The daredevils, p.4
The Daredevils, page 4
I heard it. Something was approaching, and it wasn’t walking lightly, nothing like a hunter tracking its prey—which meant silent, as Waylon was always telling me. This thing made enough noise for a herd of elephants. Sticks and twigs snapped and popped under its every step. Whatever it was, it wasn’t small.
Waylon handed me his hatchet and loaded his slingshot. “Whatever comes through those trees is gonna get it right between the eyes,” he whispered. “When it goes down, you finish it off with the hatchet.”
“Eww,” I whined.
“Maybe it’s the bobcat,” he said, sounding excited. “Forest Spirits, guide my stone with deadly accuracy, and I promise to pay your creature its proper respect.”
“Forest Spirits, make it go away,” I pleaded.
The creature grew closer.
Closer.
Closer…
A large boy crashed through the trees and stepped into view. He was bigger than Loretta and me. Bigger than Leon Hurd even, but less muscles and more pudge. More important, he was decked out in green-and-black camouflage from head to toe, backpack included. There was only one explanation: he was an obvious friend of the army’s. But was he friendly? He didn’t appear to be threatening. I lowered my slingshot.
Loretta wasn’t convinced. Still holding my hatchet, she jumped in front of the boy. “Halt! Who goes there?” she thundered.
“Ahhh!” he screamed. She’d scared him so bad I was surprised he didn’t wet himself.
“State your name, soldier,” she ordered.
“Umm…”
“Your name is Um?”
This poor kid was no match for my sister.
“No,” he croaked.
“Then what’s your name?” Loretta demanded.
“Louie.”
“Louie what?” she pushed.
“Louie Foster.”
“Where are you from, Louie Foster?” She wasn’t letting up.
The boy pulled an inhaler from his pocket and took a puff. “I live on the other side of the forest,” he rasped.
“Why haven’t we seen you before?”
“I’m homeschooled,” he replied.
“Okay,” I said, stepping in and coming to the boy’s rescue before Loretta ate him alive. “Hi, Louie. I’m Waylon, and this is my twin sister, Loretta.”
“Loretta?” he repeated, which was the definite wrong thing to say, especially in that incredulous voice.
“Yeah, you got a problem with my name, soldier?” Loretta growled, getting up in his face.
I took my hatchet from her before things got ugly.
“No problem,” Louie squeaked, shrinking back.
“No problem, sir!” Loretta ordered, her voice rising.
I looked at her sideways. Had she lost her mind?
“But you’re a girl,” Louie said.
This kid was a slow learner. Did he have a death wish?
“So now you’ve got a problem with me being a girl? How about I fix that right now,” Loretta said, pounding a fist into her hand for emphasis.
“No, sir,” Louie said.
“I can’t hear you.”
“No, sir!” he shouted.
“That’s right, soldier. You best not have a problem. Luke Skywalker and Han Solo needed Leia, Harry and Ron needed Hermione, and you and Waylon definitely need me.”
“Need you for what?” I asked.
She glanced at me and smirked. We were in trouble.
I didn’t know what I was doing, but I was having fun making it up on the fly.
“Attention!” I ordered. I was getting good at this army sergeant thing.
Louie brought his heels together and saluted. I glared at my brother. Waylon shrugged and then followed suit, ready to play along. Even standing tall, Waylon only came to Louie’s chest.
“How long have you been growing your ponytail?” Louie asked my brother while trying to keep his voice low.
“Since first grade,” Waylon answered.
“It’s a bit much, don’t you think?” I interjected.
“No, it’s impressive,” Louie replied. “I mean, no, sir! It’s impressive.”
“Thanks,” Waylon said, and grinned. “My great-grandfather had one, and I’m named after him.”
“That’s cool,” Louie said.
“Attention!” I ordered, refocusing my troop. “Men, we have this fortress”—I gestured behind me—“and it needs hiding. Captain Ponytail, is that something you and Captain Camouflage can handle?”
