Forts: Liars and Thieves Read online

  Much had changed in the relationship between Tommy and Donald over the last six months. Since the third grade it seemed to Tommy that Donald’s sole purpose in life was to make his a living hell. During school, after school, on the weekends, and during breaks the torment would come at any time and any place. Fillagrou changed that. Since returning, Donald had not only stopped bullying Tommy, but everyone else as well. He’d withdrawn into himself and transformed from a loud obnoxious bruiser to a silent brooding bruiser. Though the two boys had never really spoken at length about what happened, they had occasionally exchanged a knowing glance in the halls at school. Over time Tommy had slowly come to the rather shocking realization that he had more in common with Donald Rondage than he ever believed possible. This, of course, terrified him.

  Leaping off the last rung of the ladder, Donald waddled in Tommy’s direction, a smarmy look stretched across his pudgy face. “I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know though, am I, weirdo?”

  Tommy didn’t answer. He didn’t need to — the look on his face had given him away.

  “Ha! I knew it! How many times have you dived in there? Fifteen? Twenty? Twenty-five? I bet you’ve been shoulder deep in that muddy crap fifty times, haven’t you weirdo? Ha!”

  Laughing to himself, Donald picked up a rock from the chilly-stiff ground and whipped it full force into the water while grumbling to himself, “Goddamn doorway.”

  Standing at the water’s edge, the pair of boys stared down into the chilly darkness of the barely moving water. Somewhere behind the murky, greenish drink were worlds inhabited by creatures they once believed could only exist in movies and storybooks— a completely different universe, filled with an endless array of possibilities unlike anything they had known before. So achingly close – so very unreachable.

  Sighing deeply while speedily growing tired of staring at something he couldn’t have, Donald turned away from the stream and quickly changed the subject. “So how’s life with the foster parents?”

  Tommy didn’t respond. His attention remained on the mysteries hidden beneath the water, and he wasn’t quite ready to turn away.

  “They aren’t smacking you around too, are they?”

  Almost instantly Donald regretted having said it.

  The details of what happened to Tommy and his brother spread quickly around school after the boys were removed from their home. Passing from student to student, the news made its way from one end of the school to the other in a matter of hours – the way news such as this tended to do. Initially the information caught Donald off guard, and though he would never admit it, a part of him suddenly felt guilty for treating Tommy the way he had for so many years.

  Turning from the water, Tommy stared at Donald sternly.

  “What? What? Come on, it was a legitimate question …” Donald quickly added, his mouth continuing to mutter stupid things independent of the common sense in his brain. Tommy’s steely gaze remained unwavering.

  “Alright, alright. Look, I’m sorry, whatever, I didn’t mean it. Relax, it was just a joke. Geez, what’s the matter? Can’t you take a joke, weirdo?”

  Sighing deeply while shaking his head, Tommy again turned his attention to the water.

  For a few minutes there was silence. The only noise for at least a mile in every direction was the gentle movement of the unfrozen water and the soft sway of the trees in the breeze. Wiping a small glop of leakage from his cold nose, Donald scanned the area around him to see if anyone else was within earshot and finding none.

  “Look, I didn’t mean it, okay?”

  His tone was apologetic, even shamed, carrying with it an honesty that Tommy hadn’t thought he was capable of. This was not the same Donald Rondage he’d grown up with. This was not the same Donald Rondage that beat him up on the way home from detention. This was not the same Donald Rondage that knocked his tray over at lunch or tripped him in the hallway or gouged the tires on his little brother’s bicycle. No, this Donald Rondage seemed almost human — or at least as close to it as he’d likely ever come.

  Never turning his attention away from the stream, Tommy answered back softly, “Don’t worry about it.”

  Again came the quiet as both boys attempted to come to terms with what might be the start of a budding friendship between two of the most unlikely participants a friendship could ever hope to find.

  Overcome with an urgent need to break the wholly uncomfortable silence, Donald chuckled, “Hey, if it makes you feel any better, my old man is probably a piece of crap too. I’m starting to think it’s a requirement for the job or something.”

