by Will Taylor
I nodded, forgetting she couldn’t see me. “It must have been—there’s no other explanation. But why?”
“I don’t know. This is all just really messed up. Is everything okay at your place?”
I looked around the kitchen and what I could see of the living room. Everything looked normal, except, wait—we’d totally straightened all those lopsided books, and where did that dirt on the floor come from? And the smears on the windows? You’d never know Abby and I had cleaned at all. I caught sight of a folded piece of paper propped on the stove, my name on the front in all caps. My stomach dropped.
“Um, maybe not. Can you hang on a second?”
I opened the note and skimmed it, my stomach sinking further and further with every line.
“Okay, more bad news,” I said, getting back on the phone. “I’m grounded too. My mom left a note saying the house was a wreck when she got home late last night. She says it looked like we did our best to un-clean everything, and if we think tying all the laundry in knots and shoving it under her bed was a funny joke, then we have some serious growing up to do.”
“They undid all our cleaning? And the laundry folding?” said Abby. “That’s horrible. And—dude, that means they were listening when we brainstormed up in Alaska! Remember I said my dad was picky about his kitchen? That must be where they got the idea. They did all this on purpose just to get us in trouble!”
“And it worked,” I said grimly. “My mom says she cleaned up most of the mess before going back to the hospital, but we’re going to have a very serious talk as soon as she gets home.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry, Mags.”
“I’ll survive. My mom never has time to give really bad lectures.”
“Well, I feel completely awful,” said Abby. “I can’t stand my dad being mad at me! How are we going to fix this?”
“We need to come up with a plan. Say you’re going to your room and meet me in my fort.”
I hung up the phone and read through my mom’s note again. It was a NAFAFA attack for sure, but why? Why undo all our hard work, and frame us for it too, when we’d just spent an entire day doing good deeds?
I flipped over the note and found a PS on the back.
By the way, I found the good flashlight in your pillow fort. Please stop taking things from around the house and hiding them in there. The other day I spent twenty minutes trying to find a pair of scissors that should have been in the kitchen, and by the time I found them behind your postcard box, I was almost late for work. Try to be a good housemate and show a little more respect for my belongings.
Oof. By my mom’s standards that was practically yelling. But there was something else in there, something that nagged at me, apart from my mom. I read through the PS again. It seemed normal enough, but I couldn’t shake the feeling I was missing something important.
There was another surprise waiting for me when I reached Fort McForterson: a shiny silver envelope with my name on the front. Abby linked over just as I was opening it. She looked miserable.
“Hey!” she said. “Is that from the Council?”
I nodded. “They must have left it while we were on the phone.”
“Let me see.” We put our heads together and read.
To: Maggie Hetzger, Vice Director, Camp Pillow Fort
From: The Council of NAFAFA
This is your official notification of censure from the Council of NAFAFA. As an applicant for membership in our organization, you were provided with certain regulations and guidelines to follow. Below is a list of the rules, regulations, and guidelines you have been found to have violated.
1) Adding new forts to your network.
(Location: Greenway Children’s Hospital. Builder Name: Kelly. Age: 8. Approved: NO.)
(Addendum: Certain Council members want to clarify that the Council is aware the link to Kelly’s was created accidentally and is therefore not technically a violation. Others, however, believe that upon discovering a new link while under consideration for membership, you should have voluntarily ignored it until membership was granted, thereby respecting the spirit of the law as well as the letter.)
2) Telling anyone not already involved about fort network/s.
(Location: Greenway Children’s Hospital. Name: Kelly. Age: 8. Approved: NO.)
(Addendum: Council not unanimous on this point either. Some of us believe performing an otherwise inexplicable makeover on a fort is the same as telling about the network; others do not. The letter written by Abby Hernandez added weight to the argument for censure, dealing as it did with fort access and manipulation, and in the end we decided to note the violation. While Kelly may not know the hows and whys of what has happened to her fort, she is sure to understand that something out of the ordinary is going on with it, something she would not have been aware of without your actions or your letter.)
