The Mystery of Mammoth Cave

by Steve Kistler

Cover art and illustrations by John Yakel

Chapter I

“James, for the tenth time, STOP TALKING,” Ms. Wilson insisted.

James could tell that she was about to lose her cool by the exasperated flutter that was coming into her voice. He had about decided to settle down, when a new thought occurred to him. He leaned over to Alex, who was in the seat beside him. “Does that woman think I’m deaf? She’s already told me to be quiet nine times! How long…”

“JAMES AND ALEX! You have just lost today’s break! Not another word from either of you!”

Alex was stunned. “Ms. Wilson, I haven’t said a word all period! Why do I have to lose break?”

Alex’s friends joined in quickly.

“That’s not fair.”

“It’s James’s fault, Ms. Wilson”

“Ms. Wilson, I know we’ve been studying about the Nazis, but I never thought you would act like that.”

Poor Ms. Wilson. She loved her sixth graders, but, with the end of the year approaching, she would be just as glad to see the final day arrive as they would. Whatever happened, she thought, to students who would sit quietly and not blurt out whatever nonsense came into their heads?

“All right class. You all should know by now that we don’t all start talking at once. James and Alex, I’ll talk to you after class about this matter. In the meantime, I don’t want to hear a single peep out of either of you. Is that clear?”

“Yes, ma’am,” the boys chirped in unison.

Jerking Ms. Wilson’s chain is too easy, thought James. She’s too nice, so I can just do whatever I want until she gets mad and then act like I’m sorry. I can’t believe Alex didn’t know better than to sit next to me today. I’ll sure be glad next week when we get to travel to Kentucky. I think we have little league practice this evening. Won’t Ms. Wilson be amazed when I pitch the opening game of the World Series for the Indians in a few years? I wonder what’s for lunch today.

“James, are you writing this assignment down with the rest of us?” Ms. Wilson’s insistent voice jerked him back to reality. Quickly, he scribbled down the assignment on the board. From what he was writing, it looked like they were in math class. He had kind of lost track.

The bell rang and the students loaded their ratty-looking binders and math books into their book bags. Free for the next five minutes, they began to chatter about lunch, favorite video games, TV shows, baseball practice, cute girls, and cute guys. As the room cleared out, Ms. Wilson put on her best poker face and stared hard at James and Alex.

“James Murphy, we have four days of school left this year. How many times have I had to tell you to be quiet since August?”

James would have guessed slightly over twenty-five thousand, but he suspected Ms. Wilson wasn’t expecting him to really take a guess at the number. He stayed quiet and tried to look sorry.

“James, can you please cooperate for the last three days? All the students are getting spring fever, and if you aren’t at least playing along, then others will start to act out, too. We’ve had a wonderful year together, and I’d like to finish it on a really positive note. Do you think you can help me do that?”

Playing along. Now there was an interesting phrase, thought James. School, like life, is basically a game we have to learn. If you play by the rules, everything seems to work out OK. The amazing thing is, there are rules which are spoken out loud and rules which are unspoken. For instance, Ms. Wilson has already taken our break time away for this afternoon, but if she’s too busy to watch us, then she’ll have to let us have break so she can do whatever it is teachers go and do between classes.

“Yes, Ms. Wilson.”

“OK boys. Since it’s such a beautiful day, I’m not going to keep you inside during break. But tomorrow, I want your undivided attention during the entire class. Are we clear on that?”

Bingo, thought James. You called that one, you old game-player, you.

“Yes, ma’am.”

As he walked to Mr. Curtis’s social studies class, James reflected on their upcoming week in the country. His aunt and uncle lived in the heart of Kentucky, “way out past the back forty” as they liked to tell anyone who asked. Aunt Courtney worked at Mammoth Cave National Park, so James and his parents could go on all the cave trips they wanted. It had been three years since they’d visited Kentucky, and James was eager to get back to the woods and the hills. How could somewhere just one state away be so different from….

A hard red rubber eraser bounced off James’s head. As the eraser careened away in the crowded hall, he saw Tony ducking quickly into Mr. Curtis’s room. Tony would deny he had anything to do with it, but James knew what he had to do next. Exact revenge. Not the kind of revenge he would have liked to inflict on Tony, because students were not allowed to use Chinese water torture to slowly drive other students insane at Fairdale Middle School. James would have to make do under the circumstances.

