A Children's Story--The Pipe

“Giro, come on,” called Sanae. She had made her way up the jumble of rocks ahead of her pudgy classmate. Beads of sweat broke on his temples by the time he caught up.

            “What is it,” asked the boy pulling out neckerchief to wipe away the sweat.

Sanae pointed to an odd structure sticking out of the hill above Corey Park. “It’s some kind of pipe,” she said, “but it’s not round.”

Giro sat down on a rock and stared up, studying the structure. “Looks like the kind of stuff I want to design,” he said.

“I know,” said Sanae, remembering his dream of become an architect. He had told her of it, because she didn’t treat him like other kids in school who only made fun of his weight. “Let’s investigate,” she said scrambling higher to reach the weird opening in the hill.

Giro stuffed his kerchief in his pocket and moved his uncooperative body forward to follow, catching up with her a few minutes later. She was waiting at the opening for him but hadn’t gone in. “Let’s see where it goes,” he said, wondering at the smooth seamless walls of the pipe.

Sanae looked back at the park below. Mom’s car was in the parking lot and she and Giro’s father were sitting on the park bench near the tree. “We can’t be long,” she said. “Mom will start to worry.”

“My Dad will keep her busy,” he said. “I think he likes her.”

Sanae flashed a shy smile, wishing she had a Daddy. “You go first,” she said, letting Giro take the lead.

The pipe’s floor was level, and the sides angled above the two children in a peaked roof. “Maybe nobody ever saw it before because the opening looks like a cleft in the face of the hill,” thought Giro out loud. “That’s smart building. Triangle’s the strongest structure,” he added.

Sanae looked down at her watch to mark the time, then crawled in behind Giro. The floor was soft and pliant. Weird, she thought, but not as weird as the glow that lighted the way. She reached up to touch the side of the pipe. It was as flexible as the floor, but where she touched it, the wall darkened. “Let’s go back,” she said fearful about the unnaturalness.

“No way,” Giro called back to her. “I can see the end of the pipe.”

Sanae moved up trying to see around Giro’s heavy form. She could almost touch his shoe when he suddenly disappeared.

Her heart jumped to her throat. The seamless softly lit pipe stretched on in front of her, but Giro wasn’t there. She turned to look behind, but the opening where she had entered wasn’t there either. In the moment’s hesitation, she felt the floor under her give way.

(to be continued)