Read The Adventures of Kid Combat Volume Two: The Heist of Spring Road Toys Online

Authors: Christopher Helwink

Tags: #family, #lesson plans, #no foul language, #action adventure childrens book, #fifth grade first grade fourth grade friendly junior high kid combat kids, #no violence rainy day, #safe for kids schools, #second grade spy kids teachers, #third grade young adult

The Adventures of Kid Combat Volume Two: The Heist of Spring Road Toys (9 page)

BOOK: The Adventures of Kid Combat Volume Two: The Heist of Spring Road Toys
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As the killer made his next contact, the two
boys leaped up again. Quickly, as the boys started into the air,
Wedge made a grab for Ace’s cell phone. He easily removed the
small, thin phone from its holster. Ace never felt a thing.

As the two boys flopped back down into their
seats, Wedge seated himself backwards against the backrest of Ace’s
chair. There, he waited patiently for the next kill to make his
exit.

“Come on. Come on,” Wedge said impatiently as
he waited for another victim to fall prey to the slasher. He
waited. And waited.

This must be the worst horror movie ever
made. No one’s dying! Wedge thought to himself in disgust. Finally,
his moment came.

Another loud scream came from the screen,
followed by some screams in the audience. Ace and Tommy jumped up
once again and high-fived each other. Wedge used this time to duck
back out into the aisle. He practically crawled his way up to
Rocket, who was waiting at the door. The two boys sneaked out of
the theater and into the lobby.

“I wonder what KC has planned,” Wedge said as
they walked through the lobby, looking at the cell phone.

“Not sure, but let’s get back to The
Playground and find out,” Rocket said to his brother as they walked
out of the theater. “Unless, of course, you want to go shopping
some more?”

“Shut up, Rocket!”

 

 

Chapter Eight:

Revelations

6:00 pm

 

 

While Rocket and Wedge were out doing
reconnaissance work, the other members of the SOCKs contingent were
spread about town. Samantha was at her home. She was back in her
garage, which she had deserted many weeks ago. She sat there,
desperately trying to figure out how to get the tunnels extended
from RD1 in The Playground to the base of Pepper Creek. She
struggled back and forth in her mind, and it seemed a daunting task
to tunnel hundreds of feet, underground, with just a bunch of kids
as labor.

Roller was guiding his way toward downtown to
pick up some supplies. He had left The Playground a few minutes
ago, and he needed to pick up some essentials.

Gears and Kid Combat were the only two
members back at The Playground. Gears was in the main computer
room, as usual. While Roller put all the hardware together for the
PCAVs, Gears was busy trying to get their computer systems up and
going. He was having just as much luck as Roller was with the
hardware always breaking. Constant glitches in his software were
causing massive delays.

As Gears contemplated many questions over his
computer, he barely noticed that not more than five minutes ago,
Kid Combat had ducked away from The Playground, off on a secret
mission of his own.

Kid Combat walked out of Maple Forest and
almost took a route heading toward Lincoln Elementary. It took him
several minutes to arrive at his destination. When he finally did,
he walked right up to the house on Berkeley Street.

The house was very well maintained. The
bright green grass was cut very short, and not a blade was out of
place. It was surrounded by a white picket fence that almost
glowed—that’s how white it was. The Cape Cod house was also painted
white and had blue trim around all the windows. The brick walkway
that led Kid up to the house was a ruby red with black trim around
every brick.

Kid walked up the two steps and knocked on
the door. As he waited for the homeowner to answer, he nervously
looked around to his right and to his left. Kid had been here many
times over the past few years, but every time he came here he felt
that he felt that he was in danger. Not for his safety, but for
some reason in the back of his mind, he felt that his secret
identity was at risk with every stop he made here.

A few seconds went by and the door opened.
There stood Mr. Thompson, the owner of Spring Road Toys.

“Oh, hello there, KC,” rang out Mr. Thompson.
“I wasn’t expecting you so soon. Come on in.”

“Thank you,” Kid responded and entered into
the house. Mr. Thompson patted the young boy on his back as he
passed by him.

“Let’s go down to my lab. We have much to
talk about.”

