Read Online Cave Under the City by Harry; Mazer - Free Book Online Page B

till I smelled the fish.

20
    A board on a couple of boxes made a combination shelf and bench. Bubber sat right down on it with his rabbit. Our clothes went into the boxes, the pot went on the stove, and the candles on the shelf. I hung my father’s hammer and saw on the wall.
    I was cleaning out the stove when I heard Bubber say, “Hello.”
    I swung around and there was a dog, his sniffy nose in the door. “Where’d you come from? How did that dog get in here?”
    â€œKing!” Bubber greeted him.
    â€œDo you know him?”
    â€œHere, King.” The dog backed away. Bubber got the salmon can. “King is hungry. Here, King, here, good boy.” The dog came back and got his nose right into the can, licked it clean. “Do we have some more, Tolley? King wants more salmon.”
    â€œWe can’t feed dogs.” I nudged the dog. I didn’t kick him or anything, just toed him, so he’d get the idea. “Leave. Good dog. Good-bye.” The dog flattened himself. He was rust colored with long straggly hair. “Come on, get out of here,” I said. “You’re not getting any more food here.”
    â€œStay there, King, don’t go. Wait for Bubber.”
    The dog slunk around me and settled down at Bubber’s feet.
    â€œWhat I want to know is how you got down here,” I said. “You sure didn’t climb down the ladder, unless you’re part monkey.” The dog blinked his eyes. “This dog knows something.” I lit a candle. “Come on, Tramp, show me how you got down here.”
    â€œCall him King,” Bubber said. “He won’t listen if you call him Tramp. Come on, King honey, show us how you got down here.”
    The dog was smart. He knew just what we wanted, and he ran back into the darkest part of the cellar. We followed him. Cold air blew across my legs and the candle blew out. King was gone.
    Bubber pointed to a break in the foundation, a hole just big enough for a dog to get through. I got a board and knocked out some loose bricks and made the hole big enough so I could slide through. I came out under the back stairs.
    Bubber crawled out after me. “It’s a secret entrance.” He had his arms around the dog. “King found it. Do you like him now?”
    That morning, we found a lot of good stuff for the cave. We found bottles and filled them at the faucet. Then we found an abandoned car that still had its seats. We carried the backseat to the restaurant and dropped it down the dumbwaiter. That was going to be Bubber’s new bed. “See,” he said. “King brought us good luck.”
    Across the trolley tracks there were some houses and more empty lots. There was a garden in one of the lots. It had a fence around it made out of old doors. Through the cracks, we saw cabbages and pumpkins and an apple tree. One branch was hanging over our side.
    Bubber jumped. I threw a stick up and some apples fell off. Good red apples. We started eating as fast as we could. Bubber took a bite, then gave King a bite, then took a bite for himself. I threw King my apple core and he ate that, too. I was knocking down more apples when an old man came running toward us, shouting and cursing.
    We ran, crossed the trolley tracks back to our side, and didn’t stop running until we were back behind the restaurant. We crouched there with King. One thing about that dog, he was smart enough not to bark.
    It was warm there next to the foundation. Later, when it got dark and cold, we went inside. I started a fire in the stove with newspapers and wood we’d collected. I made cocoa with water and sugar. The room warmed up fast. It was sort of smoky, but when I checked outside, the smoke was hidden by the trees.
    That night, Bubber and King slept on the car seat. Outside, I heard the wind blowing and branches rubbing against the building. When the train passed, it shook the building. King muttered in his sleep. Did