The Diamond War (8 page)

“Oh, hi,” Ari said, feeling very relieved. “I almost thought you’d gone without me.” He stared at Aurora. “You look awful,” he said.

Aurora was wearing one of their father’s oil-stained work shirts over polka-dot tights, and there was a wide sequin-covered stretch belt around her skinny waist. There were dark circles around her eyes and her huge mop of sun-streaked hair looked bunched and tousled. “I couldn’t sleep,” she said.

“Yeah, me too,” Ari said. “So I got up and made me a bulletproof vest. Do you want me to make you one? I have another phone book.” Ari’s vest was a phone book tied around his neck by some shoe-strings so that it hung down and covered most of his chest.

Aurora looked at the phone book doubtfully. “That’s a bulletproof vest?” she asked.

“Sure,” Ari said. “You know how people are always getting saved because the bullet hits the Bible in their pocket? So—a phone book is even thicker than a Bible and a whole lot bigger.”

Aurora smiled faintly. “It does look pretty—big,” she said. She looked around the room nervously. “I left a note for Mom,” she said. “They’re still asleep. But I think we’d better go. I called Kate but her mother said she and Carson had gone out already. For a walk, she said.”

“To the grove?” Ari asked.

“Probably,” Aurora said and started toward the back door. Ari followed her.

“Where’s Athena?” Ari asked. “She wanted to come too.”

“She’s gone to visit Prince. I told her we wouldn’t be going to the grove for quite a while, so she could take her time. I don’t think she ought to be there anyway. Not if there are really going to be guns and things like that.”

“Yeah, I guess not,” Ari said, but what he was thinking was that Athena probably
should
be there. After all, she got away with taking the note to the PROs without any trouble, which was pretty amazing. Maybe she could do something like that again. “But I thought you said Athena was going to be the one to save the grove?” he said.

“I know.” Aurora shook her head. “I thought so. It was so clear for a second. But I can’t get it back. I don’t know. Maybe I was wrong. Anyway, she said she’d meet us there later,” Aurora said. “At the grove. After she’s finished taking Prince his carrot.”

They had reached Dragoland by then and as they went down the path, through the Pit and out into the Weedpatch, they saw nobody at all. It wasn’t until they had started pushing their way into the bamboo thicket that they saw Kate and Carson—and Susie too. Actually they heard them first.

“Halt. Who goes there?” they heard Kate’s voice saying just before they got to the clearing.

“Kate?” Aurora said. “It’s us. Ari and me.”

“Oh, okay. Stay right where you are. We’ll come and get you.” A minute later Kate appeared. She was wearing a karate tunic over her shorts and two of her karate belts around her middle. Susie and Carson were right behind her. There was no sign of Slinky.

“Where’s Slinky?” Ari asked.

Carson just shook his head and let Kate answer for him. “He’s not here. Carson wouldn’t bring any of his snakes. But he came himself, anyway, because I’m doing something for him. Carson helped with the booby trap. Didn’t you, Carson?”

Carson nodded. Then he leaned forward and pointed at Ari’s chest. “Phone book?” he asked in a puzzled tone of voice. But Ari was too busy thinking about booby traps to explain.

“Booby trap? You guys made a booby trap?” he asked in his best reporter’s tone of voice, polite and not too nosey. His hand was already reaching back for his notebook when he realized it wasn’t there. In the excitement he’d forgotten to wear his fanny pack. He’d just have to remember all the important details. “Is something going to explode?” he asked politely.

“No.” Kate shook her head regretfully. “Nothing actually explodes. It’s just a string that pulls a bunch of tin cans down on your head if you trip over it. See—there it is.”

Ari saw it then, a thin black string stretched across the path into the clearing—and up above, a bundle of tin cans dangling from a limb.

“Mostly it’s just to warn us that they’re coming,” Kate was saying. “So we can load our slingshots.”

“Yeah,” Susie said. She held out a big wicked-looking Y-shaped piece of wood with a wide strip of rubber attached to it. “We got lots of slingshots. And lots of rocks. I’ve been collecting rocks down in the creek. They’re piled up over there behind the barricade. See the barricade?”

Ari looked. On the far side of the clearing, at the edge of the trees, an old wooden table had been turned on its side. Susie grabbed his arm and dragged him toward it. Behind the table were several piles of large, mean-looking rocks.

“And here’s your slingshot,” Susie was saying.

