Donovan Meanwhile: Kings of Sparta

by Bierley, B. L.

  I swallow a bite of hot dog and wipe my mouth. “About what?”

  “Don’t make me say it.”

  I don’t make him say it, but I also don’t say anything. Just crunch on some potato chips.

  “I missed you,” he finally says with an eye roll.

  “You missed me.”

  “Yes, I did. I realize I took you for granted, and...and when I thought I might never see you again, I realized how much I actually missed you.”

  I just stare at him, letting him wonder what I’m thinking.

  He’s no Gavin Hanson, that’s for sure, but he’s still a good-looking guy.

  And he’s popular.

  Hey, in high school a little superficiality is expected. It’s just good politics.

  “Can we talk about maybe trying again?”

  “You want me back?”

  He gestures with his hands. “I wanna talk about...us. About what this is, and what it could be.”

  I shrug and push my lunch tray a few inches away. “Alright, let’s talk.”

  “Not now. In private. Meet me after school by the lake.”

  “The lake” is really just a pond that’s half a mile down the road. Lots of kids meet there, for lots of different reasons. You don’t need me to tell you the reasons.

  “I can’t do that. My dad is picking me up right away.”

  He shrugs off my argument. “So cut class. Spend the last twenty minutes with me.”

  I roll ball up my napkin and throw it on the tray.

  “Fine. I’ll see you a the lake.”

  The last class of the day is Algebra I, and nobody stays awake for it. The teacher, Mrs. Holcroft, has had this job long enough to know not to expect much from her last-period students.

  So when I raise my hand and ask to use the bathroom after ten minutes of class, she just grunts her approval and doesn’t even look at me as I leave.

  On the walk, I’m thinking about what to say to Raphael, because I don’t really want to say “yes, let’s become a thing again.” And it’s not because he broke my heart—and, vicariously, my lip. It’s because I can’t stop thinking about Hanson in that tuxedo, and it wouldn’t be fair to Raphael or anyone else to launch into a romantic entanglement with that sort of daydream material in my arsenal.

  I was going to get those shoes, eventually, and I was going to get back to the Meanwhile, and I was going to tell Hanson how I felt.

  But how to break the news to Raphael?

  As I near the lake, I can see him standing there looking into the water. He doesn’t see me yet. I imagine he’s staring at the ripples, wondering if I’m going to show up, or what I’m going to say. Whether I’ll forgive him.

  I hated being the bearer of bad news, especially when it came to love.

  But then he sees me, and waves, and I’m close enough now that I see two other people waiting across the street.

  It’s Bola and Finch.

  The pit of my stomach drops out.

  Run.

  Resist.

  Escape.

  But I keep walking. And so do they, right across the street to join Raphael by the side of the lake.

  “Hey, D,” Raphael says with a smile. “Thanks for coming.”

  Bola and Finch flank him like two attack dogs, and they eye me hungrily.

  “Is this in case I say no?”

  He chuckles. “No to what? I told you I wanted to talk about us. There is no us.”

  He snaps his fingers and the two other boys rush me.

  I duck their grasp and spin around to face them, but Raphael grabs me from behind and locks an elbow around my throat.

  “This is what you deserve.”

  And then with acid in his voice, with utter hatred and disdain, he whispers in my ear the last word I ever thought I would hear him call someone.

  That, ladies and gentlemen, is irony.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Bola and Finch crack their knuckles and prepare to make a meal of my soft underbelly, but I know something they don’t know:

  When in a rear headlock, like this one, turn your neck toward your attacker’s elbow to free your airways.

  Lock your fingers around his arm, between his arm and your neck, arch your back forward (never back) and relax your knees.

  What side is his choking you from? The right side? Step back with your right foot and put it behind his right leg, then spin your body outward while keeping your hands on his arm.

  Slam your attacker to the ground.

  Thank you, MeanWatch training.

  While Raphael is rolling around on the ground panicking with the wind knocked out of him, Bola and Finch recover from their surprise and lunge at me together. I trip Finch, and he falls straight onto his face. At the same time, I spin and sock Bola in the stomach, and then whack him on the back with my fists closed together.

  Raphael is getting back up now, holding out his hand for me to stop.

  But I don’t wanna.

  I grab his arm, twist it around and place my hand behind his elbow so he’s bent at my mercy. Then I turn him toward the lake, and push him in.

  He spins and lands on his back, and flails there for a few seconds until Bola and Finch try to come to his rescue, and both of them fall in, too.

  I just walk away.

  It’s almost final bell, and my dad’s going to be waiting for me.

  On the drive home, my dad asks why the cuffs of my pants are wet.

  “Science class,” I tell him, and that’s good enough. I try to hide my grin as I think about Raphael having to explain to his parents why he was covered from head to toe in foul-smelling pond scum.

  Then again, maybe they wouldn’t even notice any difference.

  “I’ve been talking to the foreman about having you come help me on the weekends,” my dad says out of nowhere. “I think it’s time you got a real job like a man.”

  “Have you ever thought about politics?” I ask him.

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “I’m just curious. Was there ever a time in your life when you thought about running for office or anything?”