Due to these somewhat unclear violations, an appropriately calibrated reprimand has been carried out. You have been warned. Another violation of our regulations and guidelines will result in a full-scale attack.
You are now officially on probation. Remember there are just under two days remaining for you to fulfill your obligations and perform a good deed up to NAFAFA standards, or your application for membership will be rejected and your network permanently terminated.
Have a nice day.
Sincerely,
The Council of NAFAFA
“I bet you anything Ben wrote that,” I said, glaring at the note.
“Dude,” said Abby. “That is some serious cucumber casserole right there! I did not tell Kelly too much in the note. I barely told her anything. And what do they mean about her link being ‘accidentally created’?”
“I have a guess about that.” My brain had finally put two and two together, and I was pretty sure I was right. “Remember how you said Kelly and I were kindred spirits because we both owned crimping scissors?”
“Yeah . . .”
“I think it was actually the same pair.”
“Huh? Explain, please.”
I showed her the PS in my mom’s note. “I think she meant her crimping scissors,” I said, “and I think she took them to work and gave them to Kelly for her arts and crafts.”
“So your mom was the one who added the new fort,” said Abby slowly. “And we’re the ones who got in trouble for it?”
“Kind of makes you want to scream, doesn’t it?” I said.
“Of course it does!” said Abby. “We did tons of good deeds yesterday, and we made a sick kid really happy, and those Council kids still attacked us. I’ve never been in trouble like this before! How am I going to—”
But she was interrupted as one of the wall pillows came flying into the fort and a kid in silver sunglasses appeared in its place.
I felt my mouth fall open.
It was Noriko.
Fifteen
“Hey! What—?” I said, just as Abby said, “Dude! Who—?”
Noriko gave us a short nod.
“Hello again, Maggie Hetzger,” she said. “And hello, Abby Hernandez. My name is Noriko. I’m Head of the Council of NAFAFA and Chancellor of the Forts of the Eastern Seaboard.”
Abby gaped at her. “You’re one of the ones who sent the letter.”
Noriko nodded again, making her earrings—dangly silver penguins this time—dance in the lamplight. There was a pause, and then Abby and I both started shouting at once.
“—totally outrageous—”
“—poor little kid—”
“—and your sunglasses, too!”
“I am here,” said Noriko, raising a hand and speaking over us, “to make sure you received your letter of reprimand and understand the contents.”
We were both telling her exactly what we thought of her letter of reprimand when Noriko put a finger to her lips in a shh signal, pulled a slip of paper from her pocket, and held it out. Abby and I stopped shouting, our voices trailing off. I took the paper.
“I know our policies at NAFAFA can
be very hard for novices such as yourselves to understand,” Noriko said as though nothing had happened, “and as head of the Council it’s my duty to make sure we’re communicating with you effectively. An uncertain network does no one any favors.”
She nodded meaningfully at the paper. I unfolded it, and Abby crowded around to read.
Hi! Ask me to show you the collecting room Murray told you about. ACT NATURAL.
We looked up at her.
“So, do you have any questions you’d like to ask?” Noriko said deliberately.
I blinked. Abby nudged me.
“Oh. Um, okay, yes.” I glanced back at the note. “I was wondering if you would show us that collecting room Murray told me about. The one where all the coins go. Or that’s what he told me. When Murray told me about the room. Anyway, could we see it?”
I hoped that counted as acting natural. Noriko smiled and gave a thumbs-up.
“What a strange request,” she said loudly. “But I suppose it would be all right. Follow me.” She backed out of the link, and Abby and I crawled after her into the Hub.
Abby didn’t have to try acting natural when she stood up and looked around. Her reaction was perfect. She gaped at the mammoth patchwork ceiling, the maze of sofas and shelves, the curving pillow wall, and the gleaming chandelier.
