by Robin Yardi
After that, me and Ashwin didn’t really have time to map out The Plan. By the end of lunch recess, that’s as far as we’d gotten—calling it The Plan.
During afterschool care, me and Ashwin told Mr. Rocklin we were going to hang out in the dungeon. No way was I going to spend another afternoon chained to the craft table, staring at my homework. We had stuff to figure out.
“Sure,” Mr. Rocklin said, “but if I hear you guys jumping off the stage again, the multi-purpose room will be off-limits.”
We snatched up our backpacks and ran.
The craft table is right outside the multi-purpose room, and Mr. Rocklin makes us keep the doors open, but he only ducks his head in to check on us every half hour or so. So it was the perfect place to work on The Plan.
Inside, I blinked. The dungeon doesn’t have any windows, and after school, the hanging lamps are switched off. A couple of them are busted anyway. Up front, off to the right of the stage, an old rug, some bookshelves filled with puzzles and dusty board games (which all have broken boxes and missing pieces), and two beanbag chairs lurked in the gloom. Me and Ashwin both sprinted for the red chair, our steps echoing in the big room. I leaped with my arms in front of me and, spooosh, landed first.
Victory.
Ashwin landed right on top of me a second later.
“The chair is mine,” I wheezed.
Ashwin rolled off and spooshed into the blue beanbag. (That one leaks these tiny foam balls all over your clothes.) We scooted the beanbags together and stared at the ceiling. A couple first-grade girls came in and started a game of bird bingo right next to us, so we had to whisper. But after I’d answered all of Ashwin’s questions like a hundred times, I still wasn’t sure how we were going to get the trike back.
“We need to go to the library,” I said.
“Ahhh, come on, Mateo. You dragged me there once this week already. Besides, we need to work on The Plan, and how are we gonna learn anything in that place? Mrs. Deetz is probably already all closed up.”
“We will be working on The Plan,” I said. “Mrs. Deetz said we could get Medieval Weapons and Warfare today, remember?”
I hopped up out of my beanbag and ran to the dungeon door, trying to peek across the blacktop. I could tell Mrs. Deetz was still over in the library.
“Hey, Mr. Rocklin!”
Mr. Rocklin looked up from the craft table and squinted at me.
“Mrs. Deetz’s door is still open—can we go?” I asked, pointing at the other end of the courtyard. At the craft table, some kid knocked over a tub of glue. Before Mr. Rocklin bent over to clean it up, he sighed and nodded at me.
I shouted back into the dungeon, “Come on. Let’s hurry before she closes.”
Ashwin groaned and heaved himself up from the blue beanbag, swiping off all the little foam balls. The little first-grade girls ran over when they saw Ashwin get up. They pounced onto the beanbags and started giggling.
“Ah, man, now you made us lose our spot. Mrs. Deetz better let us have that book.”
I ignored Ashwin and ran across the blacktop to the library ramp. When I walked in, Mrs. Deetz smiled at me from her desk. If you didn’t know her, you wouldn’t think it was a smile, but I do, and it was. “You go get Medieval Weapons and Warfare. It’s in the section on building stuff. I’ll ask Mrs. Deetz about skunks,” I said to Ashwin.
“It’s 3:10, gentlemen. You have five minutes to check something out before I lock the library doors,” Mrs. Deetz said, standing up with her arms full of books.
“Don’t we always only have five minutes?” I asked.
For a second, even though she’d smiled when we walked in, I thought maybe she wouldn’t let us check anything out.
Then she said, “True enough, Mr. Martinez. True enough. What can I help you find today?” She put down her stack of books with a thump, and I grinned.
Mrs. Deetz found me two books on skunks. I checked out the fatter one.
“There’s gotta be something in here,” I told Ashwin when he walked up with Medieval Weapons and Warfare.
“Doing a little research, are we?” said Mrs. Deetz. She gave me a double sniff and raised her eyebrows. I just stood there, trying to look innocent.
Mrs. Deetz picked up my book and then Ashwin’s. Her computer made that great little boop sound as she scanned the book on medieval weapons. Then all she said was, “Happy research, boys—and I hope I won’t be getting any letters from angry neighbors this time. These are due back in two weeks!”
