Free The Tunnel of Hugsy Goode by Eleanor Estes Page B

spot on the first floor, even from the kitchen. Tornid's mom always has the television on, whether she's paying attention or not. If someone comes to visit, she turns the sound off, but she leaves the picture on not to miss the whole thing. Sometimes you don't know whether she hears you or not. You wonder if you are interrupting something special she had in mind to watch. Then you realize this isn't so. She just likes to have TV on all the time—it's her custom. Not like in Jane's house where it's the custom to hide it and let it get dusty.
    The sound was on now—no visitors within—and it came out to us via the dining-room windows. It was going on about the weather. We listened to what it was going to do. We've caught this habit from the grownups who always want to know what it's doing out. It said strong winds and rain were predicted for early in the day, continuing through nightfall, all up and down the Atlantic seaboard. Small-craft warnings already in effect from Cape Hatteras to Kennebunkport, Maine.
    "We have to work fast, Torny, old boy, old boy," I said. "Ride the storm out in the tunnel, if possible..."
    "Yeah," said Tornid.
    Our hole, thanks to the help from, probably, the visiting raccoon, if not from smoogmen below, eager to get out, was very big now. We worked hard. Each of us wanted to be first to feel nothing ... that is, tunnel air ... to be in the tunnel at last. Suddenly the wall around TRATS crumbled. I yanked Tornid away. I poked my arms and my head into the wide hole. Loose stones and gravel slipped down to somewhere. We had made a breakthrough into somewhere! Probably the office marked T.N.F. on the map.
    I wriggled back out, wiped my face, cleaned my glasses, looked at Tornid through the lower part of them, and said, "Tornid. We are, I believe we are, at this moment ... mark the time on the chart ... 9:45 ... about to make our entrance into the tunnel, the office of it marked T.N.F. on the map."
    "We are?" said Tornid. "Copin. Will this tunnel be our tunnel? Our own tunnel?"
    "Cripes!" I said. "Tornid," I said. "This tunnel is a tunnel for all the Alley, all.... Even though we are the discoverers of it and we were the ones who paid attention to the words of Hugsy Goode and we get into it first, see where it goes, still it is for all in the Alley. And for Grandby College, a tunnel to make it proud," I said. "Same as if you get to the moon first and plant a flag there, the moon will still be the moon for all the world."

    "And universe," said Tornid.
    "So now, Tornid, since this breakthrough happens to be under your house, you can be the first to feel into it. Reach your hands and arms in, your head, get in as far as you can, smell, feel around. I'll hang onto your legs so you won't slide in and disappear. Wiggle a leg when you want out."
    He did this. Soon he wiggled a leg. I pulled him out. He said, "Can't feel bottom, can't feel a wall except the crumbly part of this one where we dug, can't feel anything, and it all smells like it's been smelling all along, like rubble."
    "Must be the way tunnel air smells around here," I said. I stuck my head, shoulders, and arms in, and I felt nothing either. I said, "Tornid. We have penetrated the wall of the tunnel because all we feel is nothing ... unless ... this wall is part of your cellar.... Must check on that. Make a note of the time—10:00 A.M. "
    He wrote "10" in chalk on TRATS . He carries out orders well.
    We went into the Fabians' house. We wanted to go down the cellar and make sure we hadn't dug the hole into it instead of the tunnel. Tornid's mom was still ironing, one eye on the board, the other on television. She can even type Frank Fabian's papers, one eye on them, the other on TV. It's a gift. I like her; I wish she liked me.
    "And ... where are you going?" she asked.
    "Down cellar," said Tornid. "We're looking for something."
    "OK," she said. "But come right back up. Remember, I saw a rat down there last week. Just now, I thought I