The next day at school, most of the boys were noticeably anxious. Vance’s mother couldn’t help but be surprised by how quiet he was at breakfast. Paul and Ricky barely spoke a word to each other the entire day, which may have been normal for Paul, but it was strange for Ricky to not crack at least one joke in the morning. They were all nervous about their after-school plans, but Dennis on the other hand was ecstatic. From the moment he got home, he barely took his eyes off from his textbook. This didn’t come as a surprise to his parents. Dennis was always an avid reader, but if they had any idea what he was reading, he surely would’ve been grounded for at least a week, but Dennis was careful to keep the cover hidden.
By the time Dennis got to class that morning, he had finished reading nearly two thirds of the entire textbook. He decided instead of reading during class like he did the day before, he would try to pay attention, but instead, all he could do was daydream about what they might find at the history museum. He imagined giant statues and sculptors of the Prokopian kings and gifted heroes he read about. He imagined skeletons of ancient creatures that roamed Prokopios hanging from the ceiling and paintings done by famous Prokopian artists of the major battles and historic events. For a second day in a row, his new teachers were disappointed in the student they anticipated being their star pupil, but Dennis was okay with that. For the first time in his life, he wasn’t worried about school, or what others thought about him. He was just excited about the possibilities of what might lie ahead that day.
As soon as the final bell rang, he went straight to Gamill Park and patiently waited for the rest of the boys to get there. He had been reading for about 10 minutes when they finally got there.
“All right Dee, we’re all here!” Vance called out with an obvious sarcasm. “So, which way is your bookmark museum?”
“See that gate?” Dennis replied, while pointing towards an opening to the surface that looked exactly like the gate that he went down the day before. “If we go down there, we can make it to the museum in 10 minutes”
Paul politely raised his right hand, keeping his left warmly in his blue sweater pocket.
“What if it’s locked?” He asked.
“Good question!” Dennis replied. “I already checked, and the weirdest thing has been going on. None of the gates have been locked since yesterday. The guards must have forgotten to lock them or something.”
Truth was, over the past few years, the guards rarely ever locked the gates. Since no one ever thought of going underneath, it was pointless. The worst thing that would happen would be people throwing trash in themselves, and all that did was save them a trip.
“Well then. What are we waiting for? Let’s go to the surface!” Ricky said, surprisingly excited, but not at the idea of the museum as much as the opportunity to do something illegal with his best friends.
With that, they all quietly began walking towards the gate, and sure enough, just as Dennis said, it was unlocked. Dennis held the gate door open while keeping a lookout, while the others because their descent down the rusted metal ladder.
As Vance passed Dennis, he leaned over and whispered, “I swear Dennis, if we die down here, I’m killing you”
Dennis didn’t even bother pointing out the problem with Vance’s logic. He closed the gate behind him and started climbing down. When he got to the bottom, the others were waiting, and barely able to see each other. Dennis had forgotten how bad the visibility was down there. Thankfully, this time he came prepared, and pulled out the flashlight he borrowed from his parents.
He turned his wrist too look at his homemade smartwatch and waited for the map to load. Once it fully rendered, he pointed towards the direction the map told him to go.
“Alright guys. Follow me.”
These were words Dennis rarely said, as it was usually Vance or Ricky leading their escapades, but today it was finally Dennis’ turn to take charge, and everyone followed. They covered their noses to save themselves from the offensive odor as they walked through the murky air of the surface.
“This place is disgusting!” Vance whispered rather loudly. “You walked through this just to get to school on time? You really are insane Dee. You know you could’ve just asked us to wait up a little later? We would’ve waited. This is just ridiculous!”
Dennis continued ignoring all of Vance’s comments. As they approached the destination, Dennis finally broke the silence with a muffled scream.
“This is it! It’s right around the corner!” He exclaimed as he began running, not realizing all the dirty trash water he was splashing on his friends in the process.
“It should be right here!”
At that moment, Dennis turned the corner, and to his disappointment, just as the other had been thinking in the back of their minds all along, there was no extravagant museum building there. Just an old, dusty, broken-down store front. All the windows were either cracked or broken, and the walls around them looked old and moldy. There was a faded sign on the glass that read “Gift Shop”. It was possible that the gift shop might have once been attached to a museum, but there were no visible signs or entrances to it.
Ricky proceeded to open the unlocked door of the gift shop, and walk in. The others followed, relying on the light from Dennis’ flashlight to guide them. Through the giftshop, they found nothing but empty store shelves and cobwebs. When they got to the end of the room, they found double door that looked like it led to the inside of the museum. For a moment, they turned to one another with hopes that something cool might be on the other side. Unfortunately, as they swung the double doors open, they were disappointed to find nothing, but a large empty room filled with more cobwebs and trash, probably left behind from the people who cleared it out.