We ran back to the dungeon. The first-grade girls were both piled in the blue bean bag (I guess they don’t care about foam balls all over their butts) with an origami fortune teller in between them. Me and Ashwin sprinted for the red beanbag with our books. Spoosh, we landed right next to each other, but I guess Ashwin’s book banged into one of the girls.
“Hey, you smushed my fingers,” said one of the girls.
“Yeah, and we were using both the beanbags!” said the other girl.
“Were not,” Ashwin said, rolling onto his back in the red beanbag. “You were both in the blue one when we came in.” He started flipping through his book.
The girl with the smushed fingers looked like she was gonna cry. Her friend crossed her arms, all grumpy.
I checked the bright rectangle of the doorway for Mr. Rocklin. No way was he going to put up with us being mean to the first graders. Mr. Rocklin might not say much, but he’s got rules. If I didn’t do something fast, we’d be spending the afternoon gluing glitter onto paper plates.
“Hey, come on, man,” I said, elbowing Ashwin in our beanbag. “No squishing the little guys, remember? You said the oath.”
Back in October, me and Ashwin both recited this oath of knighthood we found in the back of a book. I wasn’t super sure if Ashwin was ready to be a full knight, but Ashwin said he was tired of being just a squire. Anyway, we took the oath:
I shall be without fear in the face of my enemy, without meanness, without spite, and without treachery. I shall be brave and loyal, even if it means my death. I shall safeguard the small and helpless with my dying breath.
“What’s spite?” Ashwin had asked. “Is that like ye olden talk for spit? Can we not spit anymore?”
We looked up spite in the dictionary later. But this thing with the first graders getting squished was more of a “small and helpless” situation.
Ashwin muttered, “Fine. Sorry,” to the first grader he bumped with his book—her name’s Camila—and he flopped out of our beanbag and onto the rug.
I slunk over to Ashwin, and Camila glared at us the whole time. She didn’t seem like she was gonna cry anymore.
“I’m gonna tell Mr. Rocklin what you did,” Camila said, going all wiggly. Her friend, Jasmine, nodded a billion times.
“Come on—he said he was sorry,” I told them, pushing Ashwin’s shoulder.
“Yeah, I am, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to squish you. Swear.”
“The beanbags are all yours,” I said. “Just leave us alone, okay?”
Camila and Jasmine got a little snorty, but they went and scooted the chairs way off to the side of the rug. They only glared at us a little after that.
I opened my book on the worn rug. Ashwin was already thumbing through pages of Medieval Weapons again.
“Oooh, cool—check this out! Do you think we should build a siege tower?” he said.
“Ashwin, they’re not hiding out in a skunk castle,” I laughed, bending back over the skunk book.
“Fine. But we should try that next time Danny Vega has a sleepover in his tree house and won’t invite us.”
See? Ashwin’s a total idea factory. You flip a switch and he hums along like a machine, spitting them out. Good ones. Bad ones. Crazy ones. Amazing ones. Sometimes it’s hard to tell which ones are the bad ones until you try them out, but I filed the tower idea away for later. We had work to do.
The first thing I did with my fat skunk book was peek in the index for the word talking—nope, not there
. Then I searched for speaking—not there either. So I started reading the skunk book from the beginning. It was all pretty much the same stuff I read on the Internet. Spotted skunks are secretive and crafty creatures, blah, blah, blah … No kidding. I was getting pretty frustrated. Then I read, Skunks make a variety of vocalizations that include hisses, growls, squeals, and cooings. That was definitely not what I had heard. Maybe I’d just been really tired the night before. Maybe I was going crazy. I decided I definitely shouldn’t tell Ashwin that I thought the skunks could ride trikes and talk.
“What about a death trap?” said Ashwin. “We could dig a hole and attract them to it and when the skunks ride over the hole on the trike—crunch!”
“Nah … that would ruin the trike.” I shook my head.
Ashwin gave me that why-do-you-care-anyway look, and I stared him down.
“Okaaay … no death trap,” Ashwin said. He flipped to a picture of some soldiers dumping hot oil onto a drawbridge.
