Adam grabbed the papers from their hiding spot. He thumbed through them as he sat down; stopping when he found the page with the spider-looking diagram and his dad's initials at the bottom.
"I think this is a map of the tunnels," he said, "or at least a guide."
They passed it around, each examining it for a short time.
"I don't follow," said Kevin.
Adam placed it on the table, with the spider picture face up.
“Look. The dot at the center is the junction, and the eight tunnels branch off from it, each curving slightly to the right,” he said. “There’s the ring tunnel that runs through them all.” He pointed to the ring in the picture. “It’s not the best drawing I’ve ever seen, but look at the symbols on the other side." He flipped the picture over. "They're the same as the symbols I felt on the wall in the tunnels.
See how they look like the hand of a clock?"
"Look here," he pointed at the first one. "See the letters next to it – ‘th’. Remember when I felt the marker and said Town Hall was at 12:00? That looks like it’s pointing at 12:00 to me.”
Understanding lit upon their faces as Adam spoke.
"Look, the one that points to 10:30 is labelled’ ht/bc’. hotel and Ben Casey makes sense to me," said Jimmy.
"I always knew there was something fishy about Mr. Casey," said Mark.
Kevin looked at him, "And you never even had a sniff about your dad."
Mark was about to argue back when Adam continued speaking. "9 o'clock doesn't make sense to me, but 7:30 is probably ‘ms’ for Monitoring Station, and 3:00 ‘fh’ has to be Fire Hall. Any others jump out at anyone?"
No one offered any more suggestions.
Adam thought out loud again. "We know these 5, so now we only have 3 more to figure out. They could go anywhere, but most likely in the direction they started out. I would bet ‘sc’ goes to the school, but the other two I haven't got a clue – ‘ew’ and ‘el’."
"Would the ‘el’ stand for Ellie? Isn't that what you heard them say in the tunnels?" asked Jimmy.
"Good thinking," said Adam. He sat quiet for a moment. "That brings up a whole other issue. Who would Ellie be? I don't know anyone named Ellie or Ellen that lives here of any age. I know enough stubborn old people that live here, though."
"If you follow the ‘ew’ line you could get near Ms. White's place, but I'm pretty sure her name is Nora. That would have to be a really long tunnel, because she lives a few miles out of town." said Kevin. "Dad and I delivered a side of beef she bought from us once. I've never seen her myself, but Dad said she's old."
Adam added, "Mom told me that Mr. Garagan delivers groceries to her every week. I guess she doesn't have a car and never comes to town. From what I’ve heard of her I doubt she’s involved."
"Do we confront Mark's dad with what we know and see if he'll tell us anything?" asked Kevin. "Obviously he’s the leader of this Sentinel League."
"I don’t think he’ll tell us anything. We might waste too much time before we end up disappearing," said Adam.
"If we can find out who Ellie is, maybe we can get some answers from her, directly or indirectly," said Jimmy.
"That’s not a bad idea. Personally, I would like to look through those files again, but it seems like we can't get enough time to just sit and read without getting caught," said Adam.
"I don't think there's much more in the files. I think the papers you have here," Jimmy pointed to the pile on the table, "are more information than you’re going to find there, other than bill payments. Plus, look how long it took to find the one note about the Sentinel League. We wasted a lot of time there."
Adam thought for a moment. "You're probably right. I hate to admit it, but finding Ellie seems like the next logical choice. If we’re going to get into trouble asking questions, we might as well ask the person in charge.”
"Just what I was thinking," said Jimmy.
“But how do we find her?” asked Mark.
"We go back into the tunnels, one more time," said Adam.
Mark groaned. "I think I've had just about enough excitement today. It wasn't your dad that almost caught you earlier, it was mine. I'm not worried about him, but he'll tell my mom and then I'll be in it deep."
"We have to go back in and find out who Ellie is," said Adam.
"Even if we do find her, she's not going to tell four teenage boys what she won't tell the head of the 'Sentinel League'," Mark responded full of sarcasm.
"I don't know, Jimmy can be pretty persuasive," said Adam. “We have to try, at least.”
“Should we take the obvious tunnel? The one labelled EL?” asked Kevin.
Everyone agreed, even Mark, although his response was weak.
"I'm in," said Jimmy, "but, can we go out to the monitoring station to get back in the tunnels?"
They looked at him as though he were speaking a language they didn’t understand.
"Why would we go all the way out there when Town Hall is so close?" Mark asked, not because Town Hall was closer but because the other option involved more exercise.
"Let's see; if we get caught in the tunnels together, we're all in trouble. If we get caught in Town Hall together, I'm in trouble."
"Oh, suck it up princess! You want to go back in as much as the rest of us, or at least me and Adam," said Kevin.
Jimmy tried to appear insulted, but the others ignored him.
"Some of us need to be home by 11 tonight, so if we’re going to do this we better get moving," said Mark.
Town Secrets - The Book of Adam 1 Page 22
