Exodus Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven
Winter Arrives

Have you gone back and read the story at the beginning of the book again? If not, do it now. We’re at the point in the story where Mildred told us that story, she told it to us as a way of trying to explain what was happening to our town and our parents.

So, now that you’ve read the story again, you’re ready to continue.

* * *

Mildred finished the story.

“This did not happen exactly as I told it of course. It likely didn’t happen at all as told it. But the elements are things that teach you. A fairy tale is a metaphor. It represents something else. The characters are not real. The events are contrived for the sake of the story. But the lesson relates to actual history. The lesson tells you something important.”

“Important like what?” Owl asked.

“Oh no, that is something you will not drag from me. There is no value in the story if I cut it up and serve it to you dead on a plate. Wrestle with it, and think about it. That’s where the value lies.”

“So how does that help us now?”

"I was born during the Second French Indochina war, so I suppose I was never really innocent. By the time I was fifteen years old that war was being called the Vietnam War. I had watched the biggest baddest nation on the block look foolish fighting one of the smallest. Being born when I was born left a lasting mark on me, and my perceptions of the world."

Mildred Sanger sat down quietly into a purple armchair so old that it was bleeding stuffing all over the floor.

"Every band of heroes needs a mentor to walk them through the gates of adventure and into the greater world beyond. I am old enough to know heroes when the show up at my door, even if they don't know it yet. So, if you are willing, I will be your Obi-Won Kenobi."

"So, if you're our Obi-won Kenobi, then what do we need to learn? It's not like we're going to learn how to be Jedi Knights."

Mildred Sanger smiled gently.

"No, but you do need to learn how to be adults. Because I suspect that true adults are both in short supply now, and about to become much rarer shortly. And in order to become adults, you need to learn how to be warriors."

"Warriors?"

"That's how it was done in the old days. A vision quest, and ordeal, and a child was transformed into an adult and a warrior. The village or the tribe had a new protector of both its members and its stories."

"Okay, so how is that different from being Jedi Knights. It still sounds kind of crazy. We came here asking for answers about what was going on, and now you're talking about making us warriors. That doesn't strike you as just a little bit nuts?" I asked.

"Look around at the adults, your parents included. How many of them seem to have a firm grasp of the situation and able to manage their lives in spite of the current challenges."

"Not a lot of them. My mom maybe." Owl said.

"And where does that leave you?"

Silence.

"By the time children were your age in times past, they were nearly adults. They had learned nearly everything they needed to know to make a life for themselves, even if that life was separate from their people. Can you say the same?"

"No... I mean Owl maybe." Wolf said, “But not the rest of us.”

“I don't feel like I could. A bunch of stuff, but not everything.” Owl said.

"And if your parents do not have a handle on the current crisis, and if you are not able to make a life from yourselves, which problem do you think that you have a better chance solving? Would you rather attempt to convince your parents to do something different? Or would you rather do something different yourselves?"

“I don’t want anything different. That’s why Owl and I have been fighting so much. I want what you get when you grow up. I want a house and kids and a white picket fence and a dog and cat and flower shop and a really big library and a husband and pictures on the walls and a pretty wedding. I want what everyone promised. Is that so bad? Why does everyone seem to think less of me for wanting that?” Viper was speaking so quickly that she started to stumble and her eyes got glossy. Owl immediately stepped over and put an arm around her. She leaned in and let him hug her without complaining.

“When my father fled the draft by moving here, we came with very little. We rented a room in a basement, because that was all we had. I do not have a room in a basement now. But I started where I was with what was available. In times of plenty, parents promise their children the moon. There is nothing wrong with what you want. But the world is changing and now you may have to build it yourself, because it may not be available from any stores tomorrow.”

“Build it myself? I don’t know how to build a house. I don’t know how to build any of it.”

“Indeed. An adult would know, a real adult. A warrior would know. And this is my offer. I watch and I listen. And I retract my previous warning to stay out of the way. Very few people are handling this well. I see that now. And you children may end up. like the boys I went to school down south with, having to grow up and fight wars you did not cause because the people who came before you made mistakes that you will have to answer.”

“I just want a normal life.” Viper’s voice cracked.

“Good, fight for it. I will teach you how. I will teach you all how. Tomorrow is never certain. When the sun is shining, it feels like it will always shine. But winter will always come, and the days will turn dark and cold. This does not mean the world has ended. But it does mean you must be ready in order to last until spring.”

