Free Billy and the Birdfrogs by B.B. Wurge Page A

for a long time. I was afraid he might fall asleep at the table and I wouldn’t be able to break into the basement without waking him up. He drank the rest of the wine in his glass, and finished the rest of Mr. Earpicker’s glass too. Then he sat still for a while, breathing heavily and muttering to himself. I couldn’t make out what he was saying. Finally he got up heavily and stumped out of the kitchen.
    I knew all the sounds of this house. I knew exactly which room he was in and which floor he was on. I followed him with my ears as he stumped slowly up the staircase. When I was sure that he had reached the second floor, I crawled out of the cabinet and snuck to the foot of the stairs so I could listen to him better.
    Then I remembered about the trap door to the attic. If he went up to the fourth floor, he would see that someone had broken into the house. He would see the missing board, and the open trap door, and he would see that the light in the attic was on. Then he would call the police, and I’d be caught. I clutched the staircase railing and listened intently as his footsteps went up, higher and higher.
    “Please,” I thought, “please stop at the third floor.” But the footsteps continued up the staircase.
    Suddenly the footsteps stopped. I knew he had reached the fourth-floor landing. He must have been staring at the break-in, because I didn’t hear any sound for a minute. Then I heard him mumble, “Earpicker’s right. She really was a loony.”
    I heard him open my bedroom door and go in. Then I heard the sound of my bed squeaking. He had climbed into my bed! I crept up the staircase as quietly as I could, and as I neared the top floor I could hear him softly snoring. I braved looking in the door, and there he was, stretched out on my bed with his clothes and shoes still on, his great round face pointed up at the ceiling, and his eyes closed.
    At first I felt mad. I didn’t like him in my bed. But then I decided he had done me the best possible favor by going to the top of the house, far away from where I would be working in the basement, and falling asleep.
    I didn’t waste any more time on Mr. Jubber. I went right back downstairs to the kitchen and carefully checked the basement door. My grandmother had done a very thorough job welding it closed, and I couldn’t see how I was going to get it open. It looked hopeless. The door was metal, the edges were sealed, and the lock was completely blocked off by melted silver dollars. If I couldn’t get through the door, then I’d have to go through the wall next to the door. I’d have to carve a hole in the plaster.
    I looked around the kitchen and gathered some tools together. If Mr. Jubber hadn’t been in my bedroom, I would have fetched my Swiss army knife. Instead, I hunted through the drawers of kitchen utensils. I wanted a small knife that was easy to hold and good for carving, and I found a potato peeler that seemed just right. I also gathered together a flashlight, a whole handful of extra batteries, a hard-boiled egg, some bread, a jar of peanut butter, a jar of jelly, a jelly knife, a bottle of water, and a lot of napkins. I didn’t know how long I might be down that hole exploring. It might take me into the next day, and I hadn’t eaten very much in a long time. I put all these things into a cloth bag that was hanging on the doorknob of the closet. Then I got to work on the wall next to the basement door.
    First I stabbed the plaster with the potato peeler. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be, but on the third try the blade went right in. Then I started to pry and chip, opening up a hole. It was hard work. When the hole was big enough for a fist to get through, I could see that the wall was hollow, and that I would have to carve through another layer of plasterboard a few inches away. After a while I had the idea of filling a glass with water and pouring it on the plasterboard. When the plaster got soggy, it was easier to break