  An awkward, slightly sad laugh crept up from Tommy’s stomach, splitting his lips. It caught the breeze and floated away, infecting Donald. Within minutes the pair were laughing, their giggles rattling what few leaves remained attached to the trees around them. Shared laughter between lifelong enemies is similar to a force of nature; like it or not, change can hit you when you least expect it.

  *

  CHAPTER 6

  LATE NIGHT VISITOR

  *

  “Hey kid! Come on, wake up …move it …get up. I aint’ got all night, putz …”

  Half a whisper, half a command, the gruff-gravelly voice snaked its way into the dreams of the sleeping Owen Little, instantly conjuring up memories of adventures in a faraway world.

  “Come on you little schmuck! I don’t believe this crap …wake up!”

  Stiffly something jabbed him in the shoulder – then again, this time a smidge harder. Intent on continuing his sleep, Owen rolled away from the voice and the pokes, pulling his blanket underneath his chin while mumbling angrily through lips slick with drool.

  “Okay, fine. That’s how you want to play? Fine…I tried doing this the easy way, boyo, but if you insist on making things difficult, then I guess that’s just the way it’s gonna hafta be.”

  Half asleep Owen was only vaguely aware of the feeling of tiny feet walking up his back and across his neck before coming to a stop on either side of his exposed ear. Barely recognizable was the sensation of an equally miniscule pair of hands touching the side of his face, of tiny-warm breath perilously close to his ear canal. He would however become completely and totally aware of all these things in a matter of moments. “I said wake up!”

  The voice was so loud that it felt as if it were somehow screamed from inside his ear rather than out. The flesh covering the soft cartilage vibrated, the dangly underside swinging back and forth like a pendulum. Yelping loudly, Owen leapt to a sitting position before rolling awkwardly off of his bed and onto the floor. With his right hand he reached up and cupped his ear as a sharp ringing mashed against the inside of his skull and down the side of his neck. Unsure of what was happening, he began frantically scooting across the carpet of his bedroom trying to get away from the awful buzzing. His eyes hadn’t yet adjusted to the low light levels and because of this he spotted what seemed to be little more than a blurry red shape shoot up from his bed and come to a hovering stop three feet from his face. Even in his darkened bedroom with limited visibility, Owen could tell instantly that whatever it was, it wasn’t human. Hands shaking, ears ringing, and overcome with fear, the boy’s body reacted before his mind had time to weigh the options.

  With a pitch high enough to shatter glass he screamed, “Da—”

  Before he could fully get the word out, a tiny arm wedged itself over his mouth. The tiny arm was attached to an equally tiny body, which belonged to none other than tiny Roustaf.

  “Exactly what do you think you’re doing, kid? Relax! It’s just me. You start screaming and you’re gonna put us both in a pretty major pickle,” Roustaf sternly stated while trying his best to keep his voice just above a whisper. He wedged his entire torso over Owen’s lips in order to keep the child from waking every living thing in the neighborhood.

  Content that he’d successfully squashed Owen’s idea of calling for help, Roustaf rotated in mid-air while keeping his bare foot pressed firmly against the b
oy’s mouth. “It’s just me, your old buddy Roustaf. Remember me, goober?”

  Still shaking, his heart pounding, Owen nodded his head slowly. His eyes having adjusted to the light, he could now clearly make out the tiny winged, red-skinned man hovering just inches from the tip of his nose. It had been months since he’d seen him, but a six-inch tall flying man dressed in filthy blue overalls with little horns and a handlebar mustache couldn’t be mistaken for anyone else.

  “Alright then…glad to hear that we’re on the same page,” Roustaf added, cautiously pulling his foot from Owen’s dry lips.

  Slowly the tiny man floated backward and above the boy’s bed, landing softly on the sheets, and stated quite sarcastically, “Oh, by the way, it’s nice to see you again too. Geez, kids got no manners anymore.”

