Читать книгу The Lost Celt - A. E. Conran - Страница 11

CHAPTER SIX

The next morning, Kyler’s at my house extra early with a map he’s printed off the Internet. “Got it,” he shouts, waving the paper in my face before I can shut him up.

“What’s that, Kyler?” Mom raises her eyebrows as she sweeps veggie peelings into the trash. I should have warned Kyler she’d be here this morning. She has a sixth sense for trouble.

When she’s not on nights, Mom likes to get up and make sure I eat a good breakfast. Cooked stuff. “Protein not pastries,” she always says. She packs my lunch box, too, with salads, fruit, and carrot sticks. On these mornings, Grandpa stays in bed with his cup of coffee. “To keep it company,” he says, but he’s really keeping out of Mom’s way.

When it’s just Grandpa and me, I eat a huge bowl of cereal for breakfast. Without milk. The crunching sets me up for the day brainwise. Then Grandpa makes me a chocolate-spread sandwich the size of my military history book for lunch, and I grab a bag of chips from his poker night store hidden in the garage. Grandpa’s packed lunches are great. Mom disagrees. I’ve tried telling her chips are brain food, but she’s not bought into this yet.

“Carrots are crunchier…and nutritious!” She sounds like a health food commercial.

Anyway, the minute Kyler sees Mom in the kitchen he looks guilty. He hides the map behind his back and squeaks hello. Wrong move. Mom leans over the counter with a look that says she knows something’s up.

“The map! Great,” I say, quickly. “Miss O’Brien will give us extra credit, for sure.”

Mom chops an apple, eyebrows still raised. “Are you two working on something for school?”

Kyler nods and glances at me. I want to cover for him, but why does he leave the direct question to me? He should know by now they aren’t my strong suit.

Mom asks again, “Is that something for school?”

No, I want to say, we’re looking for a Celtic warrior in every park we can find. “No,” I find myself saying, “I mean, yeah.” I hesitate. “It’s a map of our route to school,” which is true. “And we want to work on it a bit more before class.”

“Great,” Mom says. “Is Miss O’—” She glances at the clock. “Oh! My goodness, look at the time. I have a dentist appointment in twenty minutes, and I haven’t finished your fruit salad yet. Mikey, go brush your teeth.”

We’re saved! Kyler and I run upstairs like we have rocket packs strapped to our backs.

“Lucky,” Kyler says as he slams my bedroom door. He puts the map on my desk and points with a pencil as he talks. “Now listen up.” Kyler can take stuff really seriously sometimes, but that’s OK. I’m glad he’s with me on this. “There are five parks in town. Only two are within walking distance of school. So, those are the ones we’ll try first. We’ll call them Park One and Park Two. And there are grounds around the VA, which we’ll consider Park Three. Parks Four and Five we’ll have to get someone to drive us, so let’s forget them for now.”

“He won’t have stayed at the VA last night. The police will have searched all around it.”

“Agreed…so let’s start at Park One, the farthest away, walking-distance-wise.” Kyler circles Park One on the map.

“Hey, isn’t that ‘Big Stick Park’ right by our old preschool? That’s what I used to call it. It has those great trees along the fence, with the best sticks ever, and that cool digger thing in the sandbox?” Kyler looks blank. “You lost a tooth there when you fell off the swing set.”

“You mean ‘Lost Tooth Park’?” He shudders. “I hate that park.”

“That reminds me…” I run to the bathroom and rub some toothpaste onto my front teeth.

When I come back I notice Kyler has drawn a sad face on Park One, and colored our new route to school in red.

“Hey,” he says, “I was thinking, have you looked in the flour canister?”

“What for? The Celt?” I grab the map.

“Duh, no. The guns? They could be in a plastic snack bag, taped to the bottom?” It sounds insane, but I know exactly what he means.

“Already looked,” I say. “Come on, there’s no time to think about Mom’s plastic-gun stash right now.” We head for the stairs.

Grandpa meets us on the landing as he comes out of his bedroom. “Have you brushed your teeth?” he asks. He’s wearing his grandpa-grey robe with an empty coffee cup tied to the flannel belt. This drives Mom mad, but Grandpa says it frees up his hands, and she’d be even madder if he fell down the stairs. A small trickle of coffee dribbles onto the floor. “Have a nice day, Mikey Boy. Kyler too. Don’t forget to show those teachers how smart you are, just in case they haven’t noticed. Heh, heh.” Grandpa presses chocolate-covered peppermints, his favorite candy, into our hands.

“Thanks, Grandpa,” I say. “See you later.”

As we’re hurrying out the door, Mom holds me back to stuff my lunch box into my backpack. I breathe toothpaste on her. She seems convinced, because she wishes me goodbye and gives me a kiss.

The minute the door’s closed, Kyler and I leap down the front steps. “One Mississippi, two Mississippi, go, go, go!” We’re special operations paratroopers launching out of our troop plane on our first mission of the day.

“Operation Getaceltorix here we go!” I yell. We land, throw a pretend roll, then high five each other as we step into the heavy morning mist. I know it’s unlikely we’ll find him on the first day, especially since it’s October thirteenth, which is not a lucky day if you believe those things, but it sure feels good to be looking.

