I led everyone into the enclosed playground surrounding the kindergarten building, and Mr. Pony made sure to lock the gate behind Eli and the rest of us. Everyone looked around expectantly.
"Okay, kiddoes," said Mr. Pony, after making their way to the front of the now somewhat-less-regimented line. "After lunch comes recess. You lot know the drill by now, right?"
Most of us nodded our eager little heads, but I was still feeling a little drained from my, uh, ordeal earlier. While recess was indeed fun, I would probably have preferred a nap right about now.
"Great!" replied Mr. Pony, putting their hands over their stomach. "This 'teaching' thing gets easier every time I do it!" they then retreated to their bench near the entrance to the kindergarten building to read their book.
"Oh boy!" said Owen, pumping his fists in front of himself, his eyes sparkling. "It feels like forever since I've been out here!"
"Yes," said Jacques, looking down a bit awkwardly at the significantly shorter Owen. "It was a lot… quieter in the cuckoo's tower without you."
"Probably a lot less annoying, too," inputted Jeremy.
"Hey!" said Owen, tears glistening in his eyes. "Randy, Jeremy's bullying me!"
Randy looked back and forth from Jeremy to Owen, visibly disgusted with having to attend to this complaint. "Leave him alone, Jeremy," he said halfheartedly after a few seconds, before making a heel-face turn towards the slide.
"Hey Jordan," said Jenny from my left, drawing my attention away from Owen, Randy, and Jeremy.
"Huh?" I asked. "Oh yeah, the tunnel. Let's go."
"Actually," replied Jenny, "Kristy and I aren't going to work on the tunnel today. We've already told Eli, and just wanted to let you know too."
"Yeah," added Kristy, who was right next to her. "We're going to the swingset."
"Oh, okay," I said. "Have fun." The last few times I had worked on the tunnel with them, we had been doing different tasks, so it wasn't like I had interacted with them as much. Still, it was a little disappointing to see them go, though it's not like they had to spend every recess helping Eli with what he was doing. Putting my hand over my nose and mouth, I wondered whether I should take a day off too… but then banished the thought from my mind. I would have felt too bad leaving Eli all by himself after Jenny and Kristy had already decided to do something else. I took my hand off of my nose and mouth and turned around to head over to the tunnel, but almost bumped into Mr. Pony, who I didn't realize was standing behind me.
"Oh, sorry Jordan, did I scare you?" asked Mr. Pony, putting their hand to their cheek, the one on their face, and tilting their head to one side quizzically. "I was just worried is all. Randy told me that you were sick, so I just wanted to check up on you. Do you need to go to the office?"
"No," I said. "I'm fine." I was getting a bit fed up with this. I just drunk some inspired milk, it wasn't like I had the Coronavirus or anything.
"All right, just making sure," said Mr. Pony. "If you start to feel worse, make sure you let me know at once, but I'll stop bothering you about it now." They then scooted back to their bench and let me be.
I let my breath out a little. Time to get to the tunnel. I headed over towards the sandbox, passing the wooden fire truck and the cuckoo's tower. Jacques was right – Owen's excited voice was so loud that I could hear it from down on the ground. As I rounded the corner, I heard a voice call my name. "Hey, Jordan!"
I spun around. It was Kathleen, Kiki, William, and Skylar. That was right. Although I had been mad at Owen and shep for ditching the lunch crew, I wasn't really in a position to talk since I had disappeared as well.
"Hey guys," I said, again becoming self-conscious since 3 of the 4 people I was talking to were actually girls. "Sorry about what happened during lunch. I wasn't feeling too good, so I ducked into the bathroom."
"Oh, so that's where you went," said William, sounding a little relieved. "We were all worried about you."
"Yeah," added Skylar. "When we saw you talking with Randy and Mr. Pony we thought you were in trouble for sure."
I was still a bit annoyed about constantly being asked about my surprise bathroom trip, but this was an interesting take on it for sure. "No," I began once again. "I just drunk some inspired milk and it made me sick is all. They were making sure that I was fine."
"After I get sick, I always make sure to drink some 'rade," quipped Kiki, holding up one of her fingers as if to give a lecture. "It's full of electrolytes to replenish your body."
Kathleen closed her eyes somewhat embarrassedly and put one of her hands behind her head. "Which 'rade are you talking about?"
