“Chill, Mikey. We didn’t even mention him in the game.” The bell rings for end of recess. “And he always looks strange.” As Kyler sprints ahead of me to class he yells, “Toilet flush tank! Plastic box at the bottom!”
“Yuck,” I say.
“Oh, and kick to the chest. No contest!”
On the way back home Kyler asks, “Are you serious about doing this?”
“What?”
“Going out at night.”
“Of course,” I say. “How else are we going to find him? We just have to pick a night when both our moms are on the night shift. Grandpa will never hear me leave the house. We’ll take flashlights, and we’ll only stay out for, say, fifteen minutes. Just enough time to walk to the alley, see if he’s there, and come back again.”
Kyler looks worried. “We can take cell phones, too.”
“Sure,” I say. “Unless you’re chicken.” I can’t believe I’ve used the “chicken dare.” I’m just as nervous as Kyler is, but once I’ve said it, there’s no turning back.
“I’m not chicken. Unless you are.”
“I’m not,” I have to say.
“Then we should go tonight. Mom’s working.”
“But my mom’s home. We have to find a night when they’re both out,” I say. “We’ll text.”
“Dad-sized rain boot, old sock, stuffed in the toe,” Kyler says. “And I’m most definitely in!”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I’m eating dinner with Grandpa later that night when Mom comes down the stairs in her uniform.
“No war movies tonight, Dad,” she says.
“Don’t worry, there’s a game on. I’m not missing that for the Second World War, Vietnam, or Desert Storm!” Grandpa chuckles.
“Mikey should be in bed by half past eight. Make sure he finishes that book report.” I groan inwardly, though I keep staring at my plate pretending I’m not listening. I hate reports!
“Oh…and Ryan doesn’t need walking to school tomorrow. His mom emailed and said she’s fine with him going alone again. Anything else? Oh…be good, Mikey.”
I look up from my macaroni and cheese. “But it’s not your work night tonight.” Mom gestures that I should wipe my mouth. I don’t even complain because I can’t believe my luck. I should have guessed when she didn’t come down to eat.
“I know, honey. I’m sorry. I’d love to stay home, but I have to make up that shift I missed. I feel so much better today.” She gives me a peck on the cheek and tells Grandpa to enjoy the game. I try to look disappointed, but right now I could do a cartwheel.
“Want to watch the game with me, Mikey Boy?” Grandpa asks as Mom leaves. “Boys’ night in?”
I’m too busy texting Kyler under the table to answer for a moment. “What? Oh, no thanks, Grandpa. I have that report and then my model of Rome to finish.”
“Oh yeah, your report. Better get that done. Here,” Grandpa hands me some gummy worms, “C-rations for your special mission.”
“Thanks, Grandpa.”
The minute I’m upstairs, Kyler and I text at top speed. We agree to meet at four thirty in the morning because, according to the Internet, that’s when the fog is due to come in.
I go to bed with my PJs over my jeans and sweatshirt. I’m so puffed up I look like a football mascot. My jeans ride up inside my PJ legs, and I can’t swing my arms, but I’ve seen kids do this in movies, and it always works for them.
When Grandpa looks in on his way to bed, I’ll be in my PJs, so he’ll think everything’s normal. When four twenty comes, I’ll throw them off quick, and my real clothes will be underneath. Next, I’ll stuff pillows end to end down the bed and curve them around so it looks like I’m asleep under the covers. That’s just in case Grandpa looks in on me. I know he won’t because he has to get his leg on at night, but I want to be sure. Then, I’ll creep down the stairs and out the door. Like I said, they do it in movies all the time.
I’d like to stay up all night until we’re ready to leave, but I’m not sure I can, so I set my cell phone alarm for four twenty and shove it under my pillow. In the First World War, they say that soldiers propped their eyes open with matchsticks so they wouldn’t fall asleep on night duty. They’d be shot if they did. I wonder if I should try it, but the idea of poking my eyes out by mistake is too gross. Guess you only try stuff like that if you risk being shot.
I switch off my light and look at the glow-stars Mom put on my bedroom wall when I was tiny. They’re supposed to be in the shape of constellations, but so many have dropped off that I’ve stopped putting them back in the right place. Instead, I reconfigure them into battles. Each star is a soldier, and the large ones are cavalry or tanks. Sometimes, I imagine they’re Napoleon invading Russia, sometimes the D-Day landings.
