Forts: Liars and Thieves Read online

  “Why?” Nicky interrupted, his eyes wide and his jaw hanging low.

  Glancing at his brother, Tommy instantly recognized the look on his face – part excitement, part fear. He understood the emotion Nicky was feeling quite well, because he was feeling it too.

  Again lifting himself into the air, Roustaf fluttered to Tommy’s side, bouncing to a gentle stop on the bedspread. “The war was going alright for the most part. Walcott may not look like much, but that tubby-shelled schmoe knows his way around a battlefield, there’s no denying that. We were bobbing and weaving with the best of them, catching the Ochans off guard and scoring some small but significant victories — that is, until the dope and Pleebs went and got themselves captured.”

  As if a switch somewhere inside his head had been suddenly thrown, Tommy’s hesitance and fear transformed to anger. “Pleebo? What happened to Pleebo?”

  Of all the creatures Tommy met in Fillagrou, it was Pleebo he remembered most fondly. It was Pleebo he first met. It was Pleebo who was there when he first experienced his powers in the dusty tunnels of Tipoloo. It was Pleebo who was there for him in the tower when he came face to face with Prince Valkea. It was Pleebo’s face he last saw when saying goodbye.

  Taking note of the worried, angry expression on the boy’s face, Roustaf tried his best to quell his fears. “Relax kid. We think they’re both still alive, we just don’t know for how much longer.”

  Fifteen minutes ago, Roustaf would have severely doubted there was anyone in the entire world more anxious to rescue his friend Pleebo than he was. Staring at the expression on Tommy Jarvis’ face, though, he understood this had been an incorrect assumption.

  After taking a moment to collect his emotions, the little man continued, “Some new information has recently come our way. King Kragamel has located something — something that puts a lot more people in danger than just Pleebs and Walcott — something that could cause a bucket load of problems for everyone, everywhere …including here.”

  Leaning in closer to the little red man, Tommy asked, “What do you mean here?”

  “I mean right here, Slick, as in this place you’re living with that weird little glowing thing you got on the wall over there, and the plastic bags filled with chips that give you terrible diarrhea, as in everyone in this town — everyone in your world.”

  While Tommy stared at the little red man with an expression of anger and worry, Nicky’s voice chirped from nearby. “Diarrhea?”

  *

  *

  CHAPTER 10

  ONE MORE STOP

  *

  It took less than fifteen minutes after hearing of Pleebo and Walcott’s situation for the Jarvis brothers to dress in the dark, pack a few essentials into their packs, climb out their window, and repel down the side of the Williamsons’ house with the aid of a rusty gutter. Tommy spent the first five of those fifteen minutes making it perfectly clear to his younger brother that he didn’t think the boy should come along. The first trip to Fillagrou had proved violent and exceedingly dangerous. Tommy was punched, kicked, tossed across a room, and very nearly choked to death. Donald had been shot with an arrow, and Nicky and Staci were thrown into a dungeon, dragged across the floor by their clothes, and hung out a window like clothes on a line. The group as a whole bore witness to the real life brutalities of war, just barely escaping with their lives. There was simply no way Tommy was going to allow his brother to be put in such danger again.

  If something were to happen to Nicky – if he were to get injured, or worse – Tommy didn’t imagine he could live with himself.

  Nicky, however, fought him every step of the way, ignoring his older brother’s comments entirely while stuffing his backpack with anything he believed might come in handy. The younger of the Jarvis children then abruptly put an end to the conversation by reminding Tommy that it was he who saved them from Prince Valkea, not the other way around. As much as Tommy didn’t want to let his brother go along, Nicky had no interest in letting Tommy go without him. Eventually Tommy relented. He had to. He couldn’t tie Nicky to the bed or knock him out and leave him in the room. Even if he did, what would stop him from following in their footsteps an hour later? In the end, there seemed no point in arguing. Instead, Tommy decided he would simply keep his brother very close the entire time, and in doing so, hopefully keep him safe.

  After leaving the Williamsons’ the foursome quickly made their way across town. There was one more person to pick up before heading to the tree fort.

