by B. C. Tweedt
“Hey!” Jarryd yelled after them. “Don’t leave me with him!” He turned to Sammy, who smiled at him and winked. “Okay,” Jarryd said. “I need to go grab a poster. Be back in twenty minutes.”
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They followed him for ten minutes before it happened again. The white-shirted teen took out a poster, nailed it to another vendor hut, and shouted his same speech. This time it made more sense to Greyson, and it was understandable enough to the crowd gathering around him. There were even several who cheered, but more who whipped threats and curses at him and Pluribus. The poster was torn down once again, ripped to shreds, and stomped on.
The boy in the white-shirt smirked. “Stomp on that paper now. But you won’t tread on us.”
“We’ll see about that!”
And then came the cops. The same two.
Sydney and Greyson shared a look and watched as the act proceeded just as it had before. They were not any harsher in breaking up the fight or throwing him out. And again, they didn’t take his posters or hammer.
“What the heck?” Greyson murmured to himself. “Why don’t the cops do something?”
“It’s like they want it to happen,” Sydney suggested.
“But why?”
“Who knows?”
They shrugged at each other before turning back to the scene at hand. The boy in the white shirt smirked again and put his hammer through one of his jean’s belt loops. And then he looked straight at them.
His face turned sinister.
They gasped and glanced away. Did he recognize us from before? Don’t look at him. Don’t look at him.
Greyson’s hand glided down toward his fanny pack and his fingers found the zipper. If he came at them, he envisioned exactly what he’d do. The clicker first, unfold the slingshot, load a ball-bearing, and aim…
“He’s running!” Sydney pointed at him as he zigzagged through the crowd, pushing and shoving people away.
Without thinking, Greyson shot after him like diving into an ocean of torsos and arms. He felt as if he were doing the breaststroke, arms in, spread apart, arms in, spread apart. But it wasn’t water he was navigating. It was adults. A large belly overflowing a t-shirt, then a muscular guy – Greyson bounced off him hard. And then a child on a leash. It wrapped around his waist and he nearly toppled the child to the ground. The mother was screaming at him as he was tearing at the leash, his eyes frantically scanning the crowd. But he was in too deep. He couldn’t see anything but the few bodies in front of him. If only I was taller.
And then he remembered. Freeing himself from the leash and taking a purse to the back from the angry mother, he pulled his cell phone from his pack and dialed Nick.
“Greyson!” It was Nick on the other end. “We see him! He just ran into the swine barn!”
He stopped in his tracks. “Where’s that?”
“Um…where are you?”
Greyson searched for an identifiable landmark, but decided to raise his hat instead. “I’m waving my red hat, in the middle of the street, not far from where he just was.”
“Gotcha! The building to your right with the green roof! Go!”
He swam through the ocean again and bolted through the entrance. The smell of manure and hay massaged his nostrils and throat, bringing back memories of his family’s farm. But he didn’t have time to reminisce. He sprinted into the darkness that held rows and rows of animal pens. Immediately to his right there was a small crowd of people gawking at a particularly large, caged-in pen where a huge piece of bulbous, pink and black flesh lay in the corner. Thin, wispy, black hairs covered parts of the animal’s body, all the way up to its salivating mouth where two gnarly tusks protruded from its gums. The biggest boar. The nastiest animal he’d ever seen.
Greyson shook his head to refocus. Besides the crowd around the biggest boar, there were fewer people in here and he was able to pick out the white shirt as it flashed up and over one row of pens after another. The pens were set up in an easy grid, but the rows stretched the entire span of the massive building. The boy had figured out that taking a shortcut was the best route through the crowds aisles and rows. Greyson would have to follow.
He darted down the first aisle labeled “Avenue of the Breeds.” Weaving around meandering couples and following the white shirt from a distance, he calculated where to take his shortcut. Wait. A few more strides. Wait.
Here!