Tonight, it’s Romans versus Celts. I’m a Celt, of course, and I’m trying to outflank the Romans with my fastest charioteers. Not that the Celts were really into strategy, except for one thing. Much as they loved war, they avoided full-out battles if they could. They’d try to frighten their opponents away first, with their whole “scary hair, tattoos, chanting, and eerie-sounding horns” deal. If that didn’t work, they had champions battle it out one-on-one, so only two people got hurt, not the whole tribe. Full-out battles were only a last resort. The Romans never understood that. They were all about full-blown extermination.
I wake to the sound of my alarm through the pillow. I knew I’d fall asleep. I slip out of bed and pull off my PJs, but my brain isn’t in gear yet. I end up wrestling with my PJ top over my head, groping for the flashlight, and nearly knocking it to the floor, and then stumbling on the shoes I left by the door.
Kyler texts.
Meet me in street
5 mins
I reply.
Coooooool
Though I’m seventy miles from cool right now.
I take a deep breath to calm myself, open my door really slowly, and wait on the landing until I hear Grandpa snore. He reminds me of a purring cat. Then I tiptoe down the stairs and pull on my shoes. That part turns out to be so easy I feel almost cheated. I could do this every night and no one would notice.
It’s colder than I was expecting. The street glows a creepy, blurry yellow under the streetlamps. It’s definitely foggy, just as we’d hoped. I peer through the mist down the sidewalk toward Kyler’s house. He said he’d be waiting for me, but he’s not there. I hope he hasn’t gotten caught. No, he’s probably hiding, ready to jump out and scare me half to death. That’s the sort of thing he finds funny. I scan the lines of parked cars.
Everything’s quiet and soft at the edges. It’s spooky. There are no cars driving by, no one coming out of their houses, nothing. It takes me a few seconds to realize I can hear a TV even at this hour, and the streetlights are buzzing, and there’s a police siren wailing a few blocks away.
The VA stands at the top of our street on a hill. It’s a tall building with lights on at every level, making halos in the mist. It makes me think of a rocket ready for takeoff. I can almost believe it could blast into space, but I bet the people inside aren’t getting much sleep with all those lights shining. Grandpa says the VA is great, as far as he’s concerned, but a hospital is still the worst place to be sick.
I tell him that doesn’t make sense, but Grandpa always says, “I tried it once, and the nurses woke me every four hours to check my pulse and temperature. ‘Listen,’ I said, ‘if I’m dead can’t you just wait until morning to find out, because if I’m alive I’d rather have my sleep.’” When Grandpa tells Mariko this story he always winks, and she tells him he’s a funny man. He likes that.
An ambulance pulls slowly into the sweeping driveway of the hospital, its lights flashing red. I like seeing the ambulance people still at work. Knowing that there are doctors, taxi drivers, people like Mom, working all over the city, even in the middle of the night, makes me feel better. And, right now, Dad is already at work because it’s morning in Nigeria. Weird.
I start down the s
idewalk toward Kyler’s house. The streetlights cast circles of yellow onto the ground like giant stepping stones. I tell myself the dark spots are black holes to parallel universes where monster lice rule the world and suck your face off, so, obviously, I don’t want to step there. I jump from light to light, but I’m bored of it by the time I get to Kyler’s. Guess he’d have jumped me by now if he was going to.
I start to get mad. He texted me to make sure I was awake. Five minutes, he said. I stand at the bottom of the steps to his house, underneath a big potted lemon tree, glaring at his front door.
Two seconds later, the trash can at the corner of Kyler’s tiny front yard crashes to the ground. I cry out like a cat that’s had its tail squished and jump behind the lemon tree, grazing my hand on a thorn.
A raccoon, the size of a dog, flashes her bandit mask at me through the mist. She chases the trash can through three revolutions before batting it to a stop and thrusting her head inside. Two babies scamper behind her.
The noise of the raccoon ripping trash is enough to wake people ten miles away, so I’m not surprised when Kyler’s front door flies open. I’m sure I’m busted, but it’s Kyler slinking out, not his dad. Kyler meets my gaze then flattens himself against the wall just as a window upstairs grinds open.
