An Inquisitive Boy

An Inquisitive Boy

“Now, class, does anyone have any questions about the field trip to the Lost World Cave tomorrow?”

Miss Stone, the general science teacher, peered over her wire-framed glasses and stuck out her jaw pugnaciously, as though anyone in the seventh grade science class had ever questioned her when she got “that look.” Emma Stone was a large brawny woman whose glowering face framed by an unruly mane of long, black, curly hair was enough to cow the students of Nimitz Middle school most of the time. But not on this day.

Chris Johnson screwed up his courage, raised his hand, and asked, “Miss Stone, were there ever any troglodytes in the cave we're going to visit?”

Chris was a cheerful husky kid for thirteen years old, almost as big as Miss Stone. His intelligence expressed itself in unusual ways for a young teenager. One of them was a streak of curiosity a mile wide that got him into trouble sometimes. Like now.

“My! What an inquisitive boy!” Miss Stone tittered, putting her hand over her mouth. She always covered her mouth whenever she laughed or thought someone might see her with her mouth open, so everyone supposed she had bad teeth which had never been fixed. Most of the class were middleclass kids wearing braces. Miss Stone continued, “Wherever did you hear about troglodytes?

“My grandpa says that it always pays to be inquisitive. And I ought to read up on caves before the field trip. So I did a search on the internet and 'troglodytes' was one of the links.”

Miss Stone could be very mean when she was taken by surprise. “He did, did he?” she said in an icy voice. “I guess he thought he could teach this class better than I could. Is that right, Christopher?

         “Oh, no ma'am. He was just…”

         Miss Stone interrupted him with a wave of her hand, “Does anyone else know what a troglodyte is?”

         No one in the class made a peep.

          She smiled grimly, and said, “Since no one else knows about troglodytes, that will be your homework for tonight. Everyone will write a five page paper about troglodytes, courtesy of Chris Johnson.”

         The class groaned in disbelief.

         “Make it six pages,” she snapped, and glared around the room, daring anyone to question her decision again.

         Before any further damage could occur, the bell rang. The students fled from their stools at the lab tables, most of them giving Chris dirty looks as they left the room.

          “It's cold in the cave. Don't forget to bring a sweater or windbreaker,” Miss Stone called as the class filed out noisily. “And money for the entrance fee.”

****

         After the fiasco in the class, Chris walked down the hall with his best buddy, Michael Wells.

         “Man, Chris, you're really in deep doo-doo this time,” said Michael. “Everybody's gonna hate you for the extra work, and old Stoneface is probably gonna give you an “F” for speaking up.”

         “I don't know why she was so mad,” said Chris. “I always thought she liked me. She's always coming up to me and patting me on the arm, pinching my muscles and telling me how big I am.”

         “Well, it's too late now,” Michael said. Then he giggled and said, “Uh oh, here comes your girlfriend.” .

         “Briana's not my girlfriend.” Chris blushed. “I just like her a lot.”

         “Yeah, right.”

“Well, she's not!” Chris replied hotly, “she's only a dumb girl.”

         “I hope you're not talking about me, Chris Johnson!”

         Chris spun around. There she was, the cutest girl in the 7th grade, standing with her hands on her hips and looking like she was either mad or about to cry -- and couldn't figure out which. Chris knew he'd just messed up his chances with her. He didn't know what to say, so he blurted out, “You're not really dumb. I mean all girls aren't dumb. I mean…”

         He trailed off, like many a man before him, aware that he was simply digging a deeper hole for himself with every attempt at explanation.

         “Oh, you're like all the rest of the boys in our class.” She struck a pose, like someone very sophisticated, looking down her nose at Chris. “Impossibly young and immature,” she said coolly before she turned and hurried down the hall in the opposite direction.

         “Darn,” said Chris, “Why did that come out that way. I wish I could do something to impress her.”

         “Well, you're the big expert on caves,” Michael kidded. “Maybe you can impress her with something besides your brain tomorrow on the field trip. Get her alone in that dark cave and she'll be scared and cozy up and you can…”

         “Oh, shut up, Michael.” Chris blushed.

         After all, the same thought had crossed his mind. He hoped he could get away from the group and Miss Stone for a few minutes alone with Briana. If he was really nice and apologized, maybe Briana would walk with him during the tour. There wasn't really anything to be scared of in the cave. Thousands of people went through it every year. It had paved walkways, lots of lights, and there were guides for groups on field trips.

