“Yeah, didn’t I say?” I feel kind of sick. I can’t make myself look Kyler in the face, so I look at the ground instead. It feels awkward, but it’s a lot less awkward than telling Kyler I think his mom is part of a conspiracy to hush up time travel. Doesn’t that make her a bad guy? “She was awesome, by the way,” I mumble.
“So? What did she say?”
There’s something about direct questions that I hate. I think it’s that millisecond of thinking I could lie and then knowing I can’t. “She took me aside, Kyler. Told me it was a big secret, but it’s been happening for years.” Just saying it out loud makes my voice crack with the sense of how awesome this is. “They come on certain nights. He’s not the only one, and sometimes the same guys keep coming back.”
“Wow!” Kyler leans forward and shakes his head. “So, you think this guy has been here before and that my mom is…like…in on it?”
“I don’t know,” I say, because I really don’t. “When I called him a Celt, she acted shocked. She tried to laugh it off, but she couldn’t. Then she got real serious and said it was against the rules to tell me about him. That’s what she said. ‘Against the rules.’”
There’s a moment of silence and then Kyler leaps up. “Coooooool!” he shouts, as if I just made his day. I may have been worried about casting his mom as a mad scientist, but he sure isn’t.
He throws his hand up for a high five, does an “oh yeah” dance and, when he spills his chocolate milk, just laughs as it puddles around his feet. That’s how happy he is. “It’s a conspiracy! Just like the documentaries online. The VA is transporting warriors from ancient times as part of a secret defense project, to study them—”
“Or use them as secret weapons,” I say.
“Yeah, and I bet there’s a time travel machine in the basement of the VA and doctors, like Mom, have to look after the warriors because, well, who knows what time travel will do to a guy? So totally cool!”
I knew Kyler would get it. “Cool? It’s not just cool. It’s awesome. It’s unreal!” I say.
“No, Mikey, this is real.” Kyler drops his voice. He looks really serious. “Wood frogs in Alaska freeze themselves solid for seven months of the year. If you pick one up and bend its leg, it’ll break off, but in the summer that frog will thaw out, hop around—”
“Not if you break its leg off,” I say.
He waves my comment away. “That frog will be fine, until next winter when it freezes again. I mean, who would believe that? But it’s true.” I love it when Kyler’s like this. “And dinosaurs, who would believe them, really? Or kissing. Like that’s really weird, but it happens.”
“Gross!”
“Just saying!” He flops back on the bench, rips open a bag of seaweed rice crackers, and offers me one. I crunch down a few times and realize that something doesn’t add up. Something about Kyler’s totally amazing theory, and my conversation with Mariko, doesn’t work.
“But your mom didn’t know who was arriving, or when. She just said certain nights they came. She wasn’t expecting them.” I sit next to him. “Dude, if the VA doctors were in on the project, wouldn’t they be told when to expect these guys?” Kyler doesn’t answer, but his mouth drops open in “Kyler thinking” mode. “And, wouldn’t the Defense Department have a secure facility, miles away from anywhere, so the time-traveled warriors couldn’t escape right away?” I’m thinking of the secret Area 51 base where they built the stealth airplanes. If they did that in the 1970s, wouldn’t they do the same for this, now?
“Maybe he escaped?”
“Then they need to up their security big time, because your mom’s seen men like the Celt before. They can’t all be escaping. The Defense Department wouldn’t set up a project this humongous and then be so bad at protecting it.” I grab for Kyler’s rice crackers and throw a whole handful in my mouth before he can pull the bag away. I have this theory that eating something crunchy stimulates the brain. The popping noise gets the neurons, or whatever they’re called, popping too. Worked for me once on my nine times table. I memorized it by synchronizing my thoughts to the crunches. I’ve sworn by it ever since. So I crunch away.
When the idea comes, it’s so obvious I stand up as if electrified. “It’s not organized, Kyler. It’s just happening. There’s more activity on certain nights, that’s what your mom said. Nights when bad things are happening, natural disasters and stuff, but the VA doesn’t know when that is. All they know is they get these guys, they treat some of them, some disappear back to wherever, and some return again.”