  The strangeness of seeing Roustaf standing on his bed twiddling with his bushy mustache was almost too weird for words. It had been half a year since Owen followed Donald Rondage and his goons to the Jarvis brothers’ tree fort. Almost six months since he ended up caught in the middle of a war on a world filled with castles and dinosaurs and lizard men built like professional wrestlers. As wildly insane as it was, after a while seeing Roustaf in Fillagrou started making perfect sense. When you’re riding on the back of a giant turtle named Walcott, a six-inch tall devil simply wasn’t that weird anymore. Now though, staring at the miniature man in his bedroom standing on his Star Trek bedspread next to the stuffed animal his mother gave him when he was a baby – well, this was another thing entirely.

  The pounding in his chest beginning at last to slow, completely unsure of what to say, Owen stammered, “Wha-wha-what are you d-doing here?”

  “Oh, I was just in the neighborhood, thought I would stop in and shoot the breeze. What do you think I’m doing here, kid?” Roustaf answered in the lovingly sarcastic way only he could pull off. Floating over to the dresser on the right of Owen’s bed, his expression briefly turned stone serious. “Look …I need your help.”

  “No, no, no, no, I’m through helping you guys! I nearly got killed fighting in your stupid war! You can count me out, forget it, find someone else. You need to get out of here! The last thing I need is my dad strolling in here and finding you.”

  Roustaf was only barely aware of Owen’s protests as he poked inquisitively at the buttons on a remote control half buried under a stack of magazines on the boy’s dresser. Immediately after touching the power button, a television on the opposite end of the room lit up, bathing the entire area in flashes of color. The loud, repetitive sounds of Hollywood gunfire created by an early morning movie blasted from the television’s speakers, instantly threatening to wake everyone in the house. Frantically Owen scrambled across the floor to shut it off. Tripping over his own feet, he stumbled forward and crashed into the nearby dresser, sending magazines, books, and a half-filled glass of soda tumbling to the carpet.

  Now covered in sticky cola, he immediately hustled to clean everything up. “Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap, now you’ve done it, look what you’ve done!”

  “Calm down kid, let me give you a hand…”

  “No!” Owen responded with a worried snarl while using his right hand to swat at the hovering Roustaf as if he were a fly. “You stay away! You get out of here! I don’t want your help! You’re going to get me in so much trouble! Go back—”

  He halted in mid-sentence. The unmistakable sound of heavy feet making their way down the hallway leading to his room managed to sneak into his ears during a lull in the sounds of gunfire on the television. His father was awake.

  Glancing up at Roustaf with eyes as wide as saucers, he whispered, “Hide. Hide right now.”

  “What?”

  “Hide. Hide right now. Hide quickly.”

  Roustaf could now hear the footsteps as well, getting closer. “Where do you want me to go kid?” he mumbled while spinning in circles mid-air, trying to find something to climb under and use for cover.

  Hearing his father’s hand turning the doorknob, Owen grabbed the empty cup of soda, put it over Roustaf’s head, and slammed it upside down onto the dresser. He trapped the tiny red man underneath it a mere moment before the door to his bedroom swung open violently.

  Immediately after entering the bedroom the half-asleep, half-awake, fully enraged Mack Little spotted his only son curled up at the foot of his bed sitting in what looked to be a puddle of spilled soda and soaked magazines, with his television blaring in the background. Mack could do little more than shake his head in disbelief.

  “Owen, what the hell are you doing in here?” He moaned with a deep sigh. “Do you know what time it is? I’ve got work tomorrow morning, and you’re watching action movies and throwing soda all over the place? Seriously?”

  Glancing at his father sheepishly, Owen shrugged his shoulders. Mack had just about reached his wit’s end concerning his son. Six months ago, after Owen disappeared for nearly a week only to return with an idiotic story about being sucked into another world, he tried his best to be patient with the boy. Various counselors told him eventually Owen would come clean about where he’d been and what happened. They claimed all that the boy needed was time – so time is exactly what Mack gave him. Six months later and still Owen had the same story – falling through a doorway at the bottom of a stream, becoming invisible, watching a castle explode — not a single, solitary deviation. School counselors hadn’t helped; significantly more expensive outside therapists hadn’t done much more. Mack Little was tired and out of options. There was simply no way around it. He tried to deny it for years, but he couldn’t lie to himself anymore: His son was a weirdo, plain and simple. Rolling his eyes, he reminded himself once more that it must come from his mother’s side of the family. Strangely this made him feel a little better.

  Rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, too tired to yell, Mack instead simply sighed and turned back toward the hallway. “Just …just shut off the television and get back to bed, Owen. We’ll talk about this in the morning.”

  “Okay dad. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s alright, it’s not your fault.”

  “I love you dad,” Owen added while shutting off the television.

  “Love you too buddy …love you too.”

  A moment later his father left the room, closing the door behind him and bathing it once more in a deep darkness.

  Lifting the glass ever so slightly, Roustaf peeked out and asked, “Pssst! Hey kid …is the coast clear?”

  “Yes, it’s clear,” Owen huffed as he crawled back into bed, pulled his blanket up to his chin, and turned away from Roustaf.

  Squirming out from his hiding place, the tiny red man fluttered over to Owen, landing softly on his shoulder. “Alright, now we can get back to why I’m here.”

  Owen quickly interrupted. “Go away.”

  “What? Look kid, do you have any idea how long I’ve been wandering around this place trying to find one of you? Let’s just say that Zanell may know everything there is to possibly know, but she has a lot of work to do when it comes to giving directions. I’ve hid in sewers, peeked in windows, been chased by about a million annoying, loud furry things with jagged teeth and breath like Megalot poop! I need your help, and I can’t go away un—”

  “Look, I’m not going to help you! I’m sorry, I just can’t. I’m not your savior! I’m not who you think I am, I’m just a kid and I just want to be left alone. My dad already thinks I’m a lunatic. I just — I can’t. I’m sorry. Just go away …please.”

  Pulling the blanket underneath his nose, Owen squeezed his eyes shut tightly, trying his best to keep from crying. It wasn’t that he didn’t care about Fillagrou or the people he met while there, because there was no denying that he did on some level. He cared about them a lot, actually, but his presence there in the first place was an accident, a mistake – not some stupid fulfillment of a prophecy. Though the situation ended well, and despite the fact that there were exciting moments scattered throughout, there was simply no way he could envision will
ingly putting himself into the situation again. He wasn’t strong enough and doubted he ever would be.

  Realizing there was no way he could force the boy to come with him and knowing he was short on time, Roustaf relented. “Okay kid, whatever you say.”

  Fluttering his tiny wings, the little man lifted himself off of the bed, hovering toward the slightly open window he used to enter the room in the first place. As much as he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he needed Owen’s help, a part of him understood exactly what the boy was going through. After all, Owen was just that – a boy. So much responsibility hoisted onto the shoulders of one so young – it was a lot to ask. Maybe too much.

  Coming to a stop at the window, the moonlight dancing off the curves in his nearly transparent wings, he turned briefly toward Owen’s motionless form. “You’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do kid. I can respect that, even if I don’t agree with it. Before I go though, do you happen to know where any of the other twerps live? If I can avoid spending the next few weeks trying to keep from ending up as a red splatter on the front of those big metal boxes with wheels, that would be absolutely fantastic.”

  *

  *

  CHAPTER 7

  LATE NIGHT ADVICE

  *

  Tommy Jarvis opened the patio door leading into the Williamson’s house just enough for him to tiptoe through. The door had a tendency to squeak if opened too far and a squeaking door was the last thing he needed while sneaking into the house at one in the morning. Tommy had spent at least two hours sitting alongside the bank of the stream with Donald Rondage, recalling snippets from their adventures in Fillagrou and laughing like old friends. Admittedly, at first it seemed a little weird. Being so close to Donald while not the least bit worried about getting beaten to a pulp proved a unique experience to say the least – unique in a strangely good way Tommy wasn’t completely sure he was ready to accept.