by Lynn, JB
A bunch of little girls, including Katie, emerged. A quick headcount told me I was still missing five kids.
“Is it lunchtime yet?” one of the girls asked.
“Not yet.” I mentally kicked myself for not paying attention to Megan’s droning. No doubt she’d announced when we’d get a lunch break.
The other two girls emerged from the bathroom, making a show of drying their hands on their pants.
That left Larry, Curly, and Moe in the boys’ bathroom.
Why was I not surprised?
I looked at the kid who’d announced Larry’s farting. “Can you please go in there and tell them that if they’re not out here in the next fifteen seconds, they won’t be allowed into the gift shop at the end of the tour?”
The boy nodded and dashed inside yelling, “Miss Maggie says…”
“Good one,” God approved from my shoulder.
I didn’t tell him that it was a threat Aunt Susan had used on me and my siblings, along with both of her adult sisters, many times over the years.
Four kids flew out of the restroom. Toilet paper hung from the sneaker of Moe.
I did my headcount. Twelve.
“This way,” I said with authority, jutting my chin in the direction that the man had said I should go to meet up with the rest of the class. “And stick together.”
The kids did as they were told, forming two lines, well, except for the Stooges, three across in the middle of the pack.
I walked near the back, off to the side, so that I could keep an eye on everyone.
“I’m better at this adulting thing than I thought,” I confided to God.
“And now of course, you’ve jinxed yourself and you’ll be beset by a disaster,” he sighed dramatically.
I looked around to see if he saw something I didn’t, but didn’t see anything out of place.
“I’m due for some good luck,” I told him.
He made a half-choked, scoffing sound.
“Oh shut up,” I muttered, unhappy that he was ruining the afterglow of my having negotiated the whole restroom thing without a hitch.
“Trouble, trouble,” a familiar voice squawked from up ahead.
“Told you so,” God drawled superiorly.
Squinting, I saw the twitch of black wings against the awning of the building on the corner. “Is that Mike?” It didn’t make sense that the crow would be here.
“Get out of the road,” Mike, the crow, warned.
“Stop!” I roared, scaring all of the kids into halting.
They looked over at me nervously.
“Against the building now,” I ordered, pointing at the wall I wanted them to stand against. “Hurry.”
They all ran to the wall, even Katie, despite the fact she was the last to reach it.
“Stay right there,” I told the kids. “Everyone’s butt touching the wall. You hear me? Don’t move.”
I hurried along the road, moving closer to Mike, glancing back every few steps to assure the kids’ compliance.
“What the heck are you doing here?” I asked the bird.
“Thought you might need an extra set of eyes,” he said in his best New York gangster voice, “and I was right.”
“What do you mean?”
“Look.”
I looked down the street and saw nothing.
“Other way,” Mike said.
I turned my head and that’s when I saw it: a great big mass moving fast toward me. It took me a second to comprehend what I was seeing. As it grew closer, I started to hear the pounding.
Horses. More than one. Racing toward me at a breakneck speed.
“Get out of the road,” God bellowed. “We’re going to be trampled.”
Turning, I ran back toward the children. “Butts against the wall and hold hands,” I shouted at the top of my lungs.
I wasn’t sure they heard me because I could barely hear myself over the pounding of my heart and the thundering of the approaching hooves.
As I ran, trying to get out of the way of the horses, I wondered if the man who looked like my dad had set me up to be stomped to death.
Chapter Three
I’d barely gotten off the road, when the horses, four of them, raced past. They passed in a blur of brown bodies, sharp hooves, dark manes, and panicked snorting.
While I didn’t get a good look at them, I was able to see what immediately followed them, some sort of hay-filled wagon, its wooden wheels adding to the cacophony of the chaotic situation. The wagon had no one holding the reins.
Then, as I watched, a small face popped up out of the hay and filled me with a new kind of terror. The little boy’s eyes, wide with fear, locked on mine for a millisecond, before the wagon bounced again and he collapsed back into the hay.
“Stop!” I yelled, “Stop, horses!”
“Whoa!” God added. “Whoa is what you say to stop horses. Haven’t you ever seen a Western? No one ever says stop.”
They didn’t slow down, just raced farther away.
Mike took off, flying after them.
Choking on the dust they’d raised, I stepped back into the street to watch. I hesitated, unsure of what to do. On the one hand, Katie and her classmates were my responsibility. On the other, the boy in the wagon was in immediate danger.
“What do I do?” I asked God.