He shot to the stable’s gate, pressed his hands on the top and vaulted over. He landed in sawdust and woodchips, slipping a little on goat manure, sped past the baby goats to his right, and launched himself up and over the back, wooden gate. Landing next to a miniature horse this time, he ignored it and vaulted again, back into another crowded aisle of spectators. Kids and adults gawked at him as he blew past, his eyes on the white figure approaching the last row before the exit. He grasped the top of the tall gate with both hands and pushed himself over.
And just at that moment he saw it. A giant ostrich.
It swung its tentacle-like neck around and stared at him with beady, angry eyes. It flapped its useless wings and took a step closer to him, standing between him and the back of the stable.
“Whoa! Nice birdy! I made…a mistake.”
A shriek erupted from somewhere in the bird’s throat, sending Greyson flailing back over the gate he had come from.
His heart beat at his ribs and sent adrenaline racing through his body; he couldn’t stop watching the bird, making sure it couldn’t somehow fly or leap over the gate and peck him to death and rip at his dead body with its claws.
And he’d lost the boy in the white shirt.
“Greyson!”
He pulled up the phone. He hadn’t even hung up. “Y-yeah?”
“He just ran out the south entrance and headed east. If you head east you could…”
Greyson bolted to the east. It was a straight shot out. If I run fast enough I could cut him off.
“…cut him off. And tell me again…why are we chasing this guy?”
He zigzagged around another few couples and a boy carrying a bucket of manure. Another boy sprayed a hose near his feet, washing away another sort of excrement. “Because!” he managed to shout into the phone. “He’s running from us!”
“Oh. That makes total sense. I think he turned north. It’s like he’s circling back.”
And Greyson saw him bolt across the east exit, just a few strides in front of him. He wasn’t running near as fast as he used to. Greyson could catch him. But a question popped in his mind. What would I do if I did? He knew something was fishy about this boy. He was cooperating with cops while vandalizing – and running from a kid. He had to know why. But it’s not like the boy would tell him if he did happen to catch him.
Instead, he had to follow him, track him to somewhere he could find out more information. “Keep your eye on him. He’s going somewhere and we gotta find out where.”
Greyson skidded from the barn into the sun-blasted streets. The crowds were back – tall men and women blocking his view.
“Greyson! The SkyRide’s taking us away from view. We’re losing – we lost him!”
He could see them on the ski-lift-like ride in the distance slowly being taken to the other side of the fairgrounds. He’d lost his eyes. Greyson pushed the phone into his pack in frustration, stretching his neck up to scan the crowd. How could he hope to find him in the pack of giant adults?
A tractor’s engine roared and its horn beeped, frightening some of the faint-hearted in the crowd as it chugged behind them, carting a large, covered trailer of forty or fifty fairgoers. One of its wheels, towering above him, churned past, a spinning crusher of hard rubber – and Greyson’s only hope to find the boy.
A plan formed in his mind and implanted itself so that he could not throw it away. It could work. It has to.
He walked alongside the tire for a few strides, judging its speed and eyeing the driver in the tractor’s cabin above. He looked friendly enough.
Turning h
is hat backward, Greyson paused his stride, bent his knees, and raced to the spinning tire. His left foot found a large tread and the tire instantly scooped him up. It lifted him like an escalator up, up, up toward the tractor’s cabin. A surge of panic lit through him as he approached the crest of the tire. If he didn’t get off soon, he’d follow the tread over the other side and underneath. Underneath would not be fun.
The panic left as soon as he found a grip in the cabin. He grabbed the roof and placed his right foot just inside. The startled driver gave him a double take. “What the – what? Son, get down!”
He would have yelled at him for calling him “son”, but Greyson was too busy searching the crowds from his new vantage point to acknowledge him. The height made it easier, but there were still so many people with white shirts. No. No. There! The boy was heading into the main entrance of Midway – the carnival. He had slowed down and was checking his back for any followers. He didn’t think to check the giant tractor.
“Thanks for the lift!”
