Izabelle: Book 1

Izabelle: Chapter 4: An Underground City

"Are you sure you don't want me to come with you? I might not see you for a while. It's your birthday and I don't want to miss any of it,” Mom pleaded. I wanted her to be there, just I knew she would cry once I knew what exactly I was getting myself into.

I knew exactly what I needed to say. “I'm sure, Mom. I need to handle this on my own. I'm a teenager now, not a little girl. I'm sorry.”

“Okay...” she sniffled. I didn't know that would make her cry. I think it sounded a lot nicer in my head.

I was getting anxious to get in there. “Bye, Mom.”

“Call me after the meeting, I need to know where you are. Get your stuff and I'll see you later, I hope.”

I handed Andrew his bag and grabbed the kennel and my own bag. I turned toward him and asked, “Are you ready for this?”

He looked uncertain, but replied, “I guess so, are you?”

“Yeah, I sort of have to be ready. Let's get going.”

We walked down the sidewalk and came to the subway's escalators. On the way down, I pulled out the letter Madrona Freso wrote. I looked at the lines:“You will see a keypad on the wall. Type 6235 into it and you will see a staircase to your left.” They were the most important lines in the whole letter. All we had to do was type a code on a keypad somewhere on the wall. Pretty simple. Andrew and I stepped off of the escalator, and I started searching for a keypad. I looked on all of the main walls before the booth where you pay to ride on the subway. I couldn't find it anywhere.

I hoped Andrew knew where it was located. He was just standing there, waiting for me to find it. He could be so helpful at times.

“Hey, Andrew. You don't, by any chance, remember where the keypad was. I can't seem to find it!”

“Oh, yeah! I didn't notice you were trying to find it. Sorry.”

“It's okay. . .but you still need to show me where it is!” I was getting to the point where I would slap him if he ignored me one more time.

“Right. It is next to the first ad on the wall. Look near the Subway ad.”

I started toward it and half-way there, I saw a little gray box. “That must be it! I can't believe I didn't see that!” I thought. I slowly tiptoed toward it.

“It won't blow up. Don't worry,” Andrew assured me. You could never be too careful.

I finally made it to the wall and flipped the cover off of the keypad. I looked back at the letter, and typed 6-2-3-5 on the pad.

I stepped back to let the wall do its thing. First, the Subway poster disappeared into thin air, then the wall caved in on itself, revealing a dimly lit tunnel. The walls were made of sparkling gray and black granite and was smoothed intensely. The tunnel seemed to go on forever.

I looked back at Andrew with a look that said, “Are you sure it's safe?”

He replied, “Go on.”

* * *

We made our way to the mouth of the tunnel and cleared away the debris from the wall. People were staring, open-mouthed, and made it hard to stay focused.

One passer-by asked, “What do you stupid kids think you're doing? This is outrageous! I'm going to report this to the police if you don't go to your parents right now!”

“This guy is nuts!” I thought.

“Sir, don't worry about us. We are trying to find our parents right now. They work here,” Andrew told the man while smiling.