          He'd see how it went tomorrow, he thought, as he walked down the hall, visions of Briana, dressed in skins like a cave dweller, rushing through his mind. She'd look soooo cool, he thought and laughed. Chris was not only an inquisitive boy --he had a lot of imagination.

****

         Chris didn't get a chance to talk with Briana the next morning at school because she was always in a crowd of her girlfriends on the cheerleading squad. And she made a point of ignoring him on the bus on the way to the cave. In fact, she seemed to be paying a lot of attention to Scott Masterson.

         Chris didn't see why Briana and all the girls thought Masterson was so neat. Sure, he was a quarterback on the school football team, but he'd been held back in school for missing too many classes. Chris thought he was a jerk.

         “Okay, class,” called Miss Stone. “Pay attention to this gentleman, Ranger Skaggs. He's our guide and will give you instructions about what to do and not to do while in the cave. “

         Skaggs was a short, bow-legged man whose thick torso had round, sloping shoulders from which huge arms dangled past his waist. Wearing a green uniform that looked about two sizes too small for him, he resembled a circus monkey dressed up to do tricks. He wore a wide-brimmed “Smokey Bear” trooper hat that covered his sloping forehead almost down to the bony ridge over his eyes where his bristling black eyebrows came together. His under-slung jaw line and heavy beard didn't help him look much like television images of a friendly Forest Ranger at all. He opened his mouth, but only a garbled sound came out as though he wasn't used to speaking much.

         He cleared his throat, tried again and finally began to speak. “Main thing is to stay with the group. There are some places where the walkways branch off into different sections of the cave which aren't for public viewing because someone could get hurt. And there are areas which haven't been explored yet. They're marked with saw horses so you can't miss them. We don't want anyone to get lost in here.”

         The class continued to horse around, ignoring the instructions of the Ranger. He looked around the group of rowdy boys and giggling girls. To get their attention, Skaggs raised his rough voice.

         “We had one youngster from Austin wander off last year and he was never found.” He looked around at the group-now hushed and listening-and his face broke into a rather nasty smile. “Probably went down into a bottomless lake or fell off a cliff.”

         Without any further comment Ranger Skaggs turned around and shambled off down one of the concrete walkways to the interior of the cave. The class hesitated, not knowing what to do.

         “Follow the Ranger, class,” said Miss Stone.

         The class hurried to catch up to the strange figure moving quickly out of sight in the weak lighting of the cave. Miss Stone stayed in the rear, harrying the stragglers like a sheep dog to keep them together.

****

         As the class made their way to the half-way point of the tour, their discipline slackened. The cave was full of different 'rooms' and each one had something special to view--stalactites and stalagmites, beautifully blue 'lakes' of icy water and strange rock formations created by untold years of dripping water that built up crystalline layers on the native limestone.

         Most of the formations had been given named for objects and animals in the world above ground. So the students dutifully viewed 'The Elephant' in one room and the 'King's Throne' in the 'Palace' room. The effects were heightened by dramatic lights that caught the curves and lines of the stone at just the right angle to amplify the image.

         But after a while, the images began to seem alike, and whenever the Ranger stopped to explain another feature of the cave, the boys began to roughhouse while the girls whispered among themselves about whatever teenage girls normally whisper about-clothes and boys.

         It annoyed Chris because he was really interested in what the Ranger had to say. He carried a small ring-binder notebook and took notes. It didn't seem to him that the class understood how ancient these caves were and how they might have been home to a primitive people thousands of years before. At one point he asked, “Ranger, was this cave ever inhabited?”

         “Now that you mention it, we've found some old bones covered with teeth marks of some animal. But they aren't human teeth marks so we're not sure what ate what in here.” He sniggered.

         “Don't frighten the children with old wives' tales about unidentified monsters, Mr. Skaggs,” Miss Stone admonished. "We don't want them going home and having bad dreams about your cave, now do we?” She gave her little tittering laugh, half-strangled by the hand over her mouth.

         “No, ma'am, we sure wouldn't want that,” said the Ranger.

         Miss Stone put her arm around Chris's shoulder and pulled him to her side. “This is Chris, my most inquisitive student, the one I was telling you about who wants to know about troglodytes.”

         “Troglodytes is it? Well, youngster, you sure won't find any traces o' them in this cave. They're long gone.” He winked at Chris and turned back to the class. “OK, kids, follow Ranger Skaggs,” he said and walked further down the concrete walkway into the deeper recesses of the cave.

