by Dean Ing
“Don’t go away,” Charlie said, and turned back toward his launcher, then stopped. “Hey, Aaron. Keep up your walkie-talk. He can’t see you or hear you anyhow, right?”
“He better not,” was the heartfelt reply. By this time Aaron’s bulletins were barely audible.
“I told you about him and Lint. He started a sure-’nough shooting war, remember.”
“He just went back inside,” Aaron called. “I’m coming down, it’s all over.”
“No it isn’t,” Charlie assured him, taking the next-to-last gourd from its makeshift carrier. In moments the thing was done, the grenade en route, Charlie hurrying to emplace his last gourd while the other one was still in flight.
“I don’t see it,” Aaron reported seconds later. “Maybe it didn’t—” but then the noise told them both that it did, and if anything the crash was louder. “Holy cats, he just jumped out the back door, I think he thinks we’re on the roof.” They could hear a man’s voice faintly from afar, and it was not singing praises. “Wait, now he’s looking up. Kind of in this direction. But now he’s turning around.”
In his mind Charlie saw the Daisy user scanning the sky, turning slowly, perhaps planning some awful revenge, and in that moment he released the last gourd, then leaped up and began to dismantle his weapon.
“He’s climbing up his chimney rocks, yelling like a Comanche,” Aaron called. “Now he’s on his roof.” A final blast of gourd-on-tile floated to them. “Wups, not anymore,” Aaron said, and started laughing. “When the last grenade hit behind him, he jumped off and fell into those big flowers. Wow, now his wife’s outside giving him hail Columbia.”
Aaron spent no more time in the upper reaches of the hackberry tree, sliding down heedless of shoes or shirt-buttons, still snickering as he helped Charlie wrestle the pecan-wood pole loose. “Maaaan,” he said as they hurried from the park, “if that guy figures out what you did, you are gonna be in sooo much trouble.”
“You mean what we did,” Charlie rejoined. “And he won’t, if we don’t tell him. Uh, I’m headed for the creek. You?”
“Right. You better keep your dogapult a military secret. First time ol’ man Turner hears the army’s new launcher doodad was invented by his own neighbor, he’s gonna blow a gasket.”
This put the invention in a new light. Helping America’s war effort was a fine thing, but blistering the inventor’s backside seemed a poor sort of reward. And it was not as if they needed money; both boys viewed themselves as wealthy. Charlie hit on a satisfying answer to the problem minutes later when Aaron mentioned a family friend, an army corporal home on leave from the Quartermasters. “You tell him about the Hardin Dogapult,” Charlie said. “Be sure he spells it right but no first name. There’s Hardins everywhere.”
By this time the boys were trotting in single file down a creekside path, bound by unspoken agreement for the ruined storm drain. “I don’t think he shoots grenades, Charlie,” panted Aaron over his shoulder.
“He might not master any quarters either, guy, but he’s an actual corporal in the army,” Charlie huffed back. “Tell him it works, okay?”
And so it was settled, with the dogapult experiment shelved indefinitely. Charlie, who seldom threw things away if he had an alternative, knew where he could hide all the pieces of his device. He took them far up into the storm drain, placing the elastic parts above the protruding lip, laying the big fork of hardwood flat in the dry silt of the watercourse while Aaron stayed outside, he said, as a “lookout.”
“As a scared-out, you mean,” was Charlie’s retort.
“I wouldn’t mind going in there now if we’d brought the flashlight,” Aaron said, to ward off further teasing.
Charlie thought it over. “Yeah, we could put it on the ledge and it’d always be ready. Anyway, there’s stuff I wanta look at, lots of new dirt. I don’t know where it’s from.”
Aaron shrugged. It didn’t seem important.
Yet.
CHAPTER 10:
THE YELLOW PERIL
Final exams at Pease School were not due until the end of May and never proved to be as fierce as promised by teachers, but they loomed like doomsday in the minds of boys. Because Charlie and Aaron shared several classes, they used this excuse to “cram” together on weekday afternoons in May. Some actual studying took place now and then, though a suspicious parent might have wondered what bits of wisdom could be gained during time spent with Jackie or Roy.