Our “mom-approved” route to school is straight down the street one block, left three blocks, then right two blocks. Even so, it took until fourth grade for Mom to let me walk there alone. Now I can, as long as I take my phone, but she’s happier when Kyler’s with me. She used to spy on us, I’m sure: driving past to watch whether we crossed the street properly. But she’s finally gotten over that. Still, as we turn at the first block and then turn right—completely off our mom-approved route—I’m thinking she’ll be really mad, grounding mad, no-TV-for-a-month mad, if she finds out about this. Better keep on the alert.

“Corporal Kyler, take point and keep your eyes peeled. We may be watched,” I say in my walkie-talkie voice, adding a bit of static for effect. “Kechhhhh. The target could be anywhere. He may be armed and dangerous. Kechhhhh. Out.”

“Roger,” Kyler says. “Kechhhh. Out.” Kyler steps ahead of me to become the lookout, while I spin to cover our rear.

We walk the whole way like this, Kyler checking the map at every cross street, me walking backwards to make sure we aren’t ambushed. We’re pretty much there when I hear Kyler say, “Butt.”

This is one of our games. I’m not sure it fits into Operation Getaceltorix, but I go along with it and say, “Butt cheek.” I wait for Kyler’s reply. He’s supposed to say, “Butt cheek cooties,” or something like that. The aim is to keep adding words until the other guy laughs, but Kyler doesn’t add anything. I shout, “Butt cheek,” again as loud as I can and run into Kyler’s back. I look around to see what’s stopped him in his tracks.

Ryan O’Driscoll is coming out of the park right in front of us. Kyler tugs at my sleeve, but it’s too late. I’ve just shouted, “Butt cheek,” at Ryan O’Driscoll.

Ryan’s the biggest guy in fourth grade. It’s not just that he’s tall. He’s the kid version of a muscle car. He always wears long basketball shorts, and his calves bulge like the turkey legs they sell at county fairs. Fog is still hanging in damp pockets in the hollows of the road, but Ryan is in a short-sleeved basketball shirt, and he hasn’t got one goose bump. He’s carrying a camouflage backpack like mine and has stars and stripes shaved into his crew cut. Mom always tuts disapprovingly when she sees this. “When you’re ten years old, you should be a kid not a fashion statement,” she says, but Kyler and I think his haircut is cool. Our moms would never let us have a cut like that in a million years.

“What did you say?” Ryan asks, blocking our way. I’m never putting Kyler on point again. He’s supposed to look out for danger not walk into it. “What’re you doing here?”

Oh man, this is Ryan all over. In second grade he was fun. We were never good enough friends to go play at his house, but Ryan was a building-brick genius and recess champion at “Squash the Tofu,” a game I made up. Now he just gets mean and moody. I’m not saying Ryan’s a bully. He doesn’t normally pick on people. It’s just that you never know nowadays when he’s going to lose it. Like, he drops the ball in Squash the Tofu, or someone piles on his head, which is half the fun, and he gets red-faced mad really quickly. Just like he’s doing right this minute.

“What’re you doing in my park?” he says again.

It’s a direct question darn it, and I can feel the words forming on the end of my tongue.

“Looking for a—”

Kyler cuts in for once. “It’s not your park. It’s everyone’s. What are you doing?”

Ryan looks surprised then says, “Going for a run, Turtle.”

I groan a double groan. Kyler hates being called “Turtle,” even though he does look like one because he’s so small and his backpack is so big. And I’m so not surprised Ryan O’Driscoll is running while wearing a backpack. He’s probably doing pull-ups every morning and a hundred one-armed push-ups, too.

“You’re jogging?” Kyler says. “Jogging what? Your brains into jelly?”

“Kyler!” I go to pull him away, but it’s too late. Ryan takes a swing. Kyler ducks. I step to one side. Ryan swings at me, too. I run. “Come on!”

Kyler follows me back up the street with Ryan thumping along behind us.

“You’ve done it now,” I shout, wondering if we can outrun him, and, even if we do, what he’ll be like at school after this. Calling Ryan “Butt Cheek” and insulting his brainpower is not a good way to start the day.

Maybe we slow down around the corner without realizing it, because one minute we’re sprinting away from Ryan, up a small street with a laundromat and a grocery store, and the next minute he’s right up close. “Are you spying on me, Turtle?”

I glance over my shoulder to see Ryan yanking at a loose strap hanging from Kyler’s backpack. Kyler spins around on the sidewalk. His arms flail above his head as he wobbles into the gutter. Ryan loosens his grip for a second. I shout, “Run!” like Kyler doesn’t know that already, and then Ryan clamps down on Kyler’s arm.

It all happens so quickly. Ryan wrestles Kyler to the ground. I see panic on Kyler’s face and I wade in to help just as there’s a roar from the alley between the store and the laundromat. All the garbage cans rattle. A cloud of warm steam streams out of the dryer exhausts. A black cat runs down the street hissing. And a man, as big as a bear, leaps out of the fog yelling, “Cuckoolaaand!”

It’s my warrior with his clumpy red hair and his mustache dripping fog. Spit sprays out of his mouth in a big arc like a lawn sprinkler. Whoa. He’s every bit as amazing as in the VA, but more scary. Way more scary because he’s outside, on his own, with no adults around to help, and he’s mad at us. Like really mad. And suddenly, even though we came looking for him, I am terrified.