“But fight who?” Raven asked, “These are our parents, our family.”

Viper whispered,  "Sometimes you have to fight your family. Like Bellatrix fighting Sirius Black in the Harry Potter books."

"Wasn't she a bad guy?"
Mildred chuckled, "There are so few good guys and bad guys outside of fairy tales. Instead you find people, just normal people. Generally so-called bad guys are scared, and they are driven to do the things they do to quiet their fears. Most of them disguise their fear as anger. Moral outrage is a very popular way of hiding fear. When I first moved to town, I  became the town's flower child hippie, Safehope's very own lovechild. People became morally outraged at my actions. Parking in cars with boys at night above Fallen Angel lake- it was scandalous. Even other kids joined the moral outrage. Our dear principal has been getting offended and clamping down on things for a very long time now, at least since she was class president as a teenager. Really it's a miracle we haven't killed each other over the years, given all of the fights we've been in."

I didn't know what to say to that, and don't think anyone else did either, because we were all quiet. Mildred didn't seem to be bothered by the quiet like other people were, but after a moment she seemed to remember something.

"I'm sorry. I promised you tea. I'll be right back." And with that, she hurried into the other room and began clattering around in the kitchen.

A few minutes later, she hurried back in with a plate filled with cookies and teacups.

"Do we have to drink tea?"

"I've included milk and sugar, it won't kill you. And you won't have anything to dip your cookies into if you don't. But first, I want to give thanks."

"You mean like saying 'grace' or something?"

"More like something.” She said with a smile, and then more formally said, “We have wasted much and cheated you of much of your deserved share. We apologize and savour this meal, and seek to rebuild the share we took from you.”

"When you say that. Who are you talking to"

"To Gaia.” She said.

“You mean like the Greek earth goddess?” Raven asked.

“That is the origin of the term. But as I am using it, Gaia is the idea that whole earth and everything alive on it is like one big creature, and we're all part of it. It may or may not be true, but as per our previous discussion, it is useful. I serves as reminder that everything we do affects everything else."

"Like the spiderwebs, I mean the supply lines."

"Yes, and that's the problem. We keep forgetting the interconnectedness of the world we live on. We pretend that we are immune to the rules that apply to everything on this planet."

"Like the Brave Young Man in the story?"

Mildred smiled, "That's certainly an interesting thought."

"So what do we do? What do we need to fix this?"

"What we need right now is the Could-have-been King." Mildred said, "The crown prince that saw the empire that they were to inherit and said, 'No! This is not a good place, and I will not support it.' We need somebody like the American Founding fathers, educated men wealthy landowners and people who - like George Washington- had served with British Military officers and knew power, yet rejected the offer to become King of America. We need people like Buddha, who began life as a prince before seeking wisdom. We need the privileged elite to step away from their toys before its too late."

"What do you mean? Who's the privileged elite here?"

"We all are. You kids talk about the spider webs that connect you to shirt factories and food shipments and computer manufacturers and mining companies and so on. You notice that those factories and mines and manufacturing centers aren't normally around our nice pretty big cities? They tend to be in poor countries. And as poor as the people in Sumpter's Ridge are, they are rich compared to people in some other countries in the world."

"So why does that matter?"

"Don't you get it? If we're running out, and some people are using way more stuff than everybody else, then its more important for those people to stop being greedy than it is for everyone else to try and get by with even less."

Mildred smiled a little sadly.

"I don't trust the people of Safehope to do the right thing in a situation so fragile. I'm not sure there is a right thing, but I also don't trust the people here to not do the most absolute wrong thing either. I know them too well. This is a small town, both in mind and in body. That's why my father moved here when he dodged the draft. The people here think from a position of fear and reaction. And that's a losing strategy. People trying not to lose always lose more and worse and for longer than others. Better to try and win. Or, if the situation is unwinnable, try to change the game. Change the rules, change the board, question assumptions, cheat if necessary- but don't accept a game that can't be won."

"So how do we change the game.?"

"A game is nothing but a set of rules. Basketball is only basketball because people agree to do things like bounce the ball as the run, and not tackle their opponents. There is nothing preventing basketball from being very similar to football outside the rules everyone agrees to follow."

"Bart said something about that. He said my dad wasn't playing by the same rules as Mayor Tailor was."

