The Fight for Kidsboro

by Marshal Younger

  The first thing each business owner did, once the business had made enough money, was pay off Max. He now owned only his wood shop. The golf course was renamed “Golf-O-Rama.” Pete showed movies every night, and the theater flourished. But it never had a turnout like the night of nights …

  I counted 55 people at the world premiere of Rock Bockner and the Forest of Pain. There were 29 citizens of Kidsboro, all except Max who was curiously absent, and 26 people from the outside. When Pete’s parents walked between the hanging bed sheets and into the “theater,” I introduced myself. They seemed just as excited as everyone else.

  Valerie wore what looked like a prom dress, catching the eye of every boy she walked past. She smiled and greeted everybody.

  Eugene Meltsner arrived carrying a thermos, and Pete made him leave it outside. No one was allowed to bring in outside drinks.

  Connie Kendall, a teenage employee at Whit’s End, came in just after Eugene. She said hi to everyone and told Pete how excited she was to see the movie.

  Mr. Whittaker hugged a few people on his way in, and then he bought a giant bucket of popcorn at the concession stand to share with anyone who was sitting around him.

  I sat down on a stump in the back. It was a gorgeous night. Jill came in and saw me, waved, and joined me on the stump. “This is gonna be so cool,” she said.

  “Yeah, it is,” I agreed.

  She looked around at the stars and the trees, and then closed her eyes. Her black hair flowed in the breeze like It was floating on water. She opened her eyes and looked at me. “You’re not going to tell me what’s going on, are you?” I knew she was talking about my relationship with Jake.

  “One day I will.”

  “Do you need me to tell you something personal? Is that it? You want me to go first?”

  “No, that’s not it—”

  “All right, I’ll go first,” she interrupted. “I think you’re perfect.”

  “Perfect?”

  “Pretty much. Except for all those nasty little secrets you keep. Other than that, you’re flawless.”

  “That’s … quite a compliment.”

  “It’s not a compliment. Just an observation.” She shrugged it off.

  Pete walked to the front of the crowd, and before he could even start talking, everyone clapped. He blushed. He was wearing a suit. He thanked everyone and began his prepared speech.

  “Thank you all for coming. Tonight is the result of all our hard work. So many creative minds came together to pull this off. To be honest, I think this movie ended up better than I ever dreamed it would be—and that’s because of the people I worked with. I went into this thinking this was my production, my project, my creative genius that would make it all work … but it ended up being yours as well. This is our movie, and I’m proud to have been a part of it. I hope you feel the same way.”

  Everyone clapped, and the projector was flipped on and began to whir. Every eye was focused on Kirk as he came onto the screen and whispered his sinister plot to his partner. Some of the crowd hissed, and Kirk was elbowed by the people next to him near the front row. Valerie came on in the second scene and various whistles and cheers filtered through the audience. I could hear Valerie giggling.

  The movie was 45 minutes long. The crowd laughed at the jokes that were only remotely funny and clapped at the points that were even barely inspirational. And when Rock Bockner defeated the evil villain, the audience sent up a loud roar of approval.

  The acting was pretty bad, the script was weak, and the stunts were pitiful, but it was us, doing our thing.

  Afterward, Pete led a discussion about the movie and declared it a classic. Everyone agreed, though many people did point out some of the less than logical things in the movie. Pete took it all in stride. We talked and laughed well into the night.

  And no one wanted to go home.

  THE END

  For Paityn,

  my second-born,

  who smiles for no reason,

  except to make my day.

  BOOK 3

  The Creek War

  1

  POETIC JUSTICE

  I SAT AND WATCHED Max squirm in his chair. For him, every second was more painful than the one before. I wished I could videotape the moment and watch it over and over at home, and maybe invite people over to have a “watch Max squirm” party. But I was told I couldn’t bring a camera into the courtroom.

