The Truth as Told by Mason Buttle

Lt. Baird is impatient and angry. He insists Mason knows something about the “second missing boy” (215). Mason takes Lt. Baird along his map of the afternoon, from the time he got off the bus to where Calvin and he split up. Lt. Baird becomes fixated on the pond, asking if they went swimming, assuming Mason is hiding something. Mason tries to retrace some of Calvin’s path, up a hill around toward the crumbledown. They come to the porch, where Mason has already looked. Lt. Baird angrily pushes the chair, and Calvin’s backpack falls out. Mason is thrilled. They pull up the floorboards, but no one is underneath the porch. It begins to rain, and the search is postponed. Mason can’t eat or sleep, and neither can anyone else in the Buttle house. Mason hopes Calvin is safe and out of the rain. 

Mason wakes up suddenly and gasps. He knows where Calvin is. He gets out of bed and jumps over the broken porch to run back to the root cellar. As he comes down the hill, he falls on the salad bowl shaft cover and watches it roll down the hill. Inside the cellar, he reaches up into the shaft and feels something. He grabs and Calvin’s shoe comes down in his hand. He calls Calvin’s name, and Calvin calls back, weakly. Calvin jokes, “I’m hanging out… in the Shaft of the Dead Man” (223). Calvin tells Mason to go get help. His leg is up by his head, and he can’t feel it anymore. He is stuck and can’t get out, and he keeps falling asleep. Mason goes fast. 

Mason screams for help in the house. Everyone comes. Mason brings Calvin water, and Uncle Drum calls the police. Grandma comforts Calvin as Mason gives him sips of water. The sirens come—the police, and the ambulance, and all the searchers. Mr. and Mrs. Chumsky come. They are so relieved to see their son. Everyone asks about the hole in the yard, and Mason explains the root cellar. “I give up the root cellar. I show everyone where Calvin Chumsky is” (227). 

A woman takes charge and clears the area. They bring in an extrication team. Mason watches from above, in the bedroom window. He knows that if Calvin looks up, he will be able to see Mason’s head poking out: “I am with him. Much as I can be” (229). They start with a digger, but then the woman calls for dish soap. Grandma brings two bottles, and they say they are going to use gravity to slide Calvin out. It is slow, but after soaping the hole, eventually Calvin slips through into the root cellar. 

Mason watches Calvin leave in an ambulance as the sun rises. When he comes inside, Lt. Baird is in the kitchen drinking coffee. Mason takes a shower and changes his clothes. He comes down to eat breakfast, and Lt. Baird is still there. Lt. Baird starts asking questions about why Mason didn’t reveal the root cellar. Mason finally says, loudly, that nobody asked. Uncle Drum backs Mason up. He says he checked the root cellar, too, and found nothing. Lt. Baird questions them both, and Uncle Drum insists, “Say what you will. But a person just can’t know what he doesn’t know. And you can’t always see that a bad thing is going to happen before it happens. If you could, no bad would ever come” (236). The Chumskys call and report Calvin is recovering well, though he has a concussion and nerve damage in his leg. Everyone is thrilled, including Lt. Baird. Lt. Baird says he will question Calvin about what happened. 

Mason goes in late to school. He goes right to the SWOOF, and Ms. Blinny takes him for the day. He talks to the Dragon. He talks about the city condemning the root cellar because the roof might cave in. They take a digger and tear it down. Only two stone walls are left. They tell Uncle Drum to put boards over the walls for safety, to make a cap. Mason is sad to tell Calvin their Cave of Lascaux is gone: “But umm one thing is still there. On one of those good stony walls. The aurochs” (242). Mason also writes about believing the bad luck is still following him. It could have killed Calvin, too. Mason falls asleep at the Dragon, and Ms. Blinny wakes him up. She asks to read what he wrote. She tells him that he isn’t bad luck: “Please. Don’t be afraid. Live your big life, Mason! You are not bad luck. You are not stupid or dangerous or any of those things” (243). Ms. Blinny gives Mason a rock that says “loyal.”

On the bus, Mason hears rumors about Calvin. He corrects them, and Lance and Matt mock him. Mason asks when they last saw Calvin. They pause, as if they are trying to come up with a good answer. They say he disappeared. Mason doesn’t believe them. He gets off the bus with no trouble today and finds a plywood board over the torn-up porch. Inside, Grandma makes him a banana shake and suggests a nap. Mason feels antsy and goes out to dig around in the old root cellar. He clears the debris from the aurochs’ feet. Uncle Drum promises they will rebuild.