"And to a certain degree Bartholomew is correct. But looking at a broader perspective, both your father and the mayor are playing the role of the Brave Young Man and his locusts. They they are playing slightly different versions of that game only matters to them. This is less the difference between two different games and more the difference between differing local house rules. How the National League and the American League in Major league baseball disagree on the designated hitter rule, but are perfectly able to play against each other in the World Series. I am talking about playing by an entirely different game and an entirely different set of rules."

"So what kind of game do you think we should be playing?"

"You have to decide that yourself. If I called the current game: Empire, then the game that I would recommend that you counter with would be called: Warrior. And if you are going to play the game of Warrior, then there are four things that you must always remember: four drum beats that must echo in your mind. No kings. No wars. No one right way. Look to the future."

"And what are those?" Viper asked.

"Those are core rules, laws for avoiding the hole that your parents have fallen into. These are laws for avoiding the Brave Young Man's trap."

"So what do they mean?" Owl said.

"No Kings means, have no rulers and no masters and no bosses."

"What does that do? Doesn't somebody need to be in charge?" Wolf said.

"In most tribal societies and small groups, leaders emerge organically and have no formal power."

"How do you know that?" I asked.

"And anyway, so what?" Viper asked.

"We know it from the archeological records and sociological studies. And the importance here, is power over each other. We see Kings develop at the same time as oppression. Once we accept somebody with power over us, they can use that power against us."

"Why?" Owl asked.

"Their power is power that you and their other followers give them. If you try to leave, or take you ball and stop playing, they lose a portion of their power. So people with borrowed power, tend to use it to restrict the freedom of the people who gave them that power. Otherwise those people might take their power back when the King tries to take more than his fair share."

We digested this information as we drank our tea. Mildred let us sip in silence as we thought about what she had said. After a few minutes, she seemed to have decided we'd had enough time and she continued.

"Secondly, no wars. This one is trickier. I am not talking about the pacifist nonsense of my youth, or telling you not to protect yourself or you loved ones. I am telling you not to wage war."

"What's the difference?" Raven asked.

"When two animals fight, they fight over girlfriends and boyfriends, over access to food and shelter. A wolf doesn't say 'Those mountains lions are taking some of the deer that could be mine, I will wipe them out and then I will have all the deer.' This is war. A wolf pack may occupy a territory and drive out the old pack, but a wolf pack that is not infected with rabies will never set about wiping out all rival predators in the area. Modern humans do this every day."

"What does that have to do with us?" Owl asked.

"Tuttle's spider webs across the world, the world has its own spider webs. These webs are the webs of life, the wolf is connected to the deer is connect to the raspberry bush is connected to the beetle is connected to the weasel is connected to the fish is connected to the bear is connected to the wolf. Every time, your parents and their world view goes to war with another culture, or another species; they cut another strand in both Tuttle's web and the web of life. What do you think will happen if they keep cutting threads?"

"What already is happening maybe." Wolf said.

Mildred nodded and let us think about this for a moment before continuing.

"And the third rule: no one right way. This one flows from the first two. If you have no kings to to make everyone act the same way, and no wars to destroy different groups, how can you stop other ways of life? Now I want to be clear here as well. There are ways that are wrong, there are many ways to live that are wrong for many different reasons. But there is not a single perfect way."

"So those are the rules that are going to help us fix things?" Viper asked.

"Perhaps in the long term. I suspect that right now, your goal should not be fixing things, but surviving things."

“That's not a comforting thought.” Viper said.

“It wasn't meant to be comforting,” Mildred said, “It was meant to be useful.”

Mildred talked to us a little longer, but it was pretty much just small talk. She asked about Raven's parents, and Owl's mom. She asked about Russell and we told her the short version. And eventually, we ran out of small talk and began to say our good-byes. We were filing out as Mildred touched Raven on the arm to stop her briefly. I hung in the doorway and waited. I don't think they noticed, and the others had all exited as the spoke. Sometimes I think I'm a ghost. People don't pay much attention to me alot of the time. They talk in front of me as though they are alone. That’s what happened next.

Mildred said to Raven, "Remember child, being the one who cares is important. But never let your desire to help and to make people happy work against the truth. People hold happiness together with lies every day, and then when things go wrong, the lies break and the truth comes out. And if your happiness is based on a lie and not the truth, your happiness will break along with all the lies. So defend your happiness with truth."

Raven nodded as though this made sense to her. I didn't understand it though. I mean, I understood what she said, but I didn't understand why Mildred said it. And I didn't understand why she only said it to Raven.

