by Robert West
“Yep,” said Scilla, “my grandma’s plannin’ a big party for our family, and I’m gonna be making the decorations. My cousin is bringin’ four kinds of cookies. Uncle Ed is supposed to be in charge of games, but all he really likes to play is horseshoes. As far as I’m concerned — ”
“That sounds wonderful, Scilla,” the principal interrupted, turning Scilla off as only a teacher could.
One thing Scilla could do very well, though Beamer, was talk.In fact, finding a way to turn her off would probably make a pretty good science project.
“Oh, I hope that new friend of yours will have a nice holiday too,” she said. Seeing their questioning looks, she went on, “You know, that homeless boy your mother told me about. Are you planning on visiting him any time soon?”
“Well, I don’t know . . . I suppose,” Beamer said with a nervous gulp.
“Do you have any time in mind?” she asked. “I’m sure the sooner you went to him, the better he’d feel. The holidays are especially hard on people who are alone.”
“We were thinking maybe next Saturday morning,” Scilla chimed in like she was giving a press report.
Beamer gave Scilla a keep-your-mouth-shut look. She shot him back an annoyed grimace.
“Well, that’s nice. I’m sure he’ll appreciate it,” said the principal. “Give my best to your parents,” she said as she turned to walk back toward her office.
When the Star-Fighters stepped off the city bus the following Saturday, Beamer scanned the neighborhood like his head was a radar dish. He’d had an uneasy feeling ever since their conversation with the principal. Still, Jack said he wouldn’t show himself until he was sure they were alone. Beamer saw no sign of any police cars — of any cars at all, for that matter.
It was just the same old deserted, rundown neighbor-hood — except that the ice Castle/trolley station was melting. Thanks to a gazillion dripping icicles, there were plop-plop sounds all around them. Beamer felt like he was tap-dancing all the way to the trolley yard — either that or going crazy from the infamous drip torture.
Beamer, Ghoulie, and Scilla had brought a few presents for Jack — some stuff they’d found cheap on the Internet. “Jack!” Beamer shouted as he approached the sagging snow Castle. Ghoulie and Scilla joined their voices to his, making a little trio singing Jack’s name, as if it was a Christmas carol. “Come out, Jack!” Beamer shouted. “It’s just us, like we promised.”
“If you don’t mind,” they heard Jack’s voice echoing from somewhere, “I’ll wait a little longer, just to make sure.”
“Well, whatever,” Beamer answered, looking for him across the rooftops.
“I hope you guys have done a little practicing with the football since the last time,” he said from another direction.
How’d he get over there without anyone seeing him? Beamer wondered. Maybe he really was Peter Pan. Peter Pan could fly, but he wasn’t invisible. Right now, Jack was doing a pretty good job doing the invisible thing.
They went into the building. The dripping sound was even louder in here as the legions of icicles hanging from the balconies, rafters, and ticket booths shed their frozen weight.
The old wooden benches were beginning to peek out through the rolling hills of snow.
“Hey!” Jack yelled again from somewhere above them. “I’ve been wondering: Who or what is a Star-Fighter?”
The three exchanged glances, rolling their eyes in unison and once more wondering how they could explain this?
“Well, you see,” Beamer began, looking up toward the voice which now seemed to be above them, “we have this tree house — ”
“ — and it’s shaped like a spaceship,” continued Scilla.
“I get it,” the invisible boy interrupted. “So, since you play in a pretend spaceship, you call yourselves the Star-Fighters.”
Beamer thought he could hear him snicker. “Well, there’s a little more to it than that — ”
“Hey, I totally understand,” said the voice from nowhere. “That’s what most kids do — make-believe. Not me, though, I gave that kid stuff up years ago.”
“Are you telling me you don’t dip into a little fantasy now and then in this ‘ice palace’ of yours?” asked Ghoulie with a definite smirk. “Come on.”
“Well, in case you didn’t notice, this ice palace is melting.
And besides, ice is cold. I have to spend too much time trying to keep warm and fed to do much playing.”
