The fort, p.17
The Fort, page 17
“Janelle!” I struggle to come to her aid, but Luke is on top of me, holding me down.
Jaeger wrestles Janelle to the ground and stands over the trapdoor. “Now what have we here?”
“You can’t go in there!” I bark, which might be the dumbest thing I’ve ever said. I’m not really thinking. All I know is the fort has been discovered and it’s my fault. I’ve let the guys down. I wouldn’t blame them if they never forgive me.
Luke gets up and looks at me with what almost seems like regret. “It didn’t have to be this way, Jason.” Then the two of them disappear down the ladder.
I scramble up and look for Janelle. She’s on her hands and knees, sweeping through the brush, feeling for her phone.
“Go home!” I exclaim. “You shouldn’t be mixed up in this!”
I fly down the metal rungs, jumping from the halfway point and very nearly twisting both ankles at the bottom. I don’t know what I expect to find, but this definitely isn’t it.
The fort is so packed with people that it takes me a second or two to identify them all. I already saw Luke and Jaeger go inside. The guys are there, obviously, and C.J.’s mom. But what is his stepdad doing here?
Marcus is bellowing at the top of his lungs. All that changes, though, when he turns and spots Luke and Jaeger. “Who are you and what do you want?”
Marcus is huge and pretty scary all revved up like this. But Jaeger isn’t afraid of anything or anybody. “It’s a free country, old man,” he says in that infuriatingly mellow voice of his. “What do you want?”
“His name is Jaeger Devlin,” Mitchell blurts, “and he’s been picking on us for weeks!”
Jaeger laughs out loud. “That’s right, crybaby. Why don’t you play tattletale—”
He never gets to finish the sentence, because Marcus’s huge hand shoots out and closes around his throat.
Marcus turns and addresses C.J. “That true, son? Has this guy been pushing you around?”
C.J. stares at Jaeger, who has gone colorless as the powerful grip cuts off his airway. Sure, we all hate Jaeger. But this looks really serious.
“Let him go!” C.J. says urgently.
Marcus tightens his hold on Jaeger. “No one messes with my kid! You hear that?”
“I’m not your kid!” C.J. almost wails. “I’m nothing to you!”
It only agitates Marcus even more. He lifts Jaeger off the floor and shakes him just a little. A strangled gurgling sound comes from the teenager.
We’re all standing flat-footed, stricken with horror that we might be witnessing a murder.
“Marcus, please!” C.J.’s mother implores. “You have to stop!”
It’s like we’re frozen into a diorama, and the only living, breathing person is Jaeger. We watch, transfixed, as he reaches into his jeans and pulls out his bone-handled pocketknife. With a snap, the blade is out, glinting off the bright lighting of the fort. A split second later, the blade is gone again, buried in Marcus’s ribs.
With a howl of outrage and pain, Marcus drops to the floor. Gasping for breath, Jaeger staggers back, the knife still clutched in his hand. At the sight of it, covered in blood, a wave of nausea hits me, and for a moment I’m afraid I might pass out. I bite down hard on my lip, just to bring myself back to awareness. But the crimson puddle growing around Marcus sets my vision swimming again.
Mrs. Sciutto drops to her knees and starts to cry, which only adds to the unreality of the moment.
Ricky is the first to recover. He takes out his phone and punches 9-1-1.
“Drop the phone!” Jaeger orders.
“He’s bleeding!” Ricky indicates Marcus on the floor. “He needs an ambulance!”
“I said drop it!” He makes a full circle gesture with the knife. “Who’s going to be the first to tell me where all the money comes from down here?”
Luke speaks up in a nervous voice. “Come on, Jaeger. The big guy looks pretty bad. Better let them call a doctor.”
“I’m not leaving here without what I came for,” Jaeger snaps at him.
There’s something different about Jaeger now. His casual drawl is gone, and there’s a hint of panic in his tone. He’s already stabbed one person. And okay, that was self-defense. But if Marcus dies because we’re not allowed to call for help, that’ll be on Jaeger—his fault and his fault alone. It makes him even more dangerous than before, and we all sense it.
