He ran to the boys’ bathroom, ducked into a stall and closed the door. He needed to be alone, finally, to fix his pants. But he realized he was not alone.
Catalina had followed him. He could see her dirty boots under the stall door.
“You’re not supposed to be in here,” Gran said.
“I’ll wait till you’re done,” she said. “Didn’t you just pee all over your pants? How can you be peeing again?”
“No,” he said. “I’m not…Just. Please go. Can I meet you outside?”
“There’s not much time,” Catalina said. “A lot’s happening. You saw how the school’s falling into the earth. There’s activity all over town, and the Regional Manager’s all over me. And tonight’s the big Proposition meeting at City Hall. Then I’ve got to—” She stopped, as if catching herself before saying too much. “Anyway. I can’t handle it all myself.”
Gran was torn.
“You can do something about all this. You’ll feel useful, as opposed to just sitting in a carrel wetting your pants.”
“You’re mean,” Gran said.
“Sorry,” Catalina said. “I don’t mean to be. I tend to think I’m funny, but I know it comes off as mean. But I like you. And I think you’re actually someone who wants to do something to help around here. I think you’re powerful.”
Gran had never been called powerful before. It felt strange and good.
“Will you come with me?” she asked.
This was the first time in his life Gran had missed school. In all his life he’d never missed a day. Never an hour. And now he was leaving school, in the middle of school. In fact, he was leaving school through the middle of school—through the sinkhole that had swallowed most of the main foyer.
“It’s the easiest way in,” Catalina said.
They waited until the bell rang, and jumped in.
When they landed in a heap, Gran saw only a jumble of tiles and rocks, paper and folders and pencils. Catalina saw the tunnel through which the Hollows had come.
“Let’s go!” she whispered.
He followed her into the darkness.
“What’s the rush?” he asked.
“The vote on Propositions M&H and P&S is tonight. At City Hall.”
“I know. My mom’s going.”
“Well, that makes it worse. The building’s going to be full of people, and it’s already tilting.”
The tunnel widened and Catalina began to run. Gran followed, ducking and weaving as the tunnel bent left and right, rose and fell.
When they arrived, Gran stopped cold.
Before him was a wild tangle of tunnels, some small, some large, a thicket of entwined and crisscrossing tubes—and every one of them was vibrating.
“Wait!” he yelled. “It’s too late.”
The earth everywhere around them was rumbling and shaking. Dirt was falling from the tunnel roofs.
“It’s not too late,” Catalina said. “Just get to work.”
Gran got to work helping Catalina, and they labored steadily through the afternoon. They’d never worked so hard or so long. Soon it was five o’clock, then six, and Gran’s shoulder throbbed. But with every pole they installed, the shaking from above decreased. The tunnels were stabilizing.
By early evening, Gran and Catalina were working in different parts of the tunnels, and while he was using tree trunks and scrap metal, he noticed that the supports Catalina was using were strangely uniform. They were poles, each about six inches across, all of them smooth and striped by flecks of gold paint.
“Where’d you get these?” Gran asked.
“They were already here,” she said. “There might be a few more down that way if you need ’em.” She pointed down a wide tunnel that seemed to lead directly under the front lawn of City Hall. Gran followed the tunnel until he saw, emerging from the tunnel walls, a few fragments of the same kind of once-golden poles.
Gran gasped. Instantly it came together. The poles were from the carousel the Duke had been talking about. He was sure of it. The carousel had been swallowed by the first sinkhole, and that had been here. It had to be.
Gran dug into the tunnel wall, looking for a horse or zebra.
“What are you doing?” Catalina yelled from afar. “Get back here and help me.”
Gran grabbed the poles he could carry and rushed to her.
“What were you doing?” she asked.
“I’ll tell you after,” he said.
They installed the last of the poles in the most vulnerable parts of the tunnel system, and stood back to assess their work.
“I don’t know,” Catalina said. “These are strong, but there’s a lot of weight above.”
“What happens if…” For the first time, Gran thought about the possibility of getting stuck in the tunnels, or worse, crushed under the weight of all that dirt.
“It’s never happened,” Catalina said. “If we feel like it’s collapsing, we can use this to go down.” She held out her Lift. “Or up. There’s always time.”
Just then, the earth around them shook, as if to contradict her. Behind them, there was a loud crack. They turned to see that one of the golden poles had snapped in half. The tunnel ceiling above it sagged dramatically.
“Haven’t seen that happen in a while,” Catalina said. “And we’re out of supports.” Her eyes darted around for options. “The meeting at City Hall starts in an hour,” she said, “but we’ve done all we can do.”
“Wait,” Gran said. The fragments of the City Hall carousel had brought the Duke to mind, and the Duke, indirectly, had given Gran a plan.
“Give me twenty minutes,” he said.
There are times when humans fly. Our feet still touch the ground, but only slightly, as we run so fast we are really more like herons skimming the water as they take flight.
And when we are flying we feel happy, and we feel purposeful, and we feel most like ourselves, especially when we are flying this way with an urgent task to do.
