The Copernicus Legacy: The Forbidden Stone by Tony Abbott Page B

growled so softly she was sure no one heard her.
    Why isn’t anyone talking? Hello! Aren’t you as scared as I am? Actually, I doubt that. I can do scared like nobody else.
    “We’re going back to the cemetery now, right?” she mumbled. “After we get out of here? We’re going to find a cab or something and go back to the tomb?”
    “Right,” Darrell said over his shoulder. “The blade of the sundial points to something inside.”
    “Maybe the Magister’s Legacy,” Wade said. “Or the relics. It all goes back to Copernicus and how the earth moves.”
    Everyone is so smart. Like they have libraries for brains. Get me aboveground where I can get some Wi-Fi, and I’ll show you smart.
    “Let’s get there ASAP. Even a cemetery in the rain is better than being underground with an army of giant rats . . .”
    “Who said anything about giant rats?” Wade said.
    “Any rat is a giant rat, as far as I’m concerned—”
    “Kids . . .” Roald huffed, slowing his steps. “The lightbulbs end up ahead. We’ll have to hold hands to not get lost.”
    “Or maybe Lily could just hum,” Darrell said. “Since she’s at the back, we’ll always know we’re together—”
    “Hey,” Lily snapped. “I could lead, you know.”
    “I’m just saying I’m not real sure about the holding hands thing,” Darrell said. “So many questions. Whose hand will I hold? Which hand? How tight? Plus holding hands makes me think of skeleton bones. I don’t want to touch bones . . .”
    “You,” said Lily, “are weird—”
    “I hear something,” said Wade. “Listen . . .”
    There was the noise of traffic above them. Cars, the rumbling of streetcars and trucks, the zipping of motor scooters. Then a sound from far behind. Footsteps?
    “Keep going,” said Becca. “Lil, take my hand.”
    They hurried on as best they could. Every so often, the ceiling soared and they saw levels of girders beneath the streets, the half-finished excavation of subway tunnels, maybe, and odd circles of light that Lily couldn’t keep from saying looked like solar eclipses, which she thought sounded smart, until Wade explained they were merely rings of street light around manhole covers. Fine. Manholes. Tunnels. Cemeteries. Rats. Murder. Whatever.
    If I survive tonight, this is all going into my blog.
    Roald slowed and faced them. “A stairway,” he whispered as he pointed to a narrow set of iron steps, nearly as steep as a ladder, clinging to the wall. “It must go up to street level.”
    “The street is good. That’s where they keep the air,” Lily said, aware how lame the joke was but not caring. Just get me out of here!
    Becca nudged her. “I’m so going to gulp it in.”
    “I’ll check it out,” said Dr. Kaplan.
    “Me, too.” Darrell grinned at Wade. “You stay.”
    “Why me?” Wade asked.
    “I’ll wait,” said Becca, breathing shallowly.
    “I will, too,” said Wade.
    “I’m not staying down here a minute more than I have to,” Lily said. “Sorry, Bec. I’m going up.”
    Darrell and his stepfather took the stairs up slowly in single file, and she followed, stepping as softly as she could. She couldn’t look down. At the top stood the doorway of a small room built of cement blocks. A plank door stood at the end of it, ringed with faint light.
    Roald knocked on the door. Nothing. Then he turned the knob. “Locked solid.” He glanced back down the steps. “There might be another exit later on down the tunnel.”
    “No,” said Lily. “Please, we’re not going back down here. Isn’t there something—”
    Darrell suddenly kicked the door hard with his foot. The knob fell to the floor with a clank, and the frame cracked. “Like that?”
    “Darrell,” Roald groaned. “My gosh, your foot!”
    “It’s fine,” Darrell said, pretending to limp across the small room but grinning all the same.
    Lily grinned back, pushing lightly against the door. It opened a sliver. A heavy, warm farmyard stink rushed