"Y'know," said Kiki. "'Rade."
"I'll make sure to keep that in mind," I acknowledged, curling one of my fingers to my chin and looking off to the side. "By the way, I also ran into shep and Owen while I was in the bathroom."
"So that's where they went," said William, crossing his thick arms and screwing up his face thoughtfully.
"Sounds like a real party in there," said Kiki.
"Did you find out why they ditched us?" asked Skylar.
"Not really," I admitted. "They were playing some game with -" I took the metal disc that Owen had given me out of my pocket " - this thing, apparently."
"Weird," said Skylar, narrowing her eyes to inspect the object in my fingers.
"I also asked him about why he started the amnesia rumor," I added, "but he just denied that he started it, and claimed I did."
"Wait, what?" asked Kathleen. "But you all spent, like, five minutes trying to convince me that he started it."
I shook my head mysteriously. "I don't know," I admitted truthfully. "I have no idea what's going on anymore, between what you and Owen said. I only know that I don't remember having amnesia, and I don't know where the rumor that I did came from."
Rather than being upset with me, everyone seemed to be strangely sympathetic. "It's okay, Jordan," reassured William. "We all know you don't have amnesia."
"Yeah, even if you did in the past, you seem to be fine now," agreed Kathleen.
"If Owen was being so shady about it, he was definitely the one that started the rumor, too," added Skylar.
It was unusual, but also validating to see all of these people believing what I said and what I felt was true. Maybe, despite being mostly girls, they were really "my bois" and not Owen.
Ah, but speaking of bois, I still had to help out Eli. I started to turn back around. Actually, I wondered if any of them would be willing to help out? "Hey, do you guys know about the tunnel yet?" I asked.
"Oh! The one Eli's building, right?" asked Kathleen, pounding one of her fists against her open palm as if she were mashing a mashed potato. "I've heard a bit of it from Jenny and Jeremy. I just never even knew where it was, so I never checked it out."
"Yeah, that's the one," I replied.
William, Skylar, and Kiki all shook their heads. "I think she's the only one who knows what it is," said William.
"Okay then," I replied, realizing some explanation was in order. "Let me just show you then. Follow me." I made a face-heel turn and led them, like they were the line, towards the sandbox, where the entrance to Eli's tunnel lay.
"Wow, so this is where it was," said Kathleen. "I've never been over here before."
"Yeah, it's a bit out of the way," I agreed, before calling into the entrance "Hey Eli! Are you there?"
Eli's helmet covered head poked out of the tunnel soon enough. "Hi Jordan. W-w-whoa." He looked very taken aback by the amount of people standing outside of the tunnel. "W-what are all these p-people doing here?"
"Jordan was just showing us your tunnel," said Skylar. Eli retreated a bit underneath his helmet.
"Actually," I inputted, raising my hand partially as if to offer an alternative perspective. "I have actually been helping Eli out with building the tunnel over the last few days, and so have Jenny and Kristy. I was wondering if anyone else wanted to help out as well?"
"Heck yeah!" said Kathleen, pumping her fists enthusiastically.
"Yeah, it sounds really cool." said William, though it was clear he was curbing his enthusiasm slightly.
"I dunno, I don't really want to get all down and dirty in the sandbox," said Skylar, inspecting her nails.
"Yeah, and digging beneath all this dirt prolly isn't so good for the environment," added Kiki.
The difference in opinions made Kathleen and William hesitate. "I mean..." began William. "If you don't want to do this, we can always all just do something else."
"No, it's fine," insisted Skylar. "You can do what you want. We can just go and do something else, right Kiki?"
"Sure," said Kiki. "I was just gonna go chill on the firetruck. Maybe go up and down the slide a few times." She drew a few little mountains in the air with her fingers when she said 'up and down'.
"That sounds like a plan to me," said Skylar, cheesing. "We'll catch you guys later. Toodles!"
"Did she really just say that?" asked William softly after Skylar was out of earshot. For some reason I got the sense she was actually mad at him.
"A-anyways," resumed Eli, "You two w-want to h-elp out with the t-tunnel, too?"
"You bet!" replied Kathleen. "But first, can you show us what you've done so far? It sounds so cool!"
"Oh, for sure!" said Eli, perking up at the thought of the idea. "Please f-follow me inside, one at a time."