Gran’s urgent task was to reach the Duke’s office, and he did so in minutes. But he found the door locked. Gran looked at his watch. It was 7:32. Of course the Duke wouldn’t be at school so late. But why was the door locked? It had never been locked before.
Gran cursed his own stupidity. He’d left Catalina for nothing. He’d have to return empty-handed. He thumped his head on the door. Then his head began sliding. The door was moving.
“Grant?”
It was the Duke. He was wearing a bathrobe. “Just…uh, cleaning up some things in here,” he said. “And doing some filing. This is the robe I like to use when I’m filing.”
Gran looked inside, and saw no sign that the Duke had been doing any filing. He did see a towel by the sink, and on the coffee table in front of the couch there was evidence of a half-eaten grilled cheese sandwich. At one end of the couch, the same couch where Gran had been eating his lunch the past few weeks, there was a bedpillow. If Gran didn’t know better, he would think that the Duke was living in the storage space.
“Why are you here?” the Duke asked.
Gran snapped out of his reverie.
“I need those,” he said, pointing to the back of the room.
“I’m happy to help you, but this is unusual,” the Duke said. “I’m sure this is the first time a student has asked to borrow all my Earth balls after dark. Come to think of it, this is the first time in thirty years a student has asked to borrow them at all. You sure you can’t tell me why you need them?”
“Do you trust me that it’s important?” Gran said.
“I trust you always, Grant.”
“So can I have them?”
“Are you sure you don’t want hockey sticks? I have some you can use.”
Gran paused for a second. “No, the Earth balls are better.”
The Duke cleared a path for the Earth balls. “Where are we bringing them?” he asked.
“I can’t tell you,” Gran said.
The Duke might have been annoyed. Gran had disturbed
his nighttime routine and asked him to help move Earth balls—they were not light!—and all the while, he was being kept in the dark about why and where they were going. But the Duke seemed cheerful, and not so concerned with the particulars of Gran’s plan.
In fact, after all the balls were out of the storage room and in the hallway, the Duke produced a wagon, like a Radio Flyer but far bigger. “This should help,” he said.
They loaded the balls onto the wagon, and made it outside. Gran was ready to turn and pull the wagon down the road and into the tunnels when the Duke cleared his throat. He was holding a bicycle pump.
“You probably need this.”
When Gran reached the tunnel under City Hall, he didn’t see Catalina. And it was clear more tunnels had buckled or collapsed. He feared the worst—that she’d gotten stuck.
“You were gone too long,” she said. Gran wheeled around to find her. He’d never been so glad to be scolded.
“What are those?” she said, pointing at the deflated Earth balls he’d pulled into the tunnel. “And why do you have a bike pump? Have you lost your mind?”
“Watch,” he said, and dragged the ball over to a portion of the tunnel that was sagging badly.
He pumped quickly, and together they watched the Earth ball inflate. It grew to three feet tall, then four, then five. It filled the tunnel almost completely.
Gran smiled, very proud of himself, and looked to see that Catalina’s face had been tempted into the tiniest smile, too. It was a good moment, and Gran felt like he truly had Catalina’s respect.
Then the ceiling fell.
Not entirely. It dropped suddenly, but the Earth ball had saved her—had saved both of them.
“You okay?” Gran asked.
He knelt next to Catalina, who had been knocked to the ground.
“I’m okay,” she said, rubbing her head, which was brown with dirt. “How are we not dead?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “You have more of those?”
The ball was bigger and easier to manipulate than their usual crosshatched poles and beams, and it covered far more space.
“I have twelve,” he said.
“Wait,” she said. “Did you get these from that storage guy’s place at school?”
“I did. How did you know?”
“I go to school there too. I’ve been there a lot longer than you, remember.”
“I know. Sorry.”
“You’re not so fancy just because you brought some giant volleyballs.”
“Whatever you say,” Gran said.
For a long few seconds Catalina stared Gran down, and he didn’t blink. She made a tiny sound that acknowledged that he wasn’t backing down, and that she was just a little impressed.
Then they got started. Catalina moved each Earth ball into position in the most vulnerable parts of the tunnel system under City Hall, and one by one, Gran pumped each to its full size.
The only problem with the Earth balls was that they so completely filled the tunnels that Gran and Catalina had to be strategic about where they put them, and where they put themselves. Otherwise they would get stuck on the wrong side of one of the balls, and would have no way to get back.
“Wait,” Catalina said. “Hear that?”
Gran knew the sound. It was the hoarse and maniacal wheezing of the Hollows. They were coming.
“What do we do?” he asked Catalina.
She had her ear to the earthen wall, listening intently.
“We wait and see if the Earth balls hold. The Hollows sense that something here hasn’t gone to plan. They thought City Hall would have collapsed by now, but it’s still standing. Now they’re coming back to finish the job.”
Catalina listened silently to the vibrations.
“Sounds like they’re coming from another direction. Let’s wait here.”
