Army Brats

by Daphne Benedis-Grab

  Rosie was interested despite herself. “That’s cool,” she said. “What kind of work does your dad do?”

  “He leads a squad that defuses bombs,” Victor said.

  That sounded very exciting and daring to Rosie, though the name of his dog did not. “Sunshine isn’t a brave name,” she pointed out.

  Victor nodded. “I know, but my dad said the breeders get to name the dogs, and sometimes the names are kind of funny. He said he once met a dog named Kitty.”

  Rosie had to laugh at that.

  “He sends me pictures of Sunshine sometimes,” Victor went on. He was looking at the photo on the table.

  “Did he send you one today?” Rosie asked. She wanted to see Sunshine for herself.

  But Victor shook his head. “I don’t know if Sunshine’s with my dad anymore.”

  “Why not?” Rosie asked, surprised. She thought MWDs always stayed with their handlers.

  “My dad’s in the hospital in Germany,” Victor said. Rosie knew about this hospital. It was where overseas soldiers went if they were badly injured. Mom once had a friend there whose leg got very hurt in an explosion. “Dad’s been there for a while, and Mom went over to stay with him.”

  “Will he be okay?” Rosie asked.

  “No one knows yet,” Victor said in a scratchy voice. “They’re still waiting for him to wake up.” He sniffled as he looked at the picture of his dad.

  Victor’s eyes were extra red and watery now. But this time he did not remind Rosie of a sick hippo.

  Rosie cleared her throat. “I changed my mind,” she said. “You can help me look for Buddy and Pepper after all.”

  Victor looked at her, blinked a few times, and then smiled a very big smile.

  “There’s just one thing,” Rosie said quickly, before he could get the wrong idea. “I’m the one in charge.”

  The terrible events of the day that had culminated in Charlotte screaming at him had left Tom shell-shocked. He needed some time to recover and regroup, and to devise a new strategy to get Chase to leave him alone. So instead of heading home after Charlotte screamed at him, Tom struck out in the other direction, down Washington Street, through the central plaza and then onto Adams Drive.

  The sun beat down, and Tom rubbed some sweat from his temples as he wandered past a training field, then stopped at the obstacle course. Another platoon was out running drills, but this time they were working together in small groups. Tom watched as two soldiers lifted a third up to the top of the tall wooden wall in the middle. The second soldier then got a leg up from the first, as well as a hand up from the third, and then both reached down to pull the first soldier up. Tom remembered how the last time each soldier had struggled on his or her own to reach the top. It went a lot faster this way.

  But of course thinking about that made Tom remember that the last time he was here he had been with his sisters and Charlotte had still liked him. The fact that his sister was furious with him, which Tom was still puzzling over, sat heavy and sharp in his chest, like a coil of barbed wire.

  Tom’s face was baking, his lips were dry from the sun, and he realized he was parched. Dad always made sure they had money for emergencies tucked into their backpacks, and Tom figured dehydration counted, so he headed to Patrick Boulevard and the small deli next to the movie theater.

  “Hey there, partner,” the friendly man behind the counter said as Tom walked in, the chill of the air conditioner instantly soothing on his sweaty skin.

  “Hi,” Tom said. This was the first time in hours anyone had been kind to him, and the thought made Tom feel even more alone.

  “It’s a scorcher out there today,” the man said. He was wearing an Army Strong cap and an army-green T-shirt.

  “Yes, sir, it sure is,” Tom agreed, heading to the cooler of drinks. The lemonade was calling, but as he reached for it his hand brushed the fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice.

  “I don’t know how those GIs do it on a day like this,” the man said, shaking his head at the thought.

  Tom’s hand froze at the grapefruit juice, the man’s words turning over in his mind. Because he suddenly realized he knew exactly how those soldiers out on the obstacle course made it through a day like today: They did it by working together. And that had been Tom’s tactical error all this time. At the first sign of trouble, Tom had gone solo in his mission instead of building up a team. Now, when things had gotten dire, he was alone and defenseless, struggling up an impossible wall on his own instead of getting a leg up from the people who had his back. The people who always had his back: his sisters.