Mr. Charlie Thompson was more than a simple
toy store owner. He and Kyle were great friends. He was the one
responsible for making Kyle into what he was today— Kid Combat. And
it all started because of the hatred of one man they shared in
common: Phillip Arthur Jones.

Mr. Thompson was the mayor of Elmcrest before
Jones had come into power. It was Jones who had made sure Mr.
Thompson was out of office so he could start his corrupt
empire.

During his time in office, Mr. Thompson ran a
clean ship. He looked over Elmcrest like it was one of his very own
children. He nurtured it, helped it grow, and let the townspeople
know what was really important—family. He stressed that the
children were the cornerstone of the town. He always said the
children were the future of Elmcrest, and that Elmcrest kids were
very special people. They had the potential to make the town into
something great, something beautiful. The world was their oyster,
and nothing was going to stop them. The town flourished in this
time, and Elmcrest had Charlie Thompson to thank for it, but all
that was in the past now, for all that was before Jones.

During Mr. Thompson’s second term in office,
Jones was an up-and-coming real estate investor. He bought property
after property and started to build his legacy. Every contract that
came up for negotiation, Jones seemed to win it without breaking a
sweat. That caught Mr. Thompson’s eye.

He started to investigate Jones and Jones
Industries and how the business was managed. He interviewed
witnesses and land owners from around town. They all pointed to one
thing—Jones was corrupt.

Jones used different tactics to cover his
tracks. His favorite one was pure intimidation. Like a bully at
school, Jones would walk in and threaten the businesses with all
sorts of legal actions if they didn’t do what he said. Most,
knowing Jones’s reputation around town, were scared into selling to
him.

The ones he couldn’t threaten, he would open
a competing business right next door and offer the same goods and
services at a fraction of the price until his competition went
bankrupt. Jones would then buy the land and jack up the prices with
no competition left to worry about. He called it his two-for-one
deal.

Mr. Thompson was outraged, and he went to the
police. Eventually, Jones Industries wound up in court to defend
its practices and address the allegations. Witness after witness
took the stand with nothing but praise for Jones.

“It was a fair deal,” one witness told the
court under oath.

“Mr. Thompson must have misunderstood me,”
another one stated. “There was no wrongdoing.”

One after another took the stand in court and
told lie after lie. Jones sat back in his chair and smiled. Only
Jones knew what wonderful things he had promised each person in
turn for their testimony.

Whatever it cost Jones to sway those
witnesses’ opinions, it was worth it. The trial was over in a few
days, and Mr. Thompson was the laughing stock of the town. He was
asked politely to leave office. Within weeks after the trial,
Elmcrest voted in their new mayor by a landslide—Phillip Arthur
Jones.

All those years ago, nobody could have
predicted the horror that Jones would bring to the town. Looking
back, it seemed like a distant memory to most. Others simply didn’t
care. From Jones they became rich beyond their wildest dreams, and
they didn’t care how they got there.

The election that brought Jones into power
and kicked Charlie out was the turning point for Elmcrest. Shortly
thereafter, Jones started building his empire even stronger, and
the townspeople started to change. They forgot all about what
Charlie taught them and followed Jones blindly. Soon, family values
meant nothing to most of the town. The only thing they cared about
was money.

That broke Charlie’s heart, but he knew he
couldn’t give up, especially on the children. That’s why he went
into business and bought Spring Road Toys. From there he could keep
a protective eye over the children, teach them the old ways of
living in Elmcrest, and help them decide for themselves that what
their parents were doing was wrong.

That’s when Charlie got his idea. He needed a
kid—not just a kid, but the most selfless kid in town—to help him
fight Jones and win back Elmcrest. It had to be a kid; no parent
would become his ally—and he had tried.

Charlie had set up petitions and had
protested against everything Jones Industries made and sold. But,
the townspeople were already too far gone to be reached. They had
been blinded by Jones’s charismatic ways and the wealth he brought
them. Charlie Thompson was labeled a crazy old coot by the people,
and his claims against Jones were systematically dismissed.

That’s why he turned to the children.
Children, honest and real children, have no basis for money. They
don’t understand its importance and they don’t need it. Charlie
knew this and knew if he could find one kid, that special kid
within the crowd who would help him fight for his cause, he could
turn this town back around.

