|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Sat Apr 12, 2008 9:03 pm
Holly rested her chin on her hands and stared at the ground around the tree that was holding up the tree house Matt’s troops had taken over. She had been on watch duty for two days now and she was getting bored doing it. The enemy hadn’t so much as attempted to take back the fort and she was starting to think they had made up this whole war thing. She wasn’t even sure who she was supposed to be on the lookout for. All she knew about these big kids were that they were big and they were kids. No one had spoken to her since Matt had led her up the ladder into the tree house and announced that she was one of them and that her assignment was to be the lookout. The only reason she didn’t complain was because whenever she considered it Noel popped into her head and told her that if she complained she would be restricted to the house.
Something rustled the leaves of a bush to her left and she glanced at it in a bored sort of way. “It’s probably just a bird anyway.” Holly mumbled to herself. She stared at the bush harder having nothing better to do and noticed that there was a bright blue cloth showing through a hole in the bush. Suspicious she faked a yawn and pretended to look in a different direction while still watching the bush out of the corner of her eye. The bush shook again but the cloth was still there. She listened to see if there were birds hiding in the bush but there was no sound coming from it since all of the birds were occupying branches in the trees above them. She looked at the other bushes surrounding the tree house, her boredom quickly evaporating, and tried to spot anything else suspicious.
Nothing else moved though and so she focused on watching the one bush that had rustled. With her right hand she threw a nut into the tree house hitting the nearest boy in the head. Dustin turned around to grumble at her but saw that Holly was making motions with her hands and so motioned to the other kids in the tree house. Matt tapped Dallas on the head signaling for him to use his bird whistle to signal to Devon, who was watching from the ledge on the other side of the tree house, to be on the lookout for anything suspicious. When all of the kids went back to pretending nothing had happened Matt and Dustin crawled on their bellies until they could catch a glimpse of the bushes around them. They waited just two minutes before the bush shook again. Matt backed back into the tree house and Dustin followed suit then they told the other kids what they had seen and about the bright blue cloth that they had noticed as well.
Holly tried not to smile and gloat about the fact that she had discovered the wannabe intruder. She really wanted to though and instead planned how she would tell the story of her heroism to Noel when she got home that night. A long time passed after Matt and the other kids started planning their defense and Holly started to doubt that what she had seen had been anything worth notifying the others about. She was in the middle of feeling sorry for herself and wondering how she was going to explain away her blunder when Devin coughed signifying that he had seen something. Holly wanted to rush to the other side of the tree house and see what it was he had called their attention to but forced herself not to move knowing that it wasn’t her job and that such rash actions would give them away.
After that everything seemed to happen in the blink of an eye. Below the tree house a handful of middle school aged kids jumped out of the bushes they had been hiding in started chucking things at the kids that were now lining the ledge that ran around the tree house. Matt grabbed Holly by the scruff of her dress and tossed her behind him into the tree house out of the way of a rock that had been aimed right at her chest. “Stay hidden inside; Noel will have my head if you get hurt.”Matt ordered her before disappearing out the door.
“Psst.” Richard called to Holly motioning for her to join him behind a box where they would be safe from the sticks and stones that were being sling-shoted into the tree house. “They’ll be fine; there was plenty of time to form a plan.” Richard assured her. Then he leaned back against the wall and pulled out a book to read while he waited for the battle to finish. Holly glanced around anxiously as the minutes snailed by. Outside the air was filled with the shouts of the kids that were battling and the sound of rocks ricocheting off the walls. She badly wanted to see what was going on outside but every time she tried to get up Richard would pull her back down knowing that he would get blamed if she wandered outside.
Finally after what seemed like an eternity the shouts died away and Matt’s troops staggered back into the tree house shooting Richard and Holly triumphant grins before collapsing into the chairs that were scattered in the interior of the room. Comments like “Man that was exhausting” and “Yeah but we beat ‘em” kept popping up as Richard and some of the girls passed around bowls of water and towels for the kids to rinse off the scraps that had formed where rocks had managed to hit them. A few kids needed bandages and for that they had a tiny box stuffed with band-aids. “How did it go?” Holly finally had the courage to ask. She had never seen such a group of banged up dirty kids in her entire life, not even after a snowball fight.
“It went great!” Matt exclaimed. His statement was met with a roar of cheers from the soldiers and he shot her a reassuring smile. “We had plenty of warning thanks to you. So, still think you want to join the troops?” He asked ruffling her hair like she was a pet as she sat leaning against his chair. Relaxing the other kids congratulated her on a job well done informing her that they had never had so much warning before and that had actually been the first time they had been able to successfully defend the fort. Usually the big kids had been able to get the tree house back immediately after losing it but this time the victory had been theirs. Once everyone’s cuts and scrapes where seen to they celebrated but opening the ice chest and passing around bottles of soda and bags of chips. They even had sandwiches courtesy of one of the girls’ mothers. Holly smiled and ate her food laughing with everyone else. Now that she had proven herself the group had accepted her as one of them and the kids were a lot more relaxed. There were no more attacks that day and as dusk approached Holly raced home exhausted from a long day at play but anxious to tell Noel everything that had happened.
