The Closet

Chapter 4

It would have been logical to share their discovery with their parents.  By all indications, someone might have tried to enter the house through the closet when Jarom’s head was smashed into the wall.  It wasn’t the least bit logical to share their discovery with their little sister, but because she was expert at eavesdropping on her big brothers, she had heard their discussion of what had occurred the previous night.  She didn’t understand everything that she had heard, but she knew that their secret was important and that her willingness to keep it was worth something.  She walked into their room while they were planning the next night’s adventure and they immediately knew that she would hold them hostage. 

“Allie,” said John “What are you doing in here?”

“Just listening to you talk, big brother.”

“And what do you think you heard?“ asked Jarom.

“I heard about the floor in the closet, and I want to go too,” she said.

“That’s ridiculous,” said John.  “You can’t come down into the tunnel.  It might be dangerous.”

“If it’s dangerous, then you shouldn’t be going either. Let’s go tell Mom and Dad.”

“We’re only going to climb a ladder,” said Jarom.

“Well I can climb a ladder, and I want to come too!”

“What do you think?” John asked the other boys.

“I guess she can come,” said Jason.

“What choice do we have?” asked Jarom.

“Just wait,” Allie exclaimed.  “You’ll be glad I’m along.  You’ll see”

            The plan was decided upon. They would wait until their parents were asleep, and then they would meet at the closet. They decided that by midnight, their Mom and Dad would be dead to the world, so they synchronized their alarm clocks and went downstairs to wait.  That night, Frank told the kids it was time for bed and was stunned when, without argument, all four of his progeny headed up the stairs. 

“What is going on?” Frank asked Lacy.

“I think they must be feeling repentant after the trouble you gave them last night” she said.

“I hope that’s it”, said Frank.  “I hate to think what else it might be.”

Waiting for midnight was like waiting for Santa Claus.  In complete stealth mode, the children pulled on their clothes and slipped down the hallway.  Jarom had his trusty flashlight and turned the doorknob.  The door swung open revealing a vacuum cleaner, a broom, and a mop.  While they were at school, their Mom had continued to find a place for everything, and this was apparently the place she had found for the cleaning supplies and equipment. It was a complication, but not an insurmountable one.  John lifted the vacuum cleaner out of the closet and took it down the hall to his room where he set it quietly down.  The broom and mop and dustpan were similarly dispatched, and they were once again unscrewing the screws in the floor of the closet.  They lifted the floor up in the front opening up the passage downward. John examined the hinge mechanism and found the slide button that prevented the trap door from being opened from the top.  He flipped the button and then they closed the trap door and replaced the screws.  This time when Jarom put the screwdriver in the space between the floor and the threshold and pried, the trap door opened on its hinges and stayed open.  One by one, with Jarom leading, they began to crawl down the ladder into the darkness.  John, bringing up the rear, closed the closet door and pushed up the pin to lock the door closed. He hurried to catch up.

            The ladder seemed to go on forever.  They descended 5 steps, 10 steps, 20 steps, 50 steps. They quit counting and still they went further and further into the darkness with only the light of a dying flashlight to guide their way.   Jarom finally ran out of ladder at the bottom of the shaft.  It was still dark and his flashlight didn’t illuminate enough to see clearly, but it seemed to him that the floor of the shaft was only another 10 feet or so past the rung to which he was clinging.  Meanwhile, at the upper end of their column, John was still descending and Allie was a bit slower so he worried he might step on her fingers if he got too close.  At last they stopped just above Jarom. 

            “What do you see, Jarom?” called John. “Are we at the bottom?”

            Jarom was gazing down into the gauzy black that faded to pitch further away from the light.  “Not quite, but I can’t reach it from here.  I think I could drop down to the bottom, but I wouldn’t be able to reach the ladder to get back up.“

            They stayed like that for a few minutes thinking, but hanging on to a vertical ladder was taxing and Jason started to complain, “My fingers hurt and my arms are tired.”

            “Mine too,” agreed Allie.

            John and Jarom were also feeling the effects but were loath to admit it.  Finally John said, “We need a rope or a ladder. Or a rope ladder!  Let’s go back up and we’ll figure out how to make one and we’ll give it another try.  We can’t be gone all night anyway.”

            “Yeah,” said Jason.  “What if Mom and Dad discovered we were gone?  They would be really worried.”

            “OK” replied Jarom from below.  “Start climbing!”

            John led the troop back up the ladder.  Climbing up was even more tiring and by the time they reached the open trap door, they were all in.  John pulled the door lock back down and he reached up for the doorknob.  He turned it and began to push the door open when he saw a light coming from his parents’ bedroom.

            “Mom or Dad must be up,” whispered John.  “I don’t think they know we were gone or all the lights would be on, but we have to be stealthy!”  “Allie, climb past me and then tip-toe down to your room and get in bed!”

            She did as she was told and there was no commotion so it still seemed safe. 

            “Jason, you’re next. Quiet!” he whispered hoarsely.

 Jason crept down the hall and into bed.  Then John silently moved down the hall to the bedroom and crawled into bed leaving Jarom alone at the closet door.  Jarom closed the trap door and was just closing the closet door when he heard his Dad’s voice, “What’s going on, Jarom?”

“I was just going the bathroom, Dad,” he said, and stepped into the bathroom and closed the door.  Everyone heard the flush of the toilet and the bathroom door opening.  Jarom walked down to his bedroom and stumbled over the vacuum cleaner that they had left on the floor of their room, but fortunately no parent came to investigate and a sleepy half-hour later Jarom put the cleaning utensils back In the closet, went back to his bed, and fell deeply asleep.

The next morning, as the boys were dressing for school, they started making plans. 

“We need to make a list of the things we’ll need,” said John.  He pulled out a piece of paper and a pen from his backpack and began to write.

“Write down flashlights,” said Jason.  “We should each have one.”

Allie knocked on the door and the boys let her slide in.

“I think headlamps would be better than flashlights,” John said.  “I think there are two somewhere in the basement.”  “Maybe we can find them and get two more at the PX.”

Jarom, who had been able to see the bottom of the shaft but not reach it, said, “Rope!” 

John suggested, “What if we made a rope ladder?  It would take a little more rope, but would be a lot easier to climb up.”

“I saw some rope hanging from the back fence,” said Allie.  “I think someone used it for a dog, because it looks chewed up, but to make a ladder, it has to be in pieces anyway.”

“Food and water and a backpack to put them in,” chimed in Jason.

“Good idea,” said John. “A backpack for each of us!  What we need more than anything, though, is time.”

Allie volunteered to go get the rope after school, and John checked his wallet to make sure he had enough money to buy headlamps and extra batteries.  Jarom said he would dig in the basement surreptitiously for the other headlamps and Jason offered to stockpile food and water under his bed.