Max the Mighty

Chivalry is a failed mining town. Buildings stand empty and rotting. Max worries that Worm’s father will be a nutty, gray-bearded hermit.

Max and Worm walk through town and enter an old building that appears to be the remains of a saloon. Worm says she hears ghosts whispering; Max says it’s the wind. He walks behind the bar and nearly bumps into a pair of giant eyes. It’s an owl. It hoots and flies around the room, then disappears up into the broken rafters.

Something about the owl gives Max the sense that it “knows everything.” Worm stares up at the roof as if “she knows what the owl knows” (117).

They eat some of the apples and cheese that Joe gave them. Max wolfs his down, but Worm only nibbles. He asks why her dad lives in a “ghost town,” but she doesn’t want to talk about it. She pulls out a book to read, The Hobbit. She’s read it before. So has he, which surprises her. Feeling defensive, he scolds her for doubting his intelligence. She looks as if she’s going to cry, and Max regrets his words.

Rachel says that, when she first read The Hobbit, she wanted to be the book’s hero, Bilbo Baggins, and live in his world. Max says he felt the same way. With growing intensity, she says she loves reading, doesn’t mind that the other kids call her Worm—to her, it’s an honor to be a bookworm—and pities them because they don’t know about all the wonderful stories in books.

It gets dark and chilly. Max finds a box of old matches, gathers newspapers and bits of broken furniture, and tries to light a fire in the saloon’s potbellied stove. The ancient matches keep breaking until there’s only one left. Grinning, Worm says, “We’ll have to use magic.” Max says there’s no such thing outside of books. Worm retorts that the magic in books escapes into the real world.

She pulls out all her paperbacks and, holding the last match, waves it over each book while she intones: “Humnahooah, humnahooah, give us fire, give us light, keep us warm on this cold night!” (122). Max scratches the last match. It ignites. He puts it into the stove, and they have warmth.

Max still doesn’t believe in magic, but he can’t rule out that it believes in him.

Max can’t sleep. His mind keeps scolding him for being stupid. He reviews all the dumb things he’s done in life until his mind tells him to be smart, leave Worm to her dad, and escape. He can’t abandon her, though, and his brain finally gives up and lets him sleep.

In the morning, Worm says it’s time to go see her dad. Max asks why they haven’t done so already. She says she wasn’t ready yet. She’s hiding something, but Max still can’t figure out what it is.

They set out across town. Worm seems to know where she’s headed. She walks toward the train station. Max, his mind full of questions, tags along. The station, once fancy and impressive, is dilapidated and boarded up. It’s built against the side of a steep mountain. Worm finds a hole in the wall and crawls in; Max barely squeezes through. The building is big inside, with dusty old benches and ticket windows.

Worm stands in a shaft of sunlight that pours down from a hole in the ceiling. She faces a much larger hole in the side of the mountain and calls out, “Dad! […] It’s me, Rachel! Are you there?” (127). Her voice echoes back from the hole. It’s the entrance to a mining tunnel. Worm’s miner’s helmet light shines on a plaque near the entrance. It commemorates the loss of 67 miners in the “GREAT CHIVALRY MINE DISASTER” (128). Max realizes that Worm’s father lies dead inside.

She calls out again, asking her dad to tell her what to do. Taking Max’s hand and squeezing it tightly, she says she was very little when her father died. She only remembers that she wanted a miner’s helmet, and he gave her one. She wonders if her dad knows about the problem with the Undertaker. Max says her father must have been a “pretty cool dad” to give her her own miner’s helmet (129).

They’re interrupted by the sound of a police siren.

A sheriff’s car stops at the station, and out steps a short, stocky man wearing a badge and a white cowboy hat (130). He calls out to see if anyone’s there, then retrieves from his car a megaphone, announces that he’s “Sheriff Goodman,” and asks anyone inside to please come out so he can see that they’re alright.

Max and Worm remain silent, so Sheriff Goodman adds a warning to stay out of the tunnels. He turns to leave, but from the car’s passenger side appears the Undertaker.

The Undertaker yanks a board off the station wall, sees Max, and yells, “There he is! The monster who kidnapped my daughter!” (133). Worm runs toward the tunnel. Max follows.

As he approaches the entrance, his mind panics and warns him that he’s entering a terrible place filled with things “that’ll turn your bones into jelly. Things that’ll eat you up and spit you out. Things that’ll make you wish you’d never been born” (134). Still, he chases after Worm, running blindly until something smacks into him and knocks him out.

He wakes to sparks of light and Worm tugging painfully on his ear. He hears the sheriff and the Undertaker searching for them in the tunnel. The Undertaker is saying of Worm that Max “may have turned her mind against me” (136). The sheriff just wants to get the kids out alive, but the Undertaker says all that’s important is to return the girl to him, and the boy doesn’t matter.

A loud creaking sound echoes through the tunnel. The sheriff warns that the unstable mine may cave in at any time. He says they must retreat and send in a search party. After they leave, Worm switches on her helmet light. Max tries to sit up but again hits his head on the fallen timber that knocked him out. He says they need to move, but Worm insists she’d rather die than go back to the Undertaker. Max says that’s not what he meant. Taking her hand, he leads her deeper into the mine.

What Max meant was that there could be another tunnel exit; he realized this when he felt a breeze. They follow the breeze. Worm says it smells of rotten eggs, like “dragon’s breath.” The tunnels branch in all directions, but somehow Worm follows the faint breeze and finds the right course. Max follows, hunched over as he walks through passageways carved for people shorter than he is.

