Fort

by Cynthia DeFelice

  Augie grinned and turned, looking like he was about to hop on his bike and leave.

  “Ahum-hmmm,” I said, clearing my throat loudly.

  Augie kept on walking.

  “Ahem,” I said, louder this time.

  Augie turned to me with a puzzled expression. “What’s the matter with you, Wyatt?”

  “I hope you’re not getting one of those summer colds,” said Unk. “They can be a real bear.”

  I bugged out my eyes at Augie, but he just stared, confused. Obviously, he’d forgotten this part of our plan.

  Finally, I said, “Didn’t you have something else you wanted to ask your uncle, Augie?”

  Augie’s face cleared as he remembered. “Oh, yeah. Hey, Unk, does Aunt Hilda have any nightgowns that are, like, you know, kind of see-through? Or—what’s the word you said before, Wyatt?”

  “Um, flimsy,” I said in a low voice, suddenly thinking maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea after all.

  “Yeah, that’s it,” said Augie. “Does she?”

  He looked expectantly at Unk, whose eyes, I was dismayed to see, had grown narrow. “What kind of smart-aleck question is that?” Unk asked. “Why, I oughtta—” He stopped, his mouth opening and closing like a fish as he tried to think of what he oughtta do to us.

  “What’d I say?” Augie asked, looking bewildered.

  Al broke in then. “Now, Heinie, settle down a darn second here, will ya?”

  Heinie? Had Al really just called Unk Heinie? I guess it was the obvious nickname if your parents were clueless enough to call you Heindel. Any other time I’d probably have been rolling on the ground, dying of laughter. But just then I was too nervous.

  Al spread his arms, palms to the sky. “Don’t you kids know anything? Ya don’t ask a guy about his wife’s unmentionables! That’s why they’re called unmentionables: ’cause ya don’t mention ’em, ya got it?”

  “Aw, Unk,” Augie said. He looked crestfallen, a vocabulary word I’d never really understood until that moment. “We didn’t mean anything you’re not supposed to mention, did we, Wyatt?”

  I shook my head.

  “It was just part of our plan to prank J.R. and Morrie. But never mind. I didn’t know the rule about unmentionables. Just forget it,” he pleaded.

  Al turned to Unk. “Okay, so they didn’t know. Now they do. They didn’t mean nothin’ by it.”

  Unk nodded. “All right. It’s up to your aunt, anyway,” he said. “You go ask her.” He added with a weak smile, “Just tell her what you want it for, okay?”

  “Sure thing!” Augie said quickly.

  “Thanks!” I called as I ran to my bike.

  “Man,” said Augie as we rode off. “That was weird.”

  * * *

  We got to Aunt Hilda’s house, and she was happy to give us all the empty paint buckets we wanted. Which were, lucky for us, a lot easier to carry on a bike than full ones. Plus, we each had a cardboard box bungeed on the racks over our rear wheels because of all the stuff we’d been hauling back and forth to the fort.

  “If you need more, you know where to find them,” she offered. “Now, you said this is part of a trick you’re playing on some other boys?”

  “J.R. and Morrie,” I answered. “Do you know them?”

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “They’re the ones who smash up my nice pumpkin decorations every Halloween. I know boys will be boys, but that just seems so—unnecessary, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, I do,” I said. “Which is why we were wondering if you could help us out with something else?”

  “Why, certainly,” said Aunt Hilda. A little sparkle showed in her eyes and she winked. “I’d be happy to help you teach those two a lesson. As long as no one’s going to get hurt,” she added.

  “Oh, no,” Augie said. “We already decided. No injury. No death. No dismemberment.”

  Aunt Hilda laughed. “Well, that’s a relief. So what can I do?”

  Carefully, we explained about the nightgown. Aunt Hilda clapped her hands with delight. “I have just the thing!” she said. “Hang on. I’ll run and get it.”

  She returned, holding up a long white nightgown that was exactly what I’d been picturing. “It’s kind of sheer,” she said, “but that’s what you’re going for, right?”

  “It’s great!” Augie said.

  “Perfect,” I agreed. But then I had a thought. “Is it, you know, your best, most favorite nightgown or anything? I mean, what if it gets dirty or torn or something?”