“But, then what are they doing here?”
I shrug. “I don’t know, but the VA and the government obviously know about it. The weird thing is they’re keeping it secret, but they’re still letting it happen. Why would they do that?”
“Because they can’t control it?” Kyler makes a “what do you think?” stretchy face, his mouth turned down. “Maybe it’s some kind of crazy natural phenomenon?”
“And that’s why they have to keep it secret!” All that research last night is paying off. “Time travel is the biggest military weapon a country could ever invent!” I’m trembling as I say it. “Travel back in time and you can change whatever you want. You can control the entire history of the world. If the government knows there’s some weird “natural time travel” thing going on, they aren’t going to let anyone else know until they understand it and control it themselves. They’re definitely not going to let other countries—or terrorists—know.”
I pause for a moment and I see the Celt clearly again, in that moment before the nurses gathered around, his blue eyes not fierce anymore, but sad. “‘I don’t want to get stuck here.’”
“Say again.”
“That’s what he said. ‘I don’t want to get stuck here.’ It makes total sense. Maybe he’s afraid he’ll never get back to the portal or time machine or whatever he has to use to return home. He’ll be stuck in this time, forever!”
Kyler thumps his fist on the table. “Why didn’t I think of this?” he says. I guess he’s bummed about me trashing his theory. I’m going to tell him not to take it so hard. Kyler’s real smart normally, and he can be hard on himself, but then he leans in and whispers, “I heard Mom talking to Dad this morning when she got off her shift.”
“And?”
“Well…” He holds on to the word for a really long time just to bug me.
“What?”
“She said a patient ran away last night.”
“No!”
“Yeah, a patient ran away.”
I grab Kyler’s shoulders and pretty much shake his head off in time with my words. “It’s him. It must be him. That proves it! He’s gonna try to get back to his own time. We have to find him, see it with our own eyes. This is probably our only chance, ever, to prove that time travel really exists!”
CHAPTER FIVE
Romanii: Northern Borders has never felt so real as it does tonight. These guys aren’t just computer-generated anymore. I’ve seen a Celtic warrior. I’ve heard him. I’ve smelled him. I’ve even spoken to him. I should be relishing every moment of my epic victory against the Romans, but I can hardly concentrate. “Let’s pause,” I whisper.
I have to repeat myself twice before Kyler finally understands. “Good call!” he whispers back with a thumbs-up. It’s always risky playing Romanii during the week. We have to keep our voices especially low. Even if Mom is working the night shift, Grandpa is still under strict instructions to close me down. No war games during the week, only four hours max on the weekend. That’s why Grandpa’s monthly poker nights are so great.
“I can’t think of anything but the Celt. The real Celt!” I say.
“Me too. Let’s get back to planning. We have to have a plan.”
“I know, but what? He’s run away. He could be anywhere. Did you ask your mom whether they’d found him again?”
“Yeah, I slipped her the question on the way back from my violin lesson. She’d totally forgotten it was Dad
she was talking to about him, not me. The Celt has disappeared, for sure.”
“Good, that’s easier for us.”
“Easier?” Kyler does a giant “what do you mean” face into the screen, which makes me laugh.
“We know he’s still out there. It’s easier for us to find him outside than in the VA with all those doctors around all the time.”
Kyler shrugs. “I could just pretend I was visiting Mom,” he mumbles. “Anyway how do we know he hasn’t already gone back to his own time?”
“We don’t,” I say, “but we’ve got to start somewhere. We have to assume he’s still here and find him before he goes back.” Kyler’s looking pretty unhappy about the whole situation, like he wants to give up. Well, no way! No way are we giving up on this.
I grab my military history book and hold the cover up to the screen. “For inspiration,” I say. Kyler holds up some chips. It’s a good idea. I take a few from the bag Grandpa let me have from his poker store and crunch. They were supposed to help me with my homework, but I figure I am at home and I’m thinking, so this is like homework.
“OK, so, you’re a Celt, and you’ve time-traveled to the future. What would you do?” I flip some pages, looking at the pictures.