At one point, Worm can’t tell which tunnel to choose, so she intones, “Eenie-meenie-miney-moe, catch a dragon by the toe. If he saves us, let him go” (141). They walk along the “moe” tunnel, which becomes damp from dripping water. Max wants to turn back, but Worm insists they’re on the right path.

They arrive at a vertical shaft that seems to disappear down into the Earth forever. Max drops a rock but hears no clunk. A rotted ladder leads downward. Worm thinks the cave-in happened here. Max suggests they pray, and Worm likes the idea. She closes her eyes and seems suddenly relaxed, as if she’s finished her journey and no longer needs to be scared. Max simply thanks God for the helmet light.

Worm thanks Max “for being Max the Mighty” (143). Max insists he’s not mighty; Worm says they can argue about it later, because she can feel the breeze again. Max feels it, too: It smells like fresh air. They edge around the hole and continue upward. Worm makes Max promise to return here someday. He agrees, but he has no desire to do so.

The tunnel widens; they’re almost there. A terrible roar blasts from up ahead. Max fears it’s some sort of dragon. He grabs Worm and holds her tight. Big eyes glow brightly before them. Max thinks they’re going to die.

The dragon honks. It’s the Prairie Schooner. Dip jumps from it and hugs them. With him is Grim. Max and Grim hug awkwardly. Dip herds everyone into the bus for a “getaway.” He explains that, after Frank and Joanie tried to get Max arrested, he called the police in the boy’s town and contacted Grim, who flew out to meet him in Nebraska. They drove the rest of the way.

Dip says Grim is a “funny old codger,” and Grim retorts that Dip is a “flower-power fogey” (148). Dip laughs until his glasses fall off. He says they heard from Sheriff Goodman that the kids were in the Chivalry mine tunnels, and they got very worried. Then they found the back entrance, the kids showed up, and their prayers were answered. At this, Worm grins like she’s crazy.

Dip offers to donate money to get a lawyer for the kids; Grim thanks him but says he and Gran will manage. Max is amazed that the two men believe in him. He decides that the truth might be the best way out, even if the rest of the world thinks he’s lying.

Grim decides they’ll all think better after a pancake meal. He backs the bus out of the tunnel. It’s sunset; Max realizes that he and Worm wandered the mine all day. Partway down the road, the sheriff’s car blocks the way. He orders everyone out of the bus. He tells Max he’s under arrest.

Strangely, Max is happy: Worm is safe with Dip and Grim, and, after sleeping in a freight car, a jail cell will be an improvement. He guesses that, in prison, he’ll at least be able to read books.

The Undertaker emerges from the sheriff’s car. He marches up to Max and demands to know what he’s done with Worm. She tries to hide behind Max, but the Undertaker grabs for her. She scoots away. Max yells, “No! Don’t!” but she disappears into the dark.

Max chases Worm as she runs back to the mine. Bent down, he hurries again through the tunnel and calls out to her. At a fork in the tunnel, he slams into the wall and smashes his nose. On a guess, he takes the right-hand tunnel and follows it until he sees her helmet light way ahead. He calls out, “Rachel! Please wait!” (154). Rushing downward, he stumbles and falls, skidding to a stop at the edge of the vertical mineshaft.

Rachel stands on the opposite side. She means to throw herself in. Max tries to say something to stop her. He says Max the Mighty will save the day; she says she no longer believes that. She says the Undertaker will win. Max admits that Max the Mighty is imaginary, but plain-old Max has already lost his mother and Kevin: “And if I lose you, I’ll feel even worse, all the time. Every day for the rest of my life. And that’s the truth” (157).

Rachel says, “Goodbye,” and Max sees the helmet light tumble down into the mine shaft. Then her hand touches his face, and she says she tossed the light down to her father, “so he can find his way in the dark, like I did” (157).

They walk back up out of the mine. On the way, Rachel makes Max promise to be her friend for life, no matter how much they might fight. Max promises.

Near the top, they hear a rumble and a thump, and the ground shakes. A voice cries out, “Help me or I’ll die” (158). It’s the Undertaker: He’s trapped under a fallen beam.

The others arrive at the tunnel entrance. The Undertaker begs them to lift the fallen beam off him, but the sheriff decides that the place is too unstable. He orders everyone else out and says he’ll call for a rescue team.

Worm bends down and says to the Undertaker that he beat up her mother and lied about it. The Undertaker, groaning, says, “Your momma was asking for it! She was going to call the cops! It was all her fault!” (160). The sheriff hears this and nods to Max.

As they leave, the ground begins to shake and there’s the rumble of falling rocks. The rest of them run, but the Undertaker grabs at Max, who instinctively pulls at the fallen beam and, straining with all his might, lifts it up. Grim drags the Undertaker away. Trapped under the beam, Max gets buried in rubble. It sounds to him like the roar of the ocean at the shore.

Max wakes in a hospital. He has a broken shoulder and leg. The nurse wants to sign his cast. Max learns that Grim, Dip, and the sheriff dug frantically and got him out. He was mumbling, “I hear the ocean, I hear the ocean” (164). Grim and Gram visit; Grim jokes that Max won’t be dancing ballet anytime soon.

Worm’s mom testifies against the Undertaker, and he’s convicted. Years earlier, he’d done the same things to another mother and daughter, so he gets a long prison sentence. Gram insists that Worm and her mom move in with them. Max thus acquires a kid sister.

Every once in a while, he asks her if she’d like to do a hitchhiking trip again. She says, “Are you cracked?” Maybe, but he’ll never be normal, and that’s just fine with him (166).