The Tunnel of Hugsy Goode by Eleanor Estes

Author:Eleanor Estes [Estes, Eleanor]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Chapter 19

The Words Again—Descent No. 2

We slid down from the tree house, and we listened. No sound or sign of the moms. Napping, probably. Job Lots expeditions are wonderful but tiring. All that strange garb the moms try on, studying which will make the biggest hit when they come home, put it on, and pay a surprise visit to Jane Ives or Cornelia Crane, Lucy's mom. Cornelia also appreciates strange garb and sometimes even goes to Job Lots with them, encouraging them to buy some dusty wig or a dress of olden times—the twenties—with fringes or feathers.

"Garb" is a real word, not one of our code words "brag" spelled backward. If you don't know what a "garb" is, look it up in the dictionary. That's what John Ives says to do when you come upon a strange word in a book. He says, "When I was a boy, I never read a book ... all the works of Dickens, all the works of Sir Walter Scott—how I loved The Heart of Midlothian—without a dictionary right beside me."

So, the tired moms were probably napping or trying on their garbs, and the tiny weenie Alleyites were probably napping, too. All along we had worried about a tiny Alleyite, Holly, maybe, climbing into the hidey hole to play and falling through our entranceway into the tunnel. I told Holly there were witches under the squash vines and to pass the word along to Lucy, so they'd stay away, and they had, so far.

No sign of the main grils, either ... Beatrice, Isabel, and Star. They were probably busy with whatever they had gotten at Job Lots. The only people around right now were the same two stranger grils, still jumping rope, and my sister gril, Notesy, who'd joined them. Notesy's dreamy. She doesn't know what's going on half the time, though once she did spot a ten-dollar bill before anyone else that was blowing around a vacant lot on Larrabee Street.

So, it was lucky for us it was dreamy Notesy and not black-eyed gril who had come out to play with the new grils at the rain drain, because that black-eyed gril, for instance—she just does not miss one single trick, no sirree. And if we had not seen her drive off with the others this morning, we would have suspected her of having tracked us, and followed us, and peered down into the tunnel glooming after us—even of having slid down behind us and spoken the creepy words, DON'T SIT IN THAT CHAIR!

Then, all day, she would have gotten that awful look on her face that means "I know something," then maybe spill it at good-manners mealtime at the Fabians' when it would be potent and be hard to contradict, say, "I know where Tornid and Copin were this morning..."

Yechh!

The two new grils have no looks, awful or not on their faces—no smile, no frown. You don't know whether they see you or not. They keep their cool and chew their gum .

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