  “Oh, heavens,” said Aunt Hilda. “I’m not worried. It’s been hanging in my closet for ages. I’d forgotten about it. I can’t even remember the last time I wore it. I think it was getting a little tight on me.”

  I looked away from both Aunt Hilda and the nightgown, trying not to picture her and it together, wondering why my imagination came up with stuff like that at the worst possible moments.

  Beaming, Augie said, “Thanks, Aunt Hilda.”

  “Yeah, thanks,” I managed to say.

  We were on our bikes, almost out of sight of the house, when Aunt Hilda came running after us calling, “Boys! Oh, boys!”

  We went back. She had something in her hand, which she held out to me. Her eyes had that mischievous look again.

  “I was thinking you could use this,” she said.

  I looked down at the bottle, which was made of fancy cut glass and had a gold cap shaped like a swan. The label said Floral Fantasy.

  “It’s perfume,” Aunt Hilda said. “I suddenly remembered a trick we played on my brother. Oh, he was so mad at us!” She giggled, remembering. “What made me think of it is, he was a football player. J.R. and Morrie are on the school team, aren’t they?”

  Augie nodded.

  “I thought I saw their pictures in the paper,” Aunt Hilda said.

  I looked at the perfume bottle again, stumped. I looked at Augie, who shrugged.

  “Um, what are we supposed to do with it?” I asked.

  “Oh, I’m sure you’ll think of something,” she said innocently, and turned to go.

  Augie and I stood there, speechless.

  “I want a full report afterward, you hear?” she said with a laugh.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said.

  Augie and I made two trips out to the woods with all the supplies we’d gathered so far, and put them in the fort. Then we took a couple of Unk’s buckets and collected black walnuts. Augie told me that when they were ripe, they fell to the ground, but since they weren’t, we had to shinny up into the trees to get them.

  By then it was getting dark, so we hung out at the fort cooking hot dogs and talking over the details of the plan.

  We still needed to get Herkimer.

  And Herkimer’s head.

  There was one more big problem to solve. If Gerard was going to be there to watch the operation go down, we were going to have to figure out how to get his mother to let him come with us.

  And she thought we were the rotten guys who had made Gerard cry.

  13

  The next morning, I was awake before Augie. My mind was already racing like crazy. The second I heard him yawning and stretching and moving around in his sleeping bag, I said, “So today we go to Gerard’s house, right?”

  “Right,” said Augie.

  “I was thinking you should do the talking.”

  Augie frowned. “Why me?”

  “You know them better than I do.”

  “Nice try, Wyatt. Come on. We’ve gotta do it together. We’re a team, right?”

  I sighed. Neither of us was looking forward to seeing Mrs. DeMuth after what had happened the last time. “Okay,” I said. “Deal.”

  “Let’s get it over with,” Augie said.

  As soon as we’d eaten some bread and peanut butter, we left the woods, got on our bikes, and headed for the DeMuths’.

  Gerard and his mother were out in the yard when we pulled up. She was weeding, and Gerard was staring down at the concrete path that led from the street to
their front door. Something really interesting had his attention, and he didn’t even look up as we parked our bikes. Mrs. DeMuth did look up, and was glaring at us in a definitely unfriendly way as we walked closer.

  Soon we could see that Gerard had two worms lined up next to each other, and was watching them carefully like he was waiting for them to do something.

  Augie and I both said a cautious hello. Gerard saw us then, and his face broke into a smile. “Hi, Augie. Hi, Wyatt.” He pointed to the worms. “It’s a race.”

  “Cool,” I said. “Who’s winning?”

  Gerard peered at the worms. “Nobody.”

  “You got lazy worms,” said Augie. “That’s the problem.”

  Gerard seemed to find this hilarious. “Lazy worms!” he repeated, laughing like crazy. “I got lazy worms! That’s the problem! Mom, that’s the problem! Lazy worms!”

  Mrs. DeMuth smiled at him. It was as if she just couldn’t be mad when Gerard was happy. I felt the same way. I didn’t know if it was the idea of lazy worms, or Gerard’s laugh, or both, but Augie and I were cracking up, too.