Ari looked at Aurora. She was shaking her head again. “No, Kate,” she said. “No slingshots. No rocks. Don’t you see? Don’t you see that if we shoot rocks at them—something terrible will happen? It will. I know it will.”

“Yeah.” Kate’s voice was tight and angry. “To them it will. Something terrible will happen to those creeps if they think they can—”

She stopped in midsentence. “Listen,” she whispered. “I hear them.”

Then they all heard them. The PROs were coming across the Weedpatch.

C
ARLOS HAD AWAKENED THAT
morning knowing something was wrong before he remembered exactly what it was. For a few seconds before he was entirely awake he lay very still, trying to go back to sleep—so he wouldn’t have to remember. But it didn’t work.

This was the day the PROs were going to chop down the Dragoland grove to make room for first base. Which would have been great except a bunch of ecology nuts were going to try to stop them. And Bucky was going to show up with baseball bats and a hatchet and
a pellet gun
. And the whole thing had been his, Carlos Garcia’s, idea, so whatever happened was going to be his fault. Carlos tried pulling the covers over his head, but it didn’t help much, so he gave up and got out of bed.

He was still sitting on the foot of his bed putting on his shoes when he heard his mom calling him from downstairs.

“Carlos,” she called. “Bucky’s here. Carlos. Can you come right down?” She sounded a little bit frantic, which probably meant Bucky was driving her crazy.

“Coming,” Carlos yelled and ran down the stairs with one shoe half on. In the kitchen Carlos’s mom was at the grill turning pancakes. The only other Garcia present was Rafe, who was leaning against the sink drinking a glass of orange juice. As usual he was wearing his football practice outfit and a cool, sarcastic grin. Bucky was sitting at the kitchen table scarfing down pancakes.

“Hey, Bro,” Rafe said. “You better get going before your buddy here finishes breakfast and starts doing lunch.”

Carlos glared at Rafe. “Come on, Bucky,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”

Bucky stuffed a whole pancake into his mouth and then sprayed pancake crumbs all over the floor as he mumbled something that might have been “thank you.” Then he ran out the back door while Carlos was still telling his mom she didn’t have to save him any pancakes because he wasn’t very hungry.

When Carlos caught up with Bucky he was pulling a huge plastic garbage bag out from under the hedge. Strange, sinister-looking shapes bulged the shiny black surface of the bag. As Bucky swung it up over his shoulder he grinned at Carlos and said, “I bet you can’t wait to see what I’ve got in here.”

“I can wait,” Carlos said. He was noticing that Bucky’s eyes looked blank and fixed and he had the same wild-man grin on his face that usually meant he was headed for a basket and you better get out of his way.

As they were crossing the Castle Court circle Carlos said, “Bucky, I don’t think…” He pointed to the hag. “I think maybe we oughtn’t to…” But Bucky wasn’t paying attention.

“Eddy will be in the Pit,” he said between his grinning teeth. “I called him. He said he’d bring Web too. They’re going to wait for us there. Come on. Hurry up.”

Eddy and Web were in the Pit, all right, and as soon as they’d all said “hi,” Eddy asked where Lump was.

“Oh yeah. Lump,” Carlos said. He’d forgotten all about bringing Lump. “I could go back for him,” he said.

“Naw, forget it. We won’t need him,” Bucky said. “Wait till you see what I’ve got.” He untied the top of his sack and began taking stuff out. First he took out two baseball bats and then a shiny, sharp-looking hatchet. He picked up the hatchet, looked at Carlos for a moment, and then handed it to Eddy. “Here, Eddy. You take this,” he said. “You get to have first turn with the hatchet.” He handed one bat to Carlos and the other to Web. Then he reached back into the sack and pulled out—a gun.

The gun looked rusty and kind of handmade, but it had a long evil-looking barrel. “Hey, Bucky, we don’t need that thing,” Carlos said. “Put that back in—”

“It’s for the snake,” Bucky said. “I told you, it’s just for the snake.” He looked at Eddy. “You don’t want to start chopping trees with a live python in one of them, do you?”

Eddy stared at the gun. His eyes had a strange, glazed look to them. Nodding and shaking his head at the same time, he said, “Yeah, yeah. I don’t like live snakes.”

“See, Carlos,” Bucky said. “We’ve got to be prepared for anything. Come on, you guys. I’ll lead the way.” He climbed up out of the Pit, with Eddy and Web following close behind him. “Come on, Garcia,” he called back over his shoulder. “Forward march.”

