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Dewey grimaced, his horns wiggling. “You’re right, and so would I. Pass.”
Paige continued her methodic search of the walls, sweeping the beam back and forth until Dewey shouted, “There!”
“Where?” Paige asked, moving the beam around.
“Up there!” Dewey answered, tilting the flashlight beam higher. A small, round, black hole yawned from the stone near the ceiling. “I’ll check it out.”
Dewey launched off Paige’s shoulder and flew upward with the flashlight in hand, peering into the opening. He twisted to face Paige, grinning. “It’s a passageway!”
Paige stood on her tiptoes and reached, her fingers just grazing the opening. “Maybe I can climb up there.”
“Give me the backpack,” Dewey instructed. “I can pull it through. I’m not sure you’ll fit with it on.”
Paige wrinkled her nose as she shrugged off the pack and flung it up to Dewey. He caught it and shoved it into the hole, ducking inside with the light.
“Come on!” he called.
With her arms stretched overhead, Paige leapt upward, clamped her fingers on the opening, and planted her feet against the wall. She scrambled upward, running up the stone as she pulled herself up into the tight crawl space.
She winced, using her elbows to crawl forward with her head ducked low.
“Ugh,” she moaned, “this is a little tight.”
Dewey aimed the light ahead of them. “Try not to think about the stone that’s almost pressing against your back with tons of earth pressing down against it and–“
“Dewey,” Paige shouted, “that’s not helping!”
“Oh, right. Okay, let’s just try to get through this as quickly as possible.” He grabbed the strap of the backpack and walked forward in the passage, his neck rounded so he could fit.
Paige army-crawled behind him. The crawl space twisted and turned a few times before it slanted upward.
“We’re going up!” Dewey said. “That’s a good sign.”
“Yeah,” Paige grunted from behind him, digging her fingers into any holes she could find to pull herself up.
They crawled through the passage for several more feet before Dewey’s flashlight beam smacked off of a solid object. He waved the beam around, searching for another outlet.
“Uh-oh,” he said when he found none.
“What is it?” Paige asked, craning her neck to stare ahead of her. When she spotted a wall of roots and dirt in front of them, she let her head thud against the bottom of the passage. “Great.”
“Did we miss something?”
“No, we didn’t miss anything in this tiny space. There were no other openings. We’re stuck.”
“We’ll have to go back,” Dewey said.
“Ha!” Paige barked, rubbing her forehead with her filthy, bruised, and bloody hands. “I can barely move in this tiny tunnel. I can’t turn around, and I’m not sure I can back all the way out.”
Dewey squashed his lips together. “Well, I can try to squeeze past you, I guess, and go for help.”
Paige shot him an unimpressed glance. “Really? Do you really think you can get past me?”
Dewey wandered toward her, shining his light down the passage. He wrinkled his nose, his ears wiggling. “No. I’ll never make it past your butt.”
“We’re trapped,” Paige said as she sank her head onto the back of her hand. “I’m going to die in this passage on my second day as a librarian.”
Dewey swung his light beam back toward the dirt wall. “Not if I can help it.” He set the flashlight down, aimed at the roots and dirt. “This must have been a way out before. It’s probably just grown in since it was last used.”