As we left Mildred house and began to walk through town, I noticed more flyers. The looked like the ones that we had put up last time. I walked over to get a better look and the others followed me.

The flyer read: 'Times are Tight. People Must pull together and share with their community. Do YOU know somebody who is hiding excess food from their neighbours? None of use need go hungry, if everyone is willing to share.'

"Well that's completely creepy." Raven said.

"This basically calls my mom a bad person because she planned ahead." Owl commented.

"I think my dad is planning to start confiscating food or something."

"Do you really think people would stand for that?" Viper asked.

"It depends how many people planned ahead and how many are hungry." Owl said.

"Okay Freak, You're going to come clean this time!"

We turned to see Hawk and her group marching towards us.

"Of course," Owl said, "Because there weren't enough things going wrong right now."

"Mouse saw you out sneaking around last night." Hawk said as she stormed up and stopped inches from Owl's face. "And your little stooge Russell is grounded after being caught spying. The Mr. Pickle Diner is closed. And everyone is freaking out about having enough food. And you freaks know more than you've been telling!"

“You know pretty much exactly what we know. Because we’ve told you. The world is getting crazy. Adults are freaking out and fighting for power, because they all think the other people can’t handle being in control. And we’re all stuck in the middle. You want to get mad, get mad at the adults, they’re the ones causing all the stress.”

“And it’s not helping.” Wolf added.

“Adults are useless.” I added in frustration.

“Then why are you meeting with adults left and right? You just talked to Mildred Sanger again. What’s the deal?” Hawk said.

“She’s different. Mildred’s our mentor. Like Obi-Won Kenobi.” I said.

“Nice, more like Mr. Miyagi. How come you get your own mentor? The rest of us are sitting around in the dark?” Lion added.

“Because we’re trying to do something. You just keep hassling us. Why don’t you go find something out for yourself?” Owl said.

“Maybe we will.” Hawk said, “Come  guys. Let's leave the freaks to their secrets.” She marched off. I noticed Sparrow giving us an apologetic look as we left.

“It's funny. We're trying to find out the secrets people are keeping, and know everyone thinks we're the secret keepers.” Owl said.

“Well, we're kind of in deep on all sides.” Wolf said.

“It feels awful.” Raven said. And then suddenly she snapped her head upwards, “Did you see that?"

"See what?" Viper said trying to see where she was looking.

Raven pointed up at the third floor of the red brick Chamber of Commerce building. We looked. At first, I couldn't see anything, but then I noticed movement from the corner window, and then I saw a man hold something that looked like a hand held satellite dish out the window. He looked around and pointed the dish at different people. Occasionally he put his off hand to his ear and held it as though listening to something. And from time to time, he looked back into the building and I could see his mouth move as he spoke to somebody else in the room.

"What's that guy doing?" Owl asked.

"Bud, that's a line of sight listening device. My dad has one. It amplifies what you can hear when you point it at things. It's like a real spy tool, but anyone can buy one." Wolf said.

"So they're spying on people?" Raven asked.

"Looks like it. We should tell somebody." Viper said.

"Let's tell Bart, he can pass the information on without getting us in trouble." Owl said.

I grabbed the flyer about the people hiding food, "We should show him this as well."

We headed off to Bart's office, but when we got there Frisk began whining. We looked to where Frisk was looking, and  I noticed another man with a listening device sitting up on the roof of a nearby warehouse. He was pointing his microphone right at Bart's office window.

"Does anyone have a pen or pencil or something? We could write down ta warning about the listening devices, and then tell him something else."

Nobody did.

"Okay, well we can get a pen from him and write it down then."

"And hope he doesn't give the game away and get us in worse trouble."

We hustled through the empty bottom floor and were about to head up to the top floor, when Viper stopped us.

“What?” Owl asked.

“I have an idea. Bart has cameras in here. Right?”

“Yup,” Wolf pointed.

“Good, let’s give him warning.” Viper said. And with that, she turned and looked into a camera and waved her hands frantically, then mimed a ‘shushing’ motion by putting her finger to her lips. Viper put a hand to ear and pointed back out towards the street.

“Let’s hope he understood that.” Viper said.

“It’s a good idea either way.” Owl commented.

Viper smiled at Owl’s compliment, but didn’t say anything.

