The Fight for Kidsboro

by Marshal Younger

Valerie and her clan were gathered at the spot where they’d been told to build the bathroom. They all had their shovels out, but no one was digging. Scott and I crouched behind some bushes to listen to what they were saying.

  “Come on, we have to do this,” Valerie said.

  “I think I’d be better at helping build the walls,” Patty said.

  “What’s the big deal? It’s just a hole.”

  “Yeah, but it’s the thought of what it’s going to be,” another girl said. “And ho ware we going to be able to walk down the halls of our school ever again? Everybody’ll call us the Toilet Girls.”

  “Yeah,” Patty agreed.

  “It’s just gross.”

  “Nobody will even come near us.”

  “I can’t do it.”

  “Okay, okay,” Valerie said. “This is silly. We need to do it. This will prove once and for all that we’re equal to boys—that we can do anything they can do. There’s nothing in there but dirt. We don’t have to ever use it, we just have to dig it.”

  “Then you do it,” Patty said.

  “No way,” Valerie said. “It’s disgusting.”

  The slingshot guys were having a powwow in one of their designated areas. Scott and I crept up behind the group, ducking behind a couple of trees.

  “I can’t come up with anything,” one said.

  “Why do we have to prove we’re a benefit to society? We just want to be able to use slingshots,” another said.

  “Look, I don’t agree with this ruling any more than you do, but we have to think of something. We have to show we have some purpose. Now everybody think!” Ben, their leader, ordered.

  They all bowed their heads and squinted their eyes shut, clearly trying to squeeze every ounce of intelligence out of their brains.

  “What are we here for?” Ben said. “What’s our purpose?”

  “Protection. We’re here so that Kidsborians can feel safe in their homes.”

  “Right. Protection. But from what?”

  They all looked at each other, and then one said, “Bears?”

  “How can we prove that, though?”

  “Man, if only a bear would attack or something.”

  “Oh, that would be perfect.”

  “Maybe we could lure one here. Put out some food or something.”

  “I’ve never seen any bears around here.”

  “We’ll have to go deeper in the woods.”

  “Yeah. There’s tons of bears out there.”

  “That’s it. We go find a bear, shoot it with a slingshot, then drag it back here and tell everybody we saved them from certain death.”

  “Yeah!”

  “That’s it!”

  “Let’s do it!”

  They picked up their slingshots and marched on ward, heads held high. They all high-fived each other, whooping and hollering as they headed deeper into the woods as a group. Scott was holding his hand over his mouth to keep from laughing.

  Suddenly, one of the slingshotters stopped. “Wait a minute.”

  “What?”

  “We’re gonna shoot a bear?”

  They all halted, and it suddenly dawned on them what they had decided to do. They exchanged frightened looks.

  “We can do this,” Ben said. No one else seemed convinced, but no one wanted to admit his fear. They moved on into the woods, though there was no more hollering, and their steps weren’t quite so quick.

  Scott and I were pretending to casually walk past the farmers’ garden. We slowed our steps to overhear Mark and the Clean Up Kidsboro group having a feud with the farmers. “What is that?” Mark said to farmer/doctor James. “What are you putting on your plants?”

  “It’s bug killer,” James replied.

  “That stuff pollutes the environment. You can’t use it.”

  “If we don’t use this, the bugs’ll eat everything. These beetle things are all over the place.”

  “I guess they’re gonna have a feast then.”

  “Sorry, but you’ll have to fight pollution somewhere else. This is our garden, and it’s got to look a lot better than this in three days if we’re gonna keep our funding.”

  “You keep using that death spray, and you won’t have a garden to show.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You put one drop of it on your plants, and we’ll rip ’em all out by the roots.”

  “What?”

  We passed by the feminists, and they had begun work on the latrine walls. I imagined they were doing this to put off having to dig, which was much more offensive. They had built a frame of wood, and it looked rather good.

