Wanderville

by Wendy McClure

  “I suppose I am,” said Alexander with a smirk.

  “Your mug won’t look too clever once I’ve liberated a few teeth from your head,” Frances snarled. “With my fist.”

  Alexander’s smirk vanished. His eyes got wide.

  Frances burst out laughing. “Kidding,” she said. Jack and Harold joined in, and then finally Alexander shook his head and grinned.

  “Okay, you got me,” he said sheepishly. “And, look, I know you don’t approve of the . . . you know . . .”

  “The stealing,” Frances said.

  “But these are things we can use here in our town as we build it,” Alexander said.

  “He’s just following the second law of Wanderville,” Harold pointed out. He’d picked up the horse blanket and wrapped himself in it.

  “Besides, you asked me to show you everything I know about surviving,” Alexander said. “And this is one of them.”

  “He’s right, Frances,” said Jack. He’d only just now stopped glancing over his shoulder to be sure that no one—not the sheriff, not Mrs. Routh, not that Pratcherd lady—had seen them.

  “Fair enough,” she said. She walked over and picked up the hammer, nudging the rope with her foot. “So, Alexander the Great, what else can you show us between now and supper?”

  They started with knot-tying lessons. Jack seemed to lack the patience to sit on the log bench practicing bowlines, so Alexander showed them how to get a rope looped around a tall tree branch without climbing the tree. Frances and Harold watched while Jack threw the rope and pulled it taut.

  “Guess it’s not too hard,” Jack said. It was like when he’d help his mother loop her clothesline over the fire escape rails.

  Frances was looking up at the rope. “What kind of knots would you need to tie at the end to turn that rope into a good swing?” she asked.

  “Excellent question!” Alexander replied. “A few figure eights would do the trick.”

  “Then show me,” Frances said.

  Frances proved to be a quick study with the knots. She figured it came from her needlework lessons at the orphanage. “Crochet’s just a fancy kind of knotting,” she said.

  An hour later, everyone had tried the rope swing and agreed that Frances deserved high marks in knot-tying.

  The berry-foraging lesson turned out to be a berry-foraging lecture, since it was still May and berries weren’t in season yet. But Alexander still tried to give the others a few tips that were easy to remember.

  “Do you like red licorice or the black kind?” Alexander asked Harold.

  “Red!” Harold said. “The black licorice tastes funny.”

  “Well, it’s sort of the opposite with berries,” Alexander explained. “The black and dark purple ones are more likely to be edible than the red ones.”

  Jack raised his hand. “Actually, I like black licorice better. Does that mean I should look for red berries instead?”

  “No, no,” Alexander said. “I was just trying to illustrate a point about how it’s better to look for black berries than red ones. Also, you should never eat white berries.”

  Harold raised his hand. “What about white licorice?”

  “There’s no such thing as white licorice,” Jack said.

  “There is too,” Harold insisted.

  Frances raised her hand. “Wait, I was practicing my knots and I wasn’t paying attention. Can you repeat the part about making licorice? Do you have to boil the berries or something?”

  “Never mind,” Alexander sighed. “Let’s just move on to building campfires.”

  The fire lesson didn’t start off so smoothly, either.

  “You can start gathering fuel over there,” Alexander told Jack and Frances, pointing over to the wooded area across the creek. Then he watched as they paced back and forth around the trees, staring at the ground.

  “What on earth are you looking for?” he called over to them.

  “Coal,” Jack called back.

  “Are we going to have to dig for it or something?” Frances asked.

  “Criminy!” Alexander said, laughing. “City kids.”

  Alexander showed them how to find flint rock in the creek.

  “To start a fire,” he explained. “For when we don’t have matches.”

  Frances and Jack took turns chipping the flint against the hatchet until they’d lit the kindling that Harold had found. They all stood back to admire the blaze.

  “It’s beautiful,” Frances whispered.