  “You having trouble deciding?” the man asked.

  Tom took a deep breath. “No, sir,” he said, grabbing the grapefruit juice, some apple juice, and the lemonade. “I know just what I need.”

  Charlotte was at the back picnic table painting her nails in brushstrokes so fierce Tom thought polish was probably splattering everywhere.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, pushing through the screen door. Cupcake flew toward him, a bundle of joyful yipping fur. At least one member of the family wasn’t mad at him. Tom patted Cupcake but almost dropped the drinks in the process. “I got this for you,” he said, rescuing the grapefruit juice before it fell and handing it to his sister.

  Charlotte did not reach out to take it, so Tom set it on the table next to her polish. “I should have told you about what was going on with Chase from the start,” Tom said.

  This time Charlotte looked up. “Why didn’t you?” she asked.

  Tom sat down at the table across from her and began twisting open his lemonade. “I don’t know,” he said. “I guess it was just embarrassing.” It did not feel good to say this, but it did feel good to have Charlotte reach over and pat his arm.

  “Yeah, it really is,” she said.

  “Hey,” Tom said, snatching his arm away as Charlotte laughed. He couldn’t help joining in, though.

  “Okay,” Charlotte said, getting serious as she put her brush back in the polish and twisted the cap shut. “So tell me about it now.”

  Cupcake came and rested her head on Tom’s lap, and he rubbed the fuzzy spot between her ears as he told Charlotte everything, from the pocketknife to the hose to his day of being ridiculed as Sergeant Wimpy. “I don’t know, maybe Chase is right, maybe I am a big wimp,” Tom said. Things were better sitting here in the cool shade of the yard with Cupcake and Charlotte and the refreshing lemonade, but the thought of Chase and being called Sergeant Wimpy for the rest of his life still had Tom pretty gloomy.

  “You’re not, though,” Charlotte said firmly.

  “What about the screech of doom?” Tom asked.

  “You startle easily,” Charlotte said, opening up her juice. “But the thing is, everyone’s scared of something. Chase might be terrified of snakes or getting stuck in an elevator.”

  This was very hard to picture, but Tom got her point.

  “And the goal now is to get him to stop,” Charlotte went on. Because of course she saw that a mission was necessary. “What are you thinking?”

  “Maybe we could figure out what scares him and then take a picture of him,” Tom said, inspired by Charlotte’s claims that Chase had to be frightened of something.

  But Charlotte shook her head. “No, that’s too hard. It’s not like we can force him to go skydiving if he’s afraid of heights. I think our best bet is showing everyone that yeah, maybe you got startled by the water, but you’re still brave.”

  That sounded good, much better than skydiving. Charlotte really was the best when it came to strategy.

  “I should have told you about Chase that first day,” Tom said. “Then it never would have gotten this bad.”

  “Probably not,” Charlotte said in a joking, lofty tone. But then she looked at her brother and bit her lip for a moment. “I’m sorry I yelled at you after school today.”

  “No big deal,” Tom said. It had been, but now, with Charlotte on his team, ready to help him scale the wall, it didn’t matter. Still, he was
glad she had apologized.

  “I’m home!” Rosie shouted, racing into the yard so abruptly Tom nearly screeched.

  “Dad said you had a playdate?” Charlotte asked.

  “Yup. Over at Victor’s house,” Rosie said. She spotted her apple juice and sat down to drink it.

  “That’s Rosie’s new friend from school,” Dad said, coming out on the porch to join them. He was smiling, and Tom wondered if this was indeed true.

  “Victor’s okay,” Rosie said, wiping some juice off her upper lip.

  Now Dad beamed. “Coming from you that’s high praise,” he said.

  Charlotte glanced at Tom and raised her eyebrows because Dad was right—that might have been the first nice thing Rosie had ever had to say about any of her classmates.

  “Next time we can have him over to our house,” Dad added. He was wearing his “Kiss the Chef” apron, which meant dinner preparations were under way.

  “Maybe,” Rosie said. “I told him he can help me find Buddy and Pepper.”