  For Staci Alexander, sleep came relatively quickly. The day had proven uneventful; it had been full of the things of your basic fourteen-year old, not quite an adult, yet no longer a child. Angela Duncan got into a shouting match with Kaity Nelson at lunch after hearing a rumor that she was spreading a rumor that Scott Drake got her pregnant. Mrs. Sanderson broke it up immediately, sending both girls to the principal’s office. Parents were called and detentions were promptly handed out. When Social Studies ended, Jessica Walker told Staci that Megan told Alexis that Brett Baker told her that he thought she was cute – it was all very complicated. Finding out that Brett could possibly, maybe, if the rumors were true, think she was cute surprised Staci. Despite the fact that Brett was widely regarded as the schools resident hottie, and dating him would surely raise her social status a few notches, Staci had no real interest in him. Sure, he was handsome and funny and outgoing and popular and played forward on the basketball team and worked on the yearbook. What he wasn’t, however, was Tommy Jarvis. Since returning from Fillagrou, Staci’s parents had instructed her repeatedly to stay away from Tommy. Though it was quite out of character, she had chosen to ignore them. Instead, she took full advantage of every opportunity to sneak to the tree fort and spend time with the elder Jarvis boy. In the halls at school the pair often exchanged glances, half-smiles and subtle looks. Staci quickly began to realize that she had an uncanny ability to bring a smile to Tommy’s normally frowny face with even the simplest of gestures. She liked this, and understood that it was not something to be taken lightly. Unlike with other people, a smile on Tommy’s face meant something; it was similar to the act of creating a diamond from a piece of coal. More and more, Staci had found herself counting the hours until the next time they could sneak off together, until the next time she could hear his voice, see those cute dimples in his cheeks, stare into his soft blue eyes, or feel the warmth of his hand in hers. Though she hadn’t yet fully made sense of these newfound feelings and mostly foreign sensations, she was enjoying them all the same, and she didn’t want them to go away.

  Arriving outside Staci’s house, the group of children and Roustaf ducked behind a row of neatly trimmed bushes at the foot of the driveway. As much as Tommy was finding it nearly impossible take his eyes from Staci’s residence, and more specifically her half-open bedroom window, directly parallel to it was his old home. Looming like a great dark cloud across an even darker sky, the mere sight of the place instantly made the hair on his arms stand at attention and the tips of his fingers tingle. Many things had taken place behind its blackened windows, moments he’d tried hard to forget, moments clinging like cancerous lesions to the inner walls of his brain. Ever since moving in with the Williamsons, Tommy had avoided this place, avoided dealing with the emotions it would undoubtedly stir to the surface.

  Kneeling beside him, Nicky noticed the expression on his older brother’s face, fully understanding what he was going through. Though the meeting with their father earlier in the day had proven more good than bad, it hadn’t prepared Nicky for the sight of his childhood home again. His stomach twisted into itself uncomfortably and settled deep and heavy in his torso, suddenly tied into an excruciatingly undoable knot. With a cautious hand Nicky reached across the grass, his fingers coming to a stop on Tommy’s closed fist. In the still autumn air the brothers exchanged a knowing glace, their silence speaking louder than words could.

  “Alright, you guys stay here. I’ll fly up, get the girl, and we can get this show on the
road,” Roustaf stated gruffly, his wings fluttering as he lifted off the blades of grass currently reaching his midsection.

  “Wait,” Tommy interrupted. He snatched one of Roustaf’s tiny red legs between two fingers. “I’m going with you.”

  “No offense kid, but I can make it up the side of that house a lot quicker and a heck of a lot quieter than you can.”

  Tommy’s expression remained steadfast and determined. “I’m going with you,” he said again, more a statement of fact than a request.

  Realizing there was no time to argue, Roustaf relented. “Alright, Slick,” he said, and wiggled free from the boy’s grasp. “Let’s see if you can keep up.”