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Apr 12, 2008 9:36 pm
Dear Diary,
Hi! It’s me Noel, just needed to get some things off my chest so I can concentrate on what I’m supposed to be doing which is listening to my teacher as he drones on about some math formula. Grades are doing fine and so are my friends. Talyn broke another boy’s heart blah blah blah anyway. It seems like Holly has had tons to do lately. Usually she would just stay around the house all day and then beg me to play with her when I got home from school but now she is spending a lot of time with my cousin, Matt. She insisted she had to join his ‘troops’ something about defending a fort. I don’t know, I wasn’t really paying much attention. I’ve been noticing though that she has been coming home with bruises. I didn’t notice at first because her skin is such a weird color but I have been noticing lately. She doesn’t complain about it hurting, in fact, she doesn’t complain about much of anything anymore. I wonder why that is. Anyway, when I asked her about it she just brushed it off and said it was the price they paid for guarding the fort. She said the other kids have bruises too and she was right. I stopped Matt one time and questioned him and he had a ton of bruises too. Holly says the ‘big kids’ use rocks as weapons sometimes. Something really needs to be done about that. It’s not good for the kids to have bruises, their parents might start complaining. I’ll have to think about that. Well, the teacher is yelling at me. Gotta go.
-Noel
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Apr 12, 2008 9:41 pm
Dear Diary,
Hi! It’s me Noel again! I went to this so called battle field. Holly had too many bruises and I just couldn’t stand it any longer. She was getting new ones before the old ones even had time to heal. The big kids didn’t seem too happy about having me there and I can understand why. I’ve beaten them up a few times when I caught them picking on younger kids. I should have known they were the cause of this. I got them to agree to stop throwing rocks, at least they said they would stop if Matt’s troops stopped and I know they will so I’m sure the big kids will stop to. If they don’t I’ll be back. They’ve stopped for now at least. I can tell because Holly’s skin is going back to normal, all of her bruise are disappearing and soon you won’t even be able to tell that they were ever there. I wonder what these kids do all day while I’m at school. I’ll have to watch them sometime and make sure what they are doing is allowed. Well, I’ve got homework to do. Talk to you later.
-Noel
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Apr 18, 2008 2:58 pm
Holly stood leaning against the railing that went around the outside of the tree house. She was on guard duty again but after her managing to successfully spot the enemy before the last battle she was in a much better mood. Now she felt that she was a real part of Matt’s troops and everyone else seemed to agree. The other kids were treating here much better, they had even joked with her a couple of times that day. She let out a sigh. It was hot today, a really good day for swimming. Behind her the kids were talking about taking a dip in the creek or even having a water balloon fight with the balloons one of the kids brought. The only problem was that the part of the creek that was deep enough to swim in was far from the tree house and they couldn’t decide who was going to be left behind to guard the fort. Holly was ignoring them for the most part and just observing the trees and bushes around her. She knew she wouldn’t be left behind since she was too small to fight, if the fort was attacked the enemy would win in no time and it would defeat the whole point of leaving someone there.
Holly glanced up at the hill that rose up in front of the tree house. It was a small hill, more cliff than anything, and covered with ice plant to hold it together. A fence ran around the top of the hill and behind it she could barely see the top of the big kids’ house. She could see a little bit of the green grass that grew in the backyard and a large tree that she guessed had been planted years ago. Sometimes she wondered why the big kids didn’t just build a tree house in the tree, it looked sturdy enough to hold one. “Maybe they did build a tree house there too.” She told herself, after all half of the tree was blocked from her view. There was no movement anywhere around the fort and she didn’t think there would be any attacks today.
Holly yawned squeezing her eyes shut as she did so and stretching her arms over her head. Just as she finished yawning and started to close her mouth streams of ice cold water shot into her mouth. Her eyes shot open and she tried to block the streaming water so she could breathe. She squeaked in shock and the kids that were chatting excitedly behind her stopped talking and a few of them came to see why she was flailing.
The kids stared at the top of the hill where the big kids had suddenly appeared out of nowhere each of the holding huge water guns and right in the middle of them was Devon. “We’re under attack!” Dallas exclaimed alerting the rest of the group. The kids quickly jumped up and raced to their stations ready to do battle.
