Tick walked as far as he could up the curved side of the tunnel, almost making it to the part where it was completely vertical. He saw a round bubble of glass, about three inches tall, bulging out from the wall. Scared to touch it, he leaned forward and took a closer look. A freaky distortion of his own image stared back at him, but nothing else.

“You’re gonna break your neck,” Sofia said. “Come back down, and let’s figure out what we need to do.”

Tick scooted down on his rear end, then stood back up. “Maybe we should just start walking.”

“Which way?” Sofia asked.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Paul said. “It was a borderline eight on the dumb-guy scale to come in here in the first place. If we start trottin’ off away from this door, we’d be complete idiots. Did you forget about that really big train that goes really fast?”

“Maybe we could stand to the side and jump onto it when it flies by,” Tick suggested.

Paul and Sofia both looked at him with blank faces. Then Paul said, “Dude, you just hit number one on the Top Ten List of Dumbest Ideas Ever Spoken Aloud.”

Tick shrugged. “Maybe. Got any better ideas?”

“Yeah, let’s stand here and hope Santa Claus shows up to tell us what to do.”

“Oh, would you two—” Sofia began.

“Shhh!” Tick said. He thought he’d heard something.

“What?”

“Just be quiet for a sec.” He stilled his body, perked his ears. There it was. A very quiet beeping sound, like a car alarm honking from miles away. “Do you hear that?”

“No,” Paul answered.

“Yeah, I hear it,” Sofia said. “Sounds like it’s far away but I can’t tell from which direction.” She looked down one end of the tunnel, then turned to the other. “That way?”

Tick shook his head, still straining his ears. “No, it sounds like it’s coming from outside the tunnel. Or below us, maybe.”

“Do you people have Superman hearing or something?” Paul said, throwing his arms up in frustration. “I don’t hear a dang—hey, what’s that?” He pointed toward the ceiling.

Tick followed the line of direction, at first not seeing what Paul was pointing toward. Then he spotted it—a blinking red light.

“That looks like a button,” Sofia said.

Tick squinted to get a better look and agreed. “It’s definitely a button. With some words next to it, on a sticker.” The ceiling was about twenty feet above them, just far enough that Tick couldn’t make out the words.

“If you can read that, you are Superman,” Paul said.

“I can’t. But I bet we’re supposed to push that button.”

“You think?” Paul frowned. “Master George built this entire gigantic tube thing just to test us to see if we could push a button?”

“I don’t know,” Tick muttered, feeling confused and discouraged.