overheard

When: On the way to our caving trip
Where: TAASC bus, seat behind me
Who: Two ten year old boys

Z: You know, before the Civil War, this slave was hiding out and trying to get North. He found this cave that went like 1500 feet straight down and--

A: Well, how did he get into it if it were that steep?

Z: He climbed down. He was hiding. Anyway, he found this whole group of Indians down there who had been living there for as long as they could remember.

A: Whoa. How did they get down there?

Z: They didn't know. They didn't even know they were in a cave that went somewhere else. I think that one guy moved his family there and then they raised all these other people through time. They ate like, things in the cave.

A: Like what?

Z: Mushrooms, and little things that were in there. And the guy didn't go out of the cave. He learned their language and lived with them.

A: Well how do people know about it if he never came up?

Z: He did actually come up just one time. It was a long time and the Civil War had happened already and he followed the cave up. But someone built a church the field that the cave opening was in. So he came up, but then had to knock on the floor of the church! When he got out, people were screaming. And all he said was, "Hi," and then he went back into the hole. And they were so shocked.

A: What was he wearing? The same clothes from when he went in?

Z: No. He was wearing fur because that's what these cave people made their clothes out of. They just had little dead animal fur in there.

A: Really?

Z: Yep. I read it in a book.




Now, while I think I read this story when I was 10-ish as well and was equally as mystified, I think that Z took some liberties with the details in order to be able to answer his friend's questions. It was like having a Wikipedia expert in the bus.