Waylon stepped forward. “Sir, yes, sir!”
“Explain,” I said.
“Sir, we need to take the trimmed branches from the other day and weave them in and out of the posts along the sides and the beams across the top. But, sir, we’ll need more to finish the job.”
“Good plan, Ponytail. I’ll get started weaving while you and Captain Camo go and collect more branches.”
“Hooah!” Louie shouted.
Waylon snickered. Even I had to bite my cheeks to keep from laughing.
We saluted, and then my two soldiers marched off. Somewhere along the way, we’d gone from being Mr. Miyagi and Daniel to playing the roles of Lieutenant Dan and Forrest Gump from the movie Forrest Gump. Ever see it? It’s the best. Or maybe I was Mulan? Either way, I was in charge and my orders were being followed. Sometimes you just have to go with the flow.
I got started bending and wrapping the small branches around our fortress. Before long, my two soldiers returned with additional trimmings, and we worked together to finish the job. When done, we stepped back to assess our work.
Louie took another puff from his inhaler. “It looks great,” he said. “Did you build it all by yourselves?”
“A few days ago,” Waylon answered. “Do you have asthma?”
“Yeah,” Louie said. “I could never build something like that,” he admitted.
“Thanks,” Waylon replied, swelling with pride.
If I wasn’t mistaken, these two were already becoming friends. Keeping them together seemed like the smart thing to do. Training alongside a teammate definitely made it easier, and besides, it looked like Louie needed just as much toughening up as Waylon—maybe more.
“Men, it’s time to hold our first meeting,” I announced.
“Meeting for what?” Waylon asked.
“The first meeting of our brand-new club.”
“But we don’t have a club,” he pointed out.
“We have a well-hidden fortress and we have three people, so we do now,” I countered.
“What kind of club?” he asked next, persisting with his many questions.
A gonna-make-you-tough club, I wanted to say, but I bit my tongue. “I don’t know yet, but that doesn’t matter,” I said instead.
“Um…Sergeant, sir,” Louie said, “I want to be in your club and do your meeting thing, but I need to get home.”
I sighed. “It’ll only take a few minutes,” I said.
“No, you don’t understand. I need to go now,” he insisted. “I’ve already been gone too long. If my mom realizes I’m missing, it won’t be good.”
I glanced at Waylon, wondering if he also found this peculiar.
“Okay, Captain Camo. Understood. We’ll follow you home in case you need backup,” I suggested. (That was more of me making things up on the fly.)
Waylon nodded, showing he agreed.
“Um, okay, but you can’t let my mom see you,” Louie warned. “You have to stop at the edge of the forest and stay hidden.”
Now, that was peculiar.
“Affirmative,” Waylon replied, and saluted.
“Move out,” I ordered, growing more curious by the minute.
It was a fair distance to Louie’s side of the forest. As much as Waylon and I had explored the woods, we’d never ventured this far. I wasn’t sure where we were going to come out until we got there—and then I knew exactly where we were.
“This is your house?” Waylon asked, incredulous. He knew where we were too.
“Yeah. We moved in last summer.”
Waylon and I locked eyes.
“Oh no. I’m too late,” Louie groaned. “It looks like my mom’s already awake. I’m a dead man.”
“Your mom sleeps during the day?” Waylon asked, taking the words right out of my mouth.
“Sometimes,” Louie replied. “I’ve gotta go.”
Waylon and I watched as Louie stepped out of the forest and hurried across the backyard leading up to his house.
“Do you think that tired-looking lady we saw at Mimi’s is his mom?” Waylon asked, keeping his voice low.
“Maybe,” I whispered.
“I can’t believe he lives here.”
“I know.”
Everyone knew this house, the one that had belonged to Old Lady Simpson. When she was alive, Old Lady Simpson had the place lit up like a stadium every night. And I’m not talking your normal house lights and lamppost. There was that, but she even had lightbulbs in the trees. Legend had it the property was haunted and she used lights to ward off the demons. After she died, the place sat in the dark until Louie’s family moved in. But here was the thing: no one ever saw Louie’s family, so the legend only grew. People said it was Old Lady Simpson’s ghost that had come back to turn the lights on. Creepy stuff.
