1269_UgliesFreeBook

UGLIES 215
herself in and took a seat next to him on a flat bit of rock.
Giant shapes were stacked above them. “So the tunnel didn’t
collapse completely.”
“Not at all. The rock cracked into pieces, some big and
some small.” David pointed the flashlight down through a
chink between where they sat. Tally squinted into the darkness
and saw a much bigger open space below. A glint of
metal revealed a segment of track.
“Just think. If we could get down there,” David said,
“we wouldn’t have to pull up all those vines. All that track
just waiting for us.”
“Just a hundred tons of rock in the way, is all.”
He nodded. “Yeah, but it would be worth it.” He
pointed the flashlight upward at his face, making himself
hideous. “No one’s been down there for hundreds of years.”
“Great.” Tally’s skin tingled, her eyes picking out the
dark fissures all around them. Maybe no human beings had
been there for a long time, but lots of things liked to live in
cool, dark caves.
“I keep thinking,” David said, “the whole thing might
tumble open if we could just move the exact right boulder. . . .”
“And not the exact wrong one, the one that makes the
whole thing crush us?”
David laughed and pointed the flashlight so that it lit
her face rather than his. “I thought you might say that.”
Tally peered through the darkness, trying to make out
his expression. “What do you mean?”