We got to the top of the stairs and into Bart’s office. He was waiting for us, as always. He looked at us quizzically.

“So how can I help you kids?” He said.

Raven took the flyer from me, “We wanted to show you this. “

As she spoke, Raven stayed well back from the window and mimed writing and pointed to a pencil on Bart’s desk. He nodded and threw the pencil to her. Raven quickly put the flyer against the nearest wall and began writing. I looked, and saw that she was giving a pretty good outline of what we had seen, from the flyers and where they had been posted to the audio spying around town and outside his office. She even drew a pretty good picture of the guy on the nearby building with the listening device. Finishing quickly, she handed Bart the flyer.

“What do they mean when they say excess food?” Owl asked as Bart looked at first the flyer's message and then Raven's note on the back.

“I don’t know.” Bart said carefully. His head kept bobbing, and I could tell he was catching himself, stopping himself from reflexively looking out the window, “Honestly it sounds vague on purpose. I mean excess food when? Today, or more than you need to make it through the season, the year? It seems more like propaganda than an actual safety notice.”

“Could it be because not everyone has food stored to make it through the winter?”

“I’m sure that’s how they want it to be read. Ever store that sells food of some sort has pretty much been told they’ll have to wait weeks or possibly more than a month for a new shipment. Supply is tight and distributors are sending food to the biggest markets first. And so little towns like us are tightening our belts. But I don’t see a city council approval stamp on this flyer. I know it didn’t get approved at any council meeting. The people who put this up, did it without permission of the local government. There isn’t anything to identify who put it.”

Wolf snorted. And then when we all looked at him, he pointed at himself and mimed to indicate somebody much taller than himself. I understood what he meant.

“Whoever put this up, wants plausible deniability. They want to be able to pretend that they didn’t put it up, but still get the benefit of having it up. Clearly whoever put this message up thinks that it is important.”

As Bart spoke he pulled out a pen from his desk and began write quickly on the back of the flyer. As he finished speaking he handed the flyer back to Raven.

“Thanks guys. I need to think about this. We’ll talk again later.”

We headed back out towards the Mr. Pickle Diner, I think mostly out of habit. Once we were sure there were no listeners around, we found a spot under a tree and looked at Bart’s note.

Raven read it aloud, ”I’ve been getting a lot of hints of something big. Somebody has been spreading rumours that Mayor Tailor is using his authority to hide all the ‘good food’ from everyone else in town. The allegations are that he has a secret stockpile. This flyer looks like they plan to make a move on that rumour pretty quick. There’s been another council meeting called, and think that this is when they’ll act. I’ve warned my tribe, you too now, so be ready.”

We wandered through town, and gradually I noticed that there were more of the ‘excess food’ flyers up than when we came this way before going to see Bart. It didn’t take long to see why. As we wandered we started to see children, mostly our age, putting up the flyers. Eventually we stumbled on a large group working to plaster an area with flyers.

We watched as the group put up more of the ‘excess food’ flyers. Taping them to trees and building with packing tape. There were a few boys, but mostly girls, including Hawk.

Seeing Hawk was a surprise. I looked around and saw Sparrow and Mouse working not too far away. I could see Maize helping Lion. Lion seemed more interested in flirting with Maize, which was creepy because Maize and Sparrow were practically the only official couple in school. They had been together forever, and were in no danger of breaking up. Sparrow seemed not to care, maybe he was used to Lion flirting with everything, hopefully he trusted Maize.

Hawk saw us and put her hands on hips and turned to face us.

She gave us a superior look and said, “You see. We have a mentor too now. Mouse was able to convince Mrs. Winter and Wolf's Dad to be our mentors. He already talks with your dad lots, and tells him what he sees. So you see. If you want to play it all secret and have your own mentor. We can play that too.”

Raven shook her head.

And Owl just sighed, “Good luck with that.”

Once we were out of earshot of the kids with their flyers, Owl looked at me, “So you still get to go to town council meetings, right?”
“Mom always drags me along.” I said, “Apparently it's a character building experience to watch adults argue about everything.”

“Well,” Owl said, “Tell us what happens then. You're our eyes on this.”

I'll say one thing for town council meetings: they had become a lot let boring to attend. Terrifying, yes. Boring, no. The council room was jam packed full, and everyone was talking and muttering. I didn't even get a chair things were packed so tight. The meeting hadn't even been called to order, when Mr. Pinchen strode to the front the room, shouldering people aside and wiping his nose like a tough guy.