As Eli led the way into the tunnel, it occurred to me that while normally he was last in line, this was his time to be the line leader. I wondered if that was why he enjoyed being in the tunnel so much.
Eventually, all four compatriots were gathered in the significantly larger chamber with a few unfinished side tunnels going off to the side.
"Man, it's dark in here," said William. "Won't somebody turn on the light?"
"Oh, sorry," apologized Eli, fumbling with his helmet. His now-goggled eyes had adjusted to the natural dim light of the underground, and he hadn't thought to switch on his headlamp yet. He done so now, so it was a little easier to see in the tunnel.
"At least get me some chips, man. I'm missing the super bowl!" continued William.
"Wow, it's bigger than I expected," said Kathleen, now that the light illuminated the full expanse of the cavern.
"Yeah, it definitely wasn't this big last time I was here," I added, noting the progress he, Jenny and Kristy had made while I was gathering branches for support.
Eli retreated a bit underneath his helmet. "Thanks," he said. "I took some advice from Jordan and decided to make it one tunnel that goes to a bunch of different places on the playground. Though I haven't completed any of them yet.
Kathleen pounded her fist in her open palm as if she were mashing a mashed potato. "I have an idea!" she said. "You should get Jacques to add your tunnel to his map!"
"Jacques? That's the tall guy, right?" asked Eli.
"Yup, he's the guy that has the map of the whole school, remember?"
"Oh yeah, he was in show and tell." Eli put his hand to his chin thoughtfully. "That would be a good idea, once we get it completed. But we're going to need a lot more branches if we want to support a tunnel that big." To explain he gestured towards the branches supporting the walls of the chamber we were all in.
"I can go gather branches," I volunteered, thinking back to the excuse Owen used to team up with shep during lunch. "That way, if we split up, I can show one person where the branches are and Eli can show the other how to dig here."
"That's a good idea," said Eli. "We're getting off to a bit of a late start, but I will need some help getting some of the gear from the shed."
"Ooh, can I pick out my own Tonka Truck?" asked Kathleen excitedly. "I'll stay behind and dig, guys. William, you can go and gather sticks with Jordan."
"Yeah, that sounds good to me," said William, who, being significantly larger than everyone else, wasn't as thrilled about being cooped up in a small tunnel. We quickly shimmied back outside where we could stand up straight.
Trusting Eli to show Kathleen what to do whether we were there or not, I took initiative in my own way. "Okay, William, I'll show you where we usually get the branches." I started walking across the playground, making sure to avoid the section where Jeremy bounced his lacrosse ball like an experienced Mario player avoiding a piranha plant. Eventually, we came to the area beneath where the trees hung over the playground, which was somewhat near the swingset where Jenny and Kristy were swinging.
I looked around the ground, which aside from a few scattered sticks, was a bit barren. "Well, this is normally where the branches would be, if there were more of them."
"Yeah, it doesn't look like there's a whole lot here," said William, bending at the waist to pick up the two or three reasonably-sized branches around him.
I wondered where they all could have gone. I sighed and grabbed the few reasonably-sized branches around me.
"Are you sure there isn't another place we can find these?" asked William, as we started the short walk back to the mouth of the tunnel.
I shifted all of the sticks to one hand so I could put the other over my nose and mouth to think. Hmm, I thought. Who would probably know where to find more branches? I thought some more, but could only come up with three answers: Eli, Jacques, and Kiki. Well, we were already going back to see Eli, so we could just ask him when we got to the tunnel. That left Jacques and Kiki.
"How about Jacques?" I suggested. "His map might show where there are more branches."
William screwed up his face thoughtfully. "Yeah, maybe. But he's up in the cuckoo's tower with Owen, and Owen's been acting kinda weird..."
"That's true," I agreed, an embarrassed bead of sweat dripping down the side of my face as I remembered his odd behavior during lunch. "Let's go ask Kiki then."
"Yeah," agreed William more finally. "She's an environmentalist, so she should know a lot about branches."
The large man blinked in surprise, but you wouldn't be able to tell behind his smash mouth sunglasses. That was a bit of a stretch, but he decided to go along with it anyways.
Branches in hand, William and I approached Kiki and Skylar, who were still chilling on the large wooden fire truck.
"Oh, 'sup, guys," said Kiki. "I thought you two were working on the tunnel."
