The Fight for Kidsboro (38 page)

Mr. Henson then called us together in the living room and gave us our options.

“You can move away if you want to,” he said. “We'll protect you. We'll change your names again and move you somewhere in the Southeast, I think. Or you could stay here under our supervision, and if he comes back and provokes you in any way, we'll have him arrested on the spot. The fact that he knows your phone number doesn't mean he knows your where abouts. We gave you a special number that gives callers no indication of your location. It's up to you.”

Mr. Henson gave us a few more instructions on how to keep ourselves safe, and then headed for the door. He turned around momentarily. “It's a good sign that he called. If he were going to hurt you, he probably would've just shown up and done it. He knows that by calling, you have a chance to leave. So maybe he's being truthful. People do change sometimes.”

We knew This was true.
We
had changed a lot over the course of the last few years. But my dad? I wasn't sure he was capable of it.

We stayed in a friend's basement that night. Still, I lay a wake until three o'clock, worrying that the locked doors wouldn't be enough to stop a man motivated to hurt someone. I'm sure my mom stayed a wake too.

7

BASIC TRAINING

O
DDLY ENOUGH, THE NEXT
morning I found solace in Kidsboro, even though we were on the brink of war. Maybe I felt that this was something I could control, or at least try to. In fact, I was in my office working on a proposal that would give me more control over the situation.

I was proposing an amendment to the city charter on how we would conduct war. Obviously, there was nothing in the original city charter about it, since there was no one around to have a war with when it was written. But an amendment was needed now. I would present this before the city council.

In the American government, the Congress has the responsibility to declare war. This is smart, making it a law that a lot of people have to agree on a decision as important as this one. So I figured it needed to be an overwhelming vote in the city council for Kidsboro to declare war. My proposal stated that 80 percent of the city council had to vote yes, which meant that four out of five of us had to vote in favor of war. Of course, with Scott being on the other side now, that meant it had to be unanimous. If the question were to come up right now, I would vote no. War could only end in disaster. But if we were forced to fight …

While I was scribbling away, the door opened and a person walked in with his or her jacket pulled over their head. I didn't think it was quite cold enough to be bundling up this much, so I immediately asked, “Who is it? What are you doing?”

The person took a quick peek outside to see if anyone was watching, then shut the door and lowered the coat. It was Marcy Watson, one of Jill's friends. Marcy had lived in Kidsboro almost from its beginning and had eventually become our banker. But she seemed to have grown bored with her job and was reeled in by Max's multimedia presentation. She was now a citizen of Bettertown and seemed to like it there. Jill was disappointed that she had moved away, but she understood Marcy's point of view. This was a mature way of handling it, of course, unlike my feelings toward Scott. Me? I had driven him away with my accusations that he was a traitor.

Marcy's eyes darted around the office until she found two tacks, and then she pounded her jacket into the wall, covering the window. This made it quite dark in my clubhouse. She definitely had my attention.

“What are you doing, Marcy?”

“I have to tell you something,” she said.

“Okay.”

“I'm sorry for abandoning Kidsboro, but that's over and done with now, and I have to deal with it. But I don't like what they're doing, so I have to tell you something.”

“Okay.”

“Because I don't want any of you guys to get hurt, I'm betraying my own city to lend you some important information.”

“Okay.”

“They're building an arsenal.”

“Max?”

“Everyone. Max has got people working around the clock making snowballs. They've got a big pile four feet high. It's over by the school, blocked off by bed sheets so you can't see it. Plus, they have a weapon.”

“Weapon?”

“A big catapult thing.” The case of the missing catapult plans was solved. “It can heave big blocks of snow, about 10 pounds worth. It'll bury you.”

“When do they plan on using it?”

“I don't know. Max has his own plans, and he's not telling anyone about them.”

I swallowed a lump in my throat.

“I don't like what Max is doing, so I had to tell you this. Not that I think there's any way for you to stop him.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“I better get outta here,” Marcy said, pulling her jacket off the window and draping it back over her head. She opened the door slowly and slithered out.

I had to call a city council meeting.

“We have to start an army,” Alice said, pounding the table with her palm.