Greyson smiled at the driver and launched off the tire, grabbing a nearby tree branch. It held his weight just enough to slow his fall and soften his landing. Before the driver had time to summon security, Greyson had entered Midway.
Lights, bells, and whistles bombarded his eyes and ears as he flew through the crowded alleys between games. Carnies called to him from both sides.
“One easy throw away!”
“Just a flick of the wrist!”
“One basket gets a prize!”
“Everyone’s a winner!”
Sprinting as fast as he could manage, he searched in all directions, but the boy in the white shirt had disappeared. Greyson spun around and found another alleyway. He checked another route and another. No sign of him. No one was running but him, and he was drawing eyes. The SkyRide was no help in this area of the fair either.
Sweat was dribbling down his cheeks now, but he kept on, determined. A small roller coaster clunked and clinked to his left, blasting a rush of popcorn-smelling wind in his face. A small girl fell from a rock-climbing wall, wailing as she dangled from the ropes tied to her waist. He thought he saw the boy to his right, but it was a different teenaged-boy climbing a precarious rope ladder to reach the big, red button at the end. Memories that had been haunting his dreams began to assail him. Memories of an SUV rushing past his face. Memories of the room of wailing sirens. The room where he’d dangled from the vent at the mercy of merciless terrorists. The button he’d defended with his life. His bone breaking. Pulling the trigger. The blood on his face.
Something wet splashed his face and his hands wiped at it frantically.
Loud laughter burst from speakers on both sides of him. “Did I make you cry, loser?”
Greyson’s eyes darted around until they found the source of the sound. It was a grinning clown sitting on a dunk tank’s platform. It had a small microphone looping to his mouth, giving it the volume it needed to assault would-be dunk tank throwers. It kicked at the water, sending another wave in his direction.
“Little red riding hood! Think you can pick up a ball and hit that target? No. Losers can’t throw.”
The clown was distracting him from his mission. But his frustration had gotten the best of him. The mission was over. He looked in all directions. No white shirted boy. He had escaped. And Greyson had lost him.
He was a loser.
“Loser! Just standing there? Lost your mommy? Or your daddy?”
Before he could regret the decision, he had drawn and loaded the slingshot. His aim lingered on the clown’s stupid red nose for a beat, but he released the shot straight into the target and walked away as the clown plunged into the tank.
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The boy in the white shirt charged into the security building, sweating and blowing out air to catch his breath. When the guards closed the door behind him he knew he’d lost him. Some of the workers were giving him odd looks, but he smiled at them. That was fun.
His smile vanished. The dry-faced assassin marched toward him, his red knife flashing in and out of view from underneath his black coat. “What happened?” he asked from deep in his raspy throat.
“Nothing!” He took a deep breath and slowed down. He had to appear confident. “Nothing. I was just doing the rounds, you know? Doing a pretty good job at it, too. Then I caught sight of this boy following me.”
The assassin’s eyes narrowed.
“But I lost him. Don’t worry. He’s gone.”
“What it look like?”
The boy glanced at the ceiling, thinking. He’d barely got to look, he was so scared to be discovered, but there was one thing that was unmistakable.
“He wore a red hat with a white ‘G’ on front. And I think-”
The assassin’s face crinkled. “No more. That’s enough.”
Chapter 7
“I’m sorry.” Greyson hung his head between his knees, sitting underneath the two-trunked maple tree. “I let him get away.”
Nick and Liam had returned as well, nibbling on the corndogs Jarryd had bought for them while they were gone. Nick shook his head. “I’m sorry, too. There are two SkyRides. We should have gotten off the west one; we could have stuck with him on the east one.”
Greyson notched the idea of the second SkyRide into his brain just in case they ran across the Plurb again. And though Nick was apologizing, he knew it was his fault. He had given the orders.
“Hey. At least I succeeded in my mission!” Jarryd exclaimed, holding up the poster. It had mustard smeared on it and had been torn, but it was legible enough.