“So why don’t you go back to your mom?” Beamer asked. “I’m sure it’s plenty warm there with lots of food in the fridge.”
“Are you kiddin’? With all the screamin’ and carryin’ on and the other times when she was totally out of it on drugs? I prefer this reality over that one. Besides, I can’t do this there.” He suddenly gave an ear-splitting war whoop. “Wahoo!”
They heard a loud bump far above them in the station. Beamer ran out the side door and looked up on the roof. There was Jack, skiing across the rooftop, flying from one roofline to another like he was in the Swiss Alps.
“Yeooooow!” Jack shouted as he sped up one incline and leaped in the air over to another slope of the roof.
His skis didn’t look up to snuff for the Winter Olympics. They were just aluminum slats bent up in front. He vaulted off the roof, flew over their heads, and skidded across the snow on the ground in front of them.
Scilla took a running jump onto a large hub cap and bobsledded over to him. “Come on, Jack. Are you telling us you just abandoned your mom?”
“Hey, y’all have got it backward,” Jack answered indignantly. “She abandoned me.”
“But you said — ” started Beamer.
“Okay, like she didn’t kick me out, but she might as well have,” Jack interrupted in a huff. He hunched down to remove his skis. “My folks had their own problems. And when those problems got big enough, they forgot I was even in the picture. So, after Dad died and Mom disappeared into druggie land, I couldn’t take it any more. I left. The last I heard she moved, so I couldn’t find her even if I wanted to.”
“But you can’t just — /Talk about escaping reality — ” Beamer and Scilla said at the same time.
Ghoulie interrupted them. “Hey, did you guys hear that?” he asked, anxiously scanning across the graveyard of trolley cars. “I thought I heard something.”
Not hearing Ghoulie, Jack went on. “As far as I’m concerned, a happy family is the most useless fantasy of all. All that huggin’ and pattin’ only makes you weak when it comes time for a crisis. In the end, people can only rely on themselves.”
“But you’re still a kid,” argued Beamer. “However tough you think you are, there’s too much you don’t know yet. That’s what parents are for — to help you get ready to live on your own!”
“He’s right,” a woman said brightly as she strode into view around a corner. Several other people were with her, including Beamer’s school principal.
At the same time, several policemen suddenly emerged from hiding and circled the kids. “Okay, big shot,” one of them said, “we gotcha.”
Jack bolted to run, but two policemen quickly blocked his path.
“Let’s see, did you say your name was Jack?” the woman in charge asked as she referred to some papers.
Jack looked angrily at the three kids. “So this time you ratted me out for good!”
“No, Jack, we — ” stammered Beamer, suddenly feeling a big pit in his stomach.
“You can’t count on that being his real name, ma’am,” interrupted the commanding policeman.
“Well, for now it’s Jack,” she responded. “Don’t worry, we’re not taking you to jail, just to a safe place where you’ll have plenty to eat and shelter from the cold.”
“I shoulda known better than to trust a bunch of pampered rich kids,” Jack spat at the three Star-Fighters.
Beamer looked down, feeling like worm meat. Ghoulie and Scilla also stood a little shamed-faced, avoiding Jack’s eyes.
“Jai
l isn’t totally out of the question,” said the policeman, correcting the social worker as he took Jack by one arm. “A lot of these homeless kids turn to some pretty heavy-duty theft.”
“Not me!” Jack answered angrily. “I’ve only taken things when I had to, and I always tried to pay it back. I ain’t no criminal.”
“Take it easy, officer,” the social worker said irritably. “You’re here only to assist us. We’ll take the boy. He’s in our charge.” She went over and put her arm on Jack’s shoulder and starting leading him off. Jack took off toward the station door, but another officer quickly tackled him. They slid together about ten feet, plowing up the wet snow in front of them. When the policeman pulled Jack up, they looked like they should have carrot noses and button eyes.
“I think you’d better let us help you,” the policeman said to the social worker with a knowing grimace. “This one’s not going to go quietly — or stay quietly either, I’m betting.”