"We are," I mansplained. "We're just gathering branches for support while Kathleen and Eli are digging."
"Cool," she said. "Want a lollipop?"
"I recommend the cherry flavor," added Skylar.
While William definitely seemed tempted, I needed to keep us on task somehow. "Later," I answered for both of us. "We actually came here to ask you a question."
"Oh, forreal?" she asked, unwrapping an orange lollipop and putting it into her mouth. "What is it?"
"Where do you think we'd be able to find more of these branches? The place where they usually are is all gone."
"Hmm..." Kiki put her finger to her mouth thoughtfully, clearly lost in thought. "Well, they came from the trees over there, right? So anywhere that's underneath where those trees are is bound to have some sticks."
My gaze followed as she pointed toward the group of trees on the small hill near the kindergarten building. Though they mainly grew over the hill, a few of the branches reached over the fence into the space above the playground (which, to some people, may also be considered the playground, but only once someone's feet have touched the ground beneath it). One of the trees grew out of the side of the hill and had a particularly large droop over the building itself.
I put my hand over my nose and mouth. What did that mean? I felt like I needed to critical think, but any thoughts I would have started to have were cut short by Kathleen's excited voice. "Hey guys, come quick! Eli and I found something cool!"
"Really?" asked William. "What is it?" in his own excitement, William took off towards the tunnel, leaving me behind.
"Wait," I began, but it was useless. "Sorry," I apologized to Skylar and Kiki, before absentmindedly trodding off after William, Kiki's words and my thoughts mingling together in the forefront of my brain. I got to the tunnel, crouched down, and crawled inside.
Eli was there to greet me. He motioned towards one of the several tunnels branching off the side, which Kathleen and William had already disappeared down. "O-over this way," he beckoned, before following me through the tunnel. We emerged out the other side into a small underground room lit with an exposed lightbulb on the ceiling and fitted with several metal shelves with old tools on them and a door with a platter to the side of it.
"Whoa," I said. Due to the size of the room and the fact that it wasn't empty, it was clear that Eli did not create it. "What is this place? What is it doing here?"
"I d-don't know," answered Eli, before shaking his head slightly. "I was just digging and suddenly I dug through the wall into here."
"Here's some yard tools," said William, inspecting the metal shelves and their contents.
"And what is this door?" asked Kathleen. "This whole place seems like something that Graham Turver would make up."
On closer inspection, the door was made of metal, and seemed to be shut very tightly. There was no hint as to what might be on the other side. To its right was a small, square platter that had what looked like a digital display beneath it. The display read 000.
"What is this number thing, too?" Kathleen noticed it as quickly as I did, before getting an exciting idea. "Is this a password to open the door?"
I put my hand over my nose and mouth as we both bent in to inspect it more closely. William towered over behind us while Eli hung out near the tunnel's entrance to the room. "It doesn't look like it has anywhere to type in a password, though."
"What's the thing on top of it?" asked William, awkwardly trying to reach over us to motion to the platter.
Kathleen looked up to the platter. "Can we take it off?" she asked, grabbing the sides of the platter and trying to pull it out of the pillar containing it and the display. "No use."
"Maybe we need to put something in it," thought William out loud.
"Dentist union," I said, raising my hand as if to offer an alternative point of view.
William and Kathleen looked at me as if I had lost my marbles. "Uh… what?" asked William.
"Nothing," I said quickly, reaching into my pocket and taking out the metal disc that I had given to Owen, and he had later given back to me. "Let's try this." I placed the coin inside of the platter.
"Look, it changed!" observed Kathleen. She was right, the third digit of the display now read 3, while the first two were still both 0. We all glanced up to the door expectantly, but nothing happened.
"Doesn't look like it did anything," said a disheartened William.
I picked up the coin off the platter and returned it to my pocket, putting my other hand over my nose and mouth. The display returned to 000. "So this thing turns it to '003'. What about something else?"
"Oh, I know," said William, rushing over to grab a rusted metal trowel from one of the shelves. "Let's try this." He placed the trowel on the platter. The display changed to 053. Nothing else happened.
Eli's eyes widened, and since he had removed his goggles in the well-lit room, now we could notice. "It's a scale," he said suddenly.
"What?" asked William, removing the trowel from the platter. The display returned to 000.
