The Kingdon of No Worries

by Roy, Philip;

  And then I see a policewoman step out of the river into the kingdom. She isn’t wearing a bulletproof vest, or carrying a gun or a shield. She has taken them off to swim across the river. She’s carrying a megaphone on a cord around her neck. She runs straight to me.

  OFFICER: “You’re one of the leaders, right?”

  ME: “Yes.”

  OFFICER: “Quick! We need to save these people. Follow me!”

  I follow her to the edge of the water where half of the crowd has entered the river. The other half is standing at the edge, trying to decide whether or not to cross. On the riverbank, the police have regrouped and are quickly ripping off their bulletproof vests and helmets. They’re running along the bank and entering the river downstream where people are struggling to get ashore.

  OFFICER: “Tell everyone who can swim to swim towards the police. Tell them we will help them. Hurry!”

  So I do. I put my mouth to the megaphone and holler.

  ME: “This is the Kingdom of No Worries. Those of you who can swim, swim to the police! They will help you. Swim to the police! They will help you!”

  I say it over and over, and watch as people do it. They jump into the river and start to swim across. The police meet them halfway. The water is over their heads now. Many stay in the kingdom because they can’t swim.

  OFFICER: “Tell the people here to form a group and hold hands.”

  So I do. The people on the island come together and hold hands as the river rises until we can’t see the ground anymore. It covers the plants and bushes, and then they go out of sight. I try to see what is happening in the river but it is almost impossible through the rain and all the commotion. People are crying, and some are praying, but more police officers have come over to the kingdom to help. Now, we are standing up to our chests in water, and still the river is rising.

  The current is so strong you can’t stand against it; you have to move around, and it keeps pushing us downstream. Sami is holding onto Charlie, and Charlie has his arms wrapped around Sami’s neck. Then police boats arrive, and they start picking up all the remaining people. They yell at us to get in. But we shake our heads. We just can’t leave. Running through my head is something my dad used to say: that a captain goes down with his ship. That’s how Sami, Charlie, and I feel. But a strong hand grabs my arm and I turn around to see my dad. He’s wearing a sympathetic look on his face. “It’s gone, Billy. It’s gone.”

  I can’t tell if I’m crying or not because the rain is splashing down on my face. I look at Sami’s and Charlie’s faces. They look the same as me. “It’s gone, guys,” I say.

  They just drop their heads. Then my dad takes Charlie out of Sami’s arms, and the four of us make our way, half walking, half swimming, across the river. It takes us downstream quite a ways before we reach the shore.

  When we climb out and walk back up the bank, there is nothing left of the kingdom but the flagpole, its flag hanging down. It looks so defeated. We stand and stare for a long time because it is such a strong image.

  Then even the flagpole starts tilting in the direction of the current. Slowly it bends to the river’s will until it is flat on top of the water. Then the river carries it away. Now, there is nothing in front of us but a river, just as it had been before, except bigger. The Kingdom of No Worries is no more.

  Chapter 19

  THE RIVER DROPS again but not to its former self. It never shows land again, because the old dam upstream has been destroyed by the storm, and they don’t believe they need to rebuild it. An increase in the number of factories and treatment plants in the past twenty-five years has lowered the level of the river, except during rainstorms like the one we just had, which doesn’t happen every year, and doesn’t have any lasting impact on the river’s flow to Lake Ontario. So the kingdom is gone and will never be again.

  Sami, Charlie, and I have a hard time accepting this at first, and we meet as the Kingdom of No Worries Council in exile, with plans for the future of our country. We have this discussion in my tree fort, in the midst of a junk-food feast, purchased with the kingdom’s last remaining revenue: seven dollars. This is all that is left after our treasurer returned the money to the bridge supporters and took her own fee of twenty dollars. True to her word, she was not willing to work for free.

  Unlike the kings in the Council, the treasurer has no problem accepting that the kingdom is gone, and she happily returns to school for the remaining two weeks of summer break. She does give me one valuable gift, however, although I believe she does it unknowingly.

  We’re all sitting in the living room of our house: Dad, Mom, Merilee, Mehra, Marcie, Sami, Charlie, and me. We pile on top of the sofas and the floor, and are watching about two hours of interviews that Dad has put together from TV news footage, interviews of the Council from the very beginning, right to the day of the storm.

  It’s fascinating to watch, and especially amazing to see how the kingdom grows over the course of a month and a half, from a trickle of people and a few small plants, to thousands of people enjoying themselves on a lush, nearly tropical island filled with music and dance.

  It’s also interesting to see how the confidence of the Council grows in all this time, from sounding like three neighbourhood kids to something like world leaders. But the gift Merilee gives me, which means more to me than almost anything else this summer, is simply the word she says as she gets up with the other Fates and leaves the room. As she passes me in the doorway, she stares me in the eye with her eagle look and simply says, “Impressive.” If ever there were a time I felt I was wearing a crown, this is it.

  Sami, Charlie, and I are meeting this afternoon at Sami’s house to play Demon Revival X. Sami says there’ll be no one home. I believe it. We’re going to play until our eyes are bulging. But we also have an appointment downtown this evening. We’re not sure to show up as the Council or just ourselves. It’s in an old house in a dingy corner of the city. But we’re excited to go.

  We’ve been told there is a plaque there on the wall with our names on it, and the “Kingdom of No Worries.” That will be fun to see. But what we’re even more excited to see, especially Charlie, are the occupants of the house, because we feel a special connection to them. They are the animals of the Briffin Shelter for Wounded Puppies and Kittens. We know they will be happy to see us. As a gift, we thought we would bring them a potted plant.

  Epilogue

  NOW I THINK I know who owns the land. Nobody. I was starting to think it was everyone, but I don’t think that’s true. The land belongs to nobody, just as it always has. Sure, we might use it for a while—plant trees and gardens, build houses and cities, create democracies and kingdoms, with all kinds of laws and rules—but I don’t think we can ever really own it. We will come and go, and then other people will come and go, but the land will still be here. In fact, the one thing we learned more than anything else was that you don’t take possession of land so much as it takes possession of you.

  We started out as kings of our own country and ended up becoming its servants. Not that we minded; it’s an awesome feeling being king to thousands of people. But it really just means that you become their servant, because it’s a heck of a lot of work, and there are so many responsibilities you hardly have time for anything else. Plato said that a king must be a philosopher, but I think maybe he should have said that a king must be a servant. That would make more sense to me.

  But I’d still like to read his book. It must be good if people are still reading it thousands of years after he wrote it, after so many kingdoms have come and gone. That sort of proves Merilee right, that the pen is mightier than the sword. If that’s the case, then it’s kind of hard to avoid a certain logical conclusion: that to accomplish all of the things we were hoping to accomplish with our kingdom—to make the world a fairer, more equal, and more tolerant place for everyone—we might do a better job by writing a book. Now that’s a scary idea. I think I’d better call the Council together for a meeting.

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bsp; ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Philip Roy divides his time between two places with his family and cat: his hometown of Antigonish, Nova Scotia, and his adopted town of Durham, Ontario. Continuing to write adventurous and historical children’s novels focusing on social, political, environmental, and global concerns, Philip is now learning to illustrate his own books. He is also studying French, and looks forward to having all of his books translated into the French language. Along with writing, travelling, running, composing music, and crafting folk art out of recycled materials, Philip spends his time with his family. Visit Philip at www.philiproy.ca.

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