The Diamond War Read online

  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.

  And then in the quiet that followed, they all heard it—the sound of screaming. They all stood perfectly still while the desperate, frantic sound came closer and closer.

  Chapter 16

  AS THE SOUND OF screaming got louder and clearer Aurora suddenly pushed past Ari and ran out from behind the barricade. Ari watched in amazement as his sister seemed almost to fly across the clearing, her huge mop of hair streaming behind her like a curly cape. Darting between Bucky and Web, she pushed Carlos Garcia out of her way and went on running.

  “Aurora?” Carlos called after her. “What is it? Who’s screaming?”

  “Athena,” Aurora called back as she disappeared into the bamboo thicket. “It’s Athena.”

  “Athena,” Ari said in a strange, high-pitched voice that he hardly recognized as his own. Aurora had known it was their little sister who was screaming, but he hadn’t. He didn’t know why he hadn’t known, except that he had never before heard Athena make a terrible noise like that. Jerking his bulletproof vest over his head, he threw it on the ground and ran after Aurora.

  When Aurora and Ari reached the Weedpatch there was no one in sight, but the screaming, gasping, shrieking sound was very near. And then there she was, scrambling up over the back wall of the Pit. Staggering to her feet, Athena ran toward them, her mouth wide open and her face red and wet with tears. When she reached them she threw herself into Aurora’s arms.

  “What is it?” Aurora said. “What happened? Athena, what happened to you?” But for what seemed like a very long time Athena would only cling to Aurora and wail. While she was still howling Kate arrived and then, close behind her, all the rest of them. Susie and Carson first, and then right behind them all of the guys on the other side.

  Bucky and Carlos and Eddy and Web were all there, crowded around Aurora and Athena. But their weapons weren’t. No slingshots or hatchets or bats—and no pellet gun either. They must have forgotten all that stuff, Ari thought, somewhere back in the grove. And now everyone, both sides of the war, was standing in a circle, watching Athena as she went on screaming at the top of her lungs.

  “What is it?” Aurora kept saying and finally Athena raised her wet, red-eyed face and gasped, choked, gasped again, and wailed, “It’s Prince. It’s Prince, Aurora. Prince is dead.” Then she buried her face in Aurora’s hair and went on sobbing.

  “Prince?” Ari gasped. He stopped for a moment as the meaning of the words began to sink in. “Prince is—dead?”

  “Yeah,” Carlos said in a strange, hushed voice. “The old pony. The old pony finally died.”

  “Wow,” Bucky said. “A dead horse. You ever see a whole dead horse before, Eddy?”

  Eddy shook his head.

  “Me neither,” Bucky said. “Come on. Let’s go look.”

  Bucky started off with Eddy close behind him. No one else moved or spoke for a few seconds but then Carson and Web looked at each other. They didn’t say anything—but after a while Carson nodded, Web nodded back, and they started off toward the Andersons’ pasture.

  After Carlos watched the other PROs go he turned back—and noticed his little sister for the first time. “Susie,” he said in amazement.

  “Yeah,” Susie said. She put her hands on her hips and glared at her brother and he stared back.

  After a while he said, “Yeah, well it figures, I guess. That was you on the phone, wasn’t it? That’s how they knew everything we were going to do.”

  Susie stuck out her chin. “Yeah,” she said. “I was mad at you. I was mad ’cause you ate up all my birthday present Dove bars.”

  “Yeah?” Carlos asked. “I guess I forgot they were yours.” He stared at Susie for another few seconds. “Hey,” he said. “We better go. I haven’t eaten breakfast yet. Have you?”

  Susie nodded. “Yep,” she said. “A long time ago. But I want to go too. I want to see Prince.”

  So Carlos and Susie left and Ari decided to go with them. At the edge of the Pit he turned to look back and saw that Kate and Aurora were coming too. Kate was carrying Athena.

  Kate carried Athena all the way through Dragoland and across the circle. Even though she was unusually tiny for a four-year-old she was getting pretty heavy by the time they got to the Andersons’ pasture. But when Kate tried to put her down she only tightened her arms around Kate’s neck and hung on fiercely.

  Everyone else was already there. All the kids who had just been in the war were there, along with three Anderson grandkids and even old Mr. A. himself. The two littlest grandkids were wiping their eyes and sniffing and Mr. A. had his arms around their shoulders. And there, stretched out on his side in the middle of the circle, was the old pony.

  Kate had seen Prince lying down before but this was different. This time his legs stuck out stiffly, his lips were pulled back from his old yellow teeth, and his eyes seemed sunken into his head. There was no doubt about it. Athena was right. Prince was dead.