“We can’t wait here,” Gran said. “What if they—”
Catalina finished his sentence. “What if they pop those balls like balloons?” She thought for a second, and answered matter-of-factly. “Then we’ll have to try to escape before they get us, or City Hall collapses on us with everyone in it. Or both.”
Again she put her ear to the tunnel wall.
“They’re really close now. Listen.”
Catalina gestured for Gran to put his ear to the earth. He did, and was surprised at how clearly he could hear the approaching Hollows. They sounded like a roomful of whispers, the voices arguing and growing louder. He’d always wondered how Catalina understood them, but now that he’d encountered the Hollows up close, it was as if he’d learned their language and could discern their movements and intentions.
He heard the winds approach, howling and angry, as if they were annoyed they had to return to a job they’d considered finished. Then the snarling wind seemed to slow, perplexed. Gran felt sure that the Hollows had encountered one of the Earth balls, and were baffled by what they were facing.
Gran heard the wind back up, and retreat, then re-enter the tube matrix from another angle. And again he heard the angry swirl slow down and stop, as if the Hollows were astonished to find another blockade. Gran and Catalina shared a look of almost-optimism.
Now the Hollows decided to attack. It was as if, after being momentarily put off by the Earth-ball barriers, the Hollows had decided they could just plow right through. Gran heard the wind back up to get a running start. Even through the tunnel wall, Gran could hear the Hollows’ fury and determination as the force threw itself against an Earth ball. Gran looked over to Catalina, whose eyes were closed tight, as if she expected the ball to pop and the Hollows to run rampant through the matrix, weakening the earth to drag City Hall underground.
But Gran had an inexplicable confidence in the inflated planets, and sure enough, he heard the distinct sound of the Hollows throwing everything they had against the ball and being bounced back, much like Gran had been when, all those weeks ago, he’d tried to walk through a brick wall.
The Hollows didn’t like that at all.
They swirled around the tunnels, trying every angle, and every time were rebuffed.
“They’re getting tired,” Catalina said. “Hear it?”
Gran could hear it. Their ferocity had dimmed. And then the sound of the Hollows diminished steadily to silence. He pulled his ear from the wall.
“Are they gone?” he asked.
Catalina still had her ear to the wall. After a moment, she pulled away and shrugged. Gran was too nervous to smile, but he saw the start of a grin tugging at Catalina’s mouth, and he felt his face mirroring hers.
“I think you might have done something here, Gran,” she said. She jerked her chin toward the Earth ball in front of them. “I don’t know why I never thought of that. I don’t know why no one else ever thought of it.”
“You think it’ll hold them?” Gran asked.
Immediately he regretted asking the question. He would have preferred to simply revel in the feeling that he’d defeated the Hollows, and that he’d thought of this new technique to combat them. Now he’d gone and asked for doubt.
“For now at least,” Catalina said.
Gran thought he saw a new look on Catalina’s face, something like respect. She seemed to finally drop her attitude of superiority, her bossy and dismissive tone. He looked at her carefully, and noticed her face change, steadily, from contentment to horror. Her mouth fell agape.
“What?” he asked.
“Behind you,” she whispered.
Gran’s neck went cold. He knew the Hollows were behind him. Then again, he hadn’t seen them. Or heard them.
With a rising dread, he realized that the Hollows had somehow learned how to sneak up. The Hollows that Gran had experienced before were loud, feral, anything but quiet. But somehow they had either learned to be stealthy, or had always known—but simply hadn’t bothered to use this skill. In either case, they were smarter than he’d thought.
“What are they doing?” Gran asked Catalina.
“I don’t know,” she
said. “They seem to be waiting. As if they’re angry at you and want to confront you, face to face. Then again, maybe they just want to shake your hand.”
“I don’t think they want to shake my hand.”
“You’re probably right. They probably want to maul you. Listen. I know how to get us out of here. But when we do this, it has to be perfect. Ready?”
“I am. But you haven’t given me the plan yet.”
“I was about to. That’s why I said ‘Ready?’ ”
“Oh. I thought you meant—”
“Shush! Here’s the plan. I’m going to attach my Lift to the ceiling. When I do, I’ll use it to lift myself up and kick open the door. At the same time, I’ll grab your hand, and the weight of the door opening should throw us both up and into safety. You got it?”
“Not a chance.”
The lights in the tunnel began to flicker.
“On three.”
The lights went out and returned, though dimly.
“It won’t work.”
The howling began.
“It’s the only way. One. Two. Three.”
“I can’t believe it,” Gran said.
They were aboveground again.
Catalina had done what she said she would do. At the moment the Hollows started for them, she leapt up, stuck her Lift to the ceiling, and pulled her legs up, like she would on monkey bars. She kicked the door open, and in the same fluid motion, she grabbed Gran’s hand and the weight of the door thrust them both into the cool air above.
They scrambled and closed the door just as Gran had begun to feel the Hollows’ cold gusting and hear their wheezy wailing. Gran and Catalina stood, and Gran saw a mess of signs and placards strewn all over the grass. He realized where they were.