  Scott and I were kneeling behind some tall bushes, watching Melissa and the animal rights group attempt to train their dogs to pick up rocks in the middle of Kidsboro’s main street and take them to the creek. Apparently, this would be the way they would show that their dogs benefited Kidsboro—by getting rid of dangerous rocks that people could trip over.

  The trainers weren’t having much success. “Come on, Tornado,” an owner said to his terrier. “Pick up the rock. Pick it up, boy.” The owner looked around to see if anyone was watching, then got down on all fours and demonstrated the technique to his dog. He picked up a rock in his mouth and carried it away, then turned around to see if his dog would do it. At this point, Scott and I were both stuffing our fists in our mouths to keep from bursting out laughing.

  The dog just looked at his owner as if to say, “Well, if you’re going to pick up the rocks, then there’s no sense in me doing it. You can take them to the creek. And while you’re there, would you mind filling my water dish? It’s kind of a long walk.”

  Two days later there was panic in the air. None of the groups were making much progress with their assignments, and they had only 24 hours left. I was nearby the designated slingshot area as the guys returned from another unsuccessful bear-hunting trip. They came back with a couple of dead crickets.

  “But crickets are gross,” one of them said. “They spit this tobacco-like stuff, and they jump on you. The government should pay us big bucks to rid our town of these pesky marauders of freedom.” The rest of the guys weren’t buying it. They must have known that two dead crickets were not enough to pass the test. I found out later that it had taken 14 shots from four different people to hit the first cricket with their slingshots. The other one they had just stepped on.

  The feminists were holding a six-person rally at the meeting hall pavilion to psyche themselves up for digging the hole. The walls were complete, but they had yet to break ground with their shovels. Scott and I peeked in.

  Valerie was at the front, her fist waving madly. “We can do this, girls!” Wild cheers. “We are entering a new age where there is no difference between boys and girls!” More applause. “An age where we can do anything boys can do! I have a dream! I have a dream that one day boys will be cleaning the kitchen cabinets, and girls will be choosing the president’s cabinet. I have a dream that girls will be found within the capitol walls and boys in the shopping malls!” The girls were now in a frenzy. “I have a dream that one day there will be girls and boys standing side by side, kings and queens, dresses and jeans, Chrises and Christines, using all their means, to dig latrines!”

  Valerie had them going crazy, and didn’t want to lose them. She grabbed a shovel and raised it above her head. “This is the symbol of girls now!We use shovels! We dig dirt!We do construction! We get dirty!” They all raised their shovels.

  Valerie reached up and pulled off her earrings. “These are no longer a symbol of us!” she said, and threw the earrings into the grass behind her. Another girl joined her and started raising her own symbols in the air. She picked up a pair of pantyhose and threw them away. Another girl threw her purse about 30 feet. They’d obviously been told beforehand to bring all the symbols of girlhood because everyone seemed to have something to throw away—jewelry, acrylic nails, perfume, and makeup.

  Patty raised up a can of hairspray and shot it out into the air, waving it
to show the stream. Just then, Mark, head of Clean Up Kidsboro, flew out of a nearby bush. He had obviously been watching them to make sure they finished the bathroom. But now, I had a feeling he thought the feminists had gone too far.

  “Hey! Stop that!” he yelled. Most of the girls ignored him, including Patty, who continued spraying. “Those are harmful chemicals!” he protested.

  She continued to ignore him. “Stop spraying!” he yelled, jumping up and snatching the can from her hand. Some of the girls finally noticed that there was a boy present, and their frenzy came to an abrupt halt. “What are you people doing?” Mark shouted. “You’re killing us! My organization is relying on you. You’re supposed to be digging a latrine, not spraying deadly chemicals in the air!”

  “We’re just about to dig,” Patty said.

  “Well, get started, then! You’ve only got 24 hours, or we lose our funding!”

  “How about it, girls?” Valerie shouted, trying to regain the momentum.

  “Yeah!” they shouted.

