CHAPTER 24

EVERYONE’S AFRAID OF SOMETHING:
Chirophobia is the fear of hands.

Black. It was completely black. The candelabra had been extinguished as the group fell down the steep tunnel. By the time they tumbled onto a level surface, Lulu’s terror was increasing at an exponential rate. Her neck grew rigid from escalating panic and her breaths morphed into a labored wheeze. This was the situation she had lived in fear of her whole life. It was a place without light, without a foreseeable exit, and with the dwindling of the others’ voices, she was virtually alone.

Lulu curled up into a ball and closed her eyes. Of course, there was no difference between having her eyes shut or open, since it was pitch black. She fought desperately for a gulp of air, suddenly realizing there was a limited amount of oxygen underground. Lulu thought of her parents, brother, teachers, and friends. They all seemed foreign, almost imaginary.

Prepared to face the terrifying reality, Lulu finally opened her eyes. Lifting her head was a great deal harder than she expected, which she could only assume was the result of her near suffocation. Where was Theo when she was ready for her moment of melodrama?

Lulu crawled aimlessly through the tunnel until happening upon a narrow divide of dirt. To the right she felt a tunnel, and to the left another tunnel. She debated which one could possibly lead her out of this nightmare. Perhaps both led to a dead end; there was simply no way of knowing.

Lulu moved to the right, for absolutely no reason other than needing a resolution. She crawled as fast as humanly possible considering her constricted lungs, throbbing head, and the detonation of her worst fear. All Lulu wanted was to not be there, in the overpowering darkness.

“Please, please, please,” Lulu mumbled, pleading with herself to continue. Somehow she summoned enough courage to propel herself through the tunnel, only stopping when her hair caught on something. Reaching up, Lulu discovered small twigs jutting out from the dirt.

At that very moment, Lulu decided she wasn’t going to go without fighting for her friends — and Schmidty and Mac, too. Lulu’s small and nimble hands grabbed what she realized were tree roots and pulled. She yanked and dug with the ferocity of a gopher. As Lulu frantically dug, she heard a voice. Was she imagining it? It was more than possible considering the destruction her mind had undergone since entering the black hole.

“Mom … Mom … Dad! If you can hear me? I’m stuck!”

A moment of hope passed through Lulu’s body. But Was it really him? Or was this a figment of her imagination?

“Do you think the leaves are poisonous?” Theo’s voice echoed.

“God save our gracious Queen, Long live our noble Queen.”

“Why are you singing about saving the queen?” Garrison asked with irritation. “She’s not trapped! She’s sitting pretty in her castle!”

“Sorry, it’s England’s national anthem; I thought it might bring us a bit of luck.”

“Luck? I think what we need is a gardener and our mean friend Lulu!” Theo hollered.

“Just be happy your head’s not stuck in these things. Somehow I doubt you’d look good bald,” Garrison responded.

It wasn’t Lulu’s imagination; she had found them! Well, not exactly, but they were close. Oddly, her focus on reaching them eradicated the ache behind her left eye and her asthmatic breathing as she slogged through the mud, listening, while the voices grew louder.

“Is that a spider?” Madeleine asked frantically.

“Where?” Garrison asked.

“That black ball. There. Oh no, I can’t move!”

“Maddie, please stay calm. I don’t even think it’s alive. It’s a part of a leaf or something.”

“What have we done to deserve this?” Theo whined. “Why us? I’ve always been nice to people, and I assume Madeleine has too. Garrison, well, he’s come around, and isn’t that what matters?”

Lulu continued down the tunnel, yelling, “I’m coming!”

“Lulu?” Theo screamed back.

“Yes, it’s me!”

“Lulu! Thank Heavens!” Madeleine yelled.

Lulu popped her muddy face into the light, immediately squinting as her eyes burned. It was the most fabulous burning sensation she had ever known. Never in her wildest dreams did she think she could be this happy to wander, covered in mud, into a greedy lawyer’s underground office, and find her friends trapped.