"Everyone here has heard rumours. Am I right?"

Murmurs of agreement from the crowd.

"We've got a world wide crisis. A food supply crisis. And we all know the big cities are leaving the small towns to starve."

The murmurs started to increase to full throated agreement, like a churning river of angry comments.

"We haven't been getting the shipments we need to keep everyone's fridges stocked and the way I hear it, Mister Mayor up there is using his authority to earmark the best of what's left and stockpile it for his own personal protection."
Mrs. Giller stood up. She looked odd without her cats.

"Mayor Tailor is good man. He's managed our town's business for years. This is unneighbourly. Why is everyone going mad all of a sudden?"

"We aren't going mad." Pinchen countered, "We're waking up. We've been asleep for too long, and it's time to take action!"

"This is a town council meeting. It isn't the place address wild and unsupported accusations.” Raven's father said from his council seat.

"Where else are we going to answers from a corrupt public official?" Mr. Pinchen said.

"You have made accusations, but offered no proof of either your accusation of hoarding food or of his corruption. How do you know the things that you claim to know?"

Pinchen seemed a lot less certain all of sudden.

"Well? Do you have evidence? Or just bald faced accusations?" Raven's dad crossed his arms.

"We hear things." Pinchen said finally.

"And what do you mean when you say that?" Raven's dad countered.

"He means that Pulp and Paper Union is spying on people!" Bart said standing up. "It's like something out a spy thriller. We see union members everywhere like some sort of secret police." Bart said, staring at Mrs. Winter, "And now we get to see people with parabolic microphones listening in our conversations like we're criminals. Is these East Germany? Is this Iran?"

The crowd quieted a little a that, uncertain. But Wolf's dad waved his hand as though brushing away a kitten that was trying to play. "Many police and governmental groups use parabolic microphones in their operations."

"Which might be okay and might not, but you are not the government, and the Pulp and Paper Worker's Union is not a police force. You have no right to spy on us." Bart countered.

"These are both perfectly legal for anyone to purchase and no law prevents the use of these on anyone out in public. You may find these distasteful. But they are entirely within the bounds of the law."

"And furthermore," Mrs. Winter said, "These measures are what brought to light the possibility of individuals hoarding food away from their neighbours. Which, although not illegal if done only as a private citizen, is certainly distasteful for a community that obviously needs to pull together."

This generated a rumble of muttering from the crowd. And suddenly Bart looked like a swimmer in the ocean who has just realized that he's in the movie 'Jaws'.

"We should search his house, and find what he's hiding!" Somebody in the crowd shouted. The comment was echoed by angry agreement and cheers.

"That is not going to happen." My mother said firmly, "There are laws and they will be obeyed."

"He broke them first!"

"Yeah!"

"Yeah!"

"According to a rumour. Since when does the law operate like gossiping old women?" My mother said.

"We have a right to feed our families too! Make the Mayor come clean!"

"Yeah!"

"What he said!"

"Yeah!"

"This meeting will come to order, or I will start issuing citations and you will have to explain to your children why you have a scheduled appointment to sleep in my holding cells." My mother said, arms crossed.

"You can't hold all of us Rose!"

"That's right, the will of the people!"

"United! Stop the mayor's corruption!"

"Re- sign! Re- sign! Re- sign!"

The yelling increased, and I could see my mother running the numbers in her mind. Her tiny police force couldn't stop this many people. Even if they used force, I suddenly realized. A mob this angry could trample the whole town. The chanted call to resign got louder and louder.

Finally Mayor Tailor stood up.

"This is ridiculous. But that doesn't change anything. An election is a long time away, but regardless, it is clear that I am not wanted as mayor. Therefore, I resign- effective immediately. If you don't trust me, I won't act on your behalf- it wouldn't be honourable of me. The council can organize a by-election, I'm sure."

My mother turned her head and stared at him.

The crowd cheered, and somebody yelled "The king is dead. Throw him out!"

The people surged towards Mr. Tailor, who took a shocked step back and almost fell backwards over his chair. Wolf's dad stood up and stepped between Mr. Tailor and the mob. He brought his thumb and index finger to his lips and whistled sharply. And then he stood with his arms crossed as the doors leading out of the council room opened revealing a contingent of union men wearing orange and yellow reflect vests and dark sunglasses.