****

         The class made it through to the half-way point, a huge chamber with high ceilings with stalactites and stalagmites interspersed among green wooden picnic tables. They made ready for lunch and a restroom stop. The large room already contained several other tour groups which were ahead of them and Chris and his classmates had to find themselves a place wherever they could among the crowd.

         There were several passages that led from the room into other areas of the cave complex, but they were blocked by yellow sawhorses with signs on them that read: NO ADMITTANCE. In one corner was a souvenir booth with t-shirts, cheap trinkets and other cave paraphernalia. With the boys whooping and hollering to make the echoes ring, the class settled in for a box lunch of fried chicken that came with the tour.

         Chris saw that Scott Masterson had maneuvered himself and Briana to a seat on a bench seat along the cave wall some distance from the others near one of the walkways blocked by a yellow sawhorse. Ranger Skaggs stopped by their bench and began to talk earnestly to them, meanwhile gesturing with one arm down a passageway that was blocked by one of the sawhorses. Then he stepped away, chasing down one of the boys who was running around the big room with a flag that said: Spelunkers go deeper.

         Masterson began talking intently to Briana as though trying to convince her of something, but Chris noticed that her eyes kept straying over Masterson's shoulder in his direction. He was about to walk over and ask her if he could buy her a souvenir, when Masterson arose and, tugging on Briana's arm, drew her around the end of the yellow sawhorse and down a dimly lighted walkway into the bowels of the cave.

         That's not right, Chris thought. Scott heard the rules like everyone else--going into closed or unexplored areas of the cave could be dangerous. He looked around, but it didn't seem that anyone else had seen the pair slip off. Then he saw Ranger Skaggs. The man took a quick almost furtive look around the room as if to see if anyone was watching, then slipped around the sawhorse and followed the path that Scott and Briana had walked down. For some reason, Chris knew something was wrong. He got up from the table and ran looking for Miss Stone.

****

         “I know they came this way, Miss Stone. Honestly, I saw them go down this way and then the Ranger followed them,” Chris hollered back at Miss Stone, trying to convince her to hurry.

         When he'd finally located her, Miss Stone was sucking the marrow from a broken chicken bone and had grease dripping down her chin. She'd not been too pleased with Chris's pleading for her to hurry while he stumbled through his story. It was apparent that she didn't want to leave her chicken dinner.

          But finally, she wiped her face with a napkin and grumpily said, “Alright Chris, I'm coming-but there better be something to this tall story of yours or you'll be in detention study hall for the rest of the semester."

         As they got further and further away from the main room, the noise from the crowd muted. Chris noticed that the only sounds he could hear were his own hurried footfalls and the huffing and puffing of Miss Stone.

          The lights grew farther apart and shadows danced along the cave wall whenever Chris looked back to see if Miss Stone was hurrying as she shambled down the pathway behind him. She continually looked over her shoulder as though trying to memorize the way back to the main cave.

Or, thought Chris suddenly, watching for anyone who might be following. Then he came to a fork in the path and stopped, unsure of which way to go.

         “Briana! Scott!” Chris called out and stopped to listen.

         He heard no reply and realized that the narrow opening of the path, curving through solid rock, muffled sound. Then he spotted something on the ground on the fork to the right, glittering in the dim light. He picked it up. It was Briana's cheerleader pin. At about that time, Miss Stone came up and held out her hand.

         “Give me that!” she said. “What've you got there?” She grabbed Chris by the wrist.

         “It's Briana's pin. They must've gone this way.”

         Chris pulled loose from Miss Stone and ran down the right passageway. The lighting in the passageway got worse and worse because the lights were spaced further and further apart. He paused at every turn or entrance to another branch of the cave and looked back the way he'd come, trying to place it in his mind. He brought out his notebook, thinking he might sketch the way back, but he knew the images looked alike.

         Then, despite his fear, he grinned to himself. He'd read a lot of books over the years and knew what he needed to do.

         Finally, there was so little light that the corridor was in almost total darkness, but he refused to quit. He stumbled on, occasionally hitting rough patches in the floor or the sharp edge of one side of the cave or another. He thought of going back for help-or maybe to find Miss Stone--but the idea of Briana being left alone with Ranger Skaggs kept his feet moving forward. He'd lost any idea of whether Miss Stone followed him or not.

         Then, he saw, seemingly far in the distance around a curve, a flickering glow like a torch in the night. As he drew closer he recognized the voice of Ranger Skaggs, yelling at Briana. He slowed his pace and carefully crept forward towards the light.