“Let’s switch books,” I said. “There’s got to be something in here somewhere,” I mumbled, skimming through Medieval Weapons.
“Listen to this,” Ashwin said, getting excited. But I was only halfway listening, because I was getting an idea. “It says, ‘The smell of a skunk can deter a dangerous predator.’ I totally believe it. You still reek.”
“That’s it,” I said, staring down at the weapons book. “That’s exactly what we need.”
“A dangerous predator?” Ashwin asked. “Yeah, that would be cool. But where are we going to get one?”
“No, Ashwin,” I said, holding up my book. “This is what we need.”
“Armor?” he asked.
“Yep. Skunk-proof armor.”
15.
The Armor
Right at 4:30, me and Ashwin hustled over to the kindergarten classroom where Mila has her afterschool care. Mom signed a special form so I’m allowed to check her out all by myself. Kindergarten afterschool care is this land of miniature chairs and short toilets—the kids even have their own tiny playground out back. I can’t believe it used to look fun to me. When we walked in, Mila was asleep in the fuzzy chair by the bookshelf. She had an open book in her lap, and her head was flopped to the side. Her hair was even puffier and more tangled than it had been that morning. It was kind of cute.
“Hey, Peacock Head,” I said. “Wake up.”
She wriggled in the chair, opened her eyes, and wiped a little trickle of drool off her cheek. I was feeling kind of tired too, but I was so excited about The Plan that my head had that buzzy feeling you get before your birthday party or Christmas.
“I’m ready!” Mila hopped out of the chair. “I’m all rested up for tonight.”
“Tonight?” asked Ashwin.
“Yep!” Mila said. “You know. We’re gonna catch the skunks and get my trike back. Tonight.” She zoomed across the room and took her backpack from the row of metal hooks.
“She can’t spend the night, Mateo,” Ashwin said. “No way. And if we spend the night at your house, your mom will know we’re up to something. She always does.”
“That’s because, when you come over, we always are,” I said, shrugging.
“Anyway, Mila can’t come.”
“I know. I’ll tell her,” I said. “But she’s not gonna like it.” I signed Mila out at the door. She grabbed my hand and tugged me along before I had time to grab my backpack straps. When we got to the sidewalk, she started skipping, bobbing like a helium balloon at the end of my arm. As we passed by Mr. Mendoza’s, I caught him watching us from his window and I tugged Mila along a little faster. He hunched over, pushing his face close to the window. His thick, square glasses almost touched the pane. I didn’t think he knew it was me the night before, but I could tell he thought it might be. Once we were past his house, I slowed down again.
“Mila, you can’t come tonight,” I told her when we were almost to our driveway.
She stopped. “What do you mean? You said you guys were going to come up with The Plan!”
“We did.”
“Yeah—we totally did,” Ashwin said. “It’s gonna be so cool!”
“We have to spend the night at Ashwin’s tonight or The Plan won’t work. If Ashwin comes to our house, Mom will catch us. And no way can you sleep over at Ashwin’s. Then Mom will definitely know something is up.”
Mila glared up at me and crossed her arms. She had trouble staying angry and walking at the same time, though. So she had to grab the straps of her backpack and hurry to catch up.
“But you guys, I have a plan too. I could be your backup. Mom says you always have to have a backup plan.” Mila was out of breath.
“Shhhh! Keep it down, Peacock Head. Do you want the whole neighborhood to know?” I put my hand out in front of Mila and peeked around the bushes along our driveway. Mom’s car wasn’t there yet, but some Fridays, she came home early. Dad’s work truck wasn’t parked on the street either, but we probably only had a few minutes before he got home. Anyway, we would hear Dad’s truck before we saw it. The fan belts always screamed.
I took one more look down the street for Mom’s car.
“You can help with The Plan,” I said to Mila, giving Ashwin a nod over her head.
“How?” she asked.
“I can’t go inside smelling like this—Mom and Dad might catch me when they get back. And we need some stuff from the house. So you go grab the supplies, and I’ll call Dad from Ashwin’s house. All you have to do is bring all the stuff to Ashwin’s—you won’t even need to cross the street. How much do you think you can carry?”