Louie reached the door and slowly turned the knob. Waylon and I crouched in the bushes, holding our breaths, waiting to see if anything happened. We didn’t have to wait long. Louie pushed the door open and carefully stepped inside. His mother’s hysterical cry immediately followed, slicing through the air and sending a shiver up my spine.
“Where have you been?!” she shrieked.
The wild-eyed woman stuck her head out and scanned the yard, then slammed the door shut. It was the same lady.
“Whoa,” Waylon muttered.
“Whoa is right.”
“Let’s get out of here,” he urged.
“Wait.”
“Wait? Wait for what? Did you see that lady? She’s crazy.”
“Just wait,” I said.
Waylon huffed and gave in, but after a few minutes of nothing, he was done cooperating.
“C’mon, let’s go,” he urged again. “Nothing’s happening.”
“There!” I exclaimed, pointing. “That’s what we were waiting for.”
Louie’s face appeared behind one of the upstairs windows. “That must be his bedroom,” I reasoned. “We needed that piece of information for when we come back to sneak him out.”
My brother’s eyes grew wide. “Sneak him out?” he repeated. “When?”
“Not right away. We’ll wait, give his mother a chance to cool off. We’ve got that dumb camp to go to anyways. But after that, we strike. We’ll come at midnight.”
Waylon swallowed. “Midnight?”
“Yes, midnight. It’s always at midnight in the movies, and besides, he’d never escape during the day, not now. You want adventure? Here it is.”
Waylon swallowed again. “Okay,” he croaked. “But if we’re doing that, then we need to go back and build a firepit. We’re going to need it.”
And there it was. Building a firepit meant digging and hauling rocks. I had my Mr. Miyagi exercise.
“Move out,” I said.
After a rainy weekend and wet and boring Monday, the sky cleared and the sun came out just in time for the thing I was most dreading.
“Is my dynamic duo ready for camp?” Mom asked at breakfast. Conveniently, this dumb camp thing was happening on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so she was able to drop us off before going to work.
“Oh, yes. Thrilled,” I groaned.
“Yeah,” Waylon replied, sounding sincere.
I shot him a glare. Was he playing kiss-up or being serious?
He just shrugged, acting like this wasn’t going to be terrible. Well, he was wrong.
The whole camp ordeal was made even worse the moment we pulled into the parking lot and I saw who the director was. Standing in front of the youth center, greeting everyone as they arrived, was none other than P.E. Bubba.
“Are you kidding me? P.E. Bubba,” I groaned.
“I know,” Mom said. “I’m sorry. But he’s only the director, so it’s not like you’ll have to see him all day long. Once you split into your groups, it’ll be fine.”
She was apologizing and claiming it’d be fine because she knew firsthand how terrible this man was. You see, once upon a time, P.E. was the local sports hero, if you can believe that, but the only thing he could never win was my mom. She was Dad’s girl. The two of them fell in love when they were lab partners for a genetics unit in biology. Playing with fruit flies and making fruit fly babies must’ve been romantic because that was all it took. Boomers! As Mom tells it, she wasn’t interested in P.E.’s muscles and bullish attitude; it was Dad’s sensitive and inquisitive personality that won her over. (Does that sound like Waylon or what?!)
Unfortunately, P.E. didn’t take losing well, so he started bullying and harassing my dad. The harassment continued until Uncle Rusty caught wind of it. Uncle Rusty had already graduated but was still hanging around—trying to find his way was how Dad described him. (Sound like familiar words?) Well, after catching wind of it, my uncle decided to pay P.E. a visit in the student parking lot one day after school. As Mom tells it, Uncle Rusty taught P.E. a hard lesson—in front of many spectators. Mom says P.E.’s pride was what got hurt the most. The legend of the local sports hero was forever rewritten that afternoon. Guess you could say Uncle Rusty was looking out for his little brother. (Sound like anyone you know?)
