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A loud rumble of voices echoed around him and then the plunging stopped. Pauly wasn’t about to lose his chance. He pushed off of the back of the plunger as hard as he could and shot down the drain into the pipe. He didn’t stop until he was well out of reach.
Besides the fact that he was almost plunged to death, Pauly at least knew where he was now. He floated along with the water until he came to another circle of light. If his sense of direction was right, that light source would be coming from the park a block away from the school.
Pauly had to squeeze past a chunk of debris that looked like an ancient piece of bubble gum crammed full of every kind of dirt and slime imaginable. It took up half the pipe. The water didn’t quite make it to the top of the drain, so he stood on the bubble gum clog and looked up at the blue sky through the branches of a weeping willow tree.
“The bike rack should be to the left and the swings to the right,” he said aloud, grabbing the top rim of the drain and pulling himself up. The shiny bowl of the drinking fountain was too high to see the bike rack but every few seconds he caught a glimpse of feet swinging up in the air. Pauly wanted to climb out and see who was there, but as small as he was now, it would be too easy to get stepped on and killed.
The thumping sound of feet rumbled the fountain. Out of nowhere a big gaping mouth appeared with a wiggling tongue and then a gush of water pounded Pauly back down the drain. He slowed to a drift, wishing he would have done what Ms. Shyvly said and thrown the penny in the trashcan. If he would have known his wish was going to come true shrinking and going down the drain would have been one of the last things out of his mouth.
It was cool at first, zooming around like a roller coaster, but being this small was kind of creepy, not to mention dangerous. He kept track of where he was by peeking up each of the drains as best he could. He was amazed at how the plumbing made the city like one big connected house.
To be Continued…