He casually entered the classroom, checking to see where Mr. Curtis was at the moment. Mr. Curtis was a huge football coach. He was a massive man, reported to be six-foot-seven, but to James he looked closer to ten feet tall. Nobody messed with Mr. Curtis. Nobody. Not even sixth graders.

Mr. Curtis was putting some notes on the board and listening to students explain why they hadn’t done their homework.

“Mr. Curtis, my mother went to the hospital last night. I couldn’t get my assignment done.”

“Justin, I might be a little concerned if I didn’t know your mother works as a nurse on the night shift. Nice try; looks like we’ll be spending some quality time after school together.”

“But there’s only three days of school left!”

“That’s right, so we’d better use what little time we have left together to the best of our ability.”

“Mr. Curtis?” It was Tabatha. ”My brother did an experiment to see if my dog would eat my homework if he put peanut butter on it. So he put peanut butter on my social studies paper and my dog ate it!”

Mr. Curtis burst out laughing with a loud, easy cackle. “Tabatha, did you really just tell me that your dog ate your homework? Sorry about your luck. Justin, looks like you’ll have some company after school today.”

As students were coming into the room and the teacher was bantering with a few kids up front, James was watching for his opportunity to take care of Tony. He had his hand in his pocket, wrapped around his weapon of choice. It was a long, thick rubber-band, which James had dubbed The Enforcer. It had come off a bundle of newspapers and was approximately twenty inches around. This meant that he could really draw back and do some professional enforcing when he needed to. James loved The Enforcer. In fact, he wasn’t as worried about getting caught snapping Tony as he was about losing his rubber band. It could be a long time before he came across another high quality weapon like that one.

As Tony settled into his desk, James took out a pencil and headed for the pencil sharpener on the wall near the door. Tony’s desk was in the row closest to the wall, allowing James to pass right next to his desk without raising suspicion. He was already picturing a large red welt on Tony’s ear which would serve a as reminder to him not to throw erasers in the hall. As he approached Tony from the rear, James casually slowed down just a little and stealthily got The Enforcer out of his pocket. One step behind Tony, he held it with his left hand and stretched the rubber monster back a full two feet with his right. Ready, set…

“Murphy!!” roared Mr. Curtis. “What in the Sam Hill do you think you’re doing ? Get up here and give me twenty push-ups right now! And I’m not talking about those girlie push-ups you were doing yesterday.”

James was stunned. He had been on the verge of exacting a fully justified revenge. How could Mr. Curtis possibly understand? If he let Tony get away with beaning him in the head with an eraser, then every kid in the school would want a piece of James Murphy. Of course, Mr. Curtis hadn’t seen the eraser incident and didn’t even know about it, but that seemed a minor point in the larger scheme of things. To make things worse, James had been positive that Mr. Curtis was occupied at the front of the room just when he and The Enforcer were about to take care of business.

Eighteen, nineteen, twenty. He grunted and got to his feet. Mr. Curtis was there in front of him with his hand outstretched as if he were waiting for something.

“What?”

“The rubber band, James.”

Not the Enforcer! He had to think fast or his best defense against friends and foes alike would be gone for good. “Mr. Curtis, I was just pretending to draw back on Tony. I don’t even have a rubber band.”

“James, do you see this cell phone?” Without raising his voice even slightly, Mr. Curtis held up a bright blue phone with little footballs around the edge of the screen. “You can either hand over the rubber band, or I can give your Mom a call and discuss it with her.” Sensing that there was no justice in the world, James silently handed over the rubber band to his teacher.

“Can I pick it up after school, Mr. Curtis?”

“Sure, James. As long as your mother or father comes in with you.” Both Mr. Curtis and James knew that he would never see his beloved Enforcer again.

Well, you win some and you lose some, thought James. As he walked back past the smugly grinning Tony, James gave the other boy his best “wait until you see what’s in store for you” smile.

In his mind, he was already traveling to the back woods of Kentucky.



* * * * * * *

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