Kyler does a goofy “oops, I messed up” grin. I reply with my “sure did and where’ve you been anyway” glare.
Kyler’s dad leans out of the bedroom window. He’s wearing a baggy sweatshirt, and his hair sticks up around his head like a fuzz ball. “Darn raccoons,” he slurs in a sleepy voice. “Scat.”
The mama raccoon pulls her head out of the can. She has a butter wrapper stuck to one ear, which she wipes off on the ground. The babies try to lick it. Dave sighs. “You’re not afraid, are you?” he says to the raccoon. The raccoon shakes her head. I guess she’s got butter in her ear, but it looks like she’s saying “no.” Dave pulls the window back down.
“Quick!” Kyler jumps down the steps, grabs my arm and pulls us behind a parked car in the street.
A few seconds later, Dave opens the front door. “Go on, scat!” He stomps down the steps, muttering angrily, “I keep telling her to use the special elastic. It’s already attached to the can lid, for Pete’s sake.” A light switches on in the neighbor’s house.
The mama raccoon scampers up the street dragging a white garbage bag behind her. The babies follow. When the bag splits, wrappers, milk cartons, and a greasy pizza box spill into the gutter. The babies jump over themselves in surprise. I can’t help it. I snort through my nose loud as a pig. Kyler throws his hand over my face and we duck down so low I can smell the oil stains on the asphalt.
Dave stops to listen. I hold my breath, as if that’ll help me stay still. I’m pretty sure Kyler’s holding his breath too, because his cheeks are all puffed up. It must work because after a few seconds, Dave says, “Like it’s too much effort to put the lid on right.”
We hear the trash can scrape along the ground and the wheels rattle, as Dave trundles the can back into place. He stomps back up the steps and slams the door.
“Man, your dad is grumpy tonight,” I say.
“His team lost,” Kyler whispers. Then his mouth hangs open in thinking mode. He shakes my arm. “Oh, no. What are we gonna do? He’ll look in my bedroom to check on me.”
“Did you do the ‘pillows down the bed’ thing?”
Kyler looks blank. We don’t have time to think. I push him into the open. “Pretend like you’re trying to get back in. Quick!” I say and dodge behind the car again.
Kyler runs up the steps as his dad flings open the front door. “Kyler! Thank God! There you are!”
“Phew, Dad!” he says. “I was just about to freak. I was trying to get back in. You locked me out, and it’s freezing out here in this fog.” He sounds a bit fake, like a kid in a sitcom, but it seems to work.
“Trying to get back in?” Kyler’s dad was not expecting that. “You were? But what are you doing outside?”
“Boy, Dad, didn’t you hear the noise? There were a whole bunch of raccoons around the trash cans. I chased them down the street.”
“You got changed?”
“No!” Kyler pulls his PJ top out from underneath his sweatshirt. “Just threw some clothes over my PJs.”
“Kyler, it could have been robbers or anything.”
“I could see it was raccoons, Dad. Whole family. The mom must have doubled back on me. She was huge.”
Dave puts his arm around Kyler’s shoulder. “Don’t go doing that again. I’m the raccoon chaser around here, OK?” As Dave leads him into the house, Kyler looks back at me and sticks out his lower lip. I know what he’s trying to say: our adventure is over. Darn raccoons.
I sit down on the sidewalk. Being out at night with a friend is an adventure. On your own it’s more scary. It’s not that I’m a coward, but I’m not stupid either. Who knows what could happen out here in the dark? I should go home.
I let my chin drop onto my chest. I really don’t want to give in when I’ve only just started. I’m looking for the Celt after all. This is the biggest and best adventure I’ve ever had. The only adventure I’ve ever had. I can’t walk away now. I imagine I’m a soldier at the end of a battle. I’m a Celt, wounded after a raid on the Romans, but I have to rescue my best friend who’s been taken captive in a nearby fort. I return my sword to its scabbard, heave myself up on my spear, glance down the battlefield—and I see my Celt materialize out of the mist.
He’s running up the road toward me.
