"I think it was this one," I said, pointing to my left.
"Oh yeah, why?" asked Frederick.
"Eh, I was just guessing."
"Well, no better then I can do."
We headed off down the tunnel calling out to Alex. There was
no reply so I figured he was off rescuing Stephanie. We kept screaming,
just in case. Luckily, I had picked the right tunnel and we heard Alex
calling back to us after a while. We followed the sound of his voice until
we arrived back at the furnace room. He was standing there with Stephanie.
I jumped behind Frederick when I saw her. He hugged me behind him and said
"hello" to Stephanie.
"Hi Frederick," she said back in reply. "Hey Andy."
"Andrea," I said.
"What?"
"My name is Andrea, to you that is."
"Oh, um, okay. Sorry."
"Whatever."
Frederick's hand found mine and he squeezed it. I pressed firmly
back, and laid my head on his shoulder blade.
"Um, what are you being so bitchy about?" Stephanie asked.
I peered out from behind Frederick and shouted at her. "You deserted
us you no good piece of junk!"
"Wait! I had no other choice, I"
"I don't wanna hear about it! I was there, I don't need a goddamn
explanation!"
"Fine then, whatever you wanna believe."
"Damn straight, and don't try to tell me otherwise."
"Girls, girls, girls!" Alex butted in. "Is all this really necessary?"
"Yes!" we both shouted back. "Isn't it annoying when people who
have nothing to do with the fight, come in and try and break it up?" I
asked.
"Yeah," said Stephanie. "It makes me even more pissed off then
I was in the first place!"
"Seriously! They think that they're being all good and we actually
want them to mediate our fight. Why can't they just sit back and let us
duke it out ourselves!"
"I know! And you can just tell by the tone of their voices that
they think they're better then you when they say it."
"I totally agree. It's people like that that really get on my
nerves." I glared at Alex.
"Hey! I was only trying to help, I swear!"
"Get him!" I shouted, and Stephanie and I pounced on him, knocking
him to the ground. I started tickling him and he doubled over. Stephanie
grabbed his feet, tore off a shoe and tickled his toes. We didn't stop
until he started wheezing from lack of breath. I got up, dusted off my
pants, and noticed Frederick laughing and watching us.
"You got somethin' to say!" I joked with him.
"Oh, no way! I'm fine," he backed up a step and held up his hands.
"Good, then let's get goin' men." I turned to Alex. "Get off
the floor boy, this aint no time for resting! We got places to git to,"
The four of us got up, and began walking towards the tunnel entrances.
"Now, which way?" we asked each other.
"Well, where do we want to get to?" I asked.
Just then we heard a horrible noise! It sounded like an elephant
had just stepped on a thorny cat. We covered our ears and tried not to
let the sound in. Once it was quieter we could actually make out words.
Someone was singing, if you could call it that. It finally stopped, and
became a quiet humming. We decided we'd better head toward the noise, and
pray that they didn't start singing again once we were closer.
We followed the humming until we felt we were directly over it.
I found a vent and peered down. It was the same room I'd been in earlier,
with Godiva! I crouched down low to get a better angle, and I could make
out her fat figure, sitting on the thrown. The two guys were still fanning
her, while trying to cover their ears at the same time. She was the one
who was singing!
"Guys!" I whispered. "It's Godiva, she's the one who's singing."
"You're kidding! Let me see her," Stephanie said. She and Alex
both looked into the grid and their eyes lit up when they saw her. "Oh
God!" Alex shouted. "She's hideous!"
"Terrence, Phillip, did I just hear one of you say I'm hideous?"
Godiva suddenly asked, giving them both an evil eye.
The guys stopped fanning and backed away a step. "Of course not,
ma'am!" they said. "We would never,"
"Well then what in my name was it?"
"You probably just imagined it, ma'am."
"Are you suggestin' I'm crazy?"
"No ma'am, I'm just saying that this old places makes some pretty
odd noises every now and again, you know?"
"Hmmmph. She muttered, and started humming again.
Frederick squeezed in to take a look at her and the three of
them blocked my view. I crawled up on their backs to see down the grid.
Our weight was too much for the vent cover, and I didn't have much time
to realise what was happening before it gave way and we were falling down,
towards the ground.