Mila cocked her head to the side. “I can carry anything.”
I bent down and whispered the list of stuff we would need into her ear. Ashwin rolled his eyes at me while he waited. “And don’t let Mom see you with any of that stuff,” I told her. “You have to find it right now, before she comes home.”
“Okeydokey.” She put her hands on her backpack straps again and started to march down our driveway.
“Better hurry!” Ashwin added.
Mila started to run with her backpack shaking on her butt, and whatever she had in there was tink-tink-tinking again.
I grabbed the handlebars of my bike, Steed, and we ran with it down the driveway.
“I still don’t see why we need to ride our bikes tonight,” Ashwin said, panting next to me.
Ashwin only had his older sister’s funny looking banana-seat bike to use. He hardly ever rode it. He hated it. His sister was way older and didn’t care if he borrowed the thing. But Ashwin cared. Once, Danny Vega saw him riding it around down by Oak Park and gave him a pretty hard time. I mean—it’s a girl’s bike. It even has a basket on the handlebars with plastic flowers all over it, which Mrs. Vaz wouldn’t let Ashwin rip off. Mrs. Vaz makes great sticky buns, but she has no idea when it comes to bicycles.
Even after I finally figured out how to ride my new bike, Ashwin didn’t really ever want to go out with me and ride around.
And I didn’t blame him.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said, keeping an eye on the street for Mom’s car. “The skunks were too fast for me last night, but they’ll never get away from us now. Besides, it will be dark, and Danny Vega won’t see.”
We were almost to the corner, but Ashwin still seemed nervous.
Remember what I said about Danny being like an earthquake?
Sometimes he rumbles in before you even know he’s coming.
Right then, I heard the clicking of bike gears behind us.
Scrich.
Scrutch.
Scrooch.
Three bikes braked around me and Ashwin. Danny and Martin and Johnny must have been looking for us, because they usually never came that far past the park. I thought at first that Danny had decided all that trash on his lawn really was me and he was here to make me pay. But I was wrong.
“See,” Johnny said to the other guys. “He’s got a bike now—so he can roll with us.” It had been a while since Johnny a
nd me had talked. His voice sounded the same, I guess, but something felt different.
Ashwin smiled his freaked-out smile. He was the only one not standing with a bike, but right then, he was probably glad about it.
“Cool bike,” said Martin, nodding to Steed.
“It’s all right,” said Danny. “Can you do any tricks?”
I shrugged. “I’m working on a couple things,” I said.
Which was a lie.
Johnny grinned at me. He knows me the best of all those guys, so he probably knew that thing about the tricks wasn’t exactly true. “Let’s go down to the overpass—I’ll show you how to pop a wheelie,” he said, nodding in the opposite direction of Ashwin’s house.
Ashwin’s freaked-out smile got bigger while he waited for me to answer.
Johnny gave me this look, this asking-me look. And I thought about it. Johnny was right. I did have a bike now. I could totally roll with him and Martin and Danny, just like I used to. I even kind of wanted to. A little. But I figured I would probably have to stop calling my bike Steed—I knew what Danny would say about that. And then I thought about trying to explain to those guys about what was going on with the skunks, about The Plan, and my idea for skunk-proof armor. They’d just think I was lying. About all of it. I knew they wouldn’t believe me like Ashwin did. Especially not with Danny around.
“Come on, Mateo,” Johnny said. “Popping a wheelie isn’t even hard. Ashwin doesn’t have his bike, right? I don’t know—you could catch up with him later or something.”
“Or never,” Danny said, making Martin laugh all quiet.
“Nah,” I said. “Me and Ashwin are kinda doing something.”
“Told you,” Danny said, putting one foot on a pedal. “Bet you he can’t even ride that shiny bike. Why are you walking it, anyway? You scared to fall? Let’s go—this is boring.”
Danny hopped onto his bike and zipped in between me and Ashwin, knocking Ashwin out of the way. Martin zoomed after him, snickering, and they both jumped a curb. Johnny stood there with his asking-me look. “Come on, Mateo—we’ll have fun. You gotta come. I can’t keep backing you up if you don’t roll with us,” he said, grabbing his handlebars tight.