When Roy was in the fourth grade, his class was taken on a field trip to the Museum of Science and Industry. Aboard the school bus on the way to the museum, Bobby Kazmeier and Jimmy Portis both said they couldn’t wait to go down into the coal mine.
“They got a real working coal mine there,” Portis told Roy and Big Art Tuth, Roy’s seatmate, “like in West Virginia, where my daddy’s family’s from.”
“It ain’t real,” said Big Art, “it’s a reenactment.”
“Not a reenactment,” Roy said, “a reproduction, or a replica. It’s to show what a coal mine is like.”
“What’s the difference?” asked Kazmeier. I heard you go down a mine shaft in an elevator.”
“An open air one, Kaz,” said Portis, “not like an elevator in the Wrigley Building.”
“They’ve got open ones in the State and Lake Building,” Roy said, “to deliver furs. My grandfather works there. Also in the Merchandise Mart. They’re in the back; customers take the regular elevators.”
“I hope we don’t have to squeeze through any narrow places in the caves,” said Big Art. “I don’t want to get stuck.”
Delbert Swaim, the dumbest kid in the class, who was sitting behind Roy, said, “I bet it’s like in Flash Gordon, where the clay people blend into the walls and attack when nobody’s looking.”
In the museum, the class looked at outer space exhibits and architectural displays, which were pretty interesting, but the boys were anxious to go down into the coal mine. This was left for last. The class teacher, Mrs. Rudinsky, instructed the students to keep together.
“We’ll descend in groups of ten,” she announced. “That means three groups. When you reach the bottom, stay right there with your group until the others arrive. I will be with the third group.”
Mrs. Rudinsky was not quite five feet tall, she was very skinny and wore thick glasses and a big black wig. She was forty-five years old. The story was that she had lost all of her hair as a teenager due to an attack of scarlet fever. Roy didn’t know what scarlet fever was, so he asked Mary Margaret Grubart, the smartest girl in the class, about it.
“Fevers come in all colors,” she told Roy. “Scarlet’s one of the worst, it can kill a person. A man wrote a famous novel about it where a girl had to wear a scarlet letter on her dress to warn people not to get near her so they wouldn’t get sick. In historical times, sick people were burned alive.”
In the coal mine, the kids were shown around by a museum guide wearing a hard hat with a flashlight attached to the front of it, the kind that miners wear. There were blue flames that indicated gas deposits and a miniature railway on which carts carrying coal traveled. The guide explained how the operation worked and presented samples of different types of coal, which the students passed around. The hardest, blackest coal was called bituminous.
“This is the kind Superman can squeeze and turn into diamonds,” said Roy.
The other kids laughed but the guide said, “You’re right, son. Bituminous is processed over a period of hundreds if not thousands of years and can become diamonds.”
“Superman can make a diamond in a few seconds,” Roy said. “But he doesn’t do it too often in order not to destroy the world economy. My grandfather told me that.”
“Your grandfather knows what he’s talking about, young man,” said the guide.
After the tour had concluded and they were back above ground, Mrs. Rudinsky lined the students up preparatory to marching them out of the museum to the bus. Two boys were missing: Bobby Kazmeier and Jimmy Portis.
“Has anyone seen Portis and Kazmeier?” asked Mrs. Rudinsky.
“They’re still down in the mine,” said Delbert Swaim. “They said they wanted to explore more.”
“You all wait right here!” Mrs. Rudinsky commanded, before going to find a museum employee.
While two security guards and the coal mine guide went down in the elevator to find the missing boys, Mrs. Rudinsky loaded the other students onto the school bus, where they were told to wait with the driver, Old Ed Moot. Mrs. Rudinsky went back into the museum.
“They could suffocate,” said Old Ed Moot, “if they stay down there too long without masks.”
It was more than an hour before Mrs. Rudinsky returned to the bus. Bobby Kazmeier and Jimmy Portis were not with her.
“Go!” she said to Old Ed Moot, and sat down in a seat at the front. Old Ed pulled the door closed.
“Mrs. Rudinsky, some of us have to go to the bathroom,” said Mary Margaret Grubart.
“You’ll just have to hold it until we get to the school,” Mrs. Rudinsky told her.
“Where’s Kaz and Jimmy?” asked Roy.
“They’ll find them,” the teacher said.
“You mean they’re still down in the mine?” asked Big Art.
“No talking!” ordered Mrs. Rudinsky.
Roy noticed that her wig was turned slightly sideways and listing to port. Above her right ear, Mrs. Rudinsky’s scalp was hairless.
She was the first person off the bus and headed straight for the principal’s office, leaving the students to fend for themselves. The school day was over, everyone was free to go home, but Roy and Big Art stood by the bus with Old Ed Moot, who lit up an unfiltered Chesterfield.
“Those boys are in big trouble,” said Old Ed, “unless they’re dead. Either way, your teacher’s in deep shit.”
“Hey, Ed,” said Big Art, “can we have a cigarette?”
Old Ed shook his head as he inhaled his Chesterfield. “Dirty habit,” he said. “Don’t start.”
“We already started,” said Art.
Just then a police car pulled up in front of the school. Two cops got out with Jimmy Portis between them and entered the building.
“Wow,” Roy said, “where’s Kaz?”
“Maybe suffocated,” said the bus driver. “This one’s the lucky one.”
Two minutes later, another police car arrived and parked behind the first one. Two cops got out with Bobby Kazmeier wedged between them and walked into the school.
Old Ed Moot looked at the Timex on his left wrist and said, “Well, fellas, my day’s done.”
He dropped his cigarette butt on the ground and stepped on it, turning his steel-toed Sears workshoe so that there wouldn’t be anything worth picking up, and walked away.
“What do you think will happen to them?” asked Big Art.
“I don’t know,” Roy said, “but if it hadn’t been for Jimmy and Kaz staying in the coal mine, we probably would have got homework.”