Chuck takes the wallet. He opens his door and the wind blasts the freezing rain in. Big smothering blankets of snow are coming down in some places. We don’t even have jackets.
“Are you sure, Finn?” Chuck cries.
“Yes!” Mouse and I both shout and Chuck dodges to a tree stump. He shoves it out of the way, revealing the entrance to a tunnel. Mouse takes my hand and together we run through the driving wind to the tunnel opening.
“Good luck,” Chuck shouts. His words sift through the storm to us.
The helicopters have landed again, closer now. They surround the clearing. Men in blue gloves are running toward us. “Bing, get India!” Mouse cries.
Chuck nods as the wind lifts off his cap. He waves Bing’s wallet and slips it into his jacket pocket. “I’ll try!” he calls as he runs back to the feather taxi, the men in blue gloves swarming in on him now.
The last thing we see before we descend into the tunnel is Chuck being led away.
CHAPTER 22
BIRD’S NEST PASSAGE
From outside, the tunnel opening looked like an oversized gopher hole. But inside, there’s a wide stairwell that takes us down to an underground passageway. The temperature down here is perfect—warm and cozy after the freezing sleet and battering wind outside, maybe because the walls are made of bits of sticks and feathers and stray fluff like a bird’s nest, insulating us from the outside.
We don’t see anyone now, but clearly people work here. The place looks like the basement floor of an office building for bird people. Cots with bird egg–patterned sheets, tables constructed from egg cartons, feather-covered coat stands, and chairs made of telephone poles with telephone-wire line backs rest against both sides of the passage. Rain gear hangs neatly in a line up ahead; coats with badges that show lightning striking clouds hang on hooks and boots rest in a row on the floor. There’s even a cuckoo clock and egg-shaped lockers painted in colors like robin’s egg blue, speckled brown, and eggshell white.
There are no dogs down here. No dog hair. No dog dishes. No dog leashes and no dog smell.
I don’t bring this up to Mouse, though. I don’t want to worry her. She’s already walking too slow. I check my clock. Seven hours and fifty-three minutes to find the dogs, find the box, and find India.
“Do you think they’ll hurt Bing?” she asks, sitting down on a chair with faded cloud-patterned fabric on the seat by a display of brightly-colored bird houses.
We’re in a weird underground world hoping to get help from a pack of strange dogs. We may never see Mom or India again and Mouse is worried about her imaginary friend? As smart as Mouse is, I don’t think she gets how important this all is.
“They won’t hurt Bing.” That is actually the one thing I’m sure about. How could they hurt him? He’s imaginary.
“But Mouse, we need to keep walking.”
She doesn’t move.
I stare at the scuffed brown bird’s nest pattern on the linoleum. “Bing will be okay. India will take care of him.”
“You don’t believe that,” she says, her chin jutting out, her shoulders slumping down.
I have to admit she’s right, I don’t believe it. I try again. “Maybe Bing doesn’t have to be gone . . . Why don’t you call him back?”
She looks at me incredulously. “He does what he wants, Finn. I can’t make him do anything.”
“Yes, you can, Mouse, you made him up.”
She shakes her head emphatically. “I did not. He just came to me. It was his idea.”
What do I say to that? I push my hair out of my eyes, and try again. “You told him to go with Chuck to find India. That was the right thing to do.”
She nods. “Finn?”
“Yes, Mouse.”
Her eyes well up with tears. “I miss Mommy and India.”
“If you love India that much, why do you bug her all the time?”
“I have to,” she says, “or she forgets about me.”
“I’m not sure that’s the best strategy.”
Mouse nods as if she’s considering this. “Some things are hard to understand.” She sighs a grown-up sigh. “That’s Bing’s job. He thinks about things that don’t make sense. I think about things that do.”
“Does Bing have a brother? Maybe his brother can come help you, because really, Mouse, we have to keep moving.”
“Bing’s a private person. He doesn’t talk about his person life.”
Just my luck. My sister’s imaginary friend is a hermit.
I’m about to try another tack when a bell rings in the distance and the sound of approaching footsteps echos through the passageway.