In some ways, however, living near Jackie Rhett offered a kind of education for other boys. It had not taken Jackie long to discover that two of his victims were, unaccountably, now marble-rich. He was quick to propose a marble tournament, meanwhile keeping up constant complaints about a sprained thumb, though for some reason that injury did not seem to affect his aim much. The older boys understood Jackie’s strategy and by conspiring against him without a word, managed to enjoy the excitement of games in the Kinney yard while losing only a few marbles. Roy was not so shrewd. It was after finally losing his last four red-and-yellow “glassies” in one expert turn by Jackie that Roy burst into tears and ran off toward the family storeroom.
“Crybaby, cry,” Jackie chanted, unmoved. “Everybody watched, it was fair.”
“I’m gonna show you fair,” Roy wailed.
Jackie pocketed his new plunder while the other boys gathered their marbles in the belief that Roy would soon be back with an adult. But Roy came charging out from under the house yowling another kind of cry, one that rang with fury. Jackie had never feared anything from the smaller boy, and saw no reason to reconsider now.
But Charlie’s hair stood on end, and Aaron’s too, almost in the same instant. In each hand Roy held an egg as he sped toward them, and both eggs were bright yellow. And raw. And two months old. Aaron yelped, “King’s X,” and bolted for the fence. Charlie tripped and fell into ivy but made not a sound, staring in horror as he scrambled up to distance himself from Jackie.
Then Roy hurled the first egg, which missed its target by such a wide margin that it splattered against the top of the Kinney fence a foot from Aaron, who was struggling to disentangle a trouser cuff from a fence picket. “Noooo,” Aaron announced, reacting to a stench that confirmed his worst fears. Charlie backed against the fence, a silent study in terror though the horrendous aroma had all been sent in Aaron’s direction by sheer accident.
Roy faltered, then stopped for a mental adjustment and stared, having seen—but not yet smelled—that one of the eggs he’d saved was not the genuine hardboiled article. In truth, until that moment the Kinney boy had never thought about the glorious potential of any uncooked egg that has been hidden away for months. Only Jackie stayed in place, not knowing that the eggs were raw or pausing to wonder at Charlie’s behavior, grinning as he realized only that the smallest of the boys had saved some old ammunition and was angry enough to use it.
Though still unafraid, Jackie did not intend to be egged. Here was an opportunity to show his prowess once more, to dodge the second missile, perhaps recover its remains to use on Roy, then swagger off after showing the audience his mastery of any situation. Still grinning, Jackie ducked as if to move left, ducked back to the right, ducked left again, in a near-squat, then caught sight of the panic on Charlie’s face. And then looked back at Roy. And frowned in puzzlement.
Just as Roy, an arm’s span away, hurled a perfect strike that caught the older boy squarely on the forehead.
Roy brayed a single triumphant, “Haaaaa,” before the scent overcame him from the rich dark slick gooey mass that spread from the older boy’s hair, across his face, and down across the front of his T-shirt bearing flecks of yellow eggshell and other fragrant tidbits. Jackie took a breath—a major mistake—then clasped both hands before his face, which was an even greater mistake. A second later he fell on his knees, making noises like a boy trying to gargle in reverse.
Roy, overwhelmed and undone by his own success, grabbed his stomach, stumbled forward onto Jackie, and without warning deposite
d over the older boy’s back the proof that he’d had tuna salad for lunch. If Charlie had been less thunderstruck by this he would have noticed Aaron’s eyes peeping between fence pickets.
For a moment the two sufferers wallowed together, ridding themselves of whatever ailed them, before they rolled apart. Jackie swayed to his knees again and, very slowly, began to pull his T-shirt off while Roy sat up and groveled, now fearful of consequences. Jackie said, “You saved those,” though it sounded more like, “Choo slay toes,” to which Roy said nothing.
But Jackie did manage to direct a shaky finger toward Charlie, who might have denied any part in this catastrophe if given a moment to reflect.
Yet Charlie had known from the first sight of Roy’s headlong charge that somehow, the eggs hidden and later forgotten had been found, and whatever happened next, the blame would fall at his feet. Carrying such a load of guilt, Charlie lacked the good sense to lie about it.
Jackie’s eyes narrowed as he chose who was to suffer for such an insult. Even a skunk would not have attacked Roy at this moment, and Jackie’s gaze followed the pointing finger.