Mitchell wrenches open the kitchen drawer, comes up with a handful of blackened cutlery, and holds it out to Jaeger. “This is it! This is the stuff we were selling!”
In anger, Jaeger swipes at it with his free hand, sending knives, forks, and spoons clattering to the metal floor. “Don’t show me garbage! You think I’m stupid?”
Evan steps protectively in front of Mitchell. “He’s telling the truth! Those things are solid silver when you polish them!”
He takes another step forward, his chest just a few inches from the knifepoint. I grab him by the shoulders and try to drag him back, but he shrugs me off. “Don’t you get it, man?” he tells me, his voice shaking with emotion. “This is my fault! You think this lowlife would even know who we are if I wasn’t Luke’s brother?”
You can almost see the rage battling the uncertainty inside Jaeger’s mind. He’s outnumbered, but he’s the one with the knife. That puts him in charge—if he’s willing to use it.
The muscles in Jaeger’s forearm bulge. He pulls back the knife, ready to thrust forward with all his might.
“No—” I wheeze.
A force strikes Jaeger from the side, knocking him clear of Evan. Luke takes his partner down hard, landing with his knee on Jaeger’s stomach. Enraged at the betrayal, Jaeger stabs wildly up at him. Evan is the first to grab Jaeger by the arm, struggling to control the action of the knife. C.J.’s next. And when Ricky and I join in, the weapon goes tumbling across the floor. Mitchell picks it up, juggling it like it’s burning his hands, and fumbles it into the chemical toilet.
Total chaos reigns. The four of us, plus Luke, are all on top of the struggling Jaeger, restraining him. Marcus is right beside us, unconscious and bleeding. Mrs. Sciutto is sobbing and dialing 9-1-1 on her phone. That’s why none of us sees the first cop hit the floor at the foot of the ladder.
“Everybody freeze!”
I bet none of us has ever been so happy to be ordered around by a person in a position of authority.
In the next three seconds, there are five police officers in the fort, which means the place is pretty much packed to capacity. Their efficiency is kind of impressive. Job one: Call an ambulance for Marcus. Next comes untangling the mass of bodies on the floor. There are a lot of babbled accusations. I have no idea how the cops make sense of any of it, but when the dust clears away, Jaeger is in handcuffs. They seem split over whether to arrest Luke too, but when C.J.’s mom explains how he saved the day, they leave him alone.
The last of the officers—the one standing by the ladder, explaining into a walkie-talkie that the EMTs are going to have to bring a stretcher into the woods—is Officer Jaworski, Janelle’s father. It hits me—that’s how we got rescued in the nick of time! Janelle must have found her phone and called her dad!
“Jason.” He pockets the device and skewers me with a look. “One of these days, we’re going to have a little talk about how you brought my daughter to this place.”
I almost tell him, “She wouldn’t stay away,” because he probably knows better than anybody how hard it is to say no to Janelle. She’s like a force of nature. But I don’t want to risk her getting in trouble—especially since she’s the one who made the call that saved all of us.
“Sure thing, Officer Jaworski.”
I climb up the ladder out of the fort, and there she is, waiting for me anxiously. And in that moment, I’m really proud that she’s my girlfriend. Oh, sure, the guys call me Romeo and give me a hard time about being in a relationship. But if it wasn’t for Janelle, who knows how today might have gone? By the time we could have called the police and explained where to find us, a lot of bad things could have happened. Marcus might have woken up and become violent again. Or maybe Jaeger could have convinced Luke to switch sides.
I say the first thing that comes to my mouth: “I don’t know what I’d do without you!”
“Luckily, you don’t have to be without me,” she replies, and gives me a hug.
I actually just meant right now, when she called her dad to the fort, but she seems to be giving it a bigger meaning. I don’t say anything, though. I don’t want to spoil the moment.