The police officers and social worker departed with Jack who kept glaring back at Beamer, Ghoulie, and Scilla until he turned the corner out of sight. The three were left feeling like Benedict Arnold, Judas, and Boba Fett — all in one. The principal ushered the morose trio toward her car.
Beamer wasn’t sure why he was so upset. Jack would definitely be better off with Social Ser vices than alone in the ruins of a station. Still, when they finally reached the principal’s car, Beamer felt the weight of a bowling ball on his chest. From the looks on his friends’ faces, he could tell he wasn’t the only one.
13
The Lost Star-Fighter
Beamer woke up the next morning with a start. Something was wrong. He had the feeling he wasn’t alone. His hand itched. He looked down to see a big black spot in the palm of his hand. It was a pirate’s curse! He was doomed! Then he heard his mother’s voice and woke up again. He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. He looked once more at his hand. There was nothing there. He gave a big sigh and sunk back down in his bed. He was definitely taking his guilt feelings about Jack too far.
He hopped out of bed, went out into the hallway, and picked up the phone on a small desk. Last night, his mom had tried to get Jack on the phone, but he’d hung up when he heard Beamer’s name. That had only made Beamer feel worse. His dad had suggested they go visit Jack in the Social Ser vices shelter this evening, where he could explain things to him face-to-face. So that’s what he was going to do.
He dialed the number his mom had used the night before. It proved to be one of the longest calls in the history of mankind. He now knew why his mom had looked so much older by the time she got Jack on the phone the first time. After hearing a recorded message, he was placed on hold for twenty minutes while he listened to Christmas music. Then he was passed around to four departments, where he was placed on hold for twenty more minutes each place. He finally got the shelter. Once more Beamer repeated his request. “What?” he asked with alarm. His face fell and he hung up.
“He’s not there,” he said later to Scilla and Ghoulie. “He ran away. They told me to tell him, if I saw him, that they had a bed and warm food waiting for him.”
The Star-Fighters had been killing time in the tree ship, hoping that they’d take off on an adventure. They didn’t care where — to a limburger cheese moon or a planet infested with asparagus — just anyplace where they wouldn’t have to think about Jack. But the tree ship hadn’t budged.
“Y’all want to go back and check out the trolley station?” Scilla finally asked.
“That’s the first place the police would look for him,” said Beamer with a heavy sigh. “I think we’ve lost him.”
They were all in “woe is me” position — chin cupped in both hands, arms propped up on elbows — when their second air mail special delivery arrived. A sound like a small fan blowing drew their bleary eyes to a corner window. A miniature hot-air balloon with propellers was gliding toward them on a trail of green smoke. How it could navigate to the tree in the first place — how it missed getting poked, pricked, popped, or radically detoured by all the tree branches — even Ghoulie couldn’t imagine. Then it thumped into the tree trunk. Well, the braking system could use a little work.
The balloon was shaped like a football, and the gondola looked like a trolley car. That, of course, gave away the source of the message. “It has to be from Sol,” Ghoulie exclaimed. A tiny trumpet sounded, and a message popped out of the trumpet. Ghoulie read the message out loud: “Ensign Solomon Parker requests permission to come aboard.”
They peered through the branches. “Sol . . . uh, Mr. Parker, are you down there?” they yelled on top of each other.
“Hello children!” a familiar breathy, rasping voice called.
“Mr. Parker!” they yelled when they saw a tall, white-haired man leaning on a cane, looking up at them. He was smiling — the first real smile they’d seen on his face.
“Where’s your wheelchair?” Scilla called down to him.
“Oh, for some reason, after your visit, I didn’t feel like just sitting around any longer. Mrs. Drummond has been giving me fits over the change, so I still sit in it when she’s around.”
A figure stood next to him wrapped in a white cloak. “Who’s your friend?” Ghoulie asked a moment before he glimpsed the gleaming eyes of one of Mr. Parker’s spidery robots beneath the white hood.
What do ya know? thought Beamer. Looks like those long spidery legs can telescope down to man size. Not bad at all for 1940s technology.
“Don’t worry about him,” said the old man. “Mrs. Drummond won’t let me go anywhere . . . alone.”