  “It’s just the beginning,” Alexander said. “We can get some lanterns so that Wanderville will have streetlights. We’ll build a lean-to against those trees over there for shelter when it rains. And then we’ll set up a bridge over the creek, and a springhouse, so we can keep food cool when the weather gets warmer.” He turned and looked in every direction, even up at the sky, before turning back to stare at the fire.

  “When is it going to be a real town?” Harold asked.

  “You know,” Alexander said. “I think it’s already becoming one. Look around.”

  They all looked. There was the courthouse, with the sitting log and rock and the wall of small stones that Harold had lined up that morning. There was the rope swing, and over by the hotel trees, Jack had hung and knotted the muslin sheets to make hammocks. There were even nails on the trees for hanging clothes and tin cups—Frances had driven them in with the new hammer. And then there was the fireplace, where they were all gathered.

  The place looked different than it had just that morning, Jack realized.

  It looked like more than just a campsite, Frances thought.

  Alexander was right. It was becoming a real town.

  15.

  The Mice in the Cage

  “Hey, Alexander the Great,” Jack called over from the campfire that evening. “Who ‘donated’ these sausages?”

  Jack picked up the pan the sausages were cooking in and gave it a shake, just as Alexander had shown him. The sausages sizzled and gave off a savory-sweet fragrance, and he couldn’t wait to have the drippings over corn bread at supper.

  “There’s a butcher’s establishment on Second Street in Whitmore,” Alexander said. “It’s run by a fellow who likes to sit out in front of his store and read dime novels when business is slow. It seems he leaves the back door unlatched.”

  “Why, that’s awfully nice of him,” Jack said, checking the corn bread.

  “Fellow has no idea how generous he’s been,” Alexander remarked as he stopped by the campfire. “Too bad those are the last of the sausages for now. But I have to say, Jack of All Trades, you’re doing a fine job cooking them up.”

  “No, cook faster!” Harold called. “I’m hungry!”

  “Settle down, kid,” said Frances distractedly. She had taken out her book, the Third Eclectic Reader with the broken spine, and was looking through it. “We’ll just have to wait.” But Harold kept squirming in his seat on the courthouse log, so Frances scooted over next to him. She turned to a page and began to read aloud.

  I will tell you the story of three little mice,

  If you will KEEP STILL and LISTEN TO ME,

  (Frances read a few of the words extra loud.)

  Who live in a cage that’s NOT very nice,

  But are just as cunning as cunning can be.

  As she read, Alexander came over. He sat down on the rock and listened. Harold calmed down soon enough, but Alexander seemed transfixed by the verses about the clever white mice that lived in a cage and how one escaped.

  “That was sort of like school,” he said when Frances was finished. “Except better, because there’s no teacher to box my ears.”

  “I can definitely see how this would be an improvement,” she said.

  Alexander leaned over and peered at the pages. “I know this rhyme. But I thought all the mice escap
ed at the end.”

  “Nope!” Harold said. “Just the one.”

  “Maybe you’re thinking of another rhyme,” Frances suggested.

  “No,” Alexander said, puzzled. “Are you sure there aren’t more verses?”

  Just then, Jack came over with the cooking pan. “Nope,” he said, laughing. “Guess that one mouse didn’t bother to help the others escape.”

  Alexander got up suddenly and walked over to the fire. His hands hung at his sides, but Jack could see that they were balled up tight.

  Frances put the book down. “Alex? Where are you going?”

  But he didn’t answer.

  Jack set the pan aside and went over to Alexander. “Are you all right?”

  The older boy had picked up a stick and was poking the coals. “It’s nothing. It’s just for a minute it made me think of . . .” Alexander’s voice trailed off.

  “The ranch,” Jack finished for him. He squeezed Alexander’s shoulder. “How there were other kids there, but you were the only one who escaped.”

  “It was awful there, Jack,” Alexander said softly.

  Jack nodded. “I reckon it was.”