"The matter is settled." Wolf's dad said loudly. And as the people in the room looked at the force of large men in dark glasses confronting them, the room quieted back down.

And in the silence Mrs. Winter said, "Order will be maintained. The rule of law is all we have. This meeting is adjourned. Go back to your homes."

And just like that everything was over.

The next morning, when I looked in the mailbox, I saw a copy of the Bluff. I pulled it out and flipped it open. Written in the margins was a handwritten note.

"The Mayor is going to cut and run. Leave town and go live with family in another city. He's giving up. He won't listen to me. You'd better say good bye to your friend Russell."

I texted everyone and we quickly met in front of the Mr. Pickle Diner. I guess we had become predictable in our meeting places, because pretty quickly after the group assembled, I saw Skunk trotting towards up with a big band-aid across his nose and smug expression. He was walking funny as he approached, keeping his right arm out of sight.

“He's hiding something.” Wolf said.

“We can see.” Viper agreed.

"I figured you'd try to go see them." Skunk grinned, "You like the little wimp, don't you?"

Owl clenched his fists, "Do I have to teach you a lesson again?"

Skunk pulled his hand from behind his back to reveal an aluminium baseball bat. "Maybe I can teach you something."

"That's your big plan, bring a bigger stick?" Owl asked.

"Isn't that what you did?" Skunk shot back.

"He did something better. he brought his buds. And I don't need a baseball bat to deal with you." Wolf said Stepping forward, "You guys get going, catch the Tailors before they leave. We need adults around who aren't crazy."

"I'm going to tell them what you're doing!" Skunk said.

"Right. You're going to tell my dad how much of a big man you are after I've beaten the teeth out of your face? Do you think he'll be impressed by your limp? That he'll think it's manly?  All my dad cares about is order and strength. And you aren't going to come out of this looking strong. And besides, who do you think he'll believe: his son or the town bully?" Wolf raised his fists. “You aren't going to enjoy this.”

Raised his baseball bat, but looked less certain now.

"Get moving! Can't you see I'm being all dramatic here!"

And I mean, seriously, how do argue with that? We couldn't, so we ran and left Wolf to deal with Skunk. My only worry was that Wolf might hurt Skunk so badly that he'd get in trouble.

We ran across town to Russell's house, but stopped abruptly about a block away. Men in reflective jackets were wandering the streets. And even from where we were, I could see two men in orange reflective vests standing directly in front of the front door to Russell's house.

"Are they actually guarding his house? What are they trying to do, make sure he leaves?" Viper said.

"Maybe they don't want anyone talking to the Mayor to convince them to stay?" I asked.

"Skunk sure seemed to be eager to stop us. He must have got that idea somewhere." Owl said.

"Well either way, what do we do?" I asked

"Viper and I play the pretty little girl card." Raven said.

"The what?" Viper gave Raven a withering look.

"Grown ups, especially men, tend to think all little girls and sweet and delicate. And if you're polite and smile a lot, you can get them to explain all kinds of things and give you all kinds of things. We can keep them distracted while you knock on the back door."

Viper looked like she wanted to vomit.

"Oh come on, Viper," Raven admonished, "You always talk about being a girly girl."

"When I say that, I mean that I dress well and have awesome make-up skills. I don't mean that smile like I'm brain dead or talk like a bubble head."

"You can do it for five minutes to distract these guys. I don't want to don't his alone."

"So Wolf gets to fight and we get to simper?"

"I could fight if I have to. You don't know how. If you feel that strongly about it, ask Wolf to teach you how to fight, and then next time you can beat up Skunk."

Viper stuck her tongue out at Raven.

"I will do this, because you are my best friend. But only because you are my best friend."

"Good enough. Okay boys, you get to be the big heroes. We'll play supporting role this time." Raven grinned.

We snuck around through the back yards and knocked on the door to the kitchen. Nobody answered right away, so I texted Russell. A few minutes later, he opened the door.

“Hey guys.” He said, “Come to see the condemned man?”

“You aren't condemned, you getting screwed over.” Owl said,

"No, this is just another sign of the world's hatred of Russell Tailor. When I was born, the world looked down and said, 'Let's torment this kid as much as possible. Let's find out what can kill him and back it off a little.' And they've been doing that ever since."

“Russell, your dad is one of the only leaders in town who isn't acting crazy all of a sudden. We really think that he should stay.” I said.

“So do I, but he won't listen.”

“Can we talk to him? Maybe we can convince him.” Owl said.