  A moment later the tiny red man lifted over the bushes, cutting through the air and quickly closing the distance between himself and the second floor window of Staci Alexander. Not far behind him Tommy sped across the grass. Doing his best to avoid any sort of eye contact with his father’s home, he kept his eyes trained on Staci’s house, and specifically on Staci’s bedroom. Quickly making his way into the backyard, he leapt onto a tree near the patio. He had climbed this tree often in his youth. As children he and Staci could be found perched on one of its branches, collecting leaves or poking with youthful innocence around a fully stocked bird’s nest. Leaping from one of the longer branches, Tommy deposited himself as quietly as possible onto the second floor overhang. Even moving with great care, the entire trip from bushes to house took him less than five minutes. Arriving outside Staci’s window, he found Roustaf spread out on the windowsill pretending to be asleep.

  “What took you so long, Blondie?” The tiny red man said with a smile, sarcastically miming a yawn.

  Just as Tommy knew it would be, Staci’s window was partially open. She always had a weird fear of suffocating at night if fresh air wasn’t allowed into the room. It made no sense when she was nine years old and it made even less sense at fourteen. By the time she turned thirty it would seem absolutely bonkers. Wedging his fingers underneath the window, Tommy pushed it open slowly. A gust of wind flowing into the room caused the drapes to scatter and flap. With Roustaf right behind him, Tommy crawled headfirst through the opening. Carefully moving across the dresser placed underneath, he stepped lightly onto the carpet. Though it was difficult to make out details in the darkness, the overall layout of the room felt familiar. In the corner, Staci was coiled up in a mass of blankets like a caterpillar in a cocoon, her hair pulled back into a very tight ponytail. His heart skipped a beat, and Tommy pressed his hand to his chest. Underneath his palm he could feel it move, sense the warmth created as it spread copious amounts of blood across his torso. Tommy’s feet suddenly felt like concrete, too heavy to move, as if somehow bolted to the floor.

  “Well, what are you waiting for kid? Wake her up,” Roustaf whispered as he came to a soft landing on Tommy’s shoulder.

  “I’m going to, I just …I don’t want to freak her out or anything. She’s a wimp. She’s scared of spiders. If she starts screaming and wakes up her parents, we’re screwed.”

  “I hear ya, kid, but if you don’t wake her up before daybreak we’re pretty well screwed anyway.”

  Breathing deeply, Tommy took a single step forward, his entire body shaking. The closer he moved to Staci, the more details came into focus: the heavy quilt rising and falling with each breath, one of her tiny, well manicured feet sticking out from underneath near the base of the bed.

  Again Tommy halted his forward movement. “Why does she need to come along anyway? What if she gets hurt? We should just let her sleep.”

  “No way, Slick. I’m already coming back without one of you; there’s no way I’m showing up with two missing. Look, if you’re not going to at least give her the option, I sure as hell am.”

  With a subtle flutter of his wings, Roustaf lifted off Tommy’s shoulder, moving toward the slumbering girl.

  Again Tommy reached out and snatched one of the tiny man’s legs. “Alright, alright, calm down, it was just an idea. I’ll wake her up. Go wait by the window or something.”

  Roustaf shook his head and sighed deeply. “Fine, make it quick …and don’t ever grab my leg again. I’ve let it slide twice now, but I ain’t gonna let it go again.”

  By the time Roustaf had returned to the open window, Tommy was kneeling beside Staci’s bed. His heart pounding, his breathing ragged, he reached out with one hand until it was hovering over her blanketed form. Swallowing deep, he gulped down the uncomfortable lump in his throat, softly tapping his index finger against her shoulder.

  His voice was barely a whisper. “Staci? Stace, wake up …”

  Half asleep and not quite sure of where she was, who she was or what was happening, Staci rolled in his direction and pulled the covers closer to her face. “Mmmm …who? Tommy?” Her eyes remain closed as she smiled in his direction dreamily, only half awake. “Oh, hi Tommy. What’re you doing here?”

  Tommy slowly pulled his hand away and placed it stiffly at his side. Still on his knees, he scooted across the carpet away from her bed. His mouth hanging low and his eyes like saucers, his lips began to move, but no sound escaped. A slightly goofy grin stretched across Staci’s face as she yawned deeply, wiping tiny bits of crust from the corners of her eyes. Slowly becoming more and more aware of her surroundings, her eyes fluttered gently as her arms stretched high above her head, loosening her stiff muscles. Upon seeing Tommy Jarvis kneeling at the foot of her bed and maybe for the first time realizing it was, in fact, not a dream, her muscles tightened and her body began to shudder.

