“What about the counselors?”
“They were gone by then,” she replied. “They drove off in a car.”
“A car? Is there a dance tonight?”
“I don’t know.”
“But Matron and Christian are still there?”
“Yes. And the cook.”
“They’re really crazy,” said Weine. “Worse than before. Out of their minds.”
“Well, you should know,” said Janne. “They’re buddies of yours.”
“They are not!”
“Why aren’t they out in the woods?” I asked. “Why didn’t they follow you?”
“They’re making plans right now,” said Micke.
“What are they thinking of doing?” wondered Janne.
“Maybe they’re going to call in some more grown-ups,” said Micke.
“Holy crap,” said Weine.
“I thought you liked grown-ups, Weine,” said Janne.
Weine reached for the sword he had in his belt. It was a clumsy sword—like a little kid’s.
“Cut it out!” I shouted.
Weine let go of the handle.
“I don’t want him to say things like that,” he said.
“Why should they want to call in more grown-ups when they’ve let the counselors leave?” I asked.
“Maybe the counselors are too nice for them,” Micke looked at me. “Maybe they want some other ones.”
“No,” I said, “they don’t want any more. They don’t want any more witnesses.”
“Witnesses to what?” Sausage asked.
I didn’t answer.
Nobody spoke for a few seconds. I could hear the wind in the treetops. It had picked up even more over the last half-hour. The sky was darker. It felt almost like an autumn night. All the faces had turned into white patches.
“So what do we do now?” asked Sausage finally.
I looked at Janne and then at Lennart. Sausage looked at me. Were we all thinking the same thing? That Weine had been sent out by the grown-ups as a spy? I eyed Micke up and down. Could he be a part of it too? In that case, he’d become a grown-up as well in just a few days.
But I noticed how he kept glancing back into the trees with a worried look in his eyes. He didn’t look like a deserter. Deserters’ eyes aren’t like that.
“Guess we’d better rescue them,” said the archer from the other side of the wall. He raised his bow. “This’ll take me pretty far.” He pointed at my katana. “And you have your swords.”
“We ought to be able to take them by surprise,” said Micke. “They’re not expecting us to come back.”
It felt like everybody was looking at me. I could see the white patches glowing like dim lights in the darkening evening. Soon it would be night. Then what would happen? We had to do something. I tried to think—think really hard about what we should do. And why we should do it.
I understood that we were in danger. We all did. The kids at the camp were in danger. But I wasn’t quite sure how.
“We have to do something, Kenny.” It was Kerstin’s voice. “We can’t just hang around here.”
She had let go of Ann and had come toward me. She looked like a ghost that had transformed into a human being. Her face was no longer a white patch.
“I feel better now,” she said.
I think she even gave a little smile.
Maybe it was just something she said. When we were sitting in the lean-to, she didn’t look like she was feeling all that great. But she wasn’t silent any more. And it wasn’t silent outside either. I could hear sword striking against sword. Micke and Janne were practicing. Kendo. The way of the sword.
At one time, there were hundreds of sword-fighting schools all over Japan. It was always taken seriously. Nobody treated it like a sport.
The explorers had each been given a sword, too, but I knew the archer wouldn’t use his if fighting started.
“How are you feeling?” I asked Kerstin.
“I told you, I’m all right.”
“Have you got… any pain?”
“No. Not physical,” she said looking me in the eye. “He, Christian… tried to… but I got away.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“Have you got any more swords?” she asked after a pause.
We could hear the sword practice continuing behind the lean-to. She stood up and so did I. We could see the outline of the swordsmen against the sky and the forest. It was like a theater stage with cardboard cutouts. Shadow theater.
“I want a sword.”
“Then you’ll have to practice,” I said.
“Give me one, then.”
We practiced in the clearing. She was fast. Sausage and I had made the bokken she was using at the same time we’d made his. It was a twin.
“This is kenjutsu,” I said as I slashed through the air alongside Kerstin. “It means ‘the art of the sword.’”
I showed her a few of the sixteen different sword moves that the samurai used. They each had their own name: “Thunder,” “Wheel Attack,” “Pea-Slicer.” The Chinese had even more names for how you could strike with your sword—names that sounded like poems: “Tigers lurking at the front door;” “The black dragon strikes with its tail;” “The white snake stings with its tongue;” “Hold the moon in your hands;” “Stir up dust in the wind;” “Paint a red stain between the eyebrows;” “Turn around and hang up the golden bell;” “Pick stars with a hovering hand.”
We took a break. I had started sweating. I could see that Kerstin was sweating too. Her hair had gotten darker from the sweat, and some strands were stuck to her ears. She was starting to look like a warrior.
“Do we really stand a chance?” she asked all of a sudden.
“Of defending ourselves? Yes.”
“But if we attack? We’re going to have to attack, aren’t we?”
“Yes. We have to find out what’s going on over there, anyway.”
“Can we do that without attacking?”
“We won’t know until we’ve checked it out,” I said.
“Isn’t it time we did, then?”
