Free Building Blocks by Cynthia Voigt

Kevin with him. This was his adventure, for him. “Wait here, I won’t be long.”
    â€œBut Brann—”
    Brann lay on his back, his legs extending into the sloped entrance. He held the flashlight against his abdomen, to protect it with his body in case the tunnel narrowed unexpectedly. He elbowed himself forward and down.
    â€œBrann?” he heard behind him, before he slid out of hearing.
    The leaves hadn’t entered far into the tunnel, and he could move under his own control, he could even sit up, resting his torso on his elbows. He could have walked down hunched over, he realized, it wasn’t so steep after all, and the roof was higher than he’d thought. Daylight filtered in behind him and the beam of the flashlight probed ahead.
    The slope lasted no more than twenty feet. At its end the floor leveled and Brann sat for a minute, moving the flashlight around. It was about the size of a walk-in closet, this area. A couple of spider webs, but everything else rocks: uneven rock walls, an uneven rock floor, the ceiling smoother rock.There was still a little daylight behind him.
    Brann stood up and examined the walls. If it was part of the underground railway, there had to be a way forward, unless that was just a story. But Kevin didn’t tell stories like that, to boast. He moved around to the right, along the wall, and sure enough he saw a narrow opening, behind an outcrop of rock. It was half his height, and he crouched down to send the flashlight beam in. A kind of tunnel; he’d have to crawl. But at the end, deeper darkness, like another room, and not a long tunnel. Brann made himself look around at the closet room he was in, memorizing the appearance of the outcropping rock. He wasn’t going to be careless about this, and he knew he had a good memory. Then he crawled into the tunnel.
    No daylight here, nothing but heavy black darkness. The flashlight, held in his right hand, clunked on the ground. Stupid, he said to himself, and moved it to his mouth, thinking that that must be why miners had lights on their hats. He wouldn’t like to lose that flashlight or have it break on him.
    The stones rubbed at his shoulders and cut sharp at the fabric of his jeans. Like a dog following a scent, he followed the beam of light, slowly, his head downto keep from banging it against the ceiling.
    The light splayed out in front of him at the same time he felt the ceiling lift. He felt down, over the edge of the tunnel, with his right hand. Nothing.
    Brann felt a second of panic, as pleasurable as a good horror movie. All he had to do was back out the slow ten feet, no problem. No reason to give up. He took the flashlight out of his mouth and shone it ahead. He couldn’t see anything across, so it had to be a big room, a real cave. Flat on his belly now, he scraped forward, until his head and shoulders were out in the empty blackness. He directed the light down. And it was going to be easy, he just hadn’t reached down far enough to find the floor of this room. It wasn’t even a two foot drop, he just had to be careful with the flashlight.
    Careful also to memorize what he could. He looked at the shape of the opening, hunching backwards to do so. He hunched forward again and twisted his neck around to check the walls he could see. Then he slowly, cautiously, careful never to come even close to being off balance, edged his body onto the floor of the room. And stood up.
    A sharp pain in his heel, a reflex jerk away, but hisgrip tightened on the flashlight. He’d stepped on something sharp. The light showed uneven stones, some of them sharp edged, jutting up. He should have shoes on. He grinned.
    So far so good. Now the misty edge of light showed the shadowy opposite of the room, showed a ceiling five feet over his head. If he stuck to the wall he could check the way the cave went form here. But first he buried the front of the flashlight against his backside, to get the feeling