  “Guilty!” Pete, the prosecuting attorney, shouted, banging his hand on the table. He winced a little bit. Clearly he had hurt himself, but knowing the jury was watching, he clenched his teeth and went on. “That is the perfect word to describe Max Darby—not just today but throughout his entire life. He has been guilty of so many crimes within the walls of this town that it would be impossible to count them. But in this court case, right here, today, we’re going to attempt to do just that—count how many people have been ripped off by Max Darby.”

  The jury was visibly nodding, as well as everyone else in the jam-packed meeting hall pavilion, which doubled as our courtroom. Max sat at the defendant’s table, nervously tapping his pencil on his knuckles. He had on his best suit and his favorite cowboy boots. I think he felt the boots made him look more rural and, therefore, more friendly. But today they made him seem like a dishonest used-car salesman who wanted you to believe he was friendly.

  It was obvious he knew the end was near. Twenty-nine people had shown up to watch Max get trounced—the entire population of Kidsboro. As for me, Ryan Cummings, may or of Kidsboro, I couldn’t have been happier.

  I reclined in my chair and prepared for an entertaining show. This was something I’d anticipated for a long time. Max Darby had burned so many people with so many tricks that I doubted he had a friend left in all of Kidsboro. For nine months I had tried to get him thrown out of town, but he always had some legal loophole that made him technically innocent of his scams. Plus, the city council—made up of the five original members of Kidsboro, myself included—had always been afraid to throw him out because his father owned a construction company, and Max had access to large amounts of wood—the wood with which we built our clubhouses. But now our hesitation to throw him out was over. A boy named Mark had become a citizen during the summer, and he’d shown us all how to make clubhouses out of tarp—so we didn’t need Max’s wood any more.

  After that, I had led an effort to throw Max out. I contacted all of the people who had ever been cheated by Max and asked them to testify at a trial. Legally, I figured Max had a technicality to stand on for every scheme he pulled, but put the mall together and a jury might decide to throw the book at him. After I had a list of people who would testify, I just waited for Max to strike again—and he did.

  This is what the trial was about: Max had bought a plot of land on the shore of the creek and had built very nice, two-story clubhouses on it. Each was furnished with a bed, chairs, and even a recliner that Nelson, our town inventor, had made for him. The nicest feature, though, was siding. None of the other clubhouses in Kidsboro had siding, and I had to admit, it looked really sharp. Most of our walls were slabs of uneven wood boards. But the siding in Max’s clubhouses made the new models look almost like real houses. Max sold two of these houses to citizens of Kidsboro. Little did they know that the siding was made out of painted cardboard. The first time it rained the roofs sagged in and large pieces of siding drooped and fell off the houses. It was a classic Max scheme. So the owners of the houses were now suing, with Pete as their lawyer.

  “The defendant, Mr. Max Darby,” Pete said, “is going to come up here and tell you that the people he sold houses to bought them knowing that their siding was made out of cardboard. After all, it’s in the contract, and since these people signed the contract stating that they had read through the entire thing, they must have known. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, he is telling the truth. Technically, Max is right in saying that the fact that the siding was made out of cardboard is, indeed, in the contract. But let’s have a look a
t this contract.”

  Pete walked quickly to his table and grabbed a thick stack of papers. He held it up for the jury to see and slammed it back down on the table. The legs wobbled and the people in the front row jumped back. “This is the contract: 38 single-spaced pages of impossible reading material. Legal jargon, 14-letter words, and enough Latin to choke a Trojan horse. Allow me to read an excerpt from page 16: ‘Pluribus equus caput capitis es horridus plebeius.’ Translated from Latin this very loosely means: ‘Many horse heads are scary and uneducated.’ The point I’m trying to make here is that none of this contract makes sense. It’s just thousands and thousands of words thrown together for the purpose of boring the reader out of his mind. There are very few people in the world who would be willing to read through the entire thing.”