Kerstin, Janne, Micke, and I went. We didn’t want to leave both Micke and Weine with the others after what had happened before. Plus, Micke was one of the last ones to leave the camp. And Kerstin the first. We needed both of them in the advance guard. Lennart was left in command of the rest of the troop including the explorers. He didn’t object when I said that he was in charge. He was calm, and calmness was what we needed.
When we reached the castle, it looked like war had already broken out. The wall was destroyed in the middle, and two of the towers had been pulled down.
“Somebody’s been walking in the moat,” said Janne.
It could have been one or several people. All the footprints were from grown-up feet.
“What’s the point of trying to destroy the castle?” Kerstin wondered.
“No point at all,” said Janne.
“They don’t want us to have anything to come back to,” I said.
“Do they know that we’re going to attack?” asked Kerstin.
I tried to picture their faces in my mind’s eye: Matron, Christian. What did they look like right now? Were they waiting for the enemy?
We continued slowly on toward the camp. The forest was the darkest place on earth at this moment, but even so, it wasn’t difficult to find our way. We knew these woods inside out. We’d made most of the paths ourselves.
After a quarter of an hour, I could see a glimmer through the trees and then another. It was the moon glinting on the lake.
Soon we would be able to see the mess hall windows.
We stopped. A bird cried out over the water. It sounded like a warning, but I didn’t know for whom or for what. I hoped the bird was on our side.
“Wait here,” I said, and I set off toward the camp.
The moon was lighting up the buildings. I could see one of the walls a hundred yards away. There was light coming from two of the wind
ows. It must be Matron’s office. I paused, but I couldn’t hear any voices. I was still too far away. The bird cried out again. It was closer now.
I crawled through the grass to the main gates and snuck behind the big stone. There was a light shining beneath the door of the barracks where the counselors slept. I saw somebody come out, walk across the grounds, and vanish behind the other side of the main building. I couldn’t see who it was.
There were no lights on in the dormitories facing this way. It was nighttime, but I don’t think the kids were asleep. Maybe some of them were looking out the windows right now. I didn’t want them to see me. Not yet.
Suddenly I heard a cry. It wasn’t the bird this time.
15
I heard a loud thwack. Something hard hitting something soft. I heard a voice cry out again followed by a shout that wasn’t quite a cry. Then I heard two voices coming from inside the building. It sounded like they came from a grown-up and a kid. Then it went so quiet that I could hear the sound of birds’ wings through the night wind. The birds flew without screeching. They were waiting. The fog floated back and forth out on the lake as if it, too, was waiting. Maybe to envelop us when all of this was over. After the battle.
I looked behind me, but I couldn’t see anyone from the advance guard. That was good. It meant no one in the building could see them either. I turned back toward the main building and the barracks, the sheds, the playing field, and the dock by the wash area. I saw all those places and thought about how they’d soon be gone. I was the last one to see it all. I could see a couple of the swings in the moonlight. The moon had come out from behind a cloud that was floating across the sky. It was white everywhere as if it had silently started to snow. I thought the sky was shutting its eyes right now. The swings swayed slowly in the wind as if invisible children were having a final swing.
Something moved in one of the dark windows on the third floor. Maybe it was a kid who’d gathered the courage to peek outside. I didn’t know, but I did know that I couldn’t stay here any longer. I had to find out more about what was happening in there and what had happened already. Everything was waiting for me to make up my mind.
I felt the right side of my face starting to ache. I lifted my head away from the stone gatepost and moved it back and forth a little until it didn’t hurt so much anymore. I shut my eyes, and when I opened them again, the light had been switched out in the barracks. Had the counselors come back, or was there someone else in the barracks? Maybe they had seen me after all. It was time to get moving.
I started crawling through the grass. My face got wet, maybe from the fog sweeping in from the lake and filling the air with water.
Once I’d reached the corner of the building, I stood up cautiously and snuck slowly along the wall facing the lake. No one in the barracks could see me from here. The advance guard out in the forest could see me, only now it was a rearguard, of course. Janne, Micke, and Kerstin were still waiting for a signal from me. They probably wondered what I was doing. This may have been the craziest thing I’d ever done. And I’d done a lot of crazy things.
I saw a light coming from one of the windows. It was like a flashlight shining toward the lake. The beam seemed to reach halfway across to the other side. Then it disappeared into the blackness. For a second I thought I didn’t want to know what had happened here—or what was in the process of happening. But seconds later I realized that I didn’t have a choice.
I moved slowly toward the light, still hugging the wall. It smelled of paint even though no one had painted it during any of the summers I’d been there. Maybe it was because the paint had started to peel and flake off that I could smell it. A few flakes got caught in my hair like little feathers. I looked out at the lake again. I half expected the explorers’ canoe to come gliding into the beam of light from the window.
Maybe it was a mistake that they weren’t out on the lake instead. It made a good observation point from out there, and mine wasn’t quite as good. I had to move closer to the window. The moonlight was reflected in the glass pane, and I could see that the window was open. As I got closer, I started hearing voices—first a mumbling and then words or parts of words.
