He can see the pale yellow lights of the school down the hill, but he doesn’t know if he can make it there. He wonders if they have noticed his absence yet, if anyone’s started looking for him. He sits in the hole, holding his wrist, and takes a couple deep breaths. Someone is coming, he thinks. The important thing is not to be crying when they find you. He knows he was close to finding the treasure. He’ll have to come here again, at night maybe, and with a shovel this time. No one can know. His mom and dad will certainly be angry again. They’ll want to know why he keeps doing this. He won’t tell them. He’ll keep quiet. There is something under us. A world beneath ours. He closes his eyes and waits. For a long time, he sits, listening for the beeping. Somewhere past the grey schoolyard, past the rain-soaked town, away from the storms and the cold, it’s there, soft and steady, getting closer, coming for him, he’s sure of it.
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