Lulu took in the dark and dingy room, walls plastered with old betting sheets and racing stories from the newspaper. In the center of the room was a large metal desk covered in chipped black paint. It was quite a change from the pageant photos that decked the walls of Mrs. Wellington’s mansion.

To the left of the large metal desk, Theo, Madeleine, and Garrison were entangled, much like flies in a spider’s web, in a network of vines set up to catch all that exited the main tunnel. Lulu had climbed out of a tunnel at least ten feet away, completely avoiding the sticky mess.

“Forget the queen! God save Lulu!” Madeleine exclaimed with tears in her eyes. “Do you see that black thing to your left?”

“Maddie! There is no time for small bits of lint. We need help! Schmidty is depending on us to get Mac back,” Garrison said severely.

“Schmidty, if you can hear us, we won’t let you down! We won’t let you lose Mac or the mansion,” Theo announced with flair.

“Ten minutes ago I would have made fun of your drama school performance, but I can’t now. I’m too happy to see you,” Lulu said sincerely.

“Oh no, we’re running out of oxygen,” Theo said, half-serious. “Lulu’s hallucinating. She thinks she likes me.”

“Lulu, how about some help? It’s trickier than it looks. Munchauser set up these vines to trap us,” Garrison said. “There’s a letter opener on the table, but you need to be extra careful not to touch any of the vines or we’ll all be stuck here,” Garrison instructed tensely.

Without further delay, Lulu grabbed the letter opener off the desk and dragged a wooden crate over to Garrison.

“Be careful, Lulu.”

“Stop talking. You’re distracting me, Garrison.”

“Don’t distract her,” Theo interjected.

Lulu’s small and dirty right hand shook while navigating the overlapping vines.

“Lulu, you’ve got to calm down.”

“Um, hello? Obviously, I don’t want my hands to be shaking. I can’t stop them!”

“Wait. Stop for a second and think of something comforting,” Garrison responded.

Lulu rolled her eyes.

“Like a cell phone,” Theo replied.

“Or bug repellent,” Madeleine added.

Lulu sighed and then thought for a second about how happy she had been to hear her friends’ voices from inside the tunnel. The tremors halted and her mud-stained hand moved with the precision of a surgeon. Garrison wanted to tell Lulu to hurry up, but decided he couldn’t take the chance of rattling her newfound confidence. Lulu sliced the vines near his hands, dropping him to freedom, and then happily passed Garrison the letter opener so that he could free Madeleine and Theo from the web.

Madeleine immediately sprayed herself from head to toe. Seconds later, she turned the repellent to a worthy adversary, the small black thing she’d spotted from the web.

“It’s a piece of dried-up old wood. What a relief!” Madeleine exclaimed. “That was a close call.”

“Team, we need to focus. Why would Munchauser build an office underground?” Garrison asked as he peered around the dust-filled room.

“It’s an old fallout shelter,” Madeleine said as if it were the most obvious of answers.

“A what?” Lulu responded.

“A bomb shelter. They were predominantly built in the nineteen-fifties during the Cold War, in case of a nuclear attack.”

“Well, how are we supposed to get out of here?” Lulu said as she began to sense a low rumble of claustrophobia.

“There’s the door,” Garrison said, pointing ahead a few feet.

Mere nanoseconds after Garrison opened the door he slammed it shut.

“Are we sure there isn’t another way out?” Garrison asked with sweat pooling on his upper lip.

“Other than crawling up a two-hundred-foot tunnel?” Theo asked sarcastically.

Garrison’s face was pale and sweaty from the stress of what he had seen, but he wiped his brow and once again grabbed the copper knob. He entered the room, followed by Lulu, Madeleine, and Theo.

The instantaneous screaming was louder than any child had ever produced in the history of children. It lasted less than eight seconds, but left an intense, unforgettable ringing in the ears.