“I dunno how he found ’em,” Charlie blurted, and no more admission was needed. He saw the look of purpose on Jackie’s nastified face, cleared the fence with a superhuman effort, and sped down the alley for home.
Aaron trotted behind his pal, hoping to stay out of the fray, and shuddered to notice that Jackie had crossed the street in time to cut Charlie off. He saw Charlie pause an instant, then begin sprinting down the street away from home. He feared that Charlie had chosen sure destruction.
But Charlie knew better. Two blocks distant lay the castle wall and his secret highway over it. And beyond that lay the massive oak where, if he didn’t forget a single handhold, Charlie could scamper through the foliage as if he belonged there. Jackie seemed unable to run with his usual furious speed, spitting and coughing as he pursued ten yards behind his prey, and for once Charlie even widened his lead as he neared the wall with its smaller overhanging oak. He swung up its trunk with Jackie so near, Charlie felt an angry hand brush the sole of his sneaker. But Jackie was shirtless now, and an oak’s bark can sting like barbed wire. Charlie regained a foot of advantage while enraged pursuit coughed and snorted and plowed through greenery just below.
Aaron drew near without fear for himself now, peering up past Jackie to see his pal who appeared to have become a two-legged squirrel using both hands with hardly a single clumsy move. Aaron watched this with amazement and the beginnings of hope for Charlie. The voices he heard were louder than the scrape and slap of branches.
“Gonna rip yer pants off,” Jackie snarled. “Make ya lick this S-Word off me,” he panted a moment later. “Kick some teeth out,” he promised, with convincing fury.
And Charlie’s reply was—a snicker? It was, though he was now only inches beyond the bigger boy. Hearing this, Jackie growled without words and lunged ahead with renewed rage. Now Aaron climbed up into the tree though staying safely out of reach.
Then Charlie eased out and to Aaron’s wonder, climbed up through the branches that overhung the courtyard a chimney’s height below. The entire main branch, laden with two boys, began to droop. Jackie accepted as a basic fact that if Charlie could navigate such a thicket so fast, Jackie could do it as well.
Not everyone’s basic facts are real. Jackie discovered his mistake as he grasped a tiny branch that snapped, snatched at another and missed, then plummeted down through the rest of the foliage headfirst, yowling as he went. He struck grassy turf on his back with a thump like a hollow log, arms outstretched, eyes and mouth open and gasping like a goldfish.
For the duration of a dozen heartbeats not one of them spoke. Charlie, choosing remembered grips, descended six feet or so, then dropped and rolled near the silent Jackie. He recovered and ran a few steps toward the bigger oak, then turned back. Jackie was not following. Instead, as he recovered his breath, he was using it for another purpose: sobbing. Not only that, but oozing crimson from a dozen cuts and punctures, one of them torn deeply into his cheek.
Poised between joy and worry, Charlie stepped near. “You okay?”
Jackie’s mouth worked, but only sobs emerged. From above, Aaron began to pick his way down through the branches like a boy who valued his skin. “I bet he needs a doctor,” he said, dropping to the ground.
Jackie managed to nod. “What he needs,” Charlie said, “is for us to kick his teeth out. Take his pants to the schoolground. All that stuff he said. That’s what Mr. Jackie Rhett needs.”
At this, Jackie’s sobs gradually merged into blubbering as he wiped an arm across his face and saw how much blood resulted. Rolling to his knees seemed to bring more torment, and with forehead resting on the ground he might have collapsed, had Charlie not steadied him with a shoe sole.
Aaron spoke. “Charlie, if that was you down there and he was where you are, what would he be doing?”
Shrug, and pause. “Laughing, I reckon,” said Charlie, and nudged the wounded warrior. “You hear, Jackie?”
“You did this,” was the pained answer. The others knew Jackie so well they only exchanged glances in disgust. More crying now: “All your fault.”
In some small way, this charge had irksome shreds of truth sticking out of it like short hairs from old chewing gum. It was a novelty to hear such a thing from Jackie only because Jackie seldom needed to fall back on excuses for utter, total failure. Charlie smiled when the only correct reply suddenly emerged from among several others, composed itself as if by magic, and waited for him to deliver it.
“I can make you take that back right now, if I want to,” Charlie said. “But I don’t want to. I can ‘pants’ you. Or me and Aaron can tell every guy in school how you got egged by a little kid and then outrun and outclumb by another kid, which is how you got all beat up. Or maybe we won’t, if we don’t feel like it. Depends on you. Now go home, your gramma wants you,” he finished.
