Billy and the Birdfrogs by B.B. Wurge

me. “Oh Grandma,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry I didn’t entirely believe you. But it was pretty hard to believe.”
    When I went over to the hole and looked down, it seemed to breathe into my face with a musty, damp breath. I listened carefully, but didn’t hear anything, no echoing sound, no pebbles shifting, no hammers tapping. I shined the flashlight into the hole and got a fright at first. I thought the entire shaft was crawling with birdfrogs, and I leaped back away from the edge with my heart hammering. But I didn’t hear any sound, and I didn’t think that so many birdfrogs could be so silent, so I came forward again and looked down. Then I saw that it was just shadows from my flashlight, and I felt better.
    I tried to imagine what Mr. and Mrs. Whingle would say now, if they could see the hole. They’d believe me. They wouldn’t say that my grandmother was crazy. They’d have to apologize. And Dennis and Candy would probably want to climb down the hole.
    But then I imagined Mr. Whingle peering down into the darkness and saying, “It’s a sewer access. And she painted bird feet all over the floor?”
    I could imagine Mr. Earpicker shouting, “I told you, the old bat was crazy!”
    No, I had to do my job thoroughly. I had to climb down and see the extinct animal bones. I had to see if the shaft really went down for hundreds of feet, or if it was just a sewer access. I didn’t want to, because, if the birdfrogs got me while I was in that narrow space, I’d have no chance against them. But it didn’t matter: I had to go down. I owed it to my grandmother to find out for sure.

Chapter 16
    I Finally Meet T 29

    I rooted through the crates of tools for anything that might come in handy and found a long piece of thick rope with an iron hook at the end. The rope was about fifty feet long. That wasn’t long enough to get me very far down the shaft, but it might be useful, so I coiled it up and put it in my bag.
    I looked carefully at the long steel cable wrapped around the winch, but it was rusted so badly that it was fused into a solid mass. It wasn’t usable anymore.
    I found two metal rods, each about two feet long. I didn’t know what they were for, but I thought they might be useful for wedging crossways into the shaft to anchor myself, if I had to. Also, if I was attacked by birdfrogs, I could use them as weapons.
    I also found a sturdy nylon backpack. It looked old and used, and had a long tear that someone had stitched up carefully. It was much stronger than the cloth bag I had taken from the kitchen, so I transferred all my stuff to the backpack and slung it on my back.
    I found a miner’s hat with a light on it. The batteries were dead, but I replaced them with the new batteries I had gotten from the kitchen, and it worked very well. It was fun to wear it and to be able to see in whatever direction my head was pointed.
    I didn’t find anything else I wanted. There were a lot of strange-looking tools with points and hooks and spikes, and a giant corkscrew that might have been for drilling holes in rock, and a whole case of toothbrushes all mangled and dirty, probably from brushing the dust away from bones, but I didn’t see how they would be of any use to me.
    Climbing into the top of the hole was terrifying. I almost couldn’t get myself to do it. I had spent the past three years hiding from the birdfrogs, and now I was going right into the most dangerous spot, feet first. The only way I could get myself to stop trembling was to think very carefully about each detail. I had to concentrate and figure out how to lower myself safely down the hole. Here is how I did it. I thought it was a clever method, especially since I didn’t know anything about rock climbing and had to invent it for myself. First, I tied the end of my long rope to my waist. I tied it securely, so the knot wouldn’t come loose. Then, I lay one of the short metal rods across the cement rim on top. I will call it rod A, so