Noriko led the way along the wall to the left, and I followed behind, trying not to show how much I was enjoying watching Abby gawk and stare.
It was busier in the Hub than it had been during my midnight visit. The place was packed. A group of girls ran through the crowd just ahead of us, playing what looked like some kind of badminton tag. One aisle over, a circle of older-looking kids holding scripts was acting out a play, complete with dramatic crying and bad British accents. A paper airplane arced over a cluster of forts made of beach umbrellas and neon-pink towels, and a hand reached out of the forts and caught it. A moment later there was a shout of laughter, and a plastic soda bottle with a roll of paper inside went flying back the other way, just missing a line of boys in hockey jerseys fencing with foam pool noodles.
Abby fell back and grabbed my arm. “Mags, this is the best thing I’ve ever seen in my whole life! Look at all these kids we get to meet!”
Suddenly the badminton birdie whizzed by out of nowhere, landing with a plonk a few feet from us, and the girls with rackets burst out of the fort maze in hot pursuit. Abby got there first, scooped it up, and ran down to hand it over. I watched, impressed at her courage. These girls were total strangers! One of them said something as she took back the birdie, then Abby said something, raising both hands, and next second the whole group was laughing. A tall girl with braces held out her racket and pointed to the maze, clearly inviting Abby to join them, and I went from being impressed to being flat-out astonished. Seriously, how did Abby do that?
Abby shook her head, smiling, and trotted back to me. “This place is so great!” she said, turning and waving at the badminton girls. They waved back. I hesitated, then gathered my courage and waved too, but they were disappearing into the maze and didn’t see. I looked around to find Abby and Noriko already several pillows away. I had to jog to catch up.
At last we reached the enormous pillow with the metallic clinking sounds behind it, and Noriko stopped and faced us. Just down the wall a round pillow covered in clear plastic swung open, and a boy wearing swimming goggles and a tank top stepped into the Hub. He was covered from the waist down in thick soap bubbles. Abby giggled.
“Hey, ma’am,” the boy called, waving at Noriko.
“Hi, Connor,” she said. “How was the match? Are you still undefeated?” Connor grinned and gave a double thumbs-up, then strutted out onto the main floor, where he was immediately hit by a badminton birdie.
“Okay,” Noriko said, turning to us again. “Business, Maggie Hetzger. What did Murray tell you about this room?” She put a hand on the massive pillow door.
I pulled my question-packed brain back to what we were doing. The Hub was very distracting. “He told me this is where you collect all the coins that fall down the back of sofas,” I said.
“Basically correct,” said Noriko. “Which means the room is a little noisy. Get ready.”
She gave a push and the pillow swung open, releasing a solid wall of sound. We followed her inside.
It was like stepping into the engine room of one of Kelly’s spaceships. A forest of gleaming metal tubes stretched far overhead and descended in a tangle through a metal-grating floor at our feet. The noise coming from them was incredible: an echoing roar of clinking, clanking, plinking, banging, and clanging.
Noriko led the way through the maze of twisting pipes to a wide hole in the floor with a railing around it. Below us the tubes were spilling out a steady stream of shining coins into huge vats. We all put our elbows on the railing and leaned over to look.
“So,” said Noriko, shouting over the noise. “I’ve asked you here today because this is the only place I can speak freely without potentially being overheard.”
Abby and I exchanged a look.
“This isn’t just about coin collecting, then?” I asked.
“No. That part’s pretty obvious, I think.” She gestured to the vats below. “This is a much bigger issue.”
“Ooh,” said Abby. “Intrigue!”
“First of all,” said Noriko, “I want to apologize for the attack. I didn’t want it to happen. I thought what you did for Kelly should have counted as a good deed; but others on the Council didn’t and they forced my hand and I’m sorry. I kept the attack as mild as I could, though.”
“Mild?” Abby said, her smile dropping. “You call that mild? My dad said he never thought he’d be this disappointed in me in his entire life!”
