Trapped Read Online Free Page B

passenger side window, gazing back down the tunnel. Despite how late in the day it must be, the tunnel lights are relentlessly bright, and most of us are unable to fall asleep. My mom is still deep in conversation with Mrs. Potts, gesturing wildly to accent her hushed tones. Mrs. Potts seems to agree with everything, only more vehemently, unconcerned about keeping her voice down. They’re busy predicting how long it will be until we all die down here while Hannah Avery stands to the side, her small face growing paler with each word.
    The twins, thankfully, have fallen asleep in the backseat. I don’t know how Mrs. Potts’s children are reacting to their anxious conversation.
    I look past the group, further down the curve of the tunnel. I can just see the plumbing truck, tucked safely against the railing, before the rest of the tunnel dips out of sight. Yes, that could definitely be a football field and a half away.
    This equation confirms at least one thing: the plumbing truck stopped where I’d seen the three men in coveralls before the collapse. They’d been in nearly that precise spot, just on the other side of the railing.
    So the next question is – how far back did we pass the plumbing truck? Could it have been slowing down? Could it have planned to meet those three men on the side of the road, to stop to pick them up on the way to their job west of the tunnel? How could I calculate its acceleration, or deceleration? Are there skid marks behind it? Is there any way to know what that plumbing truck had been doing just before the cave-in?
    I scribble uselessly for a few more minutes and then heave a long sigh, letting the air out in a loud rush since my mom is so far away. I know I’m stumped. I could calculate the plumbers’ deceleration if I had the proper data, but there’s just none to work with. I can only work with what I saw, what I remember from just before the cave-in, and I don’t remember much. But even if I had all the facts, if I could work out the equation...it doesn’t add up to the bigger picture.
    Phil had said that the five of them were on their way to a job, that they were all in the truck driving when the cave-in happened. His words had indicated that three of the five could not have been doing anything else when the tunnel collapsed. I must have...been wrong?
    No. I know what I saw. Those three men in gray coveralls had been bent down on the sidewalk in the tunnel, about 150 yards away. The other two had been driving the truck, and they’d arrived at that same spot no more than a few seconds before the tunnel caved in.
    Maybe they’d been fortunate enough to have perfect timing– to have arrived to pick up the other three just when either side of the tunnel collapsed around them.
    But if that’s the case, why lie and say they’d all been driving?
And if they were lying, if they’re hiding something...what would that mean?
I push the thought aside. If Phil didn’t give us a play-by-play of how he stopped to pick up his co-workers, that doesn’t mean he was necessarily lying. My mom didn’t give much explanation of what we were doing before the cave-in, either. Of course, that was partially because she didn’t like what we’d been doing.
    I don’t see why you had to go to a competition so far away, Emily . Her words from earlier echo in my head. She’d reiterated the sentiment multiple times to Mrs. Potts already this evening, and with all the windows rolled down in our gray sedan I can’t help but overhear her.
    Most of our competitions are closer to home in Fresco, and my mom would usually come by for the final round and give me a ride home. Since I’m just a few short weeks away from my sixteenth birthday – and my own driver’s license – she considered the added driving for Math League competitions digestible, if not palatable. And although my mom would have preferred I choose just about any other extracurricular, she supported the opportunity for college