  “Lucky boy,” Dad said with a chuckle. “But first I was hoping the three of you could help me out. I want to make biscuits for dinner, but we’re black on flour. Would you guys run to the commissary and pick some up?”

  Rosie grinned at the military term for being out of something essential.

  “Sure,” Charlotte said as Tom nodded.

  Dad gave them money and one of the family’s reusable shopping bags, and the three Baileys headed back out into the hot afternoon.

  “Tom needs our help,” Charlotte told Rosie as they passed by a moving truck parked in front of the house on the corner. Tom suspected moving trucks were on the base most days of the week, considering how often army people moved. “He needs to show some of the boys at school he’s brave.”

  “Actually all the boys,” Tom admitted with a sigh. “And the girls too. Everyone at school calls me Sergeant Wimpy.” It wasn’t as humiliating to say as Tom had imagined. In fact, it felt kind of good to have it off his chest, and it helped that Rosie scowled her most ferocious scowl and balled up her fists at her sides.

  “Those boys are the WORST,” she said darkly.

  Tom nodded. “Tell me about it. And now I have to figure out how to get them to stop.”

  “We need to find a way to prove to them that Tom is brave,” Charlotte said, lifting her hair off the back of her neck to cool off a bit.

  “So we need to lie?” Rosie asked, her eyes widening.

  “Hey,” Tom complained, though of course Rosie had hit on his own fear.

  “You were a scaredy-cat about going into Mrs. Watkins’s basement in Pennsylvania,” Rosie reminded him.

  Rosie really wasn’t helping at all.

  “Okay, but the point is, if we can show everyone that Tom’s brave, they’ll forget about the ways he’s a scaredy-cat,” Charlotte said impatiently.

  This was also not helping. Tom had liked it better when Charlotte was talking about how everyone was scared of something, not calling him a scaredy-cat. That was as bad as Sergeant Wimpy.

  “Maybe we need a different plan,” Rosie said. “We could send the soldier ghosts from the haunted house to get the mean boys.”

  They’d reached the parking lot of the commissary. Soldiers and families were loading up groceries in car trunks or heading inside to stock up.

  “That’s it!” Charlotte crowed, turning to Tom. “The haunted house. Tash said everyone’s scared to go near it. If you’re the first to go inside, they’ll see how brave you are.”

  Tom considered this. On the one hand, the house was scary and the thought of going in was pretty daunting. But of course that was the point. If Tom could do it and everyone in school knew, there’d be no way they could keep calling him Sergeant Wimpy. Plus he wouldn’t be alone—he’d have his sisters with him. “That could really work,” he told Charlotte.

  “But how will everyone know you really went in?” Rosie asked as they walked toward the big doors of the store. “They might just think you’re lying.”

  That was true.

  “We could take pictures,” Charlotte said.

  “Or make a video,” Tom said. It could be dramatic, with him looking stoic and determined as he headed inside. Maybe they could even add a sound track.

  Charlotte grinned. “Perfect.”

  “That’ll show those mean boys,” Rosie added.

  “Roger that,” Tom agreed, certain that with his sisters on his team, this mission would be a success.

  “Hurry!” Charlotte heard Rosie yell from the front hall that Saturday afternoon. Their parents had gone shopping for patio furniture for the backyard, leaving Charlotte and Tom in charge, and the siblings were heading to the haunted house.

  “Coming,” Charlotte called from the bathroom where she was applying sunscreen. She’d forgotten it the other day and her cheeks were still red and peeling, a condition she did not need to make even worse. She was not looking for more reasons to stand out at Fort Patrick Middle School: Being Sergeant Wimpy’s sister all week had been more than enough.

  “We’re going to be late,” Rosie said. She ran into the closet, grabbed some supplies, then raced out of the room.

  “Coming,” Charlotte said again, capping the sunscreen and heading down the stairs two at a time. “Don’t worry, we won’t—” She stopped suddenly when she saw her sister and burst into laughter. “Rosie, you don’t need your night vision goggles. It’s bright sun out there.”

  Rosie frowned—not an easy feat in the bulky goggles. “We might need them if it’s dark in the house,” she explained.

