anything before I go?”
“No,” I yawned. “I think I just need to sleep. I didn’t get much last night.”
She looked at me puzzled. “You didn’t? Why not?”
“My legs felt funny.”
“Describe funny. What was wrong with them?”
I shrugged, nonchalantly. “Nothing bad. They just felt a
little jittery.”
“I see.” She appeared to be deep in though. “Well, do they feel alright, now?”
“They’re fine.”
She leaned in, brushing her lips softy against my forehead. “Feel better, sweetheart.” Then she waltzed out of my room.
I waited. The clock above me read 12:00 pm. In ten minutes, I would hurry into Mr. Baker’s room and switch the names in the ballot box before my mother could come back and realize I was gone.
* * * *
The chatter from the mess hall ricocheted off the dirt walls of the hallway. Pressing my body flat against the wall, I crept passed the open doorway, careful not get myself noticed. I sucked in my breath and moved forward. The people in the mess hall were still eating and enthralled with the conversations they were having with one another.
Making a left turn, I placed my back against the opposite wall and walked right through the open doorway of the Baker family’s quarters. “Think, George, think.” Where did he say that box would be? Silently, I replayed the conversation between Mr. Baker and Mr. Martin in my mind. Yes! Mr. Baker said there was a hidden door behind a rug on the wall.
Observing the walls from top to bottom, and corner to corner, when I spun around to face the wall behind me, there it was. A long, crimson, rectangular antique rug. I picked up the bottom right corner, and sure enough, there was a door behind it. A massive wooden door with black,cast iron panels across the lower part and black iron bars along the upper part. It reminded me of a door that belonged in an 18th century prison. And how in the heck did he get it in here unnoticed? If I hadn’t heard about it before, I could bet my life that none of the other colonists had either.
As I twisted the black, oval doorknob, I stopped about half-way through the turn when the knob wouldn’t cross over. Damn it! The door was locked. There had to be a spare key in here somewhere.
I moved over to the dresser, prepared to tear through the drawers, when I heard the sound of whistling. At first it was faint, then it grew louder and louder, and I realized someone was heading toward the room. Seeing that the bed would be the only decent hiding place, I dove underneath, curling myself up into a little ball. “OWWWW!” I mouthed, forgetting the cut on my head when I dove headfirst into the dirt floor. Placing my fingers on the stitched up wound, I massaged it gently to take the searing pain away.
A pair of feet shuffled into the room. Mr. Baker. He removed a pair of keys from his pocket, and the jingling noise from them filled my ears. Disappearing behind the rug, I heard Mr. Baker stick a key into the slot of the door and then the click on the latch of the lock. Behind the rug, I could tell he was bending over to pick up the ballot box. The shuffling sound of paper led me to believe that he was planting my name in the box.
Just as he set the box back down, a loud blood curdling scream rang throughout the room. “What was that?” he questioned himself. Startled, he slammed the door, forgetting to lock it and was out of the room in a flash.
When I couldn’t hear his footsteps anymore, I slithered out from underneath the bed, dragging my belly on the floor. I felt like one of those contortionists who could bend their body any way they wanted to. The only problem with that was bending like that made every bone and muscle in my body hurt.
Once I made certain the coast was still clear, I made a mad dash for the rug, opened the door quickly and slipped inside. Flipping open the lid to the box, I quickly removed two pieces of paper. I opened the first one with Dylan Edwards name on it and put it back in the box. I assumed the second one was mine, so I didn’t check it to confirm it.
Stomp. Stomp. Stomp. Several pairs of footsteps were heading down the hall. Shit! I was pressed for time. Reaching into my back pocket, I removed the paper with Elise’s name, shoved it into the box and closed the lid quietly.
The footsteps were so loud that they drowned out the sound of my own breathing. There was no way I could get out of here without a member of the Baker family seeing me. I set the box down on the ground and slowly began backing up.
People were moving around the room, and I prayed that Mr. Baker wouldn’t open the door. Keys jingled again, like the bells on Santa’s sleigh. Then I heard the key scraping against metal and a click. Fuck. Mr. Baker locked me in his damn closet.
Backing up more, I expected to ram into a wall, but was pleasantly surprised when I noticed a short, rectangular path. “Hmm,” I said to myself. “What are you hiding in here, you sneaky weasel?” I followed the path about eight feet, coming to a stop at the end of it. To my right was a long cemented ramp that stretched diagonally at twenty-four feet, at the least.
Curious, I climbed the ramp, only to discover that at the top of it, there was another ramp. Then, when I reached the top of that ramp, surprise….Another ramp.
When I had climbed all three of them I made a mental note that if I saw one more ramp I was going to scream at the top of my lungs. So, I was extremely happy when I finished walking the last ramp and noticed a twelve-foot metal ladder with two bolted metal, hatch-like doors above it.
Excited, I practically ran up the ladder, climbing two rungs at a time, until I reached the top and had to push to open the metal doors. The entire adventure through Mr. Baker’s closet was intriguing, like a haunted maze that used to be put on in the cornfields around Halloween. I couldn’t wait to see what was waiting for me through the metal doors.