“She's right,” Nelson said.

“We can't let these bozos push us around,” Alice said. These two sentences equaled the most words she had ever spoken in a city council meeting. In war, she finally saw an opportunity to really inflict pain on someone without being accused of police brutality, which happened about every other week in Kidsboro.

I spoke up. “I don't want war.”

“We have no choice,” Jill said. “They're coming. You heard what Marcy said. Why would they be building up their arsenal if they weren't going to attack?”

“We have to prepare to defend ourselves,” Nelson said. This made sense. There was no reason why we should just let them run over us.

“I don't want anybody to get hurt.”

“That's what an army is for,” Nelson said. “Listen, Ryan. An army is not there just to attack other people. An army is there to show other people that they can't attack
you
. At least, not without a fight.”

I got up and paced around the room. The others were looking at me, silently pleading that This was the only solution.

“Okay, what do we do?” I asked.

“We recruit soldiers,” Nelson said.

“We won't get enough people that way,” Jill said. “If you haven't noticed, our city is made up of wimps. With the exception of Alice, we have a bunch of future figure skaters. They won't wanna fight. We need to have a draft.”

A draft is when the government makes a law that every able man must serve in the army. It's only done during times of war.

“No,” I said. “I don't want anyone in our army whose heart isn't in it. I'd feel guilty if something happened. We'll just have to depend on the patriotism of our people.”

Jill didn't agree, but she nodded.

“Alice, I think you should be in charge of the army,” I said. She straightened up and stood at attention. Nelson and Jill seconded this idea. “But,” I pointed to Alice, “you will not train this army to attack. We're
not
going to be on the offensive here. You're only training them to defend them selves and their property.” Alice's face turned down. For a split second she had probably envisioned storming the bridge. Her vision of greatness had just been erased.

“Nelson, I'd like you to build some kind of anti-missile device. We'll need to have something in case they use the catapult.”

“Got it.”

“Jill, you and I need to start recruiting.”

“Okay.”

“Let's go!”

Nelson advised us to get groups of people together and then start asking them to join our army, because no one would want to wimp out in front of his friends. This plan worked, and we recruited almost everyone in town. Jill and I also joined up and reported to boot camp just hours after we'd concocted this idea.

Alice, or “General Funderburk” as we were told to call her, was in top form that day. She lined us all up, and we stood at attention. She walked back and forth in front of us, inspecting whether or not we were standing up straight enough.

“You people are the sorriest looking soldiers I've ever seen,” she said, shaking her head. She had seen dozens of army movies, and This was a scene that was in just about all of them. However, in this case It was probably true. I couldn't imagine a group of soldiers looking any sorrier. I peered down the line at our troops, and I didn't see much military promise.

There was Corey, the Kidsboro garbageman, who, when picking up the garbage, had to make twice the trips as most people because he had, as he put it, “a lifting problem.”

There was James, the town doctor, who probably thought he was there to provide medical attention to injured troops. But we would all prefer to live with serious injury rather than let him treat us.

There was Roberto, who was born in the Dominican Republic and was not used to these cold temperatures. He Was dressed in about eight layers of clothing, and this restricted his movement to the point where he really couldn't bend down to even form a snowball.

There Was Pete, who held the record in our school for the most consecutive hours in front of a television—an amazing 23 hours. It was a weekend “Charlie Blue: Bird Lawyer” marathon.

There Was Mark, who had no business being out after his traumatic creek accident but didn't want to be left out of the big war. His face was pale, and his lips were quivering.

There was Valerie, who didn't really want to be there, but had developed a crush on one of the boys in Bettertown and wanted to impress him with her military experience. Of course, Valerie was more of a liability than an asset because she would distract our entire company, as practically every male in it had a crush on her. Also, if the temperature ever dipped below 20 degrees, she wouldn't risk possibly cracking her skin.

The others in line weren't much better. We weren't much of a fighting machine, but I was confident that Alice would get the best she could out of us.

Alice marched us to an area deeper in the woods, where Maxite spies couldn't watch us prepare. Then she had us run around with weights tied to our ankles.