As they stepped into the large empty room, Dennis panned his flashlights around hoping to find something, anything that would cheer him up, but instead only found empty displays for what he assumed may have been statues and the occasional bench seat that was bolted to the ground.
Dennis was devastated. He sank his head down and fought back his tears of disappointment, afraid his friends would see him cry, but it was to no avail. He slowly turned around and walked back out of the empty museum, turning off his flashlights as we stepped back into the surface street which he noticed was better lit.
“I’m sorry Dee” Ricky said as he put his hand on Dennis’s shoulder. “If it helps, I still think it’s pretty cool we came down here. I’ve always been a little curious about what was down here, and now, here we are!”
Paul nodded his head in agreement. Vance didn’t.
“I told you guys this was a dumb idea. Dennis wouldn’t be so sad if we never came here!” He exclaimed.
“Dude!” Ricky replied, “I swear, if you say another word, it’ll be the dumbest idea you’ve ever made!”
“Oh yeah!” Vance argued back. “Why don’t you come over here and do something about it then!”
Just as Ricky and Vance began to clinch their fists and try to beat the snot out of each other, Paul and Dennis put their hands out in-between them to break it up.
“Guys! Cut it out!” Dennis yelled while wiping tears from his eyes. “Vance is right. It was a dumb idea. I should’ve known. It obviously got emptied out when the museums were outlawed. I don't know why I thought it would still be here. I guess I just really wished-”
Dennis couldn’t finish his thought as he began choking up on his own words. He continued to fight back tears as he covered his face in embarrassment. The boys rarely saw each other cry. Even Vance had a moment of empathy.
“We can still try to make the most of it while we’re down here. No one said it has to be a total waste of time!”
Vance frantically looked for something fun they could do. He noticed the street was fairly wide and saw a stick that looked just thick enough to be used as a bat. At that moment, he remembered that he had an extra baseball in his backpack.
“How many of the kids at school can say they’ve played baseball, underground?” Vance asked while running over to grab the makeshift bat, adding a little extra emphasis on the word “underground” even though they technically weren’t. The others looked over nervously. Vance grabbed the bat and gave it a quick test swing.
“Come on guys! Look for something we can use as bases!” He yelled out. The others looked to Dennis for affirmation. Despite the disappointment, Dennis couldn’t help but be a little encouraged by the effort Vance was giving to cheer him up. As he gave his tears another good wipe, he started looking for a piece of trash big enough to serve as a base. Once they saw Dennis was okay with it, the others did the same.
Once they got the bases up, the boys began playing just as if they were back at Gamill Park. Dennis was obviously still a little distraught, but the game was certainly doing its job of getting his mind off of it. Soon it was Dennis’ turn to bat. Vance was playing catcher, Paul was pitching, and Ricky was out in the outfield. The boys usually hated it when it got to this part of the rotation since Ricky was the laziest fielder, but they had to make sure everyone had a chance at every position. It worked out since Dennis was also the poorest hitter.
As Dennis went into his stance, Vance looked up from his crouched catchers’ position, and in a surprise moment of kindness, apologized.
“Hey Dee. I just wanted to say I’m sorry for being such a jerk earlier. I know you were really hoping to find something cool down here. I guess I just wanted to say, it’s not your fault there was nothing here”.
It wasn’t the more sincere apology Denis had ever heard, but coming from Vance, it meant it lot.
“It’s alright. I’m sorry for dragging everyone down here. I really appreciate you guys coming though”.
Paul had been politely waiting for them to finish their conversation before throwing a pitch.
Ricky yelled in from the outfield “Are you guys going to talk all day, or are we going to play ball?”
Dennis and Vance chuckled as Dennis got back into his batting stance. Paul threw his usual softly lobbed pitch down the middle, and to everyone’s surprise, Dennis crushed it. It flew high over Ricky’s head and started rolling further down the dimly lit street. Ricky ran as fast as he could, but his flat feet prevented him from catching up to the ball. Vance and Paul were laughing as Ricky tried his best to stop the ball from rolling while Dennis was still holding on to their makeshift bat.
“I hit that?” Dennis asked in disbelief.
“Heck yeah, you did!” Vance replied
Eventually, the ball rolled so far, the boys couldn’t see Ricky through the surface fog, so they started walking over to see if Ricky needed help finding it. The three of them were huddled together as they walked, joking about how surprised they were at Dennis’ rare ball contact. Dennis knew he wasn’t the best hitter, so the jokes didn’t offend him. Just as they got close enough to see Ricky, they noticed that he wasn’t running anymore, but instead he was completely motionless, with his arms down as he paced backwards. He didn’t have a ball in his hand to throw back at them. Instead, he slowly raised his right hand to point as something in front of him that the others couldn’t see yet. Soon, it became visible what he was pointing at.
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