I was almost right below the window now. I looked up but nobody looked out. It sounded like the people who were talking were standing well inside the room.
“They’re not far away. You do realize that, don’t you?”
It was Matron’s voice, but I almost didn’t recognize it because it sounded like it had been squeezed and become thinner.
“How do you know?”
Christian’s voice was also hard to recognize. It sounded coarser than usual, thicker, as if he had something in his throat.
“You don’t know ANYTHING,” he shouted after clearing his throat. “What do YOU know?”
“I kno—” said Matron but broke off in mid-sentence. “What was that?”
“What?”
“I heard something. From outside.”
I curled up beneath the window. The only thing I had heard myself was a rumbling far away in the sky. It seemed like the thunder wanted to let us all know that it was there and that it could come back at any moment.
I squeezed myself farther into the shadows.
I heard footsteps in the room and soon a head stuck out the window. It was like a black cardboard cutout.
I could see the head move.
“There’s nothing out here,” said Christian.
“I heard something,” said Matron’s voice.
The thunder rumbled again just as far away as before.
“It’s just the thunder,” said Christian, and the head disappeared back inside.
I crawled in a little closer. The thunder rumbled yet again. It sounded closer this time.
Matron said something that I didn’t hear. It sounded like she had moved farther inside the room, off toward the door.
“It’s too late now,” said Christian.
Mumble.
“It’s TOO LATE, I said.”
“If only you had thought about that before.” Matron’s voice. It sounded thicker now.
This time it was Christian who mumbled. They seemed to be walking around in the room. I thought of how Christian had sat on the merry-go-round and gazed up at the girls’ dorm.
“I can only do what I’m already doing,” said Matron.
“So I’ve noticed,” said Christian.
“I’m not the one who did it,” said Matron.
“You’ve done enough,” answered Christian.
Another mumble. It sounded like Matron.
“Did you hear what I said? Huh? HUH?”
That was Matron.
I heard a smack. A cry.
It was the same smack I had heard over by the gate. The same cry. The same voices.
Then everything suddenly went quiet.
“It’s too late,” Christian’s voice said again.
I waited. I tried to understand what they had been talking about, but no more words came. I did understand that the kids were in danger—that we were all in danger. The door opened at the far end of the room. Christian and Matron were heading outside. What if they were going to check the lake and make sure that there was no one around the building?
I heard heavy footsteps. They were on their way over here! It was fifteen yards down to the lake. There were birch trees that could offer protection by the edge of the water, but I wouldn’t have time to make it down there or around the corner; and anyway, I couldn’t tell which direction the footsteps were coming from.
There was a fire ladder to the left of the window a few feet from where I was crouching.
I jumped up, grabbed hold of the lowest rung, and was able to pull myself up until I could get my knee around it. It felt like my tendons were being cut off.
I rocked back and forth and managed to grab hold of a rung farther up and then to get my feet up onto the lowest rung. I climbed up the ladder in a flash. It continued all the way up to the roof and ended at the ch
imney. I leaned in toward the brickwork. It felt rough against my cheek.
I could see in all directions from up here.
I saw the whole lake. It looked like a silver tray in the moonlight. I could see all the way to the opposite shore even though it was dark.
I saw the wash area, the courtyard, the playground, the merry-go-round, the sheds, the barracks—everything.
I saw the gate, and just then a figure came rushing through it. The stubby legs were clearly visible, and the entire suit of armor was gleaming in the moonlight.
It was Sausage.
Sausage had wanted to come along when the advance guard set off. He had wanted to be at the very front at least once. He wanted to prove something—that he was just as tough as anyone else. I told him that he had already done that the night we snuck out from the camp and went to the castle. That had been brave of Sausage and he knew it.
Now he wanted to be brave again.
He was dressed for battle. He held his sword at the ready as he ran. He shouted something—a battle cry that echoed across the lake behind me. I didn’t know Sausage could yell that loud. He yelled again. Birds flew from their nests. I heard the sound of their wings around me.
Sausage ran toward the building I was hiding on. He couldn’t see me. I tried to call out, but he couldn’t hear me through his own yelling. There was no one running next to him or behind him. No one in the troop had stopped him. He must have come through the forest from another direction.
I heard a door fly open down below and then footsteps on the stairs. I leaned forward for support against the chimney, but I couldn’t see anything. Sausage had almost reached the building. Then he disappeared from view. I heard him shouting, but that was suddenly cut short. Then I heard a sigh—or a whispering—as though the sound was making its way up to the roof. There it was again creeping along the roof tiles. It was a scary sound. And then it, too, disappeared.
Then I heard voices from the other side of the building. I slid slowly down the roof toward the rain gutter. I looked over the edge and saw the beam of light from the open window. Shadows moved around for a while and then disappeared. I started to climb down. I thought of Sausage and the silence after his shouts. It was a terrible silence. It was worse than his yelling.
Samurai Summer Page 14