The Game of Sunken Places by M. T. Anderson

Author:M. T. Anderson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.

The two boys had thrown themselves through the next archway and down a vast set of stairs as the ogre prepared for his leap. They heard him stomping, they heard his mindless yowling, they could hear his pause and his mucoid sniffing.

As they reached the bottom of the stairs, the flame picked out details of things around them—the side of a house with a steep, steep roof, a house encrusted with some kind of convoluted carving.

Gregory and Brian breathlessly charged down a shoddily cobbled street. Snarth bellowed behind them as he leaped to the foot of the stairs.

“House!” screamed Gregory, and he pulled off to the left, grabbing at Brian’s sleeve as he passed him. The two scurried through the door and through the empty stone chambers within. They stood shivering in a back room that had no windows, the rumble of Snarth’s angry breath echoing in to them as he stooped before the minute doorway.

“This is great,” whispered Gregory. “Superb choice.” And then, as if swearing, he said over and over again, “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

Brian said, “Look. There must be other windows we can crawl out of. On another side of the house.”

Gregory nodded and stepped quickly through to another room, this one bare like the last. They went up a flight of stairs.

In the upstairs rooms, windows looked from gables and walls out to the back of the house—but they were thirty feet off the ground. Gregory leaned out of the casement and twisted around to look upward. He couldn’t see anything above them. The light from the lantern illuminated only the leering gargoyles that perched on every corner, that slithered over every lintel, that squatted on every gable of the house opposite.

Gregory crept to the front window. Below, he could see Snarth standing, his arms crossed impatiently, snorting suspiciously at the air. They could hear his breath, the whine of air through cavernous sinuses and stalagmites of snot.

They waited. The ogre hunkered down and stuck his nose through the door. He stood again, scratching his chin. He paced a few steps to the left, then changed his mind, and paced a few steps to the right.

And then, quick as lightning, he grabbed on to windows and began climbing. He heaved himself upward.

The boys stumbled back; they ran for the stairs. The ogre charged up and started fumbling his blunt fingers around in the room. They threw themselves downward, slamming into walls.

Out the front door. They ran for a side street. Snarth had his arm stuck in the window. He teetered there. Smelled them. Started to yank his arm out.

They were running through an alley. Found it led right back to Snarth’s cavern. He was thumping down the street toward them.

“There was a door on the other side of the cavern! There was a little door!” Brian screamed.

They crossed the floor of Snarth’s den. Brian was redfaced; he had fallen behind. Gregory had always been better at running. He had won the school marathon. He tugged at Brian.

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