  “Then let’s go!” she shouted, raising her shovel in the air. Each girl grabbed her shovel. Like angry villagers ready to lynch somebody, they marched out to the latrine construction site, shouting as they went. Mark followed them to see that the job would actually be done this time. Scott and I went along too.

  The feminists all circled around the spot where the bathroom was going to be built. “Let’s make a toilet, girls!” They all cheered, but something about the words toilet girls hit them. A couple glanced around and could see that there were several boys in the distance, watching them carefully as they prepared to break ground. I think each of them had their own vision of walking down the halls of the school, with boys all around them pointing and saying, “There goes one of the toilet girls.” Some how this vision seemed to drain their enthusiasm. Valerie stood with her shovel poised above the ground, ready to strike down on the earth. Then she looked around and saw more boys watching her from across the creek. She scanned the faces of her followers and realized that they had lost their fervor. They suddenly wanted their makeup and hairspray back.

  “Come on!” Mark said, noticing the sudden change of attitude. “Dig! Come on! It’s only a hole!”

  Valerie handed him the shovel. “Then you do it.”

  “No way; that’s disgusting.”

  James marched over to where the animal rights group was busy trying to train their cats to rake leaves. One cat carried a small rake on its back like a plow horse. This is animal rights? I asked myself.

  James was irate. “Your dogs are destroying our garden,” he shouted.

  “How?”

  “You’ve trained them to pick up rocks and take them to the creek, and now they’re doing it to my unripe tomatoes!”

  “Really?” one of them said with glee. They were excited that the dogs were using what they’d learned.

  “Keep your dogs out of my garden.”

  “Well, if you haven’t noticed,” the animal lover replied, “we have laws now that say that animals can roam freely, just like humans. The dogs can go anywhere they want.”

  “So, you’re not gonna keep them out?”

  “Nope.”

  “All right, then.” James left. He walked away so quickly It was obvious that he had a plan. Scott and I followed quietly behind him.

  He went to see the slingshotters. “I have a job for you,” he said.

  Their eyes lit up. “What?”

  “I want to keep the dogs out of our garden. I’ll hire you to stand guard. If any of those dogs come near it, open fire.”

  “Really?” the slingshotters said in unison. They huddled up. “This is our chance. We can show we’re useful to the farmers.” They all nodded in agreement and broke the huddle.

  “We’ll do it,” they said. James smiled.

  Later that day, the slingshotters had the garden surrounded, waiting for the dogs to make one false move. It was like a police stakeout. They sat there for an hour without a single animal in sight, their trigger fingers itching to fire away.

  Suddenly, one of the slingshotters got hit. A stray nut from out of nowhere pelted him on the back of the head. He turned around. It was Melissa, holding a slingshot of her own.

  “What are you doing?” the slingshotter asked, his buddies giving up their positions and gathering around him.

  “How does that feel?” Melissa said. “What if the dogs just suddenly started shooting at you? Doesn’t feel so good, does it?”

  All at once, three more animal rights people appeared from behind the trees. They all had slingshots. Melissa signaled them forward. “It’s hunting season, boys.” They advanced on the slingshotters with an entire arsenal of nuts and hard objects in their pockets. The slingshotters, who had left their weapons at their posts, backed away and started to run. The animal rights people ran after them, shooting at will. The slingshotters retreated into the woods until we couldn’t see them any more.

  9

  TIME’S UP

  A MISCHIEVOUS GRIN CROSSED my face as I headed into Kidsboro the next morning. The 72 hours was up for all the special-interest groups, and I could already tell that some of them were going to fall short. I passed the garden on my way to the office; the bugs and animals had destroyed it. It didn’t even resemble a garden any more, it looked more like a greenhouse that had been bombed. One of the farmers was sitting beside it and waved sheepishly at me. He was caressing a perfect unripe tomato. Maybe it was the only one left.

  Along the way, I saw that garbage was strewn everywhere, down the main street all the way across the creek and into Bettertown. Scott was noticing it as well.

  “What happened here?” I asked him.

