Remembering a spit wad pelting the back of his head, caused him to
sit up fast, dragging his heel across the plug and pulling it out of the
drain. Pauly lay still for a moment, staring up at the blurry ceiling and
the wavering faucet. Something was still keeping him underwater. When he
thought of drowning, he started to kick and thrash wildly again. To his
horror the bathtub that his legs used to dangle over the edge of was
now like an Olympic sized pool that he couldn't see over the side of.
Either everything around him was growing bigger or he was shrinking. A strong suction started to pull him deeper into the tub. Pauly swam frantically for the other side when he saw what was causing it. He hadn't put the plug back in the drain and all the water was spiraling downward in one big whirlpool that was quickly pulling him and his bubble down the drain. As he glided smoothly into the dark tunnel he caught a glimpse of the golden penny, caught up near the opening of the pipe. It had to be the cause of this he thought, remembering that Ms. Shyvly had scoffed at the idea of it being magic. Well, there was no doubt of that, he thought, bouncing from one side of the winding pipe to the other. The bubble was protecting him from being beat to a pulp like the thick stringy slime that clung to the pipe's walls and made the water murky and hard to see ahead in. |
Children's Stories > Pauly In The Pipes >