Sniveling, Jackie let himself be pulled up by his arms and, after a moment of indecision, limped slowly away toward the distant gate that he must squeeze his plumpness through. To help him home and risk bumping against such a fragrant wretch would have taken a hero more than human, and the boys let him go without further exchange.
When he was too far off to hear soft voices: “For a minute I was afraid he was gonna wallop you good for that,” Aaron murmured.
“Me too,” said Charlie. “But right now I think he figures I’d whup his tail.”
“What do you figure?”
“Maybe I could, right now,” said Charlie. They swapped grins as he added, “Tomorrow I better be careful.”
As the boys strolled toward the gate Jackie had just struggled through, Aaron said, “You shoulda told Jackie that Roy was in on the egg secret clear back to Easter.”
“And get Roy pounded to smithereens? I wouldn’t do that, even to Roy.” After a moment Charlie added, “How d’you suppose he got hold of those eggs?”
“How would I know? No point in asking him, Roy will tell a fib just for practice. But if we let Jackie wonder about whether we all knew, he might treat guys better; not be such a momzer.”
“Yeah.” Charlie couldn’t stand not knowing anymore so he said, “I give up; what’s a “momzer”?”
“My dad’s worst cussword, so I’m afraid to ask him. But pretty much, it’s just a guy like Jackie.”
Charlie nodded, entirely satisfied.
CHAPTER 11:
HOW WHEELS BRING CHANGES
As the time for final exams drew near, the boys sometimes put aside Action or Planet or Captain Marvel comics long enough to consult a textbook for a few minutes. Coleman Hardin, an honor student in his time, had once expected outstanding grades from six-year-old Charlie. By now, though, he had been driven to face cruel reality by his son’s consistent mixture of Bs, Cs, and a teacher’s scrawled “Could apply himself much better.” As always, Hardin reminded the boy that while a final grade of B was rewarded with a whole dollar, eac
h A would bring the princely sum of two dollars. In the past, the very mention of such a payoff had quickened Charlie’s spirit in the same way that a cat might hope to catch a flashlight beam. But this year, for some reason, Charlie’s eyes did not gleam as much upon hearing that familiar announcement.
For Aaron Fischer, the issue was more complicated. The Fischers had come to expect borderline honor-roll grades, and this year they had chosen to stir the boy up with a bargain so tempting that he kept it secret even from his best friend. But to win his prize, he must earn no grade below a B. And Aaron had quickly agreed, and then spent the next month wishing he hadn’t.
The pact with his parents chewed at Aaron’s innards because whether he got all As and Bs or not, he foresaw hard consequences. This time, a single C on his report card would yield huge disappointment for weeks in the Fischer household. On the other hand, the honor roll would bring Aaron a
! ! ! ! ! BICYCLE ! ! ! ! !
In Aaron’s mind the prospect was wonderful and awful in equal proportions. Afoot, his travels were limited to a half-mile or so; on a bike he could wander for perhaps two miles, or possibly on special Saturdays even as far as the Texas Longhorn stadium across town.
But he would have to go without Charlie.
Both boys knew that for Charlie, the bike question was closed and locked and put away on a shelf by parental order until the day he graduated to Allan Junior High, more than a mile across town. Charlie was not left to wonder why; the reason was all too clear. On new roller skates a week after Christmas, he had streaked down the steep West Avenue sidewalk and, out of control, veered into a neighbor’s flowerbed to the ruination of rose bushes that defended themselves fiercely and put Charlie out of commission for days. On a bike, his father said, Charlie would have ended in the river. He put special emphasis on the word “ended” and decreed that Charlie’s Radio Flyer wagon would be his only wheeled vehicle until further notice.
For the next half-year, Charlie and Aaron had accepted this outcome as a fair decision, but Aaron was now aware of the hair-thin line between fairness and cruelty. Some boys would have shared the Fischer family bike pact with Charlie. Not Aaron, who knew that worry shared is not halved, but doubled. Some other boy might have purposely botched an exam for friendship’s sake. Not Aaron, whose allegiance to his parents was a friendship beyond measure. His decision was to do his best, and leave fate to absorb whatever blame might result.