Climbing the tree was definitely beyond Mr. Parker at his age, but Scilla quickly got their transporter/elevator all tuned up and lowered it down to pick him up. Ghoulie rode down to make sure Sol had a safe ride up.
Leaving the bodyguard at the foot of the tree, Ghoulie helped the elderly man into the transporter. He made sure that Sol had a firm grip on the railing and then called up, “Take her up easy.”
Scilla hauled them up a lot more smoothly than her usual lurch-bang-lurch, much to Ghoulie’s relief, since he didn’t know CPR.
“How did you like my little . . . uh . . . flying messenger?” Mr. Parker asked Ghoulie as they traveled up the tree.
“That was . . . uh . . . very cool,” said Ghoulie, his attention divided between his answer and the slight swing of the transporter in the frigid wind. “How did you control the navigation?”
“Oh, a little sonar mixed in with a little . . . programming,” the elderly engineer answered. “Primitive by modern standards, I’ll grant you. My ‘chip’ took up the whole gondola.”
Beamer was waiting for them at the top as Scilla secured the platform. “Welcome aboard,” he said to their friend. “Uh . . . I mean . . . uh . . . permission to come aboard,” he added with something close to military precision.
“I told Mrs. Drummond that I was coming here to see my sister and turn off the train set,” he said as Scilla helped the old fellow through the door into the tree ship. “That was the only way I could get her to let me out of the house.”
“We’re sorry,” Scilla said. “We would have called you, but Mrs. Drummond wouldn’t give us your phone number.”
“I suspected something like that might have happened. Funny thing, you’d think she’d be glad that I’m getting back out into the world, but she’s not — keeps talking about my heart and high blood pressure and the like.”
He coughed and suddenly seemed to teeter backward like a freshly cut tree. All three of them quickly propped him up, giving each other worried looks.
“Well, that was interesting,” he said as he took out a handkerchief and wiped a few beads of sweat off his face. “I don’t know. Maybe she’s right,” he said. After a long moment in which their scale of worry went off the chart, he suddenly laughed. “But then, maybe she’s not. I’m feeling better than I’ve felt for forty years,” he said, standing up straight and gripping his cane forcefully. “Come on, gi
ve me the grand tour.”
It was just a tree with a plywood tree house, but Sol looked like he was about to enter Disneyland. They’d been wondering how he’d react to the tree ship. After all, plywood control panels with painted-on dials weren’t exactly at the top of the high-tech charts. Of course, that would all change when the ship made one of its “jumps.” Actually, they were all hoping that, with such a feeble old man onboard, the ship would stay firmly nestled in the tree branches. Much to their surprise, Sol seemed as happy about the ship in its ramshackle condition as if it were the starship Enterprise. He ran his hands over the ship’s hull and the tree branches that held it up as if they were the marble pillars of an ancient temple.
“Oh, I’ve waited so long to be here,” he said, his voice shaking slightly. “You don’t know how many years I have resented my sister for depriving me of this adventure. When my trolley company collapsed and I couldn’t get a decent position with a railroad, I blamed that failure on my lost opportunity to be one of the Star-Fighters.”
Beamer, Scilla, and Ghoulie gave each other a questioning look.
“I know that sounds strange — that a tree house could have such an effect on a person’s life, but I’d heard stories about the Star-Fighters — what became of them. Rebecca thought I was just being silly and tried to get it torn down. Billy Stoller’s family still owned the property, though, and wouldn’t let anyone to touch it.” He stood quietly for a moment and then said, “I haven’t spoken to Rebecca since . . . until today.”
He seemed to listen to the creaking of the ship as the tree swayed gently in the wind. “It is, indeed, a magical place. I can feel it. There’s more here than I can see.” Suddenly Sol laughed. “I’m sure you think me a crazy old man, but I don’t care — not anymore,” he said as he moved about the ship examining all the gadgets — real and otherwise.
“Well, actually,” Beamer said, “most people think we’re crazy too.”
“I’m not surprised,” he said as he looked over the control panels. “You’ve done some very interesting things here. This monitoring system looks first rate.”