  “I’m no good,” Alexander continued. “Can never do things right. I’m always just daydreaming stupid things. That’s why I got in trouble at school, too.”

  “But you’re smart,” said a voice behind them. It was Harold. He and Frances had come closer.

  “It’s true,” Frances added.

  “After all, who else would be smart enough to think up Wanderville?” Jack asked.

  Alexander shrugged. “That’s nothing,” he said. But he was finally smiling. It was a shy kind of smile, one that made Jack wonder what it would have been like to know Alexander back in New York. Alexander could have been one of the kids playing stickball in the alley. He couldn’t know for sure, but he thought that whatever sort of kid Alexander had been in the city, he was definitely different here. And maybe Jack was different, too.

  “Can we eat now?” Harold asked.

  The sun was getting lower over the prairie, and long shadows stretched down the slope of the ravine. They ate right out of the pans again and drank clean cold water from the tin cups that Alexander had found. Harold and Frances shared the one spoon while Alexander and Jack ate using their pocketknives. But soon enough they all figured out that they could eat with their hands. They used the corn bread to pick up the steaming hot sausages, which made each bite even better.

  “Delicious,” Frances said as she wiped her chin. “I think we’ve invented something new.”

  “We’ll have to go back to that butcher shop,” said Jack.

  “We’ll need more cornmeal, too,” Alexander told them. “We’ll get up early tomorrow so we can get to the mercantile in Whitmore without any trouble.”

  The thought of going back to town made Frances stop chewing. Just a few hours before, she’d bellyached about the idea of stealing. Now, though, she found herself wishing that they’d managed to get their provisions that morning—by whatever means necessary—so that they wouldn’t have to leave the ravine.

  “What if the skashers see us?” Harold asked.

  “You mean the Pratcherds?” Alexander clarified. “Don’t worry. We’ll get to town before they do. Same with Sheriff Routh.”

  Just then, Jack put down his corn bread. “Say, Alex?” he asked. “Have . . . have they ever come looking for you?”

  “And what about the sheriff?” Frances added. “He’s got to be looking for us.”

  “I suppose he is,” Alexander said. “And I’m certain he’s looking for me.”

  They fell silent, the only sounds the rustle of the breeze through the trees and the soft cracks of the campfire.

  “Well,” Frances said, “he’s not welcome here in Wanderville, is he?” It was the first time she’d said the name of their town out loud. Their town.

  “No way,” Alexander said. “And we’ll show him.”

  “How?” Jack asked.

  Alexander seemed to think for a moment. He took a swig from his tin cup. Then he banged it hard against the rock with a loud clank! He banged it again, harder. CLANG! Then again and again and again. CLANG CLANK KANG!!!

  The others simply stared at him, dumbfounded. “What are you doing?” Jack said, though he could hardly be heard over the din.

  Alexander just grinned and kept clanging. CLANK KANK CLANG! “On your feet, everyone!” he shouted.

  Then Frances’s face lit up in a grin, too. “You’re sounding the alarm, aren’t you? The sheriff alarm!” She jumped to her feet.

  Alexander banged the cup faster. “Citizens of Wanderville!” he yelled. “This is a drill!”

  16.

  A Plan of Attack

  In no time they’d decided on the alarm system: Bang the cup with single clangs if Sheriff Routh was spotted coming from west of the ravine. Double clangs if he was coming from the east, and triple if he was coming along the creek.

  “Whoever spots him first should sound the alarm,” Alexander explained. “But then we need someone to run and roust the others! Someone fast.”

  Frances and Jack and Alexander raced one another up the ravine slope to see who was fastest. Frances won and was designated the Roustabout. She made herself a signal flag with the discarded lace bow from her dress and waved it proudly as she ran. Then the boys scattered into different locations in the ravine to see how long it would take her to get to them. She could reach them in no time, except for Harold, who didn’t understand that Frances was the Roustabout and kept running away instead.