  He seems so distracted by the question he forgets that he’s supposed to be mad at me. He actually smiles. Shoots air out his nose.

  “When you were young, maybe. Bunch of guys in the local wanted me to run for Union Boss. Said it was a sure thing.”

  “Was it?”

  He lifts his shoulders. “I suppose. Everybody liked me, and even the other locals were pulling for me.”

  “Why didn’t you run?”

  He shifts the truck into a lower gear as we take a hill. His face is serious again.

  “Your mother wanted you to do tee-ball that year. I thought you were too young but she, well...she insisted.”

  I remember that year. I mean, not clearly. But I do remember being in tee-ball. He was there every day, for every practice and every game.

  “You were the coach that year.”

  “Yup,” he says as we crest the hill and he shifts again. “Couldn’t send you off on your own very well, now, could I?”

  I’m about to ask him another question when a car down at the bottom of the hill catches my eye. Naturally it would. It’s bright red.

  It’s a bright red SUV, sitting on the shoulder, just idling.

  We pass it and I try to look inside.

  My dad’s still talking about Union stuff, now, but I’m focused on my side-view mirror. The SUV pulls out onto the highway to follow us.

  My mouth goes dry.

  We’re still miles from home.

  The SUV slowly gains on us.

  Finally it’s right on our tail.

  “What’s with this guy?” My dad sticks his arm out the window to wave the SUV past.

  To my surprise, they go around us.

  As they do, I watch.

  The person in the passenger seat is a woman, and she’s laughing at something that has nothing to do with us.

  What an idiot, I think
.

  So paranoid.

  Just to be sure, I keep an eye on the vehicle as it goes along ahead of us, and they turn onto a side street. We continue, and I don’t see them again the rest of the drive.

  My dad scolds me for not paying attention to his lecture about Unions.

  It almost feels like life is back to normal already. My mom cooks dinner. My dad watches the news. I sit at the table and stare at an open math book and think about Hanson.

  Well, that part’s not normal.

  But my dad has moved his bed out of my room.

  He’s not treating me like a prisoner.

  My mom is rambling on again about Katherine’s amazing son who I just have to meet. (Eye roll.)

  Meanwhile...

  Yeah, Meanwhile. Meanwhile there’s a war going on. Bellamy and Hanson and Dweeble and Mastodon and all of those people are fighting it.

  While I’m sitting here waiting for a plate full of lima beans and braised chicken.

  While my dad curses the local weatherman.

  I shut my book. “I’m gonna go to my room for a bit.”

  My mom flashes me a smile, and tells me dinner will be ready soon.

  I shut the door and turn on my computer.

  Facebook is still open in the browser, and I scroll through it for a while, trying, I guess, to distract myself from these feelings of guilt and helplessness.

  Hey, kid, aren’t we all?

  I may or may not have looked at Gavin Hanson’s profile again. He may or may not still live in Tennessee.

  There’s a knock on the front door. From my room it’s just a dull thud-thud-thud.

  I get up and look out the window.

  There’s a red SUV parked there. Parked just right there.

  Right in my driveway.

  I rush to my bedroom door and yank it open—and Big Teeth, from the thrift store, is standing there smiling at me. He’s got some kind of taser weapon in his hand, and behind him I can see the unconscious bodies of my parents on the floor.

  “Hello, Donny,” he says.

  And then he tases me and I black out for the second time in two days.

  The light hurts my eyes when the bag that’s on my head is taken off. I have no idea how long it’s been. I don’t have to pee particularly badly, so I’m guessing only a couple of hours.

  Unless...

  No, pants are dry.

  Only a couple hours.

  I’m tied to a metal folding chair in the middle of a big hole in the ground. The dirt walls around me have got to be at least fifteen feet high, and I can’t help but wonder how they got me down here.

  It’s dark except for a couple of spot lights shining right on me. I can feel sweat running down my nose.

  Big Teeth is standing at the rim of the pit, next to a big front loader with the word Patuxent on it. He’s looking down on me with glee. On the other side of the hole, the three other Russians from the thrift store.

  There’s a faint red glow in front of me suddenly, and I realize someone is standing there in the shadows sucking on a cigarette.

  “Where are my parents?” I shout into the dark.

  “They are safe.” The Russian accent is thick.

  The voice is somehow familiar.

  “Where are the shoes?”

  “I want my phone call,” I say. It’s the first thing that popped into my head, and it gets a chuckle from the Mystery Russian.

  “You have no rights here. Just tell me where the shoes are, and I’ll let you and your family go.”

  “Even if I believed you, I don’t know what shoes you’re talking about. Can you describe them?”

  He snaps his finger, and my body is shot through with a powerful jolt of electricity. I realized the chair I’m in is wired to a car battery nearby. One of the Russians crouched next to it, holding a pair of jumper cables.

  My ears ring for a long while, and the man gives me time to recover before he continues asking me questions.

  “You took them from Mr. Perralto’s laboratory. My man saw you run out with them on. You disappeared while they were chasing you.”

  “I’m good at hide and seek,” I say coolly.