  The jury was smiling at the Latin translation. Pete went on. “And why, you ask, does Max not want you to read the entire thing? Let me read an excerpt from this contract, buried on page 27, in the middle of a 573-word paragraph. It reads, and I quote: ‘Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, the party of the second part, hereafter referred to as The Seller, will indemnify the non-excepted payments. The siding is made out of cardboard. Whenever any claim or demand is instituted in order to defray expenses …’” Pete’s voice trailed off. He’d made his point.

  “So, yes, the siding material is in the contract. But you and I both know that Max had no intention of anyone actually reading through this entire contract to get to that one fact. It’s a scheme—a scheme that we all know too well. For this case, I will parade witness after witness before you to show you a pattern of this type of behavior. You will be amazed at how many people in this community have been ripped off by Max Darby.”

  One by one, Pete called witnesses up to the stand to testify how Max had tricked them out of their money or property. And every time someone stepped down, Max sank a little bit lower in his seat.

  Then, as if wanting to go out on his own terms, he suddenly flew up in the middle of someone’s testimony and yelled, “Forget it! No more of this! This is ridiculous, and I don’t even care! I don’t need this town! You guys are a bunch of whining little twirps, and I’m sick of being a citizen here.” I guess he had given up on trying to appear friendly. “Don’t bother kicking me out. I quit!” He stormed out.

  Nobody was quite sure what to do at this point. Pete had six more witnesses that he was ready to call to the stand, plus he had a closing argument I’m sure he was dying to wow the jury with. He turned to Judge Amy, who probably thought she ought to rule something. But did she need to rule anything? Pete and I exchanged looks, and then Amy shrugged her shoulders and lifted her gavel.

  “Court’s adjourned,” she said, pounding the gavel on the table. Everyone sat silently for a moment, and then I heard someone snickering. It was Scott Sanchez, my best friend and one of the many who’d been tricked by Max before. Suddenly, he let out a burst of joyful laughter, followed by the laughter of others. People around him started clapping, including me, and soon everyone in the assembly hall was smiling and giggling and high-fiving each other. The place was oozing with joy. We had rid the evil king! We had bested the giant troll! Ding dong, the witch was dead! Kidsboro was free at last!

  It was a revival of sorts, but as it turned out, it was a short-lived one. For at that moment, no one could have dreamed of what Max would do for revenge.

  2

  THE COMPETITION

  THE GRASS CRUNCHED UNDER my feet, evidence of the first frost of the year. It was a weekend morning in late October. Cold weather came early in Odyssey. I was on my way to a city council meeting where we would discuss who would replace Max and become our newest citizen. The Kidsboro city charter stated that whenever someone left the city, a new person could immediately be brought in to fill the spot. There Was a small problem involved with this situation, however. Max had built an incredible six-room clubhouse, the largest house in Kidsboro. It didn’t seem fair that a brand-new citizen would be able to move into his home. There were people who had been in Kidsboro since the beginning who still owned only small, one-room clubhouses. So this meeting was also about who would get Max’s house.

  The five members of the city council were at the meeting hall pavilion promptly, though not all of them were fully awake. Scott let out an enormous yawn. “Good morning, Scott,” I said.

  He mumbled back, “Morning, Ryan.” His dark hair was sticking up out of the side of his head in an involuntary ponytail.

  Jill Segler came in with a soda, knowing full well it was a questionable health choice, but justifying herself by saying, “All journalists have caffeine in the morning, and I’m not into coffee yet.”

  Police Chief Alice Funderburk was in her warm-up suit, leaning against a pole. The pole and the section of roof held up by it appeared to be ready to collapse under the weight of Alice. She was the only one who looked awake. I figured she had been up for over two hours already, lifting weights and jogging her usual two miles before breakfast.

  Nelson Swanson was dazed, and I couldn’t tell if he was trying to wake up, or if he was in that little world of his where he hears nothing and sees nothing around him. He was usually in this state when he was dreaming up a new invention. His glasses had a big white stain in the middle of one lens, and I couldn’t imagine how he could see through it. He didn’t seem to notice.

