The Diamond War Read online

  “Hello? Hello?” Bucky said. “Are you still there?”

  “Yeah, I’m still here,” Carlos said.

  “Okay. I just heard a clicking noise, like maybe you were hanging up.”

  “Yeah,” Carlos said. “I heard it too. But it wasn’t me. Something’s been wrong with the phone lately. It keeps making funny noises. Anyway, I wanted to talk to you about tomorrow. It looks like we might be in for some trouble. You know, from those dudes who sent us that note.” He went on then to tell Bucky his theory about the snake being a pet one and about why he thought the three Pappases and the two Nicelys—and the snake—might be there tomorrow to try to keep the PROs from cutting down any trees. “I think they’re planning to try to scare us away,” he said.

  “Oh yeah?” Bucky’s voice was suddenly so loud Carlos had to hold the phone away from his ear. “They think they can scare us away, do they? Hee, hee, hee! That’s pretty funny. If they think that snake is going to scare me, they’re really wacko. A baseball bat will take care of that dude. Or maybe I’ll just shoot that snake full of holes. I’ll just bring my—”

  “Look, Brockhurst,” Carlos was saying. “Look. You won’t have to bring baseball bats or pellet guns. I thought if we just had some more people—and if I brought Lump…I thought Lump…Lump could…”

  But Bucky wasn’t listening. Instead he just went on raving about baseball bats and pellet guns, and when Carlos tried to tell him he didn’t think any of that stuff was a good idea, he just wouldn’t listen. When Carlos finally gave up and said good-bye he still wasn’t sure Bucky had heard a word he had said.

  After dinner that night Carlos went out on the deck. It was a nice warm night and a reflection of the moon was shining up out of the swimming pool. On warm nights the deck was a nice place to sit and think. Or worry about the fact that he had been the one to start this whole baseball diamond mess in the first place. He didn’t see how he could back out now, even if he really wanted to. And part of him wanted to—mostly because of Bucky. Like he’d told Eddy, Bucky Brockhurst was a secret weapon, all right. The kind that just might backfire.

  Chapter 13

  ARI PAPPAS WAS IN the kitchen fixing himself a banana and peanut butter sandwich when the phone rang. He answered it, quietly of course. Ari always answered the phone quietly even if he knew it wasn’t for him. He’d gotten some of his best story material that way. As he picked up the phone he heard his mother say, “Oh, hello, Susie. Hold on a minute. I’ll call her.”

  Ari went on listening. He heard his mom calling and then Aurora picking up the phone and saying hello. What he heard next was very interesting. The first thing Susie said was, “Aurora. There’s going to be a gun. I just heard Carlos and Bucky Brockhurst talking on the phone, and Bucky is going to bring a gun tomorrow. To Dragoland. When they come to chop down the grove.”

  “A gun?” Aurora’s voice was a stunned whisper.

  “Well, it’s a pellet gun. But he said it could shoot holes in Slinky. And they’re going to have baseball bats and hatchets too.” Her voice rose to a wail. “What are we going to do? Do we have a gun? Does our side have a gun?”

  “No,” said Aurora. “We can’t have a gun. A gun wouldn’t help at all.”

  “Why not?” Susie wailed. “If they have one I don’t see why we can’t. Why can’t we? My dad has one somewhere. I’m going to look for it.”

  “No, no,” Aurora said. “Listen, Susie. You mustn’t. You mustn’t even touch it. If you even touch it you—”

  “What?” Susie asked. “If I even touch it—what?”

  “If you do—you can’t ever be a unicorn maiden,” Aurora said. “Unicorns hate and despise guns. If you even touch one the smell will be on your hands for the rest of your life. You can’t ever get it off, and the unicorn will never let you come near it.”

  There was a long silent pause. “Really?” Susie said at last. “Really, Aurora? How do you know?”

  “I just do,” Aurora said. “I know about things like that.”

  “But what can we do?” Susie was wailing. “What are we going to do?”

  “We won’t do anything,” Aurora said. “We’ll just go to the grove and when they come we’ll just walk out in front of it and hold hands, and we’ll tell them—”

  “But they’ll shoot us.” Susie’s voice was almost a shriek.

  “No, they won’t. You said Bucky was going to bring the gun to shoot Slinky. And we just won’t bring Slinky. He might shoot a snake, but he won’t shoot us.”

  “Yes, he will,” Susie moaned. “That Bucky Brockhurst will shoot anything. I know. I saw him shoot a robin once.”

  For a moment no one spoke. Ari could hear sharp, shaky breathing. Then Susie said, “I’m going to call Kate. I’m going to call Kate and tell her about the gun and everything.”

  “No,” Aurora said quickly. “No, don’t call Kate. I’ll tell her tomorrow. Let me—”

  But Susie had already hung up the phone.

  Ari went on listening until he heard Aurora hang up. Then he hung up too, waited a minute, and picked up the phone again. Sure enough he heard Aurora dialing and then a busy signal. The busy signal went on and on and on. After a long time Ari gave up and went back to his banana and peanut butter sandwich.

  While he was eating the sandwich and later when he was reading the funny papers Ari remembered to pick up the phone now and then to see if Aurora might be talking to Kate. But he must have just missed them, because about an hour later when he went to Aurora’s room he found out they’d already talked. Aurora was sitting on her window seat staring out the window. “Have you talked to Kate yet?” Ari asked. “I was listening when you were talking to Susie.”

  Aurora nodded. “I know,” she said. “I knew you were listening.” She sighed. “And I did talk to Kate—after she finally finished talking to Susie.”

  “I thought you might have,” Ari said, “but I didn’t hear you. What did she say? What’s she going to do?”

  Aurora shook her head slowly back and forth. Then she turned and stared out the window for quite a long time. When she turned back, her face was puckered with worry. “Ari,” she said. “I’m afraid. I’m afraid there’s going to be a fight.”

  Ari nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “A big one with a bunch of people on each side. Like a war almost.” He thought for a moment before he told Aurora good night and headed for his own room. He’d just thought of a good title for the big story he was working on. The one about the Unicorn’s Grove and the baseball diamond.

  Chapter 14

  THE NEXT MORNING ARI got up early and made a bulletproof vest. Then he went looking for Aurora. She wasn’t in her room or in the bathroom, but when he got to the kitchen there she was, standing by the phone.

  “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.

  Chapter 15

  CARLOS 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.