Nick snatched the poster from his brother and read the heading aloud. “E…Unum…Pluribus. Oh! I get it now. It’s a play off of the motto on coins and stuff. It’s supposed to be ‘E Pluribus Unum’, which means, ‘out of many, one’. So they switched it around. I suppose ‘E Unum Pluribus’ means ‘out of one, many’.”
The boys looked at Nick, scrunching their eyebrows. Only Jarryd knew that Nick studied Latin and Greek when normal school work bored him – which was every day. While the other kids continued giving Nick puzzled looks, Greyson was the exception, still hanging his head between his knees in frustration. He understood what Nick was getting at. This Pluribus wanted to make many countries out of one country. Basically, they wanted to take the ‘United’ out of United States. How stupid are they? This is America.
“Like that will ever happen,” he whispered, almost to himself.
“Exactly,” Jarryd muttered. “Have they ever said the pledge of allegiance? What part of ‘one nation, under God, indivisible’ do they not understand?”
Nick scoffed. “Well, maybe the government doesn’t understand the ‘liberty and justice for all’ part.”
Jarryd crossed his arms and gave his brother a look.
“What else does it say?” Greyson butted in before another political argument broke out.
“In short, it says our government is tyrannical.” Nick ignored his brother doing a Tyrannosaurus Rex impression. “They tax us, but don’t give us a choice in where to spend it; we are in ‘financial slavery’ to China; and they are taking our guns so we can’t fight back. And they are spying on us with the Internet! Huh. Maybe these Plurbs do know what’s up.”
Greyson had been amused watching Jarryd act out Nick’s explanation with an impression of a T-Rex using a gun and binoculars, but the meaning of it made him furrow his brow.
“Is that all true?”
Nick butted in before Jarryd could even shake his head. “Yes! But you just can’t read about it or talk about it without being labeled a nut-job.”
“You are a nut-job…” Jarryd muttered under his breath.
Nick ignored him. “Half the stuff you read on the Internet is put out by three or four news organizations – which are filtered through the government, another forty percent of it is garbage, and then the ten percent that is true is called conspiracy or whatever. My dad’s half-brother was a journalist until he started looking too
deeply into some leaked information and got canned. Now others call him a conspiracy nut.”
Greyson furrowed his brow in thought. “So he broke the rules?”
“Maybe. But aren’t journalists supposed to search for the truth, no matter where it leads?”
“I guess.”
“But that’s not all. His bank accounts were emptied, he couldn’t get a loan, and his passport didn’t work. It’s like he was branded a traitor just for putting stuff out there about the new anti-terror laws.”
“Geez.”
“And that was before Morris. The stories coming out since then about the government forcing people to register guns are true. My granddad got into a fight with the police and got taken to jail with a black eye because he didn’t believe they had the right to search his house for it. He’s like seventy years old!”
“They gave him a black eye?”
“Yeah. I think it’s because he was part of that anti-tax militia. Government labeled it a terrorist group after Morris. But they’re just a bunch of rednecks who go shooting every weekend!” Nick was clearly worked up, his skin flushed red and his forehead in a permanent scrunch.
“So he’s a Plurb?”
“No!” Nick suddenly drew back, as if he had frightened himself by his own yelling. He paused for a second and took a deep breath. “No,” he said, calmer now. “People keep mixing them up. Plurbs are violent and crazy – you know? But not everybody who disagrees with the government is a Plurb. They might be right about some things, but they are way too extreme.” Looking around, still embarrassed about his outburst, he held the poster out to Greyson. “You want it?”
He took it to look over. “Thanks.”
“So…” Jarryd started after a long moment of silence. “What are we gonna do next? Leave all this Pube stuff behind and go win some more ribbons? How about an eating contest?”
“It’s Pluribus. Not Pube,” Nick grimaced. “And you should lay off the eating contests.”
“Yeah,” Sammy nodded. “You’re fat as a house.”
Jarryd glared at him. “What did you say?”
Sammy smiled. “A mansion. With lots of jiggle in your pool.”
