Sewer Rats Read Free

tall trees at the edge of Bell Park. Now there were six of us: me and Lisa and Micky, the Cooper twins, and Carter.
    All of us carried duffel bags that held our helmets and our paintball guns. We knew people would never stop us to ask about our duffel bags because they could have been for soccer or baseball. On the other hand, plenty of people would have hadplenty of questions if we walked around with paintball guns over our shoulders.
    And what we were doing, of course, was something we didn’t want to be asked about.
    Running through the middle of Bell Park was a drainage ditch that led to the river. At the bottom of the big hill that looked down on Bell Park, a big tunnel emptied into this drainage ditch. The tunnel was connected to the entire drainage system below the streets.
    It was a big system, a whole maze of tunnels.
    The main purpose of the tunnels is to collect water. When it rains, water drains into street gutters. The small streams in the gutters reach grates and drop into the tunnels below the streets.
    A one-hour rainstorm might not sound like much, but after a few minutes thousands and thousands of little streams empty into the tunnels.
    It adds up. Fast. In fact, after a couple hours of rain, the main tunnel that drainsinto Bell Park is a solid pipeline of fast-moving water as high as a person’s waist.
    That’s why we never have paintball wars when it looks like it might rain. We don’t want to take the chance of getting caught in a flood in the tunnels.
    Saturday, though, looked like a great day. The wind was blowing, but there were no clouds. And it didn’t matter that the wind was cold. In the tunnels, you only hear the wind when it blows through the grates above.
    â€œGuys,” Micky said as we began to walk along a path to take us toward the middle of the park. “Last night, me and Lisa figured on the mousetrap plan. We’ve heard these Medford guys think they are real commandos. So it only makes sense that we play the waiting game.”
    He flashed us the big Micky grin. “If they’re half as cocky as we’ve heard, they’ll come looking for us. And we can let them walk right into our sights.”
    â€œMakes sense,” I said. The way it worked in our paintball wars was simple. Each teamhad a flag. Each team planted it in one spot. The team who reached and took the other team’s flag was the winner. “Are we going to use that spot by the underground phone lines?”
    â€œYou got it,” Micky said. “Sooner or later they have to pass through that area. Me and Lisa mapped out everyone’s ambush spot.”
    Usually, we left the Cooper twins to guard our flag while the rest of us went looking for the other team’s flag. With the mousetrap plan, though, we played it different. Even if it took hours without moving, all of us would wait in our hiding spots and gun down the other team’s soldiers as they moved in on our flag. Not until most of them had been shot would we go hunting for the other team’s flag.
    â€œRemember, it’s dark,” Micky said. “Don’t make any guesses. If you see someone coming and they don’t give the password, gun them down.”
    During our paintball wars, everyone wore helmets with visors for protectionfrom paint bullets. In the dark tunnels, it was hard to tell if a person was an enemy or a friend.
    â€œToday’s password?” Al Cooper asked.
    â€œStinkpot,” Micky said.
    â€œStinkpot?” both twins asked.
    Micky grinned. “In honor of Carter’s fall into the sewage lagoon.”
    The twins grinned back. Carter grinned too. Lisa didn’t.
    Micky tried to get her to grin. “And Lisa, make sure you don’t get lost.”
    We always teased Lisa about the fact that she wasn’t good with directions. Actually, I thought Lisa was brave to go into the tunnels even though she might get lost. The only reason I could face going in the tunnels