Kyler blows air through his lips and lifts his shoulders to his ears. “I dunno. Go get ice cream? Fly around the world? All the stuff I couldn’t do back in my time?”
“Kyler,” I groan. “He was freaked out.”
“OK, then I’d hide.”
“Right. He’s going to lay low someplace until he can get back to his own time again.”
“So, where do you think he is?”
I’m looking at a page about Celtic weapons and how the Celts offered swords to the gods. It talks about the druids and their sacred oak groves. An idea comes. I wait a couple of seconds to let Kyler anticipate my genius. “In a park,” I say.
Kyler snorts as if he’s not that impressed.
“No, listen. It makes sense. The Celts hated towns. They conquered Rome. Rome, Kyler! It didn’t get any better than that, and you know what? They left again. They didn’t want to live there. Celts were into wild places. They worshipped oak trees, and they left offerings for their gods in ponds and marshes. If I were this guy, I’d hide somewhere I felt safe.”
Kyler puts his head to one side. His jaw drops open.
“Got a better idea?” I say.
“No,” Kyler says slowly. “That’s good, Mikey. That’s pretty good.”
“So here’s how we start. We check out a different park every day when we walk to school. We can do it without our moms—without anyone—knowing. If you print out a map tonight, we can make our first trip tomorrow. Meanwhile, I’ll do more reading about Celts and see if I can find any other clues.”
Kyler still looks unconvinced, so I try to pump him up.
“Look, it’s a special mission. We’ll call it Operation Celt.” Kyler makes a face. “OK. Operation…” I crunch one more chip. “Operation Vercingetorix!”
“What did you say?”
“Where…kin…get…uh…rix. He was a Gaul, a French Celt, who led a revolt against Julius Caesar.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes! Where…kin…get…uh…rix. At least, that’s how Dad says it, and he took Latin in school.”
“Wow. Cool. Operation Vercingetorix.”
“Or Operation Where Can Get a Celt.” I start to giggle. “Instead of get…uh…rix!”
“Operation Getaceltorix.” Kyler wants to shout, I can tell, but he can’t so he does a sort of crazy whisper instead, contorting his lips as he speaks.
“You’re one scary dude!” I say.
Kyler gives me a double thumbs-up.
I do the same.
“Operation Getaceltorix! The hunt is on!”
CHAPTER SIX
The next morning, Kyler’s at my house extra early with a map he’s printed off the Internet. “Got it,” he shouts, waving the paper in my face before I can shut him up.
“What’s that, Kyler?” Mom raises her eyebrows as she sweeps veggie peelings into the trash. I should have warned Kyler she’d be here this morning. She has a sixth sense for trouble.
When she’s not on nights, Mom likes to get up and make sure I eat a good breakfast. Cooked stuff. “Protein not pastries,” she always says. She packs my lunch box, too, with salads, fruit, and carrot sticks. On these mornings, Grandpa stays in bed with his cup of coffee. “To keep it company,” he says, but he’s really keeping out of Mom’s way.
When it’s just Grandpa and me, I eat a huge bowl of cereal for breakfast. Without milk. The crunching sets me up for the day brainwise. Then Grandpa makes me a chocolate-spread sandwich the size of my military history book for lunch, and I grab a bag of chips from his poker night store hidden in the garage. Grandpa’s packed lunches are great. Mom disagrees. I’ve tried telling her chips are brain food, but she’s not bought into this yet.
“Carrots are crunchier…and nutritious!” She sounds like a health food commercial.
Anyway, the minute Kyler sees Mom in the kitchen he looks guilty. He hides the map behind his back and squeaks hello. Wrong move. Mom leans over the counter with a look that says she knows something’s up.
“The map! Great,” I say, quickly. “Miss O’Brien will give us extra credit, for sure.”
Mom chops an apple, eyebrows still raised. “Are you two working on something for school?”
Kyler nods and glances at me. I want to cover for him, but why does he leave the direct question to me? He should know by now they aren’t my strong suit.
Mom asks again, “Is that something for school?”
No, I want to say, we’re looking for a Celtic warrior in every park we can find. “No,” I find myself saying, “I mean, yeah.” I hesitate. “It’s a map of our route to school,” which is true. “And we want to work on it a bit more before class.”