  When we’d settled down, Mrs. DeMuth looked at us with her eyebrows raised in a question, and it was obvious she was wondering what we were doing there. Augie, the rat, was playing dumb, so I finally spoke up.

  “Um, Mrs. DeMuth, remember the last time we were here?”

  “Yes,” she said. Her voice sounded flat and cool.

  Boy, that was a dumb way to start. As if she would forget how we made her son cry.

  I plunged on. “Well, it was a misunderstanding. Really it was some other kids who were mean to Gerard. He was telling us what they did to him, and that’s why he was crying.”

  Mrs. DeMuth still looked suspicious, but she was listening. “Are you referring to J.R. and Morrie?” she asked.

  I nodded eagerly, and so did Augie.

  “Those two have been bothering Gerard for years,” she said with a mix of anger and sadness.

  “It’s not just Gerard,” said Augie. “They bother us all the time, too.”

  Gerard was kneeling beside his worms, watching them intently. I couldn’t tell if he was listening or not.

  “So, anyway, we felt really bad because you thought we were being mean to Gerard—”

  Still looking down at his worms, Gerard said, “Augie and Wyatt are not mean to Gerard.”

  Mrs. DeMuth smiled at him, then gave a little shrug and smiled at us. “Well, I’m very glad to hear that. Thank you, boys, for stopping over.”

  I guess she figured we were finished, because she turned back to her gardening.

  “Well, see,” I said, “we came over because we were wondering if Gerard could maybe—if he wants to, that is—if he could sleep out at our fort this weekend.”

  Mrs. DeMuth’s mouth dropped open with surprise, but Gerard didn’t waste any time.

  “Yes! Yes! Gerard does want to sleep at the fort!” he said, nodding his head up and down and up and down really fast. “This weekend. Yes.”

  Mrs. DeMuth looked back and forth between her son and Augie and me. She seemed torn, like she wanted to believe what she was hearing, but wasn’t sure she should. “Do you mean this? This isn’t some kind of joke?”

  “No, ma’am,” said Augie. “Honest.”

  “No joke,” I added.

  “Gerard wants to, Mom. No joke!”

  “Oh, lovey,” she murmured. To Augie and me she said, “It would mean so much to him.” She lowered her voice and continued, “You’ll take care of him?” Her voice trailed off, then she finished, “You understand what I’m saying, don’t you?”

  I did understand, and I guess Augie did, too, because we both nodded our heads off, almost as fast as Gerard had been doing.

  After that, Mrs. DeMuth had a lot more questions. But finally we got it all settled. She would bring Gerard to Al’s at three on Friday, with his sleeping bag and his stuff. I promised I’d take my cell phone and we’d call to let her know everything was going okay, or if he wanted to come home for some reason. Since we didn’t know exactly when Operation Doom would go down, we just said we’d call when it was time for her to pick him up.

  “Okay, Gerard,” I said when we were ready to leave. “See you Friday!”

  “Okay! See you Friday!” Gerard repeated. “See you Friday!” he kept calling as we got on our bikes. “See you Friday!” Then, “Lazy worms!”

  We rode away to the sound of Gerard’s laughter.

  14

  Since it was Wednesday, Augie and I both had to go home for dinner and to spend the night. I was worried about leaving the fort unguarded, but Augie swore (not in the bad way) that J.R. and Morrie wouldn’t show up during the week.

  We decided to go home early and get started on our chores. We hoped Dad and Gram would be so impressed by this proof of our dedication that they’d have no hesitation about letting us stay at the fort over the weekend.

  Still, I couldn’t help worrying that all our plans would be for nothing. “What if they say no?” I fretted.

  “They won’t,” said Augie. “We gotta think positive, Wyatt. That’s what Gram always says anyhow.”

  As it turned out, Augie was right. When Dad got home at five, I had already taken the sheets off my bed and bagged them up with my dirty clothes, mowed the grass, and taken out the garbage. The garbage was part of our plan, and I was happy to note that it was good and ripe.

  Dad brought home some chicken, so I lit the grill and helped him make salad and garlic bread. While we ate, he asked me what Augie and I had been up to, and I told him about inviting Gerard to sleep out at the fort. Dad’s pretty cool, but I didn’t see any reason to bring up Operation Doom.

