The Micki Adventures

                                            By Linda Bindner

                                     Chapter 12: Dungeon Delights

        The candle stub gave off enough light for Micki and Al to realize in one second that there was nothing to see.  It took two seconds for the cold to seep into their skin.  In three, they were freezing.

        “I hope we don’t shiver to death before we get out of this,” Micki said, recalling that freezing was Alice’s original fear when they had first been imprisoned.  She glanced around again.  “This room makes the Tower look like a vacation getaway.”

        “What are vacation getaways like, anyway?” Al asked.

        “Warmer than this,” Micki explained.  “I’ve only been on vacation once, but it was definitely more pleasant there than it is in here.”

        Al hugged her arms and rubbed her hands up and down them, as if hoping the movement would generate some heat.  “Too bad we don’t have our skirts anymore.  We could at least wrap up in all that excess material.”  She looked down at the pile of strips where she had thrown the material rope on the floor.  “Those strips of material sure aren’t much good now.”

        Micki hugged her arms too.  “At least Alice got away.”

        “Not that she can tell anybody where we are right now.”

        Panic swamped Micki in waves that left her feeling battered and broken.  It hurt to breathe.  She drew as deep a breath as she could, alarmed that it was so shallow.  She shook her head, and drew another breath.  Now she felt marginally better.

But marginally wasn’t good enough.  She would have to beat back her panic in order to find a way out of this mess.  It’s what Queen Madge would do.  And so would she.

 “So,” Micki said, determined now, even if it was faked determination.  “We’re on our own.  It’s up to us to get out of here.”

        Al turned to stare at Micki in disbelief.  “Just how are we going to do that?”

        “I haven’t thought that far ahead,” Micki admitted, her voice less sure.  “But there must be something we can do.”

        Al looked at the stone walls, the stone ceiling, and finally at the stone floor.  “We can dig our way out, I suppose.  That will keep us warm, at least.”  Her expression grew doubtful.  “How long do you think that will take?”

        Micki eyed the floor dubiously.  “Longer than that candle will last.”  Her gaze travelled to the walls.  “Let’s see if there’s any loose stone blocks for now, while we have light.”

        Al walked back to the door, her eyes glued to the floor.  “Good idea.  I’ll take the floor and you take the walls.”

        “Right.”  Micki probed the walls with her fingers.  Smooth stone met her touch everywhere she went.  “Nothing so far.  These walls are really smooth.”

        Al was so close to the floor, her nose almost touched it.  “Maybe the prisoners from before also ran their fingers on the walls.”  Suddenly Al’s eyes widened.  “Where do you suppose those prisoners are now?”  She peered at the room’s shadows.  “Are they dead?”

        “Stop being so morbid,” Micki commanded on a shiver.  “It freaks me out.”

        “Sorry, Princess.  I don’t mean to freak you out.”  Al crawled to another section of floor to repeat her earlier process.  A minute later, she sat back up.  “This is useless.  Everything’s so smooth.”

“Don’t give up,” Micki encouraged, running her fingers up and down the wall opposite the door.  “The stone isn’t so smooth here.  Maybe there’s a way to escape.”

“Or maybe it’s your imagination,” Al said.  “Let’s face it, we’re stuck.”

“Not so fast,” Micki said, her fingers probing a particular section of the wall now.   “I think I found something.  Come take a look.”

Al hurried over to help Micki brush the dirt away.  “What is it?”

“I’m not sure.  We need more light.  Bring the candle over.”

Al carefully took the candle in her hand and returned to Micki’s side.  “It’s already half burned up,” she said.  “Hurry.”

Micki slowly took the candle from Al, careful not to drop it.  “Look here,” she said,  directing with the candle flame.

Al scooted closer.  “Where?”

Micki ran her fingers over the stone.  “Right here.  It’s rough.  See where it’s crumbling?”  Dirt rained down to pile at their feet.

“Yeah, you’re right.”  Al brushed at the stone with her fingers.  “What do you think it is?”

Micki quickly followed the edge of rough stone.  “I don’t know.”   More dirt rained down to the floor as Micki held the candle close and brushed at the wall.

“Here, let me do that,” Al said to stop her.  “You hold the candle.”

Micki drew back, careful not to set her hair on fire.  Al scooted forward, energetically running her fingers up and down the wall.

A quiet minute went by as Al continued to probe and brush dirt away.

Finally Micki couldn’t stand the silence.  “Can you still feel it?”

Al brushed away more dirt.  “It’s square, and kind of small.”

“Can you clear away more of the dirt?”

“I’ll try, though this is an awful mess.”  Al’s fingers swiped at the dirt once again.  “What I wouldn’t do for my sister’s makeup brushes right now,” she muttered.  “Or even a skirt.”

“Oh.”  Micki sat back with a start.  “Use the edge of the material rope.”

Al perked up.  “Good idea!”  She ran over to the pile of material, grabbed the rope, then ran back to brush at the wall.  “This works much better!”

In a matter of moments, she had cleared away the edges of something.  “It looks like a tiny door.”