         “Well, Missy, your boyfriend can't help you now. Wasn't such a big hero after all, was he?”

         “Scott wasn't my boyfriend, but he's just a boy. He tried his best to protect me until you hit him with that bone club,” she said and then sobbed as she realized her predicament.

         Chris came to the final curve of rock and looked around the corner. In the flickering light of two torches whose handles appeared to be human leg bones was a tableau that made him rub his eyes with disbelief.

         Scott was laid out on the floor of the cave, his hair matted with a thick dark patch of blood that formed a pool under his head. Briana was spread-eagled between stalactites and stalagmites with her arms and legs trussed up with leather thongs.

         But the worst thing of all was Ranger Skaggs. He'd stripped off his shirt, and the ugly knotted muscles on his torso and arms revealed a body that didn't look anything like a human form. As he talked, his open jaws exposed a mouth full of sharp-pointed teeth that looked like they were made especially for tearing raw flesh from bones. Skaggs approached Briana with an evil grin on his face.

         She looked up and said, “Who are you? What are you?”

Skaggs leered and said, “Now that there's just you and me, I can tell you. My kind has been living in caves like this all over the world since your kind drove us underground. Humans call us troglodytes and think we disappeared long ago. But we've survived the only way we know how--by kidnapping kids like you--and making them our own.”

         “And what are you going to do with us?” Her voice quivered with fear.

         “We'll roast and eat your young friend there,” he said with a nonchalant wave of his hand that dismissed Scott Masterson like a discussion of the price of pork. “But you, you'll be my prize. You'll learn to live like us down here in the underworld. Maybe you'll even come to accept it, but regardless, one day soon, you and I will marry and have children.”

Briana broke into sobs, and Skaggs gave a laugh that sent shudders up Chris's back. The hair on the nape of his neck raised like the ruff on his dog when he sensed danger. Chris realized that no matter how scared he was, he had to do something.

         Looking around for a possible weapon, he saw a thin stalactite hanging down nearby, the long point looking like a needle-sharp knife, and got an idea. He grabbed it and began to tug on it with all his might. Suddenly the rock gave way with a sharp crack and Chris fell on his back, clutching the stone tool.

         “Who's that?” cried Skaggs.

         Before Chris could answer, a tremendously strong hand grabbed him by the neck and pulled him upright. He found himself looking into the blazing eyes of Miss Stone.

         “Why, Skaggs, it's that inquisitive boy I've been telling you about,” Miss Stone said and gave her tittering little laugh. Except this time she didn't put her hand over her mouth, and Chris knew why she always hid her teeth when she smiled or laughed. All Chris could see were the sharp-pointed teeth of a meat-eating troglodyte.

         Skaggs turned away from the tied girl. In one bound he leaped over to Miss Stone's side like a wolf that wanted the approval of the alpha female that leads the pack in hunting. He waited for Miss Stone to speak and give him her orders.

“Go get the others,” Miss Stone snarled.

         Without a word, Skaggs loped off down the corridor into the farther reaches of the cave and was soon lost from sight in the gloom. It was obvious to Chris that Miss Stone was in charge, the leader of a pack of wild troglodytes that lived in the massive cave system that ran all through central Texas. He knew he had to do something quick.

         A fast look at Briana told him she would be of no help: she was tied up too tightly. Then he realized the broken part of the stalagmite lay on the floor of the cave almost in reach. If he could only get loose from that strong grip of hers…

         “Miss Stone, you won't get away with this,” he said. “With three of us missing, our folks will never give up looking for us.”

         “That just goes to show how much you know, young man. After we start leading them in circles down in the labyrinth of caves, they always give up. Down here, in our caves, we troglodytes rule.”

         Suddenly, a movement caught Chris's eye. He blinked and looked again to make sure. Out of sight behind Miss Stone, Scott Masterson moved and tried to rise, but he fell back and rolled over. He was alive, merely knocked out. Chris caught Scott's eye and took a step to the right, pulling Miss Stone with him a little closer to the boy lying on the floor in a pool of his own blood.

         “You might be surprised-and get cut off at the knees,” Chris said, hoping that Scott would get the message, even if he couldn't get on his feet. Sure enough, Scott crawled a little closer to Miss Stone. It seemed to take forever, but soon Scott was stretched out behind Miss Stone. Chris moved closer to Miss Stone and uttering a silent prayer, pushed her over the body of the boy.