  “You’re talking about—what?—Friday night?” he asked.

  “Maybe Saturday, too,” I said carefully. “If Gerard wants to.”

  “Well, I think that’s a really nice thing for you boys to do,” said Dad. “It’s fine with me, as long as Mrs. DeMuth is comfortable with it. But— You know what? Take your phone. Just in case something unexpected happens.”

  “I already thought of that,” I said eagerly. “I told Mrs. DeMuth we’d call her.”

  Dad nodded in approval.

  And that was that. I could hardly believe it had been that easy. I called Augie.

  “Gram said yes, too,” he told me happily.

  Everything was falling into place.

  Dad and I played poker until he yawned and said, “I’ve got an early class to teach tomorrow, so we’d better hit the hay.”

  Like I said, Dad’s pretty cool. Even when he says corny stuff like “hit the hay.”

  15

  I was in the driveway waving goodbye to Dad when Augie showed up on his bike.

  “Did you remember Herkimer?” I asked.

  Augie pointed to a paper bag in the basket of his bike. “I put him in the bag in case we run into Unk.”

  I felt a pang of guilt about Unk’s prize owl, lying decapitated all week in Bertha’s trunk and now stuffed into a paper bag. “You got his head, too?” I asked.

  “Well, duh,” said Augie.

  “You figure we’ll fix him and sneak him back into the attic, right?” I said. “After the mission, I mean.”

  “Yeah,” said Augie. “A little superglue and he’ll be good as new.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Well, I guess next is—the garbage.”

  We went to the end of the driveway and I took the lid off the big plastic trash can I had taken out the night before.

  I gestured to the can and then to Augie. “Ladies first.”

  Augie frowned. “Man, that reeks. Even through the bags!”

  “The rottener the better, right?”

  “I guess.” Wrinkling his nose, Augie looked inside. Then he reached in and took one bag and I took another.

  “So that’s it,” I said.

  “Let’s go.”

  Unk and Al weren’t around yet, and we headed straight to the fort.

  “Where do we start?�
�� asked Augie.

  “The first thing is to figure out where they’re going to walk to get here,” I said. “Which is kind of a no-brainer. They’ll take the easiest, shortest route, just like we did when we first came in. They’ll cross the field behind Al’s and go through that opening in the trees at the edge of the woods, right?”

  “Only logical,” Augie agreed.

  “Exactly. We know that last time they went from there toward the stream—”

  “—because we know where they crossed and found the squirrel guts!” Augie finished. “And, besides, it’s the easiest way. We did the same thing. So do the deer and other animals.”

  “Then, from the stream, it’s sort of a straight uphill line to here,” I said, pointing.

  Augie nodded. “Let’s go.”

  * * *

  We got to work. I’d never realized before that playing chess and being good at math would come in handy in real life. But it turns out, knowing about angles and how to figure out distances and stuff can be very useful.

  From chess I’d learned that you have to plan more than one move ahead of your opponent, and try to figure out what he might do before he does it. Add to that the fact that Augie knew everything in the world about the woods and hunting and all, and J.R. and Morrie didn’t stand a chance!

  We took a quick break for lunch, having cold dogs instead of hot dogs, which Augie said he liked better. While we were eating, we decided that planning Operation Doom was pretty much the most fun we’d ever had, and our victims hadn’t even shown up yet.

  “We can’t help it if we’re diabolical masterminds!” I declared.

  “Genuine evil geniuses!” agreed Augie.

  When we’d finished, we built a fire and sat around talking and laughing, imagining the way the operation would go down. I could hardly sleep, thinking about it. Augie fell right to sleep and was even snoring like some old geezer in a cartoon. I kept poking him. He’d stop for a second, make some weird noises, and then start up again. He was so sound asleep it made me think of the old trick where you put a sleeping person’s hand in warm water, which for some reason—don’t ask me why, but it’s a scientific fact—causes him to go pee. But I didn’t really want to do it to Augie. J.R. and Morrie, sure, in a heartbeat, if the opportunity came up. But not Augie.