by Mark Mulle
Chapter 4
In the morning, I wasn’t woken up by my alarm. No, it was TNT. This one sounded very close by and when I sat up, I noticed that half of my room was gone. I exited the house (or whatever was left of it) and I knocked on Penny’s door.
She came running out and called Danny.
“Yeah, it was at the house Just Jake was staying at. He’s fine though. I just need to know if the person is out to get Just Jake or trying to ruin the town.”
She hung up and tossed me an iron sword.
“Thanks? What do I need this for?”
“Someone might be out to get you. Let’s get you out of here. You should safer with the guards at the gate.”
The guards looked like they hadn’t slept for days. They had bags under their eyes and others looked like they tried to tape their eyes open.
“Hey...How are you guys?” Penny asked.
“What do you want?” An irritated guard asked.
“Danny is making you guys work 24/7?”
All of the guards nodded and stared at me.
“Is that Steve’s sidekick?” One mumbled.
“Yep. This is Just Jake and I need you guys to watch after him because there might be someone out to get him.”
There was a groan of complaints from all of the guards and Penny shook her head in disappointment.
“Penny, we haven’t been able to sleep in 4 days. We’re not happy campers right now. Making us babysit a sidekick isn’t such a good idea.” A scrawny looking guard complained.
“Kyle, you won’t even notice that he’s there. Just do this for me, please?” Penny begged.
“I hate you.” Kyle frowned.
“Sidekick,” One of the guards tapped me on the shoulder and tossed me an iron chestplate and helmet. “Put this on so you don’t hurt yourself with that sword. They don’t give that sword to just anybody here.” He pulled out his stone sword and used the end of the sword to lightly hit the chestplate.
“Thank you guys! I’ll let Danny know that he should let you have a day off. You guys are working really hard!”
Penny left and all of the guards looked like they wanted to tear me to shreds. At this point, I would’ve preferred to have been used as bait for the zombies. I put the helmet and chestplate on and silently waited.
“Giving an iron sword to a sidekick.” The guard scoffed “What was Danny thinking? Letting him be our mayor was a mistake. We didn’t elect him. We let him be our mayor but who would’ve thought that he would make us work 24/7? I knew that he was a little crazy but I didn’t know that he needed to know that people need sleep to function.”
The guards laughed and I awkwardly sat on the ground.
“An iron sword.” Another guard laughed.
“Don’t take it personally, Henry. They only give iron sword to the people that are the least capable these days. It doesn’t even depend on what your rank is anymore. Danny will give an iron sword to a 2 year old.”
“I can’t even tell the difference between a two year old and Danny.” They all laughed again and I laid down on the floor. These guards must really hate Danny. I guess I would too if he made me work nonstop for 4 days straight.
“Hey! Sidekick! How does it feel to be babysat by one of the top ranked teams within the guards?”
“Great. It feels great.”
“Are you sassing us right now? We agreed to waste our time babysitting you when some of us could be taking a nap. Why don’t you try to sound at least a little bit more grateful next time we ask you, sidekick.”
“Stop calling me that.” I frowned.
“What? Sidekick? What are you going do about it if we don’t?” Three guards stood up and looked like they were getting ready to throw me out the gate.
They were an inch away from my face and I wanted to push them but I doubt that me pushing them would actually do anything. Aggravate them? Yes but get them to stop annoying me? Definitely not.
“I’m not a sidekick so stop calling me a sidekick. What’s your problem with me anyways? I didn’t do anything to you guys, did I?”
They didn’t verbally answer my question but they did respond to it. Two guards grabbed my legs and two more guards grabbed my arms.
“If anybody deserves an iron sword here, it’s me.” Henry snatched the sword out of my hand and teasingly swung it in front of my face. “I devoted my entire life to this team and we’ve done more than any of the other teams out there so why haven’t any of us gotten this stupid iron sword?!” Henry threw the sword into the dirt and it stayed like that.
“Let’s just toss him out of the gate and not let him in.”
“Then Danny won’t ever let us sleep.”
“Yeah, he’ll only get mad at us. He favors the sidekick too much over the guards that protect the town!”
“What would he even do without us?”
“We’re basically the rulers of this town. Without us, this town would be in the worst shape imaginable.”
“Yeah! The town would be in a hexagon because hexagons are a confusing shape!”
“Will, that’s not what I mean.”
He sighed “You know what? Never mind. Just, never mind.”
“I’m so tired of being underappreciated in this town! He hasn’t even been here for a week and he’s already causing us trouble! Why is it so hard for…”
“The guards to be respected as much as the sidekick?”
“Danny?”
The guards instantly dropped me and I stood back up as fast as I could.
“Penny told me that I should come and tell you guys that you should all take a break but seeing you guys do that just made me realize something and it’s that you guys have more energy than everyone in this town combined so in order for you guys to get a fully rested, I want you guys to run two laps around the town and then get some rest. That way, you’ll be too tired for anything.
Now, go!”
The guards didn’t say another word and began to run. I looked over to Danny and realized that he looked stressed out.
“Wasn’t that a little too much?” I asked.
“Nope. I think that they got what they deserved. Besides, Penny and I were reading the book earlier and knew that all of this was going to happen. Once the guards are done running, another
TNT is going to go off and it’s going to be at this part of the gate. The book doesn’t say who it is responsible for setting off the TNTs but it does tell us where the TNTs are going to be placed so we’re one step ahead.”
“So you knew that the guards were going to do that to me, and you and Penny planned this out?
Just so you can find the bomber?”
“Yep.”
“Couldn’t you have at least told me about it before you shoved me into a situation where the guards were going to throw me outside of the gate?”
“But they didn’t.”
“What’s up with the ranking system here with the swords? An iron sword means that much?”
“Wooden swords are usually given to anybody that want to go out and hunt for small stuff like pigs, sheep, cows, and such but stone swords only mean that you’re a guard. Guards here get treated with a lot of respect. An iron sword means that you literally dominate anyone within the guards. Nobody is allowed to touch you because you earned that sword through the hard work you put into being a guard. A gold sword is just given out as a medal and diamond swords are for the untouchable people. They have as much power as I do here. If they feel like kicking you out of town, they can kick you out of town. If they like your house and want it, you have to give them your house.”
“How many people have gotten iron swords?”
“Since the town was first founded? About 50.”
“What’s the population here?”
“There’s about 25,000 people living here right now and about 600 guards.”
“Oh my Notch. Then what about the diamond swords?”
“Only five people in the entire existence of this town. Understan
d why the guards hated you?”
“Yeah...I just wish that someone told me.”
“I just did.” Danny’s phone rang and he instantly answered.
“Penny?” I asked.
Danny nodded and pointed to the iron sword stuck in the dirt. I quickly shuffled over and it took all of my strength to pull the sword out of the dirt. There was a sizzling sound from underneath the dirt and I raised an eyebrow.
That sounds a lot like…
“Just Jake! TNT!” Danny shouted and the dirt below me blew up. I think that I passed out after that. It was scary getting launched up in the air for the first time. I’m sure that I lost a lot of my hearts after that happened.