  A very deep, very real guttural scream formed in the pit of her stomach before racing upward at an incredible speed. “Aigh!”

  Leaping at her, Tommy placed his hand over her mouth. “No, no, no, don’t scream, don’t scream! It’s just me!”

  Though terrified by the fact that Tommy Jarvis was sitting next to her bed in her darkened bedroom with his hand over her mouth, Staci’s breathing began to slowly relax. The smell of his hand was familiar and warm. Part of her was happy to see him, while a much larger part was horrified by the fact that he seemed to have snuck into her bedroom in the middle of the night for unknown reasons. Reaching up, she grabbed his wrist, trying to pull his sweaty hand from her mouth.

  “Are you okay? Are you going to be quiet? You aren’t going to freak out, are you?” Tommy asked, keeping his hand pressed firmly against her lips.

  Awash with confusion, Staci shook her head from side to side, tugging at his stiff wrist once more.

  “Okay, just don’t freak out. I can explain all of this, just don’t freak out.” Sliding his hand off her face, Tommy cautiously backed away and slipped off her bed and onto the floor.

  For a moment there was only silence between the two, neither having any idea whatsoever of what to say next, their unblinking eyes staring at one another from across the darkened room. Releasing the vice-like grip on her quilt, Staci swallowed deep and watched as Tommy raised himself into a standing position.

  Brushing a clump of hair from her eyes, she finally mustered the courage to speak. “Tommy …Tommy, what are you doing here?”

  Before he could answer, the miniscule reddish blur of an airborne Roustaf zoomed up from the windowsill and over Tommy’s shoulder, landing near her painted pink toenails at the end of the bed. “We’re here because we need your help, girlie.”

  Staci responded by swallowing something the size of a golf ball lodged in the back of her throat.

  *

  *

  CHAPTER 11

  RUNAWAYS

  *

  Sometime around two-thirty in the morning, a series of heavy thumps woke Janet Alexander from a fairly deep sleep and a rather funny little dream. Her muscles tensed and her eyes darted from side to side. Reaching across the bed with one hand she shook husband awake. “Dale …Dale, wake up. Wake up, Dale!”

  “What? What is it?” her husband of fifteen years asked, though only barely awake himself. He was groggy and quite annoyed.

 
“I think I just heard something coming from Staci’s room. Get up.”

  “What?”

  “Get up and see if your daughter is alright, Dale. I swear I just heard a noise coming from the other room …go see what it is.”

  Propping himself up on an elbow, Dale rubbed his eyes with his free hand and shook his head in confusion. “Are you serious?”

  “Yes, I’m serious! I heard something! Go make sure Staci is all right …go now!”

  Though only half aware of what was going on, Dale had lived with his wife long enough to understand arguing with her would likely get him nowhere. It was better to keep his mouth shut, better to relent and do what she asked. Pulling himself out of bed and checking on his daughter, who was probably fine, would save him not only a lot of time, but a good deal of headache as well. Throwing the covers off, he swung his legs over the side of the bed. The hardwood floor was cold against his bare feet, sending shivers up through his legs and into his lower spine. With a heavy yawn he stood, grabbed his robe from a nearby dresser, and threw it on. Sliding his feet into a pair of slippers, he began moving toward the bedroom door.

  A blanket pulled up to her face, his concerned wife whispered from behind him, “Be careful.”

  Dale mumbled his annoyance underneath his breath.

  He exited the bedroom and moved slowly down the hall in the direction of his daughter’s room, still shocked by the fact that his wife was actually making him do this. There was a very big, very important sales meeting he needed to attend only a few hours from now. If he showed up tired or haggard or in any way whatsoever not on the top of his game, it could have dire consequences for the company. Dire consequences for the company would in turn result in dire consequences for his paycheck, and dire consequences for his paycheck was not a good thing.