Holly laughed and twirled in the spray of water. Once she had closed her mouth and was able to breathe the water felt rather refreshing. She looked behind her as a water balloon was pushed into her hand. Matt nodded to her and then turned to address the rest of the group his face stern. “There is a traitor in their midst, have no mercy!” he declared. Holly and the rest of the kids who had yet to notice Devon turned to glare in his direction. They had wondered where the boy had disappeared to that day, it had been surprisingly peaceful without him there to cause trouble. Now they knew why he had always been the odd one out in their group. He was one of the enemy. “Ready!” Matt called as the troops positioned themselves so they would have clear shots with their water balloons. Each kid had a bucket full of water balloons at their feet so they could easily reload and one of the boys even had a special sling shot that he could fit his water balloons into. “Aim!” Matt called. The kids pulled back their arms and prepared to throw the round missiles. “Fire!” Matt shouted. All at once their arms shot forward and the big kids were pelted with water balloons. Water splashed everywhere as the balloons hit their targets. The stream of water coming from the big kids’ water guns stopped for a moment as they tried to scurry out of the way and Matt’s troops took full advantage of it.
Richard threw the one water balloon he had been given and then ran over to Holly tugging on her arm. “Come on, we’re going to needed more ammunition.” He whispered to her through the racket the kids were making. She nodded and chucked the balloon she had picked up. The balloon smacked a drenched Devon and he glared at the kids that where attacking from the tree house. It seemed that most of the balloons were being aimed at him and for good reason. Traitors would not be tolerated and they were proving it. Giggling Holly climbed down the back of the tree house following Richard who had grabbed the bag of water balloons and was heading towards the creek to fill them. She grabbed a couple of buckets as she passed them and tossed them to the ground beneath her before letting go of the ladder and landing safely on the dirt. Together Richard and Holly filled the water balloons and set them gently in the buckets then they would take turns carrying the filled buckets to the tree and lifting the heavy buckets to the waiting kids via a makeshift lift. Holly’s arms hurt from pulling on the rope to hoist up the buckets but she was determined that they would not lose because of her. Like everyone else in their group she felt betrayed by Devon and wanted to win so they could show they didn’t need him. After ten minutes of filling balloons. The bag was empty and Holly glanced frantically at Richard. “What are we going to do now?” she asked holding up the empty bag.
Richard thought for a moment and then smiled. “We can use the melon balls that Brooke brought for us eat. They’re the perfect size! You go tell Matt and I’ll finish here.” He told here. Holly nodded and raced to the ladder quickly climbing it.
“How’s it going up here?” Holly asked Matt once she had caught her breath.
“Not good. They’re using the water hose by their house to refill the water guns. They’ll never run out of water. How are we doing with the water balloons?” Matt asked turning momentarily from the battle.
Holly shook her head and then smiled. “We’re about to run out of water balloons but Richard thought maybe we could use the melon balls that are in the tree house.” She told him.
Matt glanced at the table where a huge container of melon balls sat and then grinned. “That’ll make them nice and sticky. Let’s do it!” he told her. Holly nodded and went inside away from the battle. She picked up the container and made her way from kid to kid giving them melons and explaining what they were going to do. She was careful to make sure the big kids couldn’t see the melons, she wanted it to be a surprise. Matt’s troops waited until everyone had run out of water balloons before they made their next attack. Holly and Richard peered out from behind the wall of the tree house trying not to grin too broadly. On the hill the big kids thought they had won and were gloating and sending insults. “Now!” Matt shouted when the big kids put down their water guns to reload. His troops pulled their sling shots out from behind their backs and started shooting melon balls at them.
At first the big kids didn’t know what had hit them, all they could tell was that the new ammunition was small, moist and sticky. “Yuck!” one of the big kids said and then the others quickly followed suit. They tried to fire their water guns back at the kids in the tree house but their hands were too sticky. Holly and Richard laughed so hard they fell down and had to hold their stomachs . The rest of the kids were grinning as the shot balls after ball of stickiness. Devon seemed to be taking the new attack the worst. He was sticky all over and making the funniest faces. He was the first to give up and run for cover. They could see him try to rinse off with the water hose but the nig kids pushed him out of the way. The enemy was in full retreat, Matt’s troops had won.
The kids in the tree house cheered and went inside to relax. They fell into their chairs exhausted from the fight, their arms hurting. Dallas reached towards the tables for the melons that had been there waiting for them but then remembered they had used them to fight the big kids. They looked around laughing a little bit over the sound of their rumbling stomachs. It was quickly decided that they had won the battle that day and they could go home and eat. They figured they would be back before the big kids recovered. Instead Matt’s troops played video games in the air conditioning they had in their homes.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reply