“Is it big enough for us to crawl through?” Micki asked, leaning close.

“I think so.”   Al picked at the edge of the stone with her fingers, then wiped the excess dirt away.  Pick, wipe, pick, wipe.  She repeated the process several more times in several areas.

“Hurry.  The candle is about to burn out.”

“I am hurrying!”  Al’s picking grew more frantic.  She tried to grab onto the stone, but couldn’t quite get a grip.  She picked at more of the dirt encrusted on the wall.  “Almost got it.”

Micki held the candle up high with one hand while brushing dirt away with the other.  Together, they wiggled the stone up and down as more dirt cascaded around their feet.  They didn’t take the time to wipe it away, but kept on wiggling.  Eventually, they wiggled the stone loose enough to pull it out several inches.

“Now I can get a good hold on it,” Al declared, squeezing the stone between both hands.  She wiggled and pulled, wiggled and pulled.  More dirt cascaded around them, but they both ignored it again as Micki held the candle and Al pulled.  At long last, the stone fell away to reveal an empty space leading… somewhere.

“What is it?” Micki asked in a voice tinged with excitement.

“Give me the candle,” Al said, and holding the light steady, she stuck her head in the hole to peer through the opening.

Al stayed motionless in the hole while Micki waited impatiently.  “Do you see something?  Anything?” she asked at last.

Al’s voice was muffled when she called back, “Not really.  Give me another minute.”

Finally Al was done looking and started to crawl backwards out of the hole.  When she was completely free, she handed the candle to Micki so she could brush the dirt out of her hair before saying, “You won’t believe this.”  Her voice was oddly flat and detached.  “It just leads into the next cell.”

Micki’s brows furrowed in shock.  “What?  It doesn’t even go anywhere?”

“Nope,” Al said, sounding discouraged as she now brushed dirt off her pants.  “That cell looks just like this one.  Four walls.  Low ceiling.  One door.”

“But maybe that door isn’t locked,” Micki said.  “We should try it.”

Al gestured to the small opening.  “Be my guest.”

Micki handed the candle back to her, then pushed her way through the tiny opening.  She pulled herself to the stone floor on the other side, rolled over, and got to her knees.

Al was right; the dim light from the candle showed that this cell looked exactly like the one she had come from.  She could just make out the floor, stone walls, and the door.

With a bound, she was up and running to the door.  But one jerk of the handle squashed her excitement.  It was locked.

“Locked up tight as a… a… a cell in a dungeon,” she cried back to Al.  Her voice echoed eerily off the stone to fade away into the dark.  Thinking of long dead prisoners, a shiver coursed through her so strong that she ran frantically back towards the beam of light so she could crawl back to Al.  Somehow, being alone in this dark place was much worse than being in a dark place with her friend.

A second later, she plopped onto the stone next to Al, dirtier than she had been before, but no freer.  “Good thing we’re so small, or we’d never fit.  Not that it matters.  We aren’t escaping much of anything if we go that way.”

To Al’s credit, she didn’t say ‘I told you so.’

Micki slowly sat up and brushed herself off.  “Well, at least now we know for sure that door is locked.”  Suddenly, she wrinkled her nose at Al.  “Why didn’t you want to take a look for yourself?”

Al grimaced.  “I guess I… just didn’t want to go in there by myself.”

Micki frowned.  “Huh?”

“Well, I… couldn’t see in there.  And there might be… spiders and things.”

That made even less sense.  “Spiders and things?”

Al shrugged.  “Yeah.”

“Why was it all right for me to go in there, then?”

Al shrugged again.  ”Well, I…”  She grimaced a second time.  “I’m... sort of… scared of the dark.”

Micki choked.  This was something she didn’t know about her friend.  “What do you plan to do when the candle goes out?”

“Well, I…”  Al hesitated.  “I guess I…”  Finally she admitted, “I won’t mind it so much if you’re here… I don’t think.”

“Really?”  Micki’s smile blazed out to make the space much brighter.  “Thanks!  That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.”

Relief swept across Al’s face.  “Well, now you know.  Alice said that as soon as you found out that someone as old as I am is afraid of something so babyish, you’d be gone in a royal minute.”

“Of course I won’t,” Micki said.  “You didn’t leave the second you found out about the royal thing, though Rachel was sure you would once you got a taste of it.  Being scared of the dark…”  Micki waved dismissively, much like King Feston had done earlier.  “That’s nothing.”

Al’s look of relief deepened.  “Thanks!  I can’t tell you how much that means to me.”

“I can guess,” Micki wryly said.  And she really could.  She would never forget how Al hadn’t instantly disappeared.  So many friends she’d made before Al had acted exactly as Rachel had described.  The fact that Al was still her friend meant so much.

So she wouldn’t embarrass her friend by growing suddenly too mushy, Micki distracted  herself by looking around the cell once more.  Her eyes lit on a single pot set in a corner that they must have overlooked earlier.

That pot must be for going to the…

As if thinking along those lines made it so, Micki suddenly squirmed.  This was one aspect of being a prisoner that she could really live without!