The Yggyssey by Daniel Pinkwater Page A

He lit the candle and we saw a steep flight of iron stairs leading down. We descended. There were iron cots, big cartons marked SURVIVAL CRACKERS and DEHYDRATED SOUP , and big cans marked DRINKING WATER .
    "This is spooky," I said. "I can imagine people sitting down here for weeks and months and going nuts."
    "And listening to the giant mutant white mice scratching at the door, trying to get in and eat them," Neddie said. "I wonder what this button is for." Set into the wall was a brass plate with a large red button in the middle. under the button were letters that spelled out DOWN .
    "Don't push..."
    Neddie pushed it. The iron door slammed shut, creating a gust of air that blew out the candle. The room began to vibrate and shake. We heard grinding mechanical noises, and had the sensation of sinking.
    "...it!" I said.
    "No, probably shouldn't have," Neddie said. The grinding noises and vibrating continued, and the feeling of sinking turned into a feeling of falling. You felt it in your stomach.
    Seamus Finn was scrambling around, trying to find the candle and strike a match. When he got it lit, everything looked the way it had, except our faces, which looked sick. "You know what this feels like?" Neddie asked.
    "Elevator?"
    "Yes!"
    Just then there was a bump. The falling feeling stopped, and the door popped open. Bright sunlight flooded in. We practically climbed over one another scrambling up the stairs and popping through the popped-open door. Having popped out, we tumbled a foot or two and found ourselves lying on green grass.
    "What the heck?" Seamus said.
    "We're in some kind of a meadow!" Neddie said. "Look! There goes Chase!" I said. Chase was scampering off in the direction of some bushes. "So we're there?" Seamus asked.
    "I don't know. I guess we are."
    "So how come there's a sun and sky and clouds and all, if we just descended, as I am assuming we have, into the bowels of the earth?" Neddie asked.
    "I always wondered about that when Alice went down the hole after the white rabbit," I said. "You'd think it would be some sort of cave or cavern."
    "I wondered that too," Seamus Finn said. "We just did more or less the same thing as Alice, didn't we?"
    "pretty much," I said. "only our rabbit is black."
    "So the parallel-worlds thing Melvin and Crazy Wig were talking about is right?" Seamus asked.
    "This raises some questions about astronomy and physics," Neddie said. "I mean, is the sun shining on us now the same sun we're used to? Is this the same solar system we live in every day? And if the bomb shelter descended like an elevator, into the earth, then aren't we inside the earth? or ... were our senses fooled, and because the button I pushed—"
    "We probably should have talked that over before pushing it," Seamus said.
    "Agreed," Neddie said. "Anyway, what if because the button was marked 'Down,' when the bomb shelter began to shake around and make noises, we assumed it was descending? What if it was actually taking off like a rocket? What if instead of being inside the earth, we're on some other planet? or, according to the Melvin and Crazy Wig idea, what if there are all these different planes of existence all existing in the same space, and it didn't go anywhere, just shook around and vibrated and made noises, and then we popped out in the same physical place, and the place we're in overlaps the space where the Hermione Hotel stands, but
before we were seeing only that space and now we can see only this other one?"
    "Interesting questions," I said. "Here's another one. Do you see the door we just popped out of? Where is the bomb shelter?"
    "Hmmm. That
is
interesting," Seamus Finn said. "It's nowhere in sight. There may be a problem getting home. What do we do now?"
    "Let's keep following Chase," I said. "She looked as though she knew where she was going."

CHAPTER 38

Iggy in Underland
    "I don't see Chase. Where is she?"
    "She was heading for those bushes."
    "Let's go after her. Run!"
    It occurred to all of us