The guys come up one at a time, along with Luke and C.J.’s mom. I catch a low “Romeo” from somebody, probably Mitchell. A couple of cops emerge next, escorting the handcuffed Jaeger. He doesn’t meet any of our eyes as they march him away through the trees. Distant sirens indicate that the EMTs for Marcus are on the way.
Thinking back on it, I wish I’d lingered down in the fort just a few minutes longer. You know, to look around and imprint it on my memory. Because I’m suddenly overcome with the feeling that none of us are ever going to see it again.
The entire clearing is surrounded by yellow-and-black police line tape. DO NOT CROSS, it says. We cross anyway. Mitchell gets tangled up in the stuff. Guess what: The trapdoor has been padlocked shut.
The official word is the town of Canaan has sealed off Bennett Delamere’s bomb shelter until they can figure out who owns its contents. They also disconnected it from the power grid, which it was using illegally. That means no more lights, no more air circulation, no more old movies and music. It also means no more water, since the pump for the well ran on electricity.
The newspapers are full of articles about good old Bennett, and what an “eccentric” he must have been to create such a place.
It’s Mitchell who says what we’re all thinking: “Just because you’re eccentric doesn’t mean you can’t build something really, really great.”
It’s weird that the fort, which was our secret for so long, is on the lips of everybody in town. You can’t walk down the street without overhearing someone babbling about “Moneybags Bennett and his hole in the ground.” Adults who are old enough to remember the Cold War won’t shut up about the bad old days of the arms race and duck-and-cover drills in school.
“This is exactly why we couldn’t tell our parents about the fort,” I remind the guys. “Adults will never let you keep anything fun.”
We’re all pretty bummed, but Ricky’s magnet-school philosophy is the one that brings us a small amount of comfort:
“They took it away from us, but that doesn’t change the fact that we had it for a while. And when we did, it was awesome.”
Losing the fort isn’t the only big change in our lives. For one thing, I have my brother back. Even though Jaeger is getting a pass for stabbing Marcus—self-defense—he’s being charged for what he tried to do to me with that illegal knife. I’d love it if he gets sentenced to Devil’s Island. But so long as it keeps him away from Luke, that suits me just fine.
Luke says I’ve got nothing to worry about. “The minute he pointed that knife at you, I was done with Jaeger Devlin. I should have been done with him a long time ago.”
That’s what I want to hear more than anything else in the world. Okay, it’s just words, and our family has a lousy track record at straightening out. Look at Mom and Dad. But there are other signs that this might be a new Luke. He’s stopped fighting with Grandma. He’s back at high school. He smiles again. I have a feeling he’s turning a corner.
Out of all my friends, the biggest changes are in C.J.’s life. Marcus survived his stab wound—but when he gets out of the hospital, he’s going to find that his wife and stepson don’t live with him anymore. Not only that, but there’s a court-issued restraining order barring him from having any contact with them ever again—not so much as a phone call or a birthday card.
Since the house belongs to Marcus, C.J. and his mom are in an apartment for the time being, just outside of town. And while C.J.’s relieved and even psyched about starting over, I wouldn’t describe him as overjoyed, exactly.
“I know it’s weird,” he admits, “but I kind of feel bad for Marcus.”
“For Marcus?” Jason explodes. “Marcus was the monster who was putting you in the hospital!”
“And he’s huge,” Mitchell adds feelingly.
“He isn’t a monster,” C.J. tries to explain. “He’s just messed up. But that’s no excuse. Our only choice is to get him out of our lives.”
Both C.J. and his mom have been talking to counselors who are helping them deal with what happened. And Mrs. Sciutto’s friends and coworkers are supporting her through her life transition.
It turns out that C.J.’s new apartment is in the same building where Jason lives half the time with his dad. So C.J. already has a built-in neighbor who’s a friend. They hang out most evenings and ride together to school. C.J. definitely appreciates being able to use his fancy bike for transportation, rather than to jump over a parked car, to provide an explanation for some bruise Marcus put on him. And Jason’s happy to have company out there—and that his parents have toned things down a little. The Braxes are still splitting up, but at least they’ve stopped using him as a weapon in the divorce wars. Inspired by C.J., he spoke to them about how hard it is to be caught between two people you love. They understood immediately.