That kid turned out to be Kyle.

One day, about two years ago, Kyle and
Samantha had happened into Spring Road Toys to get a few supplies.
It was unmistakable from the first time Charlie saw Kyle that he
would be the one. The way Kyle carried himself, the way he
instinctively helped Samantha and the other children do the
simplest of tasks without praise—Charlie Thompson saw in Kyle the
qualities he was looking for.

Their first meeting was a spring day when
Kyle was in third grade. He stopped by Spring Road Toys alone one
day. Mr. Thompson approached the small boy. They talked for awhile
and then Charlie started telling him the tales of the old Elmcrest
before the rise of Jones.

Kyle was fascinated by these tales. Hours
suddenly flew by, and the two talked all night. Charlie then told
him there was a way to get back to those times, a way in which Kyle
could help.

Although he wasn’t named Kid Combat yet, Kyle
had already been busy with his friend Samantha starting to fight
back. The missions were small and mostly centered around Lincoln
Elementary, but Kyle knew that to eradicate the evil from Elmcrest,
he would eventually have to deal with Jones.

Those early missions with Samantha seemed so
trivial now. They had fought for things at Lincoln like not
eliminating lunchtime and keeping the cost of lunches down so the
kids could keep more of their allowances for themselves. They even
saved the playground set in front of the school from being
demolished to install a bigger parking lot for teachers and
guests.

Kyle thought about telling Charlie what he
and Samantha had been doing. It was a big gamble. He discussed this
with his friend Samantha for several days. Each day, though, Kyle
continued to meet with Charlie and learned more and more about the
old days of Elmcrest, about the evil that Jones had done, and more
about Charlie. Finally, one day, Kyle told Charlie about him and
Samantha.

Charlie was surprised and impressed. “It now
makes perfect sense,” Kyle remembered Charlie saying. “Fate has
brought you here. It is fate that we work together.”

From there on out, Charlie and Kyle became
allies. He would train the young boy in many fields, including
electronics, computers, and science. He taught him languages and
arts to help define his character. He taught Kyle to be quick on
his feet and trust his instincts.

On those earlier missions, it was just Kyle
going out and reporting back to Mr. Thompson. It was around the
time when Kyle had a dozen missions under his belt that he earned
his nickname from the town.

The Elmcrest Press was the one responsible
for giving Kyle the name “Kid Combat.” Kyle used the Elmcrest paper
as a sounding board for his missions against Jones. Almost daily,
he would drop off newsletters and folders full of information
against Jones on their office doorsteps. They contained files on
how Jones did his business practices, pictures of Jones doing
sleazy deals, and transcripts from Jones Industries.

Kyle would go late at night, as not to be
seen. He always wore a hoodie and dark jeans to conceal his
identity. He would ride his bike downtown to the offices of
Elmcrest Press. Without even stopping, he would heave a yellow
manila envelope at the main door. Most days he would hit the door
dead on.

He would sign each envelope the same way:
SAVE MY TOWN. STOP JONES.—A KID.

The press ran a weekly story under the
headline “Kid Combats Jones.” The paper decided to run the article
as if a kid had written it, and most articles featured crudely
drawn pictures of Jones and his men. They were stick figure forms
done in crayon and looked very cartoonish. It might have been why
so many people dismissed the articles.

The paper ran these for weeks and months as
Kyle continued to drop off letters. Eventually the title was
shortened to just a bullet headline: KID COMBAT.

One day, right after the fight for Maple
Forest between Jones and the city, when an envelope, very similar
to the ones that showed up on the doorsteps of Elmcrest Press was
delivered to a judge in a courtroom, the weekly Kid Combat column
in the Elmcrest Press stopped.

Once Jones linked the two together, Elmcrest
Press went under the new management of Jones Industries. Once he
was in control of the paper, the first thing Jones did was kill the
Kid Combat column.

Once Kyle and Mr. Thompson lost their voice
in the town, it didn’t take long for the two to figure out that
more help was needed. That’s when they brought Samantha in and
formed SOCKs. From there, the organization grew to stand at six
members.

BOOK: The Adventures of Kid Combat Volume Two: The Heist of Spring Road Toys
11.27Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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