  “You can’t get me, Sheriff!” he yelled at his sister.

  “Harold!” Frances called. “We’re playing something else.”

  “GO HOME, SHERIFF! NOBODY LIKES YOU!”

  Jack and Alexander doubled over laughing. “At least we know what’ll happen if the sheriff tries to chase Harold,” Jack said.

  “And if he catches me, I’ll give him a bunch a’ fives!” Harold shouted, punching the air with his fist.

  “Fisticuffs with the sheriff?” Frances said. “Right, Harold.”

  “I’ve got a better idea,” said Alexander. “Attack from the trees!”

  Jack snapped his fingers. “Swing down with the rope! Knock him over.”

  “Or you can jump on his back like you did with Quentin!” Frances said. “Cover his eyes and confuse him.”

  And so they practiced one battle after another. Sounding the alarm, then running through the ravine to the rope swing and the nearby trees.

  “Get in your attack positions!” Alexander would call out.

  Then Jack would use the rope to climb to one of the highest branches of the swing tree, and Frances found a good spot in the crook of an adjacent tree. Harold could get up almost as high as Jack by shimmying up a sapling that was too thin to hold the bigger kids but was just sturdy enough to hold his seven-year-old weight. And Alexander had used some leftover rope to rig himself a line that he could hold onto as he stood on the end of a thick branch.

  Then they’d wait for Alexander to give the signal. At first he’d just do it right away, but then the more they practiced, the trickier he got. Sometimes he’d wait for minutes at a time. It was long enough for them to imagine the sheriff making his way along the ravine, looking around the campsite. They’d stare through the clearing in the fading dusk light until they could see him in their minds.

  Jack tended to picture the sheriff clenching his fists and stomping his boots.

  Frances always imagined the sheriff muttering to himself, saying, Where are those blasted orphans?

  Harold had never seen the sheriff up close, but he figured he would be carrying a big net, and thought about how they would take the net away from him and maybe even trap him in it or something.

  Alexander just imagined the sheriff’s eyes. How they wou
ld look all around and see Wanderville, see everything that had been built. And then the sheriff would stop to wonder, and he’d look up, and then—

  “Attack!!!!!” Alexander yelled.

  That was the signal for Wanderville to take action. For the citizens to swing down from the trees, or beat the tin-cup alarms to scare off the trespasser, or throw down rocks and sticks.

  “Got him!” Harold shouted during their last drill. “I shot an arrow in his arm!”

  “Hold your fire,” Jack called as he swung down on the rope. “I’m coming in!”

  Frances was already on the ground, laughing and kicking at the imaginary sheriff. “We’ve got him licked!”

  “We sure do,” Alexander said. “That last fight was amazing.”

  “Let’s practice another one,” Jack said.

  “I don’t know. Harold looks really tired,” Frances said. Her little brother was yawning up in his tree perch. “Come down before you fall both asleep and out of that tree,” she told him. The night sky had been light enough for them to keep playing long after sunset, but the campfire was getting dim.

  “I suppose it is time for bed,” Alexander agreed. “We do have to start out early for tomorrow’s trip to Whitmore, after all.” He tossed dirt on the campfire to fully extinguish it. “Lights out, everyone.”

  With that, Harold and Jack each curled up in one of the hammocks Jack had pulled up, Frances settled into the soft patch of ground under the hotel pines, and Alexander assumed his usual spot on the sloping ground.

  Frances attempted to close her eyes, inhaling the sweet, smoky trace of the fire and listening to the hushing noise of the big tree in the light breeze. Just as she was about to nod off, she heard her brother rustle.

  “Hey, Frances,” he whispered in the dark.

  “Yes, Harold. What is it?”

  “Can Wanderville be our home?”

  Nobody said anything for a moment. Frances took a breath as if to speak, but then she looked over at Alexander, who raised his head expectantly, and then at Jack, a silhouette in his hammock. Frances could just make out that he was grinning.