  Kate looked around. Everyone was staring silently. Kate knew how they we
re feeling because she felt it too. There was something so terrible, so solemn and final about the old horse lying there so stiff and dead, when only the day before he had been standing at the fence like always, waiting for somebody to visit him. And the somebody had usually been Athena.

  As if in answer to her thoughts Athena suddenly raised her head from Kate’s shoulder, glanced at Prince, and began to wail more loudly than ever. As she screamed she began to thrash around, waving her arms and kicking with both legs. Kate put her down on the ground. Both Kate and Aurora were bending over her when a deep voice said, “Here, let me, girls. Let me talk to her.”

  It was Mr. A. He bent over Athena, lifted her in his arms, still kicking and thrashing, and walked across the pasture. When he got to the fence he turned and came back again. All the way over and back he talked and talked. Kate couldn’t hear what he was saying but she could see his mouth moving, and after a while she could see that Athena had stopped wailing and kicking. After their second trip across the pasture Mr. A. stopped walking and Athena slid down out of his arms. She looked up at him and slowly nodded. Then she pushed back her tangled hair, wiped her face with both hands, and walked back to stand between Aurora and Kate.

  Everyone was watching Athena as she came back to the circle around Prince. They watched her reach up and take Aurora’s hand and then turn toward Prince. She stared at the dead pony for a long time. After a while she sighed deeply and wiped her eyes again with her free hand. Then she looked up at her sister.

  “It’s—it’s all right, Aurora,” she said. “Prince was very old and sick and achy, and now he’s gone to where he’ll never be sick or achy again. Mr. A. says Prince is happy now.”

  Everyone looked at Mr. A. “That’s right,” he said. “Prince lived a long, happy life but lately the poor old fellow’s been having a hard time just getting around. I think we should all be glad for Prince and celebrate his long, happy life, instead of crying for him.”

  Everyone nodded and then Ari Pappas asked, “What kind of celebration, Mr. A.? Are we going to have a big funeral?” Ari was always asking questions. Before Mr. A. could even answer, Ari asked another. “What are you going to do with him? I mean, you know…” Ari motioned toward where the pony was lying. “You know, with—the body?”

  “I guess I’ll have to call the humane society,” Mr. A. said. “They have a truck they send out to pick up dead animals.”

  “Where will they take him?” Ari asked. “I mean, is there a cemetery for dead ponies?”

  Before Mr. A. could answer, Bucky Brockhurst broke in. “Naw,” he said. “They’ll just take him to the dog food factory. That’s what they do with dead horses. They just chop them up and make dog meat out of them…”

  Athena gasped. She stared at Bucky and then at Prince. Then she threw herself on the ground and started to scream louder than ever.

  Chapter 17

  AT FOUR O’CLOCK THAT afternoon Ari Pappas sat on the fence at one end of Prince’s pasture and wrote in his notebook. He had a lot to write about. He wanted to get the whole thing down from beginning to end—especially the part about what Mr. A. had done when Bucky Brockhurst shot off his mouth about Prince going to the dog food factory.

  What Mr. A. had done was to pick Bucky up by the back of his camouflage jacket and shake him. And while he was shaking he was saying something about “somebody else getting turned into dog meat if he didn’t keep his big mouth shut.”

  Then Mr. A. went off toward his house and was gone for quite a long time. While he was gone Ari scooted home and got his fanny pack. So when Mr. A. came back driving his tractor, Ari was ready to get down in writing all the exciting stuff that happened next. He turned past the beginning of “The Diamond War” story and wrote a new title at the tope of the next page. The title of the new story was “The Sad Death of Prince of Castle Court.”

  What happened next was that Mr. A. explained to everyone how he had called his friend at the humane society and found out that in Castle Court’s district you could bury your horse if you wanted to—if you owned at least five acres of land, and if you made the hole nice and deep. So that was why Mr. A. came back in his old tractor with the backhoe attachment all hooked up and ready to go.

  Then after he’d picked out a spot right near the middle of the pasture Mr. A. started up the backhoe and began to dig. It was all very interesting. Everybody stood around and watched the hole get deeper, and because the tractor made so much noise other people started coming to watch too.

  Rafe and Gabe Garcia, Carlos’s big brothers, came first, and then the whole Grant family and their dog, Nijinsky, and Mrs. Anderson with two more grandkids. Mr. and Mrs. Wong and Mrs. Garcia showed up next and after a while Ari’s father came too, still wearing his beat-up old metal sculpturing outfit and with his welding goggles perched on top of his head.

