Children of the Knight (55 page)

They stood so for a time, unmoving, unaware of the looks and whisperings directed their way from passersby on the sidewalk. They wouldn’t have cared anyway. They were somewhere far away, floating together without hope in that numinous, but very painful land of… regret.

Finally, both boys pulled themselves together and separated, wiping their faces dry with the sleeves of their tunics. Lance managed to pull up that angelic smile that seemed to have charmed the whole world and let it fall upon Jack like sunlight.

“We’ll find him, Jack, and we’ll both tell him how much we love him.”

Jack nodded and gave a crooked, rakish little grin for Lance’s benefit.

Lance turned to look at the sidewalk. Several people had stopped to gawk but hurried quickly away when they saw he had noticed them.

He just sighed.
Whatever!

Then he spotted a pizza place out on the boulevard across from their location. “C’mon, Jack, we need to eat. Let’s grab some pizza over there.”

He pointed to the pizza-by-the-slice place across the street, and Jack reluctantly nodded.

O
UTSIDE
City Hall, with the Mural Project underway across the street, Mayor Villagrana had called a press conference. He and the council had decided to challenge Arthur and the public who supported him on a very crucial subject: school. It was now mid-October, and Arthur’s kids were still not attending school on a daily basis. In fact, hundreds of other middle and high school students continued ditching their own classes to join him on the daily cleanup campaigns.

The Los Angeles School Board was furious with Villagrana for not saying something sooner since school had officially begun for many kids in August, and had berated him publicly for aiding and abetting the king by having those “Mural Kids” continue skipping school to paint the thing. This controversy was exactly what the mayor had been waiting for. The cracks in the king’s armor were beginning to expand, and Villagrana was determined to split them wide open.

Since Helen Schaeffer seemed to be Arthur’s chosen Lois Lane, as he’d heard her called, the mayor made certain to invite her, but all the local media were also present. Villagrana also made sure the cameras caught the out-of-school mural workers clearly behind him as he addressed the reporters. He felt grand and in charge, wearing his best designer suit and affecting his best concerned look.

“Thank you all for coming down here today on such short notice,” he began. “Welcome, Helen, Phil,” he said, pointing to some of the regulars. Helen just scowled. “As you can all see, the city’s mural project is moving along, and we hope to have an unveiling soon. These kids have been working nonstop, and they won’t even let me see the work in progress. Is that gratitude or what?” He flashed that smarmy smile.

“However, we have a problem. My office has been flooded with calls—
not true, but these fools don’t know that
—from parents of kids who’ve been skipping school to join Arthur’s little parade. And the school boards of Los Angeles and surrounding cities are understandably upset because the schools are showing an increasingly high absentee rate. As you know, every school receives ADA money from the state based on average daily attendance, and Arthur has upward of a thousand kids out there who are not regularly attending school.”

He failed to mention that most of them weren’t attending
before
they’d joined up with Arthur. “And while I admit a certain gratitude to Arthur for what he’s done in some of our less fortunate parts of town, the fact is, in clear violation of the law, Arthur’s kids are ditching school.”

One reporter shot up a hand. “Yes, Jane?” the mayor called out.

“Mr. Mayor, aren’t you doing the same thing by hiring these children to paint your mural rather than attend school?”

The mayor affected his most pained expression. He wanted to look as guilty as possible, though he’d secretly hoped someone would bring that up. “Exactly my point, Jane. Like you and practically everyone else in our fair city, I’d gotten so caught up in what this amazing man has been doing that I, too, forgot our priorities. Yes, of course these kids behind me should be in school. And starting tomorrow that’s exactly where they’ll be. No work on the mural will be allowed until after 3:00 p.m. I’m only calling on Arthur to do the same.”

Now Helen raised her hand, and Villagrana reluctantly pointed to her, flashing his most welcoming smile. “Yes, Helen?”

“But isn’t what Arthur’s kids are doing just as important, or more so, than school? Even the kids working on the mural? Aren’t they learning more valuable lessons doing what they’re all doing than they would in a classroom?”

The mayor nodded. “You may well be right, Helen. But may I remind you that it is the law for children to be in school until the age of eighteen.”

“And who voted for that law, Mr. Mayor, the children or the adults?”

Now Villagrana gritted his perfect teeth, visibly annoyed. Leave it to that woman to screw everything up.

“I’m not here to debate the semantics of our legal system, Helen. The law is the law.”

“But weren’t you a strong supporter of Prop 21, Mr. Mayor, the law that puts fourteen-year-olds into adult court and thereafter state prison? Do you feel fourteen-year-olds should have the right to vote on such matters, like that, or school attendance?”

Several reporters echoed Helen’s question.
Obviously Arthur’s lunacy about kids being treated as adults was rubbing off on these hacks
, Villagrana realized. Sensing this press conference was spiraling out of control he said, “That is not the matter before us. I hereby issue a challenge to King Arthur to uphold the law and make his children attend school. Thank you all for coming. Good day.”

He turned and stepped down from the podium amidst myriad follow-up questions tossed his way in vain. Furious at Helen for starting trouble
again,
Villagrana stomped up the steps of City Hall in a huff. Despite the way it had ended, however, the mayor felt confident he’d made his point about school. Now the ball was in Arthur’s court.

T
O
HER
journalistic credit, Helen had anticipated that the school issue would arise and had already been interviewing parents of Arthur’s knights. Upon returning to the studio, she had her editor put together a short montage of comments by some of these parents, to run as an accompaniment to the mayor’s pompous press conference. Most of the parents, especially those of former gang members, expressed nothing but gratitude toward Arthur. Through translators, the Latino moms expressed sentiments such as, “This is the first time my son do something good. School never helped, and he didn’t go anyway.”

Darnell’s mother, a heavy-set jowly woman wearing a flowery housedress and curlers in her mop of hair, enthused about her son’s exploits. “School? That never did no good. Since he be small he never wanted to go. Always runnin’ the streets with them gangsters, always in trouble. Can’t tell you how many trips I done made to juvy court fer him. No, he be much better off with Arthur than he ever done be in school.”

To be fair, however, Helen also aired comments from parents of nongang members whose kids had been ditching school to work with Arthur. While they admired what the man was doing, they worried about their kids not getting an education. However, rather than have Arthur change what
he
was doing, they wanted the school system to change
its
hours so the kids could do both.

Preparing her montage for air, Helen chuckled to herself.
Chew on that, Mr. Mayor!