  “Corey overslept, and the animals had a party.” This was the garbageman who had just gotten a raise because he thought he deserved as much money as the mayor and the chief of police.

  The city council met in the meeting hall; we were all curious as to what we were going to see today.

  The slingshotters came in first. They dropped three dead crickets and a snail on the table. Half-heartedly, Ben said, “We have to rid the woods of these.” He looked at us to see if there was even a hint that we were taking him seriously. He gave up in about five seconds. “Never mind. Let’s go,” he said, and the others followed.

  Clean Up Kidsboro was next. Mark stood in front of me with all the pride he could muster. The rest of his group stood behind him.

  “Let’s see here,” I said, reading over their contract. “You were supposed to make Kidsboro litter-free.”

  Mark raised his eyebrows and chuckled under his breath. “It was the dogs.”

  “Part of your job was to keep Kidsboro clean, despite dogs running around,” I said.

  “Yeah. We know.” Mark turned and left.

  Melissa and the animal rights people strolled in with just one dog.

  “Melissa, we asked that you make sure these animals had jobs. Could you please show us what they’re doing now?”

  “Well, Bowzer here is going to show you how he can deliver things directly to someone’s door.”

  “Really?” I said, looking forward to this demonstration.

  “Okay, boy,” she said to the basset hound, who lay prostrate on the ground. “Take this ball to Nelson’s house.” She handed him a ball, but he failed to grab it. She dropped the ball on the ground in front of him. He sniffed it. It was obvious that he was one of the dogs that had gone through the garbage and had such a full stomach that he had no desire to get up.

  “Come on, boy. Come on, Bowzer.” She glanced at me sheepishly. I tried to hide my grin. Bowzer burped and closed his eyes.

  “They just need more training,” she said.

  “I’ve been around dogs. I know dogs. Training a dog not to tear through garbage is like training a fish not to swim,” I said. Scott snickered, and Nelson elbowed him.

  The farmers came in with the remains of a watermelon plant. It had been chewed through by beetles. “I could almost taste this w
atermelon,” James said and laid it down on the table in front of us.

  Valerie came in with her shovel. She was covered in dirt from head to toe. “You got your bathroom. But do me a favor. Don’t give us any more government jobs,” she said, spearing the ground with the shovel and walking away.

  The city council members exchanged looks and started chuckling.

  “We gotta do this again sometime,” Scott said.

  “Absolutely,” Nelson said.

  “Next time, I’ll bring the popcorn,” Jill said.

  Alice just smiled with her arms crossed. For Alice, who rarely even smiled, much less laughed, this was like rolling on the floor.

  We all laughed and talked for 20 minutes or so, and then remembered that we had jobs to do. Mainly, we had to vote to change the budget plan to exclude the groups who failed to pass their tests. It was unanimous. The budget would be amended.

  I couldn’t really get any work done on the budget when I got back to my office. I was too distracted thinking about how this was going to benefit Kidsboro. The special-interest groups had lost their funding, taxes were back to normal, and Nelson would be able to hire his employees back. I sat at my desk with my hands folded behind my head, very proud of myself.

  There was a knock at my door, and Lauren came in. I had completely forgotten that I had given her an assignment, and that it was due. My glee suddenly turned sour because I knew I was going to have to fire her.

  “Mr. Mayor?” she said, stepping in anxiously.

  “Lauren, come in.” She did, and then she sat down. I swallowed a lump in my throat and asked, “How did you do?”

  “I don’t know. I hope I did okay.”

  “You finished it?”

  “Yes.”

  She handed me her work. It was hardbound like a textbook and much thicker than the city charter I had given her. I opened it, and my chin dropped to the floor. Inside were beautiful computer graphics, illustrations, and big ornate fonts. Written in gold calligraphy on the first page, were the words: The City Charter of Kidsboro. It almost made me weep. On the sides were category dividers—the divisions were perfect: judicial, legislative, and executive branches of government, just like in the Constitution of the United States.