  “She has a point,” Tom said, coming down the stairs. “Plus they look cool.”

  Rosie smirked at her sister.

  Charlotte held up her hands. “Fine, whatever,” she said. She just hoped they wouldn’t run into Sophia or Mari on their way to the house. Rosie was not looking so darling right now. And Charlotte did not need them to see anyone else in her family being weird. Because of course that’s what her new friends thought about her brother: That he was a weirdo Charlotte was unlucky enough to be related to. It was an attitude that grated on Charlotte … but also one she hadn’t corrected. Yet. She kept promising herself she’d tell her friends how close she was to her brother, but really it would be so much easier to do after they made the video that proved Tom was brave. So today they’d get the video, Monday they’d show it around, and by lunch no one would even remember brave Tom had once been Sergeant Wimpy. “Do you have your phone?” she asked Tom.

  “Check,” Tom said, holding up his phone. “All charged and ready.”

  “Good, and mine is too,” Charlotte said. “So let’s get going and make this video!”

  “Finally,” Rosie said. “And while we bike over, stay on the lookout for Buddy because he’s still missing. Pepper too.”

  Charlotte tried not to roll her eyes. “Okay, but we’re going straight there. Getting the footage of Tom going into the haunted house is top priority.”

  “Roger that,” Rosie agreed.

  Charlotte was glad Rosie got how important this was. And hopefully she would forget about the dogs once they started a real investigation.

  The Baileys headed out into the sunny afternoon. It was slightly cooler than it had been earlier in the week, with a soft breeze that felt good on Charlotte’s cheeks as they grabbed their bikes from the garage.

  “So what do you think we’ll find there?” Tom asked as they pedaled down Bingham Road.

  “Maybe those soldiers that got experimented on turned into zombies,” Charlotte said, knowing Tom liked zombie comics. Tom probably thought she was being extra nice because she felt bad kids were mocking him so relentlessly, and of course it was true that that infuriated Charlotte. But underneath her righteous anger was the slippery guilt that made Charlotte squirmy every time she remembered how she had yelled at her brother.

  She had been upset at the secret he’d kept from her. But worse, she’d also been embarrassed by him, and if she was completely
honest with herself, she still kind of was. It was a wretched feeling that she desperately wanted to be rid of. In fact, Charlotte knew it was possible that she cared even more about getting this video than Tom did. She slowed her bike to a stop at the central plaza while a platoon marched past in smart formation.

  “I thought the soldiers turned into ghosts that haunt the building,” Rosie said. “Not zombies.” She had somehow managed to wedge her bike helmet over the goggles, and she looked like a beetle.

  “It could be either,” Charlotte said, watching how perfectly each soldier marched, exactly in step with the person in front of them. They made it look easy, but Charlotte’s class had tried it in gym and it was actually quite hard.

  “Or both,” Tom added uneasily as the platoon passed and they began to ride again.

  There were almost no cars on Gettysburg Drive, and Charlotte sped up, her siblings right behind, as they neared Crimson Drive. Once they turned onto the quiet street, Tom took the lead so that he could show them the nearly hidden alley. Moments later, the three of them came to a stop in front of the wooden building. It was set back from the road, with uneven patches in the lawn. Charlotte noticed ruts in the driveway that seemed fresh, but the house had an abandoned feel to it, like nothing human had been there in a long time.

  “It’s creepy,” she said quietly to her siblings. She still wasn’t sure if she believed in ghosts, but if she did, they would definitely live in a place like this.

  “Let’s go inside now,” Rosie said in her normal voice, kicking the stand on her bike and starting toward the porch.

  “Wait, not too fast,” Tom said, his eyes darting nervously at the wooded area behind the house.

  Charlotte understood his hesitation—the way the shadows fell over the house, making it seem like twilight even in the light of day, was unsettling. And who knew what might be lurking in the woods? But they’d come to conquer the haunted house, not just stare at it.

  “Don’t worry, it’ll be fine,” she said. “And we all know the plan, right?” She was looking at Rosie as she spoke.