He remained uncharacteristically silent.
I had to look down at my shoulder to make sure he was still there.
“I don’t know,” he finally whispered, bowing his head.
I looked back at my charges who were watching me with round eyes. Even the troublemakers looked concerned. I glanced over their heads as Mike landed on the awning.
“The wagon flipped and the kid is trapped underneath,” he announced worriedly.
Fumbling for my cell phone I called Cam. Backing up, I read the sign on the building overhead.
“Hey, Maggie Lee,” she answered cheerily.
“Our kids are fine,” I told her in a low voice, “but there’s an emergency and I need you to come get them at the Officer’s Barracks right away.”
“What happened?”
“Hurry, Cam.” I hung up on her before she could ask anything else.
I marched up to the kids. “Did anyone else see the little boy on that wagon?”
“He looked scared,” Larry offered.
“I’m scared,” one of the little girls said.
I smiled widely at them, trying to appear to be the calm adult even though my heart was about ready to pound out of my chest.
“There’s no reason for you to be scared. I need to go make sure that little boy is okay. Can you all help me with that?”
They all nodded, even Larry, Curly, and Moe.
“Okay, here’s the deal. I need you to all sit down here with your backs against the wall.”
They all immediately did as I asked.
I helped Katie lower herself down. “Okay, now you all have to hold hands.”
They did.
“Miss Cam is on her way and she’ll be here in just a couple of minutes. If you can all stay like this, backs against the wall, holding hands, until she gets here, I will buy each of you a souvenir in the gift shop.”
A couple of kids, especially the troublemakers, lit up at that.
“But,” I warned in my most serious voice, “if any of you, even if it’s just one person, moves, none of you will get the souvenir and none of you will even be allowed inside the gift shop. Got it?”
Twelve heads bobbed up and down.
“Miss Cam is on the way. Sit tight.” With that, I started running in the direction the horses and wagon had disappeared. Mike flew ahead. God darted downward to hang out in my bra as I ran.
“How much farther?” I huffed after a couple minutes, thinking, not for the first time or the millionth, that I really needed to get into better shape. I was out of breath and had a stitch in my side.
“Around the next bend,” Mike encouraged from above us.
Digging deep, I pushed myself to keep moving forward, ignoring the way my lungs burned from the exertion.
Rounding the bend, I didn’t see the wagon. “Where is it?” I panted.
“Over the hill,” the bird squawked.
I slowed to a walk. “And how much farther after that?” I asked suspiciously.
“The kid’s at the bottom of the hill.”
“So why did you tell me around the bend?”
“You looked like you were getting tired and I didn’t want you to quit. I’ve seen people on the sidelines of marathons say, ‘You’re almost there’ when the runners really had five more miles to go.”
“That’s just cruel,” I muttered breathlessly.
“Maggie’s not a quitter,” God intoned from the depths of my bosom. “She screws things up royally, but she’s no quitter.”
“Gee, thanks,” I puffed, starting to climb the hill.
As I neared the top, I heard groans of pain. I started to run, albeit like a hobbled, broken-toed, ultra-marathoner who’d run for days in Death Valley without food or water.
That is until I crested the hill and saw the boy and realized the important detail Mike had neglected to mention. Sure, the kid was trapped under the wagon, but what really scared me was that he’d landed in a stream and was struggling to keep his head above the water. Adrenaline kicked in and my feet had wings as I flew down.
“Hey,” I panted, as I dropped to my knees beside him, wincing as the cold water soaked through my jeans, instantly chilling me. “You’re going to be okay.”
The boy’s pain-filled gaze met mine and I could see he didn’t believe me as he gasped for breath.
I slipped my hands beneath his head. “I’ve got you.”
I felt him take a shuddering breath. “I’m Miss Maggie. What’s your name?”
“Alton,” he whispered through blue lips and chattering teeth.
“What the hell kind of name is that?” Mike squawked.
“It means ‘town at the source of the river’,” God supplied.
“Brainiac,” Mike muttered.
Ignoring the animals, I smiled at the little boy. “Well Alton, I want you to know help is on the way.”
“Really?” he asked.
I turned my head and looked pointedly at Mike who was perched on one of the upturned wagon wheels.
“I’ll go check and see if that’s true,” he offered, flapping his wings and flying off.
“Who are you here with, Alton?” I asked cheerily, trying to keep his focus on me.
“You.”
I blinked, taken aback by the literal answer. “I meant are you touring the camp with your class?”