“Great,” Mom says. “Is Miss O’—” She glances at the clock. “Oh! My goodness, look at the time. I have a dentist appointment in twenty minutes, and I haven’t finished your fruit salad yet. Mikey, go brush your teeth.”
We’re saved! Kyler and I run upstairs like we have rocket packs strapped to our backs.
“Lucky,” Kyler says as he slams my bedroom door. He puts the map on my desk and points with a pencil as he talks. “Now listen up.” Kyler can take stuff really seriously sometimes, but that’s OK. I’m glad he’s with me on this. “There are five parks in town. Only two are within walking distance of school. So, those are the ones we’ll try first. We’ll call them Park One and Park Two. And there are grounds around the VA, which we’ll consider Park Three. Parks Four and Five we’ll have to get someone to drive us, so let’s forget them for now.”
“He won’t have stayed at the VA last night. The police will have searched all around it.”
“Agreed…so let’s start at Park One, the farthest away, walking-distance-wise.” Kyler circles Park One on the map.
“Hey, isn’t that ‘Big Stick Park’ right by our old preschool? That’s what I used to call it. It has those great trees along the fence, with the best sticks ever, and that cool digger thing in the sandbox?” Kyler looks blank. “You lost a tooth there when you fell off the swing set.”
“You mean ‘Lost Tooth Park’?” He shudders. “I hate that park.”
“That reminds me…” I run to the bathroom and rub some toothpaste onto my front teeth.
When I come back I notice Kyler has drawn a sad face on Park One, and colored our new route to school in red.
“Hey,” he says, “I was thinking, have you looked in the flour canister?”
“What for? The Celt?” I grab the map.
“Duh, no. The guns? They could be in a plastic snack bag, taped to the bottom?” It sounds insane, but I know exactly what he means.
“Already looked,” I say. “Come on, there’s no time to think about Mom’s plastic-gun stash right now.” We head for the stairs.
Grandpa m
eets us on the landing as he comes out of his bedroom. “Have you brushed your teeth?” he asks. He’s wearing his grandpa-grey robe with an empty coffee cup tied to the flannel belt. This drives Mom mad, but Grandpa says it frees up his hands, and she’d be even madder if he fell down the stairs. A small trickle of coffee dribbles onto the floor. “Have a nice day, Mikey Boy. Kyler too. Don’t forget to show those teachers how smart you are, just in case they haven’t noticed. Heh, heh.” Grandpa presses chocolate-covered peppermints, his favorite candy, into our hands.
“Thanks, Grandpa,” I say. “See you later.”
As we’re hurrying out the door, Mom holds me back to stuff my lunch box into my backpack. I breathe toothpaste on her. She seems convinced, because she wishes me goodbye and gives me a kiss.
The minute the door’s closed, Kyler and I leap down the front steps. “One Mississippi, two Mississippi, go, go, go!” We’re special operations paratroopers launching out of our troop plane on our first mission of the day.
“Operation Getaceltorix here we go!” I yell. We land, throw a pretend roll, then high five each other as we step into the heavy morning mist. I know it’s unlikely we’ll find him on the first day, especially since it’s October thirteenth, which is not a lucky day if you believe those things, but it sure feels good to be looking.
Our “mom-approved” route to school is straight down the street one block, left three blocks, then right two blocks. Even so, it took until fourth grade for Mom to let me walk there alone. Now I can, as long as I take my phone, but she’s happier when Kyler’s with me. She used to spy on us, I’m sure: driving past to watch whether we crossed the street properly. But she’s finally gotten over that. Still, as we turn at the first block and then turn right—completely off our mom-approved route—I’m thinking she’ll be really mad, grounding mad, no-TV-for-a-month mad, if she finds out about this. Better keep on the alert.
“Corporal Kyler, take point and keep your eyes peeled. We may be watched,” I say in my walkie-talkie voice, adding a bit of static for effect. “Kechhhhh. The target could be anywhere. He may be armed and dangerous. Kechhhhh. Out.”
The Lost Celt Page 3