It was Jason’s first major speech since his pitch for us to clean the fort. We rehearsed it with him before he tried it on his parents. I can state with confidence that—if this was sixth-grade public speaking—he could have brought his F up to a D-minus.
When Grandma invites the guys and their parents over for dinner on Saturday, she says it’s just a catching-up thing, but I’m not fooled. Bennett Delamere’s bomb shelter is the biggest story to hit this town in years. And the fact that her grandson—me—was part of the group that discovered it has become kind of her claim to fame.
“She just wants to show off her homemade spaghetti sauce,” Grandpa confides to me.
We push three card tables up to the dining room table to make room for our family, Mitchell, Jason, C.J., their moms, and the Molinas. Mitchell practically has a heart attack when he counts heads and realizes that there are thirteen of us. Luckily, the Molinas also bring Ricky’s baby sister, which makes fourteen, so the dinner is saved.
Mitchell isn’t so sure. “She’s got her own high chair, which is separate. There’s still thirteen of us at the main table.”
Mr. Molina has an idea. “I’ll take the tray part off. That way, Chrissy will be eating on the same table as the rest of us, and that makes fourteen.”
And Mitchell agrees. Ricky’s father is pretty sharp if he can handle Mitchell when meeting him for only the first time. We’ve known Mitchell forever, and it usually takes us at least an hour of arguing to talk him down from a thirteen.
I’m happy to note that the guys are pretty friendly to Luke, even after all the bad blood between us. I think they understand that Jaeger was the real bad guy in that outfit.
Grandma asks us about the fort, and once she gets the ball rolling, the parents join in, peppering us with questions about our home away from home in the woods.
It’s funny. We spent so much time protecting our secret, almost swallowing our tongues when there were adults around. But now that it doesn’t matter anymore, it’s like the dam bursts, and it comes pouring out of us.
“The trapdoor was buried till the hurricane washed the mud away …”
“We found the main cable that was bringing the power in …”
“I won gold at ladder gymnastics in the Fort Olympics …”
“Mitchell lost his thumb drive down the chemical toilet …”
“Have you ever heard of this band called the Beatles … ?”
“I ate a can of chili from 1981 …”
“Eighty-five bucks for one lousy fork …”
“We saw Bennett Delamere on video …”
“No way was Alien scarier than Jaws …”
We go on and on, long after the adults have run out of questions to ask us. They’re looking at us pretty strangely, even Luke, who’s only a few years older than we are.
They don’t get it. They’re not supposed to get it. They weren’t there.
What do they know about how special it is—how rare—for a kid to have a place that’s totally yours? And no matter what else is going on in your life—a divorce, a horrible stepfather, moving to a new town, school problems, or your parents abandoning you—you still have this thing, this place that’s your escape from it.
Until they take it away from you.
Maybe we all think about that last part, because after so much enthusiasm, the five of us get really quiet at the same time. That’s what it would take to shut us up—the idea of what we’ve lost.
Grandma and Grandpa break the melancholy silence by serving dinner. Never before has anybody seen so much spaghetti and meat sauce all in one place. The serving bowl itself is about the size of the fort. Grandma doesn’t believe in her guests going away hungry.
It’s great—I mean really great. But I’d trade it all for one more tin of forty-year-old baked beans. I don’t know what the other guys are thinking. Maybe it’s just me.
Chrissy drops her bottle with a thump. She’s too little for solid food. I wonder if Mitchell realizes that means that thirteen of us are having the spaghetti. Better not mention it.
Mrs. Brax takes one bite, and her eyes pop open in surprise. “Your sauce is delicious! I don’t think I’ve ever tasted anything quite like it before! You have to give us your recipe!”
“Please don’t tell us it’s an old family secret,” Mr. Molina chimes in. “This is incredible!”
Grandma beams with pride. “There’s no big secret except the spices. My friend Ed Breckinridge grows a special organic garden, and I get all my herbs from him.”