“You seriously damaged our relationship with our parents,” I said.
“Well, yeah,” said Noriko. “That is the point of our attacks, Maggie. I told you that going in. Anyway, I did my best to minimize it and now I’ve apologized, so let’s move on.” She straightened up. “Okay, so the super exciting secret you two don’t know yet is that you’re actually caught up in the middle of the biggest power struggle NAFAFA has ever had. Things are changing fast around here, and with your help I can make sure everything turns out the way it should.”
“A power struggle over what?” asked Abby.
“Territory,” said Noriko. “And this is important, so pay attention, please. Right now, the four major NAFAFA networks each control a different section of North America. The easy way to explain is to say I control the right-hand side of the continent, Murray controls the top, Miesha controls the bottom, and Ben controls the middle. You might want to close your eyes and picture that.”
“Oh, no,” I said, shaking my head. “No way am I getting Lisa Franked again!”
“Ooo, good save!” said Abby, nudging me with her elbow.
Noriko snorted. “Oh, come on, that’s Miesha’s trick, not mine. I promise I’m not going to start talking about teal zebras and magenta glitter kittens. You can keep your eyes open, just picture the continent like I said. Notice anything unaccounted for?”
I spread out a map in my brain, plugging in the Council members where Noriko had said, then nodded. “The left side.”
“Exactly. And that’s because for the entire history of NAFAFA there’s never been a functioning network on the west coast. Until yours.”
Abby straightened up too. “Wait, for real?” she said. “How is that possible?”
“No one’s sure,” said Noriko. “We keep an eye out, obviously, but we’ve always just assumed scraps of the First Sofa never made it that far. You two total novices are officially the first, and according to the NAFAFA charter that means once you’re accepted, you automatically get a seat on the Council and every pillow fort built along the west coast of North America from now on will be under your control. That, Maggie Hetzger, is why your group is a special case. Congratulations.”
Abby raised both hands above her head. “Whoo!” she said. “G
o, Camp Pillow Fort!”
“Huh,” I said. “Wow.”
“And after we join, can we add new forts?” Abby asked, her eyes wide. “As many new forts as we want?”
Noriko nodded. “After a few weeks of training and orientation, yeah, as many as you want.”
“Sweet!” Abby whapped me on the arm. “Mags, it’s perfect! I can send tokens to all my friends from camp, and this time next week we’ll have new members all over the state! Plus one of my friends has family in California, and I bet you anything someone knows some kids up in Vancouver. We can build our own version of Camp Cantaloupe in no time!”
Her face was shining with happiness, but I felt like I’d tumbled over the railing and fallen headfirst into one of the vats. Making friends with the badminton girls in the Hub was one thing, but now Abby was talking about opening up our network to every random kid from Camp Cantaloupe? What was wrong with the way things had been? What was wrong with just the two of us?
I swallowed hard. It was finally starting to sink in that what Abby really wanted out of this whole adventure was more time with other people. Other people who weren’t me.
“Hold on,” I said, shoving down my feelings. I could be sad later. Right now there were critical secret-agent issues to address, like Noriko’s offer sounding way too good to possibly be true. “You’re saying you and the rest of the Council are just going to hand us all this territory and power? What’s the catch?”
“There’s no catch,” said Noriko. “But there is one short, annoying obstacle. And he has a seat on the Council.”
“Ben?” I said.
“Ben.”
“Is that Overall Boy?” asked Abby.
Noriko laughed. “Ha! That’s what Connor calls him. Yeah, Ben’s being kind of a roadblock. He wants the west coast for himself, and he’s trying to get you disqualified before you can even complete your task. He’s the one who pointed out all the technical violations last night that led to the attack, and the one who wrote the letter.”
“Called it,” I said.
“But how could he ever get the west coast?” Abby asked. “Isn’t he in charge of the Midwest Sofa Oval, or whatever?”