  At first the new people just stood around explaining what was going on to the newer people, but after a while most of them got put to work. That happened when the backhoe couldn’t dig any deeper—and there was still a long way to go to make the grave as deep as the humane society said it had to be. That was when lots of people went home to get shovels and pickaxes and buckets, and Mr. A. sent some grandkids home for a ladder for climbing in and out of the grave.

  It took a long time. At noon most of the women went home and got sandwiches and stuff to drink, and the Garcias brought some yard furniture for people to sit on when it wasn’t their turn to be down in the hole. Rafe and Gabe and Mr. A. and Mr. Wong and Mr. Grant and Ari’s dad did most of the digging, and most of the kids took turns emptying the pails of dirt. Ari would have emptied pails too, if he hadn’t had so much to write about.

  The last page of Ari’s story went like this:

  Ladies and gentlemen. I wish you could all be here to see what is happening now. Right this minute they are putting Prince into his grave. Mr. A. and Mr. Wong and Rafe Garcia and my dad each have a hold of one of his legs and they are pulling him toward the edge.

  Oh yes. Athena isn’t here right now. Aurora sent her on an errand so she wouldn’t have to watch this part of it.

  There he goes. Hop. Right down into the hole. And now here comes Athena back again—just in time. Everybody is watching Athena climbing back over the fence with a big carrot in her hand. And now Mrs. A. has starting singing. Mrs. A. is singing “Auld Lang Syne” and everyone is joining in. Everyone is singing “Auld Lang Syne” and Athena is dropping the carrot down into the grave. And now the singing is over and everybody is taking turns hugging Athena, like she was the next of kin, or something. It’s kind of weird, actually, but it sure has cheered her up a lot. And all the people who aren’t busy hugging Athena are shoveling the dirt back into the hole.

  Well, it’s over, ladies and gentlemen. Nearly everybody has gone home. The big story of “The Sad Death of Prince of Castle Court” has ended.

  Chapter 18

  ARI WROTE “THE END” in big capital letters and started to close his notebook. But while he was flipping over pages he just happened to notice the other story in the book. The unfinished one called “The Diamond War.” He shuddered, thinking about slingshots and pellet guns. There was no telling when that horror story would be over.

  He finished putting his notebook and pencil away in his fanny pack, climbed down off the fence, and walked over to where Carlos Garcia and Eddy Wong were still shoveling some loose dirt up onto the top of the grave. Nearly everyone had gone home. But Bucky Brockhurst was still watching from one side of the little mound that Carlos and Eddy had made. And on the other side there were just three people, Kate and Aurora and Athena.

  When Carlos and Eddy stopped shoveling, Athena climbed up onto the little mound and started smoothing it down with her hands.

  “Come on, Athena,” Aurora was saying as Ari came up. “Let’s go home. Prince’s funeral is all over.”

  Athena shook her head. “No,” she said. “I want to stay to see the tombstone. Mr. A. told me he was going to bring a tombston
e.” She went on patting and smoothing even though her little bitty hands weren’t making much of a difference.

  “Use your feet,” Eddy said to Athena. “Your feet’ll work a lot better.” Eddy always liked things to be efficient. He stepped up beside Athena on the mound and started taking lots of little steps, tromping down the clods. Athena tromped too for a few minutes, but then she stopped and started digging where a large round rock was sticking up out of the smoothed-down earth.

  “Well, I’ve seen enough,” Bucky said. “Come on, Wong and Garcia. Let’s go back to Dragoland. We’ve got some unfinished business to take care of.” Grinning his meanest grin right at Kate Nicely, Bucky began to pretend he was chopping down a tree. “Chop, chop, chop!” he said, looking right at Kate.

  If Bucky had been trying to start something, which he probably was, it worked. Kate began to look fierce-eyed and tight around the mouth. Getting into a karate pose, she stuck her face right into Bucky’s and whispered, “Chop, chop, chop yourself, you creep. You’re the one who’s going to get chopped.”

  Uh-oh, Ari thought. Just what he’d been afraid of. The Diamond War all over again. His hand was just reaching back for his notebook when someone yelled, “And there’s the windup and here comes the pitch.”

  When Ari turned around, Eddy was standing on top of the mound over Prince’s grave. Eddy stretched and kicked and almost tied himself in a knot pretending to pitch the baseball-shaped rock that he and Athena had just dug out of the mound.

  “Yeah.” Carlos was grinning. “It does look sort of like a pitcher’s mound, doesn’t it?”

  “Yeah.” Bucky suddenly seemed to forget about yelling in Kate’s face. “It sure does.” The three PROs stared at each other and then slowly turned to look at what was all around them. At the big open flat field where Prince had lived for so many years. Then, at the same moment, all three of them started running toward Mr. A., who was just coming back into the pasture carrying a big flat board under one arm.