The Madrona Heroes Register: Underneath It All

Chapter 18 - The Lunch Date

KNOCK KNOCK. Huitre took one last look around the kitchen. She was early, and he had butterflies. He hadn’t felt like this in a longer time than he cared to admit. Normally, Huitre would think that being early was rude. But in the case of Julie Jordan he was prepared to make an exception. 

Huitre opened the door and his mouth fell open.

Samantha Trace stood in Huitre’s doorway. Uninvited and unannounced. “I’m sorry. Is this a bad time? I was in the neighborhood and thought I would say hello on the off chance you were home. And lucky me. Here you are.”

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“It’s peanut butter Nutella banana. I had to get up extra early to make these without my Dad noticing. I’m still not sure what to tell him tonight as at some point today he will no doubt notice that all the bread is gone. And all the nutella. And all the bananas.” Binny said as she passed out sandwiches to the other kids.

“And all the peanut butter?” Cassie said with a mouthful of sandwiches, the beginning of a chocolate mustache forming on her upper lip.

“Nope, there’s still peanut butter.” Binny replied.

“Dad never lets that run out.” Zach added.

Zach was first to finish his sandwich and spread out the map they’d been looking at earlier in the day. Zach took out his pen and drew a rectangle in the middle of the Madrona woods. “This is the cave.” Zach stabbed a finger at the drawing.

“Why do you call it that? It’s a shelter.” Binny corrected.

Zach ignored her. “I did some reading last night. If the metal door up above was sealed, then air would not be able to get out, and people staying in here for more than a little while would overheat.”

“Let’s not close that door then.” Zoe said.

“But they had to plan for the door to be closed, which means, they had another way for air to get in from outside. Probably with a filtration system, though from the smell when we got here, I’m guessing the ventilation duct has been closed for some time.”

“I agree. Let’s not close the door.” Penny added.

“Listen, the door isn’t the point. We need to make our cell phones work down here. And that means we need a way to get a wire from a little box up above, to another little box down here in the cave.”

“Shelter.” Binny corrected.

“Why not just run the wire down the hallway?” Penny asked?

“We could do that. But if anyone found the signal receiving box up above, they could just follow the wire right into this place. Making it easy for people to find us seems to go against the whole ‘hideout’ theme we’re creating here.”

“But if you can find where the air comes from, we could run the wire from there.” Zoe said.

“Exactly. But so far I haven’t found where the ventilation is down here. We need to scour the walls, every corner, and the ceiling for a clue as to how air comes down here.”

Cassie and Gabe had taken to playing various pretend games in some of the rooms. Mainly the kitchen, and the command center. Sometimes they pretended to cook for all the residents of the hideout. Sometimes they pretended to supervise everyone.

While Cassie and Gabe were busy playing, the four older kids spread out. For fifteen minutes, Zach scoured every inch of the bedrooms with his flashlight. He knew it must be here somewhere. He hoped that the others were applying the same attention to detail as he was to the search. The vent wouldn’t have to be super large necessarily, and there could be more than one.