As Bucky started across the Weedpatch carrying his pellet gun like an assault rifle, with Eddy and Web stumbling along behind him, Carlos brought up the rear, still trying to get Bucky’s attention. “Bucky,” he kept saying, “Bucky, wait a minute. I don’t think this…I’ve got this awful feeling…” But Bucky just kept on going.

They were getting pretty close to the grove by then and—nothing was happening.
Maybe,
Carlos thought, with a great rush of relief,
there’s not going to be anyone there.

But then Bucky stopped and Eddy and Web ran into him and Carlos almost ran into them.

“Look,” Bucky said. “I just saw a face. Right over there in that bunch of bamboo.”

While the three PROs and Web were walking across the Weedpatch, a lot was happening inside the grove. Kate was doing most of it. First she grabbed Aurora and Carson and dragged them back behind the overturned picnic table. Ari followed.

“Yeah,” Kate said. “You too, Ari. All of you. You crouch down right there behind the barricade and get your slingshots ready. You too, Susie.”

“No.” Susie was jumping up and down looking like a fierce, wild-eyed baby rabbit. “No. Not me. I’m going with you. I’m going to go with you, Kate.”

“Well, okay, but be quiet,” Kate said. “I’m just going to go look out the spy hole.”

“Yeah, yeah, me too,” Susie said.

Kate stepped carefully over the booby-trap string and disappeared, with Susie right on her heels. Ari stood up for a moment to watch them go and then crouched back down behind the barricade between Aurora and Carson. Aurora had dropped her slingshot and was sitting perfectly still. Carson had a rock in his sling and was trying to aim it, but the wide rubber band was stronger than he was. Every time he pulled on the rock the slingshot tipped over backward. Ari decided to try his.

Even though Ari was stronger than Carson he didn’t have much better luck. Every time he had his slingshot almost aimed his bulletproof vest got in his way. A phone book might be a good bullet stopper but it sure was big, not to mention heavy. The shoestrings were beginning to hurt the back of his neck. He was still trying to adjust his vest when Kate and Susie came running back into the clearing. Kate’s eyes were wide and excited.

“Get ready,” she said as she ducked down behind the barricade. “Get ready. Here they come.”

Crouched behind the picnic table, Ari could hear feet tromping and leaves rustling. He heard the stomping get louder—and then, suddenly, a startling metallic clatter. Kate giggled wildly. “The booby trap,” she said. “Get ready.”

Ari was watching Kate loading her slingshot and trying to do exactly as she did, when suddenly everything got quiet. A strange deadly quiet. No rustles, no voices, no tin-can clatter. Out of the corner of his eye Ari saw Kate getting to her feet so he did too—and found himself face to face with Bucky Brockhurst and Eddy and Web Wong, and behind them, Carlos Garcia. Eddy was holding a hatchet and Web had a baseball bat. Bucky had a gun—and the gun was pointing right at Kate Nicely. And Kate’s slingshot was aimed right at Bucky.

For one terrible moment Ari stared from Kate to Bucky and back again. He wanted to scream at them. To yell, “No! Stop! Don’t do it!” but his voice seemed stuck in his throat. But then just as Kate started to pull the slingshot strap farther back there was a sudden thudding noise, a howl of pain, and, right by Ari’s feet, Carson Nicely flopped over backward, holding his head. Kate dropped her slingshot and crouched down beside her brother.

“What is it?” she said. “What happened, Carson? Are you shot?”

Carson stopped howling and rubbed his head. “That stupid slingshot,” he said. He picked it up and held it out to her. “See. My hand slipped and the handle came back and hit me. Owww!”

Ari couldn’t help grinning. Holding up his own slingshot, he tried to see how clumsy old Carson had managed to shoot himself in the head with the handle. He was pulling back on the strap, trying it out, when he glanced across the barricade—and froze with horror.

Although Eddy and Web had moved closer to peek over the barricade and see what had happened to Carson, Bucky hadn’t moved an inch. He was still standing right there in the middle of the clearing and he was still aiming his gun. Only now it was pointing right at Ari’s head.

Ari gasped, dropped his slingshot, and tried to lift his bulletproof vest up in front of his face. But the shoestrings were tied too tightly. “Wait a minute,” he yelled at Bucky. “Wait a minute.”

He was still frantically tugging on the phone book when he realized that someone else was standing up behind the barricade. It was Aurora. One hand was pressed against her mouth and the other was raised in the air.

“Hush,” she said. “Be still. Listen.” And there was something in her face and voice that made everyone in the clearing do exactly what she said.