  I sat down and opened a notebook that contained a list of possible candidates to take Max’s place.

  “Anybody got a name that sticks out?” I asked. They acted as if they hadn’t heard me. The silence was broken by a distant hammering. I seemed to be the only one intrigued by the question of who would be hammering in Kidsboro this early in the morning. I scanned the main road of the town and saw no one. Ignoring the noise, I went back to my list.

  “How about Monica Sertich? She’s pretty nice.” Silence. Scott’s face wrinkled up as though he was trying to remember who Monica Sertich was, even though I knew that he’d known her for eight years. Alice was the only one who wasn’t dazed, but she very rarely voiced an opinion about anything. The hammering stopped, and a power drill started up.

  I was much too curious to stay in the pavilion with my catatonic friends. Alice followed me, apparently curious as well. The noise was coming from a strange distance. It was too far away to have been any where in Kidsboro, yet it wasn’t far enough to be construction on a real house. Alice and I strolled farther and farther without a word, and the drilling gave way to hammering again. A few steps more, and we could hear voices. The hammering was now doubled, as if someone were helping. We both saw it at the same time. There, across the creek, were Max and a friend, building a clubhouse. I moved in to get a closer look.

  “What are you doing, Max?” I called.

  He smiled and gave a half-salute. “Howdy, neighbor.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Just building me a house,” he said in his Southern accent, an accent that came and went as he pleased.

  “Why?”

  “Well, since I can’t live in Kidsboro any more, I figured I’d start my own little town.” Alice and I exchanged looks.

  “Your own town?” I asked.

  “Sure. This isn’t Kidsboro property over here across the creek. I didn’t think anybody’d mind if I just settled right here. Hey, a little later on, I’m gonna need some help moving my house over here from Kidsboro. You think you could help out?”

  “That’s not your house any more, Max,” I said.

  “Oh, I beg to differ,” he said with a smile. “I built that house myself. It’s a nice one too. I wouldn’t dream of leaving it behind.”

  “You want me to take him out?” Alice whispered, feeling her right hip as if she wished she had a weapon there. I didn’t encourage her.

  I was desperate for an ingenious reply to Max, but all I came up with was, “You can’t do this.”

  His more-than-adequate reply: “Why not?”

  In my mind, I scrambled for any reason.
As far as I knew, he was right—the Kidsboro property line stopped at the creek, so if he wanted to start his own town, he was perfectly within his rights to do so. And he did build the house himself with his own materials, so he could do whatever he wanted with it.

  The three other members of the city council joined us and stared across the creek at Max as well.

  “What is he doing?” Scott asked.

  “He’s starting his own town.”

  Scott was offended. “He can’t do that!”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “Because he’s … He can’t just … It’s got to be in the city charter somewhere.”

  “The Kidsboro city limits end at the creek, Scott,” I said. “As long as he’s not on Kidsboro property, Max doesn’t have to pay any attention to our laws.”

  Nelson shook his head. “This is not good.”

  “No kidding,” Scott replied.

  “No telling what kind of town it’s gonna be. And the citizens? Probably the dregs of society—ignoring all the laws and constantly harassing us. It’ll be like living near one of those high-crime suburbs that nobody likes to talk about.”

  “Are they out of my jurisdiction if they commit a crime over there?” Alice asked.

  “I wonder how he plans to destroy us,” Jill said, taking out her reporter’s notebook and jotting something down.

  “Listen,” I began, “maybe he was … just unsatisfied with the way we ran things over here, so he’s exercising his constitutional right to secede from the union and create his own state.”

  Jill stepped to ward the creek. “Hey, Max!” she called.

  “Yeah?”

  “What’s the name of your new city?”

  “Bettertown,” he said, smiling. Everybody looked at me and raised their eyebrows. I think they all knew, and I suppose I knew deep down in my heart, that we had a fight on our hands.