My heart does a drum solo, a hundred beats a minute.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I dodge back down behind the car. It’s awesome. I’ve found him, but now that I’ve found him I don’t know what to do. The way he’s running scares me. He’s intense. Is he running to find the portal to the Otherworld before it closes? Is he mad because he’s come back to this time that he doesn’t want to be in?
I peer from my hiding place. There’s no one behind him, so he’s not running away from anyone. Next minute, there’s a crash further up the street as the raccoon knocks over another trash can. The Celt throws himself down and covers his ears. “No, no, no,” he mutters. He stays there for a long time. Then he’s crouching, swigging from a bottle, standing, and sprinting up the street again. His arms are pumping. He’s concentrating so hard he doesn’t even look at me.
As he races past, he mutters in his strange accent, “He took his great barbed spear and thrust it into the air.” I smell beer—the same smell that’s in the kitchen on poker nights—but I don’t care. In the excitement, my fear melts away and I race after him. My arms are tingling. My chest feels electric. The hairs on the back of my neck prickle like a dog’s. I’m terrified and completely alive at the same time. I run as fast as I can to keep up.
“He took the shield and raised it, but the dragon flew out of the sun. Even shielding his eyes, the warrior couldn’t see for the rays of light. But as the dragon’s talons stretched to grasp him, the spear hit its target. The dragon exploded in a mighty roar. It burst the warrior’s eardrums and forced the blood swirling from them like water out of a shell plucked from the sea.”
Whoa! This is something else. The Celt sounds like he’s reciting poetry.
“And the dragon spewed forth fire, which flowed like molten lava. Gobbets of flame licked the heavens above and colored the sky black. The warrior leaped through the flame as a salmon leaps up river. He grasped the scaly sides of the beast and plunged his sword again and again into the burning heart of the creature. The beast screamed, twisting and turning in its agony…”
The Celt hesitates as he reaches the cross street at the top of our road, right by my house. I dodge behind a trash can, not wanting to distract him from whatever it is he’s doing.
“And the warrior ripped open the belly of the dragon and pulled forth, from the body of the beast, the three men it had swallowed. Three good men, half eaten but still alive, and he cursed the beast that it ever l
ived!”
I wish Kyler was here because I can’t work out what’s happening. It doesn’t fit any of our theories. The Celt is living some battle that I can’t see. It’s either in his head, or it’s actually happening to him right now, which means his body might be in our time, but the things he’s experiencing are in another dimension. Maybe he’s only half traveled from the Otherworld. Maybe it’s some parallel universe or different dimension thing that Kyler would totally get, but I don’t. All I know is, it’s so realistic that I can breathe it, sense it, feel it with him.
When he says he’s wielding his sword, somehow I can see it. His arm tenses and sways with the weight of the weapon. When he slices through the air, I swear I hear the sword swish. When he pulls at the bodies of the men, getting them under their shoulders, dragging them across the sidewalk, his spine bends over with the weight. His eyes are shiny, and the muscles in his neck are as tight as fishing line.
As the Celt pulls the third invisible body onto the sidewalk, he jerks his head up. “He hears another man in the stomach of the dragon calling for help,” he mutters. I swallow. My throat tightens. “The warrior maiden has never made it easy, and she’s not going to now.” The Celt straightens up, places his legs apart, glares at a streetlight overhead and carries on talking. “‘How strong are you, warrior?’ she taunts. Her voice echoes like thunder through the clouds of black smoke. Her eyes flash like fireballs. ‘How much can you take?’”
He stays there for a moment, as if hypnotized, his hands opening and closing at his sides, and then he strides toward the road. He’s not looking left or right or anywhere except at whatever action is playing out in front of him. At the last second, he stops at the curb. He puts his arm out to the side as if he’s holding people back. “Don’t!” he says. “Wait!”
There’s nothing but the insect buzz of the streetlights above us. He scans the road. I guess he’s looking for traffic, but the longer he waits the more I get to thinking he’s looking for something else. He kneels down and stares across the road from a different angle. “We got another one. Soda can! In the gutter,” he cries as he spins around, looking up at the rooftops. It’s like he’s looking for someone to blame for the trash, but it was the raccoon. Anyone can see that.
The Lost Celt Page 7