Tubby crouched and stepped into the hole, pulling his right leg in until only his head and part of his shoulders protruded.

He crouched lower, grunting a bit as he settled back into the cool darkness.

Wouldn't Cordie or my old man shit if they came in and saw me now! Of course, Cordie wouldn't be coming into the boy's restroom. Or would she? Tubby knew that his older sister was pretty weird. A couple of years earlier, when she was in fourth grade herself, Cordie'd followed Chuck Sperling, the hotshot Little League baseball player, . track star, and all-around-asshole, out to Spoon River when he was fishing alone, tracked him for half a morning, and then jumped him, knocked him down, sat on his stomach, and threatened to pound his head in with a rock if he didn't show her his dick.

According to Cordie, he'd pulled it out, crying and spitting blood, and showed her. Tubby was pretty sure that she hadn't told anybody else, and it was damn sure that Sperling wasn't going to tell anybody.

Tubby leaned back in his little cave, feeling the plaster dust in his crew cut, and grinned at the dimly lit restroom. He'd jump out and scare the shit out of the next kid who came in to take a leak.

Tubby waited a full two or three minutes but no one came. Once there was a scuffle or rattle way down the main basement corridor, but the sound of approaching sneakers didn't come and nobody showed. The only other noise was the constant trickle of water in the urinals and a soft gurgling in the overhead pipes, like the damned school was talking to itself.

It's like a secret passage in here, Tubby thought again, turning his head to the left to look down the narrow passageway between the two walls. It was dark and smelled like the ground under the front porch of his house where he'd hid from his ma and his Old Man and played when he was smaller. The same musty, rich, rotten smell.