  He laughs again, but with less enthusiasm. “Ah, but you have been found, have you not? Don’t waste my time, Donovan Burke. We know about the Meanwhile. We know much, much more than you do, in fact.”

  “’We’ who?” I’m stalling for time more than anything.

  What would Bellamy do in this situation?

  “My associate and I. I believe you’ve met him already.”

  He takes another drag off his cigarette and leans forward into the smoke. When it clears, I see his grinning face in the light. My mind does a double-take.

  “Chevko?”

  He gives a slow, lazy, belly laugh. “Yes, and no. Andrei Chevko, Marshal of the Russian Federation, at your service. But I can see how you might get confused.”

  This Chevko is identical in the face to the one in the Meanwhile, but he’s about fifty pounds heavier, and when he takes off his uniform cap he’s got a full head of hair.

  “You’re...working together? But how?”

  Chevko steps out of the shadows to stamp out his cigarette on the floor and light a new one, which he pulls from the shirt pocket on his military uniform.

  “Andrew,” he says, with obvious disdain for the name. “Andrew and I have been in communication for a while now. The existence of our mutual dimensions came to our attention when someone who was working on the project let a little bit of information slip.”

  “What project?”

  “To create the Meanwhile.”

  “You mean create the portal between the worlds?”

  He waggles his fingers in the air. “Yes, whatever. There is a barrier that separates our worlds, and at first it was utterly impenetrable. Then we learned how we could see between worlds. You have a device that allows you to do the same thing, I’m sure. It’s pretty common technology, actually. At last, among those of us ‘in the know.’”

  He takes another long drag off his cigarette before continuing.

  “My partner was able to eventually work out how to transmit a signal across, through the barrier. Just information, at first. Emails, essentially. Then video. But we haven’t yet gotten to the point where we can transfer objects and people. Not yet.”

  “That’s why you want the shoes,” I say.

  “Ah, so you do know the shoes after all. That’s a relief. I was afraid this was going to take a long time, and a lot more batteries.”

  He winks at the henchman crouched by the car battery, and starts walking over to one sheer wall of the pit.

  “You see, we are at a bit of a crunch, as you might say. There are certain plans we need to enact, and the sooner we can do it the better. My partner is a technological genius who would no doubt eventually crack the secret to travel between worlds, but we simply do not have time, you understand?” He slaps the dirt wall with an open palm, and then digs his fingers into it, letting loose soil fall down around his feet.

  “We’d much rather get to it now. So, we need your help, Mr. Burke.”

  “I’ll never help you.”

  “Yes, you will.” He turns to face me. “You will.”

  One of the Russian motorcycle goons drops down into the pit and walks over to me. In his hand is a digital tablet that he holds in front of me.

  “Take a look,” Chevko says with smoke spilling out of his mouth.

  The goon unlocks the screen, and I see Gavin Hanson—my Gavin Hanson—tied to a chair just like mine. He has a gag in his mouth, with a little bit of blood staining one corner of it.

  He looks tiredly at the camera.

  I look away. “I don’t believe you. You could fake that easily enough.”

  “But why would we do that...” Chevko asks. But the voice comes from the tablet in front of me. On the screen, Bald Chevko steps into frame. “...When the real thing is so much more compelling.”

  Now I recognize the back
ground behind Hanson. It’s a room in Chevko’s New York penthouse.

  “That is a live feed, boy,” the Chevko I’m with says to me, and I realize he’s standing right over me now. “You will tell us where the shoes are, or your boyfriend will die.”

  I feel rage, sadness, disappointment and embarrassed all at the same time.

  Rage at the men who did this to him.

  Sadness that it was happening.

  Disappointment that I let it happen at all.

  And embarrassed that my feelings were out in the open.

  How did they know?

  But that was question that would have to be answered another time.

  “Fine. Yes. I’ll help you.”

  Hanson starts protesting and squirming in his chair, shouting muffled curses at me, and the tablet gets turned off. He can hate me all he wants, but if I don’t help he’s going to die.

  If I help, at least I’m doing something, and as long as I’m doing something I can do something to fix it.

  “So where are they?”

  I had a tough decision to make. If I lie outright, and they figure it out, they’re going to kill Hanson. But if I tell them the truth, then I’ve lost the only bargaining chip I have.

  I split the difference.

  “My mom took them to the dry cleaners. But I don’t know which one.”

  Chevko looks at me for a long moment, trying to decide how honest I’m being.

  Then he’s suddenly alive with energy. He points to the motorcyclists on one side of the pit. “You three, split up, search the city around his house.” Then to Big Teeth on the other side. “Prepare the car. We’re moving out.”

  Then to me. “You’re coming with me.”

  “And what about my parents?” I ask. He waves a dismissive hand. “They’re still at home, probably waking up right about now with no memory of what happened. They’re fine.”

  With a belch of black smoke, the frontloader suddenly comes to life, and the bucket slowly lowers down into the pit.

  I’m untied and placed inside, and after Chevko steps in with me we are both raised up out of the hole.

  So that’s how they got me down there.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The red SUV has leather interior, in case you were wondering. I mean, I was, kinda.

  It has a sunroof, too, and a CD-changer.