“Yes.”
“Big talker this one,” God opined from his warm resting spot between my breasts.
Alton’s eyes widened at the squeaking sound.
I smiled down at him. “Did you see anything good?”
“No.”
Kid after my own heart.
“Don’t leave,” Alton begged.
“I won’t,” I promised. “I’ll stay right here with you.”
He smiled weakly.
“Never fear,” Mike squawked, returning to his perch. “The cavalry is on its way.”
I let out a sigh of relief. My hands were starting to ache from being submerged under the cold water.
“Technically,” God informed us haughtily, “the cavalry consisted of soldiers who rode horseback, but now it’s soldiers in armored vehicles. I sincerely doubt either are going to arrive any time soon.”
Ignoring him, I told Alton, “Help is almost here.”
His eyes drifted closed and his head tilted to the side.
“Alton? Alton?”
He didn’t respond.
“Uh oh,” Mike cawed. “Did he expire?”
“He’s not a carton of milk,” I snapped, even though I too was worried the child was dying. Afraid to let go of his head to try to find a pulse with my now-numb fingers, I began to scream, “Help! Help! Over here! Help!”
Mike joined in, screeching, “Move your kiesters!”
“Help! Please help!” I continued to yell as loudly as I could.
I only stopped when two pairs of black wingtips appeared in my field of vision. Looking up, I saw two men in their thirties, wearing dark suits and somber frowns standing over me.
One knelt down and reached over to feel for a pulse on Alton’s neck.
I held my breath, praying he’d find one.
“It’s steady,” he told his partner.
“We have to get him out of here,” I blurted out. “It’s so cold. It’s killing him.”
The one standing up shook his head. “On the contrary, the cold may be helping to protect him. I’m going to get a trauma copter.” Pulling out a cell phone he turned and walked away to make his call.
“Hold on, Alton,” I said to the unconscious boy. “You’re going to be okay, I promise.”
“How’d you get here?” asked the pulse-finding man.
“I ran.”
“How’d you know where to run?”
I glanced up at Mike who was tilting his head to get a better view of the conversation. His dark eye gleamed.
“I’m chaperoning a class. The horses and wagon went racing past and I followed.”
“Where are the horses?”
“How the hell should I know? I thought it was more important to keep the kid from drowning than to chase after wild horses.”
“Of course,” he soothed as the man with the cleft chin who’d mocked the RV driver, joined us. “Though I doubt they’re wild. I just need to figure out what spooked them.”
“Chopper’s fifteen minutes out,” his partner said, returning to stand nearby.
“I can hold him,” cleft chin offered.
I shook my head automatically. I didn’t like him. I didn’t trust him.
Even though I desperately wanted to get out of the freezing water, I wasn’t willing to abandon Alton.
I shook my head. “I promised him I’d stay with him.”
The men shared a look.
“Give a yell if you need help,” the kneeling man said, getting to his feet.
I nodded, knowing I wasn’t going anywhere.
The men moved a short distance away, just far enough that I couldn’t make out what they were saying in their intense conversation.
Not wanting Alton to think I’d left him, I began to go on and on about nonsensical stuff like Katie, DeeDee, and Piss, and how much I wanted a cup of really hot chocolate with extra whipped cream.
I only stopped when I heard a bunch of new voices. Looking up I saw a middle-aged man dressed as a soldier, a woman in a modern dress who had her phone pointed at me, and, thankfully, Cam.
“Cam,” I called out, my voice hoarse from my earlier yelling. “Are our kids okay?”
“They’re fine. Just fine. Megan’s got them eating lunch and the camp’s giving everyone hot chocolate.”
I bent closer to Alton’s head. “See? Told you it’s a hot chocolate kind of day.”
“How are you doing?” Cam asked, watching me worriedly.
“I’m good.”
“You don’t look good.” She frowned. “You look cold.”
I shrugged. “Yeah, a little.”
“Could you turn this way so I can get a better shot of you?” the cell phone woman asked.
“No,” I snarled, tucking my chin against my shoulder to hide my face. “I’m otherwise occupied.”
Cam chuckled. “I guess you’re okay.”
“We need to get them out of there,” the soldier said.
“Medical experts have advised against that,” one of the men in suits interjected.
“But hypothermia, frostbite,” the soldier protested.
“If Washington’s troops could survive, so can we,” I said bravely. Apparently from the raised eyebrows of everyone, I’d delivered it with a tad too much enthusiasm.