          Screaming in rage, the troglodyte woman teetered on the brink of the lake, trying to grasp Chris or anything to save herself from a fall. For a moment, Chris was afraid the trick wouldn't work, but then she fell to the floor of the cave with a thud. Her head hit the base of a large stalagmite, and she appeared to be knocked out.

         Chris quickly picked up the end of the stalagmite that he'd broken off from its place on the floor. He was comforted by the heft and feel of it as a weapon in case Miss Stone came to--or if Skraggs brought back any other troglodytes.

          Across the room, Briana struggled against the throngs that bound her to the stalagmites and stalactites. Chris stuck the weapon into his belt like a sword and bounded across Scott and Miss Stone to her side.

         “Don't worry,” he said. “You're safe now.” He paused “I think….If I can just get these thongs untied…”

         Wide-eyed, Briana nodded her head and moaned around her gag. “Uh, uhh.” Chris realized she wanted to talk and he tugged the gag out of her mouth. “Hurry, Chris,” she said. “You have to get me out of here before Skaggs comes back.”

         “I'm hurrying,” he said.

         The leather was tied too tight to make it easy to undo the knots, and his fingers fumbles as he worked at them. Finally the knot on the thong holding her arms up came loose. “See if you can get the other side,” he said, and fell to her feet. “I'll work on these.”

         It seemed like hours, but actually took only a couple of minutes before they had Briana free. As she got loose from the final knot, she gave out a gasp and the look on her face warned Chris of something behind him.

         He whirled around and found a scary sight--Miss Stone approaching in a shuffling walk with her hands out in front of her like claws and drool streaming from her mouthful of pointed teeth. Chris gulped and whipped out the fragment of stalagmite from his belt, holding it like a sword before him.

         Miss Stone paused and tried to re-impose her old influence as a teacher. “Now, children we don't want any more violence. This has all been a mistake, Chris,” she said. “and you don't want the principal to call your parents about this.”

         “You better back off Miss Stone. I don't want to hurt you, but I will if you come any closer.”

         “Who will the authorities believe, little man? A respected teacher or two silly children with stories about hobgoblin cave-dwellers.”

         Miss Stone's eyes glittered in the light of the torches. Chris knew that she was simply trying to delay him by talking. Skaggs was probably on his way back with more troglodytes. If he gave up the weapon in his hand, the troglodytes would swarm him and that would be the end of Briana, Scott and himself.

         “Scott!” He called out to the boy on the floor. “Can you walk, if we help you?”

         “I…think so. I'm a little dizzy.”

         “Briana, go get Scott on his feet. I'll take care of Miss Stone.”

         “Yes, Chris,” she said with an admiring look.

         Chris grabbed one of the torches in his other hand and advanced on Miss Stone. She retreated, hissing as the heat of the torch grew hot against her skin. He backed her up to the edge of the icy blue pool where she stopped, glancing nervously around.

         “What are you going to do?” she said.

         “I want you to jump in that pool,” he said.

         “But it's freezing!” she said. “I could drown in there if I don't get out and get dry and warm quickly.”

         “Exactly,” said Chris and gave her a little push. “If you don't want to get hypothermia and drown, you better hope your friends get back soon and can build a fire. I don't think you'll be chasing us back to the rest of the kids.”

         Screaming, Miss Stone fell into the pool. Apparently, the clarity of the water gave a false impression that it was only a foot deep. The woman seemed to drop into a bottomless depth beneath the aquamarine surface. They saw her arms thrashing around as she tried to swim and eventually she rose to the surface with her skirts floating around her.

          The three classmates heard her cursing at them and making threats as Chris and Briana helped a woozy Scott back toward the regular part of the cave tour.

         “How will we find out way back,” Scott said with a scared waver in his voice. “Skaggs brought us through so many turns and different tunnels.” He shivered.

         “I dropped some note paper as markers at every place I thought might be a turn I'd need to remember.” Chris smiled. “Don't you remember Hansel and Gretl?”

         “Oh Chris,” said Briana. “That was such a smart thing to do. Just like knowing that pool was so deep and icy-cold.” She hugged his arm and he knew that he didn't have to worry about Scott as a rival for Briana anymore.

         “Well,” he said. “I read all about caves before the trip. Like my granpa says, it pays to be an inquisitive boy.”

****

Happy Birthday Chris, from Grandpa. I hope you and Briana and Mike like the story.