Last Wild Boy by Hugh MacDonald Page B

want to risk tripping and falling into Minn’s hole while she was carrying Adam.
    More quickly than she expected, she and Adam passed the hole and arrived at the bones. The journey had seemed so much longer the last time, when she’d been stumbling through the pitch dark. She continued down the corridor to the cave-in, set Adam’s basket down far away from any danger of falling debris or glass, and planned her climb up the unstable pile of concrete, plaster, and steel. When she’d found what she thought was the safest path to the top of it, she put the flashlight in her mouth and started climbing up the debris, careful not to scrape her knees this time. When she reached the top, she cautiously made her way from one wall to the other, looking for ways over the rubble or holes she could squeeze through. There were none. The concrete boulders and steel girders blocked off the whole corridor, from floor to ceiling.
    Nora tried pushing some of the smaller boulders out of the way, but aside from a few bits of plaster that cascaded down the pile here and there, nothing would budge. “No wonder your mother gave up and tried going over the wall,” Nora called down to Adam. “This is hopeless.” She made her way back down the pile and sat down beside Adam.
    â€œNow I understand how your mom must have felt,” Nora said, picking the baby up and sitting him between her crossed legs. “We’re trapped here, just like she was, and just like the skeleton man was. It’s not safe for you up in Aahimsa, just like it wasn’t for him. And if I don’t find us a way out of this basement, you’ll probably die down here, just like he did.” A picture of a tiny baby skeleton lying on the bare corridor floor flashed into Nora’s mind, and she had to stifle her scream. Tears gushed out of her eyes and she started sobbing uncontrollably.
    When her sobs finally subsided into weak shudders, Nora wiped her eyes and looked down at Adam. He was still sitting between her legs facing her, and he had managed to grasp onto the shiny silver button on the front of her jeans.
    Nora laughed despite herself. “I’m sitting here, bawling my eyes out because I can’t save you, and all you’re worried about is a shiny button?”
    Adam smiled and grasped the button even tighter.
    â€œWait a second…” Nora said, a huge smile brightening across her face. “I think you might just be on to something, Adam!” She carefully unclasped Adam’s fingers from around her button, then stood up. “Wait here!” she said as she placed him back down in the basket. “I’ll be right back!”
    Nora raced down the corridor, past the skeleton and around Minn’s hole, her flashlight leading the way ahead of her. When she reached the doorway into the other hallway, she turned into it and then kept running until she reached the room with the coat rack in it. She grabbed the little boy’s blazer from the rack, then continued on to the room with the gardening tools. She bounded over to the barrel where the shovels, hoes, and rakes were stored and selected the largest shovel. Its edges were heavily blunted, as if they’d been repeatedly bashed against a hard surface, and Nora briefly wondered if this had been the same one Minn had used to dig her hole. Probably.
    Nora ran back through the corridors to where Adam was lying in his basket and checked to make sure he was okay. He gurgled happily when she shone the light on him. She picked the basket up and set it down a little farther away from the pile, just in case, then headed over to the cave-in with the shovel and blazer in tow. She draped the blazer around her neck, then carefully started climbing up the pile, the flashlight in her mouth and the shovel still in her hand. It was tougher to climb with the shovel, and it took her a long time to make it to the top of the pile.
    When she finally reached the