Anyways, getting back to me and my problems. Waylon and I grabbed our bags and got out of the car. Waylon said bye to Mom, but I didn’t. I wanted her to feel my extreme displeasure—with her and this camp situation. Of course, if she and Dad knew the half of what Waylon and I had experienced with P.E. Bubba, they might not have sent us to this camp in the first place, but we never told them, so that was on me. There was no point in telling because there wasn’t anything my parents were going to be able to do. We couldn’t prove anything, because like I already told you, P.E. was too sneaky. It would be our word against his, and that wasn’t going to end well. Waylon and I had inherited P.E.’s harassment same as you inherit your genes from your parents. But remember, I’d also been gifted with a good amount of my uncle Rusty.
The two of us walked to the side of the youth center building where everyone was meeting and waiting for things to get started. The youth center and surrounding fields and courts and playground areas made up a big campus, and there were kids spread out all over the place. We hung out, avoiding P.E., until things got underway.
First thing P.E. did was blow his whistle and bellow for everyone to “get over here!” He went over a few rules and then introduced the many counselors working at the camp. After that, he sent the different groups to their various locations. Waylon was lucky and got to run off to a building across the street with his robotics bunch and some geeky math teacher from the high school—but better me than my brother left to deal with P.E. Bubba. I could handle myself.
As luck would have it, and just to make my camp matters worse, because Dad had signed me up for the sports option, I got stuck with P.E. as my instructor. There were counselors on hand who were ready to assist, but since this was day one, the big man was running the show and acting all important.
P.E. blasted his whistle a second time and gathered his sport campers on the field behind the youth center. “Well, well. If it isn’t the loser shrink’s daughter,” he grumbled under his breath after noticing me. Making sly comments that no one else understood or heard was another one of his sneaky mean tactics. “Is Pipsqueak Ponytail here too?” he asked, and smirked, knowing how to push my buttons.
I clenched my teeth and bit my tongue, but that didn’t mean I was letting him get away with trashing my father and brother. Fat chance. Two could play his game.
P.E. took attendance and gave us his pep talk, then dumped a bag of soccer balls on the ground and told us to warm up. I dribbled around for a few minutes, but as soon as P.E. was done chatting with his counselors and was left standing alone and not paying attention, I let one of my penalty kicks fly. He was lucky his belly was as large as it was; otherwise my shot would’ve drilled him you know where. It still dropped him to his knees. Anyone who saw it was laughing, which infuriated P.E. I bet getting laughed at brought back bad memories for him.
He fixed his shirt and hat and got to his feet. I didn’t even try to hide. I stood my ground and met his angry glare. “Sorry. That one got away from me,” I said.
“You’re out!” he roared. “You can stand against the wall for the rest of the day. In the sun!”
The wall was the back of the youth center building, where there was no shade. Fine. I didn’t care. It was worth it. Besides, I expected the punishment. What I didn’t expect was what happened next.
“She got you good, huh, P.E.?”
“You think that was funny, Hurd?” P.E. snarled. “Well, guess what? You can join her.”
“I don’t think so. I’m not one of your campers.” Leon fired up his weed eater and continued trimming the grass around the border of the playground area. Apparently, the landscape crew he worked for took care of the property at the youth center, which was why he was there.
And so there you have it. That was how I wound up standing against the wall in the blazing sun, watching the kid in the orange T-shirt with the weed eater. I could see Leon’s muscles glistening with sweat from across the field. The way that boy was constantly working, he was only going to get bigger and stronger, which meant I wouldn’t be so lucky a second time around. I didn’t expect him to fall for the dirt-in-the-eyes stunt again. Just because he’d been held back twice didn’t make him dumb. But I did expect a showdown. It seemed inevitable, like Luke Skywalker facing off with Darth Vader—only I didn’t see any surprise twist in our saga.