"A scale, that measures weight," repeated Eli. "Jordan. Do you know which kind of trowel is the heaviest?"
"Huh?" I asked, taken aback by the question. For some reason, I felt the word escape from my body at the same time as I heard a large man bellowing it, followed by a "What the heck kind of question is that?!"
Though I thought it was strange to be hearing voices, I couldn't help but agree with it, because hoo-boy, this was a tough question. I thunk and thunk, so hard that my brain didn't even know how to use the right word anymore, but still only came up with three answers that could possibly work: Superflex, Swingline, and Kraft. I still had no clue which one was correct though. I know Kraft made macaroni and cheese, because I loved me some Kraft macaroni and cheese, but I also knew they made other stuff too, so I couldn't rule them out. Swingline was for staplers, but could it also be for other stuff, like Kraft? I had never even heard of Superflex, should I just go with that one? Sure, why not.
"Uh, Superflex?" I asked, raising my hand as if to offer an alternative point of view, hoping that Eli wouldn't see the nervous bead of sweat on the side of my face and call my bluff.
"Yep, that's correct!" answered Eli. Thank God. "The Superflex Refina trowel is the heaviest of the 16"x5" trowels, weighing in at 53.9 grams." He pointed towards the trowel in William's hands. "And I happen to know that that is a Superflex Refina."
"And the number thingy said 53!" said Kathleen excitedly, putting two and two together. "Wow, you're a genius, Eli."
William squinted to make out the branding on the rusted trowel. "But how did you know it was that kind of trowel?"
"W-well..." muttered Eli, putting his hand behind his helmeted head embarrassedly, "what kind of construction worker would I be if I couldn't recognize tools like that?"
Unsure of what to do with the scale, the conversation reached a natural lull, and as we were silent, the excitement of the new situation wore off and we better took in our surroundings. I was the first to break the silence. "This place is cool and all, but it kinda gives me Indiana Jones vibes. I'm starting to get the heebie-jeebies."
"T-true," agreed Eli, with an 'e'. "I g-get the f-feeling that we're n-not supposed t-be here." I noticed that he seemed more nervous than usual.
"Agreed," said William, "now that you point it out." We all made our way towards the tunnel and crawled back out to the playground, though the scene lingered on the empty room for a few seconds before returning to us.
"By the way, Eli," I asked him once we were all back in the sandbox, "William and I didn't find very many branches today. Do you know where there might be more?"
"N-not off the t-top of my head, no," he replied.
"I see," I said, putting my hand over my nose and mouth to continue the train of thought I had started earlier. "Kiki says that there will be sticks underneath the trees after they fall off, but we've picked the only area in the playground underneath the trees clean."
Eli lifted up his helmet to take a closer look at the expanse of foliage. "It l-looks like some of them are h-hanging over the building," he observed. "A-and the building has a f-flat roof. Normally, that's a bad thing because it stops rain and snow from just falling off." I looked back up to the top of the kindergarten building. As far as I could tell, he was right – the roof did look pretty flat.
"B-but that means that there m-must be a lot of s-sticks up there," he added.
"Well, how do you suppose we get up there?" asked William.
"T-there's a ramp built i-into the hill going up the b-back of the building," stated Eli. "If we can g-get past the w-wire fence we could a-access it. I could p-probably dig underneath it."
"That would be sweet," I said, "but do we have enough branches already to support that tunnel?"
"Yeah," added Kathleen. "It could be a while if we just wait for new ones to fall in the usual spot."
"Well," said Eli, adjusting the goggles on his helmet, "I can just take some of the branches from other parts of the tunnel."
"Wouldn't that just make those parts more likely to collapse?" I asked.
Eli looked around to the rest of us gathered in the sandbox. "Well, yes, but if we can get under the fence, we'll be able to get even more branches to re-support those sections. Sometimes, destruction is a necessary part of construction."
As if to accentuate his words of inspiration, the WATCH Tower bell tolled.
"Aw man, recess is over already?" asked Kathleen.
"Well, we did get kind of a late start," I said. "Let's put the gear away and get back inside." We all scurried to put all of the toy shovels and construction vehicles back in the shed near the sandbox, before quickly reporting back to the building entrance. Kathleen and I headed up to the front of the line, and once everyone else had assembled, we headed back into Mr. Pony's classroom.
