This time we all went down together. We dug out a larger area around the fissure in the rock. We made it large enough for all of us to fit. And somehow, as creepy as it still was, it was more or less comforting to know that everyone was down there with me.
Until it occurred to me that now there was no one on the surface to rescue us. The tunnel could collapse, we could be trapped . . . what could I do, morph to human? Under twenty-five feet of dirt?
Everyone took turns digging away the last of the dirt. Our noses told us we were standing around a crack that went down and down into the rock.
"This just gets to be more and more fun, doesn't it?" Marco said sarcastically. "Now it's solid rock."
"Better than digging through dirt," I said.
"0h, yeah? Guess again. We're moles. If a dirt tunnel collapses on us we can dig our way out. What do we do if rocks collapse in on us?" He was right. I had to force myself to stay very still and not start running. If I started running, I'd never stop.
"lf you're scared, I'll go in," I said.
"I'm scared," Marco confirmed. "Help yourself," There must be something kind of liberating, just being able to say "I'm scared" like it's no big deal. I can't do that. I don't know why. I just can't.
I pushed my sleek mole body down into the rock. It was rough, unworn rock. Rock that had been split open by pressure. I shoved forward. The path twisted and turned, but not too much.
If I demorphed in here, my human body would be a hundred times too big.
What would happen? Would I become a part of the rock? Would I be able to scream and scream with no one hearing me, no one able to help?
"Get a grip!" I ordered myself. "Stop torturing yourself. It's going to be okay."
Suddenly . . .
"Aaaahhhh!"
I was falling! Falling blind.
Trailing!
"Aaaahhhh!"
"Rachel!"
WHUMPF!
"Rachel! What's the matter?" Cassie's thought-speak voice.
I landed on my back. I landed on something almost soft. Something that reeked in my mole nose.
i was still in total, absolute darkness. I couldn't see anything. But I knew I was in a vast, open space. The Yeerk pool? No, of course not.
There would be light there.
But definitely an open space. Large. Quite large.
And then I realized I was not alone.
I didn't know what they were, but I felt their presence above me. Many, many of them.
"Rachel!" It was Jake now. "Answer if you can."
"l'm okay," I said. "!...! guess I fell into some kind of a cave."
"Do you see a guy in a cape and a really cool car?" Marco asked.
"What?" I was too preoccupied to care about his dumb jokes.
"The Batcave," he said. "l'm thinking you fell into the Batcave." It wasn't until that moment that I realized whose presence I felt above me.
"Actually, Marco, I think maybe it is a bat cave. Come on down. You can jump. It's a nice, soft landing on a bat-poop mattress." One by one they came, dropping down beside me. And soon we were six blind moles wallowing in mostly dried bat guano.
Now that I was out of the tunnel, out of the confined space, I wanted to laugh. "Well, this is pretty glorious, huh? We have tunneled our way into a major bat-poop deposit. A whole week, and we have reached a bat cave. You know what I think? I think this whole thing has been cursed.
And I think it's all my fault. I should have let that Edelman guy just splat on the concrete."
"We can't back out now," Marco said. "l have thirty-six boxes of maple-and-ginger instant oatmeal at home. In easy-open single serving pouches."
"We should demorph," Cassie said.
"Why?" Tobias asked. "So we can really enjoy the lovely ambience?"
"l was thinking since we're in a bat cave, maybe we should go into our own bat morphs," Cassie said.
"Oh. I don't have a bat morph," Tobias said.
"Easily fixed in here," Cassie said with a laugh. "l'll bet there are a few hundred thousand bats hanging from the roof of this cave. Just hanging around and waiting for someone to come along and acquire their DNA."
"You're awfully cheerful," Jake grumbled. "We're in a cave way underground with no way out except a mole tunnel we can't reach anymore^
"No, no, no," Cassie said. "Wrong. Don't you realize? The bats fly out of here at dusk. Out. As in out? As in exitl"
"Hey! She's right!" I yelled. "We won't be buried alive in here. Not that I was worried or anything."
"No, we'll just be buried in bat poop," Marco muttered. "Let's morph to bat like Cassie said."
Yes, bat was a good idea. If you're going to be in a bat cave, best to be a bat. But first we had to pass through our own natural bodies.
And oh, was that not fun.
You think it's grim being a mole in a bat cave? Try being a human. For one thing, the cave was less high than we'd thought. For another thing, we all passed through the same helpless stage where we had big, swollen human bodies with tiny little feet and arms.
"Ah, MAN!" Marco moaned. "Buried in bat -"
"Guano," Cassie said, supplying the word.
"Yeah, guano. That's what I was gonna say. Guano."
"Thisissoguh-ROSS!" I yelled.
My arms and legs reappeared and I had to stick my palms down in the stuff to raise up. The only good thing was that the awfulness of the grossness completely distracted me from the claustrophobia.
"What are you whining about, Rachel?" Tobias snapped grumpily. "Try having feathers in this stuff."
I raised myself up. I stood up. I raised my head. And that's when I made the discovery about the cave not being as high as we'd thought.
You see, my head was entirely surrounded by soft, warm, fuzzy bats.