The Fight for Kidsboro (37 page)

He flailed around in the cold water, and Pete and I ran down to help him. The Maxites laughed but had enough sense to know that Mark could catch pneumonia, so they held their fire. Pete and I stepped down into the water and grabbed his arms. Mark found his footing on a rock and pushed himself up, and we pulled him onto the bank. He was soaked. His lips were already turning blue, and his entire body was shaking. Pete and I helped him toward home, and as we left, I looked back at the Maxites with a furious glare.

They smirked as if they had won.

This had gone too far. Surely Max had enough sense to realize that a war would not benefit anyone. As soon as I changed my pants and socks and returned to Kidsboro, I stormed directly to the wall. The guard stopped me.

“I'm sorry, but do you have any identification?”

“You know who I am, and I wanna get across.”

“What was your name again?”

I rolled my eyes. “Ryan Cummings.”

The guard picked up a clipboard with a list of names on it. He scanned it, and then shook his head. “I'm sorry. But you're not on the list.”

“I'm talking to Max,” I said, as I shoved past him.

He grabbed my arm fiercely and jumped in front of me. “First of all, you will address him as King Max. Second, you're not welcome in Bettertown. Now, turn around and go home.”

“That's okay, Frank,” Max said, crossing the bridge. “Let him pass. I'll talk with him.”

“Yes, sir,” the guard said, letting go of my arm and backing away. We headed to Max's clubhouse, or “palace” as the sign on the outside referred to it. We went into his enormous living area. It was almost as big as the meeting hall in Kidsboro. We sat down on cushioned chairs. I began to understand why people were drawn to living here.

“What's the problem?” Max asked.

“What's the problem? You didn't see the snowball fiasco this morning?”

“Oh, yeah, I caught the tail end of it. Shame about Mark. He shouldn't have charged the creek like that, very poor strategy.”

“So, what are we gonna do about it?” I asked.

“Do?”

“Yes. We
have
to do something about this.”

“Oh, I'm not sure that we do. I mean, I would hate to disrupt the natural order of things.”

“What are you talking about?”

“People fight, that's a rule of life. This might be a good lesson for all of us.”

“What kind of lesson—”

“Wasn't it you, Ryan,” he interrupted, “who said that you liked the idea of having us around so that you could experience competition?”

“This is not competition. This is war.”

“War is the greatest form of competition there is.”

“Mark could've really gotten hurt, and he still might get sick.”

“That's one of the hazards of war, Ryan. An excellent teaching point, don't you think?”

“No, I don't think! We have two towns here, and even though we have different philosophies of government, we don't have to fight about it. We could coexist. We could help each other; we could trade or barter. We could even combine our city councils and have common functions.”

“Coexist? Oh, how boring. I'd much rather defeat you and take over the whole thing myself.”

“Defeat us? What're you gonna do? Invade?”

“I could do anything I wanted to. You can't protect yourselves against me.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“I've got more on my side than you think,” he said with a wink. I had no idea what this meant, but it scared me.

“You've got nothing on your side but a bunch of robots who don't care anything about you or your town. They just like their balconies.”

“And that's not worth fighting for?”

“They have no loyalty to you. My people? They're proud. They love their city. And they'll protect it with all they're worth.”

“Well, your people may have pride, but we've got the strength.” He smiled, and then pointed to the door. “It was nice talking to you,” he said.

What did he mean he had the strength? Kidsboro had more people than Bettertown. And none of his population was especially athletic. Apparently, he had a plan.

On my way back into Kidsboro, I saw Pete and Nelson pounding a post into the ground at the site of the morning's snowball battle. I got a closer look and saw that the post had the day's date, then “The Battle of Snowy Creek,” and Mark's name as the lone casualty.

“What is this?” I asked

“Something to help us remember,” Pete said. “We might need this for motivation later.” It seemed that everyone on both sides of the creek was preparing for the inevitable.

Nelson was hyperventilating when he got to my office in the early afternoon.

“What's the matter?” I asked.

“I can't find my plans.”

“What plans?”

He took a deep breath. “The catapult. You know that device I'm building to hurl things at the wall?”

“Right.”

“Eugene and I drew a sketch before we started it. It had all the measurements, diagrams of every element. The sketch showed where everything would go. I even calculated angles, trajectory … Now it's all gone.”

“Did you take it home with you?”

He shook his head. “It never left my clubhouse.”

“You think somebody stole it.”

He nodded.

I spent the rest of the day in my office, listening. I don't know what I was expecting to hear—another snowball fight, maybe an attack from the Maxites, or some sort of weapons testing from across the creek—but I was continually raising my eyebrows at any foreign sound. Being on edge like that was tiring. I usually stayed in Kidsboro until dinnertime, but on this day, I was worn out from worry. I headed home early.

When I went through my back door, I noticed that my mom had already decorated the Christmas tree. I had always helped her with that before, but with everything that was happening in Kidsboro, I hadn't had time. I felt bad, knowing that I had broken tradition. I'd barely even remembered that Christmas was coming up.

The phone rang. My mom wasn't anywhere to be seen.

“Mom?” I called. I heard the shower running upstairs, so I picked up the phone.

“Hello.”

“Jim?” the voice on the other end of the line said.

It was my father.

“Jim, is that you?”

My instinct told me to hang up immediately. Talking to the man we had been hiding from for years was a dangerous thing to do. But for some reason, I stayed on the line.

“Jim, this is your dad. Don't hang up. I promise I'm not gonna hurt you.”

“Why are you calling us?” I asked, a quiver in my voice.

“I just wanted to talk to you. My, you sound like a man. I miss you.” He paused, as if he wanted me to return the sentiment. I didn't.

“Listen, I just wanted to tell you that I understand why you left. And … I don't know if you're gonna believe this or not, but I've changed. I'm not the man you knew when you were eight. And I don't expect your forgiveness, but I did want to let you know that I'm sorry.”

The “I'm sorry” speech. I'd heard it many times as a child. He usually said those words as he surveyed the broken windows and lamps that he had destroyed the night before. I couldn't listen any more. It hurt too much to hear those words again. It brought back too many bad memories. I hung up the phone.

My hand remained on the receiver, as though holding it down tightly would prevent him from calling back.

Mom came downstairs in a sweatshirt and jeans, drying her hair with a towel. “What's the matter? Are you calling somebody?”

I shook out of my trance and noticed my hand still on the phone. “It was Dad.”

The towel dropped to the floor. Her mouth fell open; she was unable to speak for a full minute.

“What did he say to you?”

“He said he was sorry, and that he's changed.”

“He knows where we are,” she said under her breath.

“I guess I should've hung up.”

“That's okay,” she said. Her eyes darted around, then lit on me. “Why didn't you?”

“Hang up?”

“Yes.”

“I don't know.” This was true, though there was a voice inside that was telling me I enjoyed hearing his voice for some reason. Maybe I missed him.

My mom shook out of her own trance and got on the phone. She called Mr. Henson. He said he'd be right over.

Mr. Henson asked me more questions than I could answer. He peppered me with: “Did your father sound aggravated?” “Did it sound like long distance?” “Did you pick up any background sounds?” Seeing as how I was in total shock during the entire phone conversation, I couldn't imagine how he could think that I would pay attention to background sounds.

During this interrogation, my mom was sitting balled up on the couch, holding a pillow tightly to her chest. The phone rang, and everyone jumped. Mr. Henson ran to get on the extension upstairs and told my mom to answer it. As it turned out, It was just my mom's friend Margaret, wanting to know if Mom wanted to join her in a garage sale. Mr. Henson came back downstairs, quite agitated with Margaret.