“You can try, but I don't think it will help.” Russell said, “I'll go get him.”

Russell closed the door and a few minutes later, reopened the door with his father beside him. He nodded to us. I though about the meeting, and about Raven's father arguing with Wolf father.

"Mr. Tailor, you have to stay.” I said, “Raven's Dad and My mom need back up. You're leaving them to fend for themselves."

"And I regret that. But I don't feel as though my family is going to be safe here after that display in the Town Council meeting."

It's going to get worse." Owl said, "We snuck into Mrs. Winter's office at the school. They're okay with letting people starve so that they can gain power. Are you really willing to let everyone else go through that."

"Its not my job anymore Owl. The town made it clear that they do not want me. So I am going to take them at their word and leave so as to protect my family. But you are right. Things are very rotten in our little Safehope Bluff. I have to share some of that blame. But I did try. Now I will try to protect my family by leaving. I suggest you try to convince your families to leave as well, before things get really bad. Mark my words, this will get worse before it gets better. Run now, while you can."

"But this is your town, won't you fight for it?"

"No, this is not my town, because this town doesn't want me. Boys, I need to go. I wore out my welcome long ago and now I have to leave before people decide a lynch mob is still acceptable as a form of justice. The crowd was this close last night. So no, I'm not staying. I'm not fighting. I'm running. You should run too. Russell, say goodbye to your friends."

“I'll call you guys once we get to my Uncle's house.” Russell said, “Be safe you guys.”

We nodded, and with that Mr. Tailor closed the door. With no other plans we texted th group to meet by Owl's house. One by one everyone showed up. Wolf arrived last.

"So, how'd we do?" Wolf asked as he walked up.

"We failed. They're still leaving."

"What happened to your hand?" I asked, looking at Wolf. His right hand was red and swollen. And both hands were spattered with a little bit of blood.

Wolf grinned, "I ruined Skunk's baseball bat. And his nose, again."

"Is your hand okay?" Raven asked.

"Yeah, my hand’s just red."

That was we left things. The Tailor's left about an hour later. Everything they could fit, piled into one car and a utility trailer. Five men in orange and yellow reflective vests watched them go. We milled around a little before heading for our lesson with Professor Tuttle. However as we reached the school playground where Professor Tuttle normally held his lectures, we noticed more children than usual. Not just Professor Tuttle's class, but most of the school. There were a bunch of adults too, most of the teachers, and even Mr. Nottingham- the Vice Principal. Mildred Sanger arrived just after us and stood beside us.

And instead of seeing Professor Tuttle, we saw Mrs. Winter standing at the front of the crowd. She waited as we all milled around and got settled. Then she waited as we quieted down. Then she waited until we were all uneasy. And then Mrs. Winter spoke.

"Children, there has been a landslide on the highway to the north of town. The government does not have enough trucks free to clean up the rocks right now, and so the road is closed for the moment. We are all going to have to work together and share for a little while until the trucks are able to clear the road. Every thing will be fine as long as everyone works together."

I raised my hand. Mrs. Winter didn't look at me right away. After waiting long enough to realize that I wasn't going to lower my hand, she nodded to me.

“What about the Tailors?” I asked.

“We have no word on Mr. Tailor or his family. Everyone should pray that they made it through before the avalanche. I have every confidence that they are fine.”

I didn’t.

As Mrs. Winter spoke we whispered to each other.

“There is no way that anyone could have seen something like this avalanche coming.” I said.

“No, but if times are tight, then I bet watching the snow levels on highways nowhere big the big cities didn’t take a high priority.” Viper said.

“Yeah, there’s no way your dad or Mrs. Winter could have seen this exact set of things coming. But they were definitely counting on something happening. That’s obviously why they’ve been setting things up.” Owl said.

“What if they did know about this? What if it wasn’t an accident? It’s not like its hard to cause an avalanche if the snow levels are bad.” Wolf asked.

“I don’t believe they would do this on purpose.” I said.

“Let’s hope you’re right, because if they were willing to do… that, then they’d be willing to do pretty much anything.” Wolf said.

Mildred stood beside us quietly. She was listening to us whispering. And then, without looking at us, she said, “Remember, everything that you are seeing is still the same game. This is the game of cities and empires stripped down. When you tear away all the pretence and all the politeness, this is the underlying game we all play. And if you want to play that game, you need to get used to how it’s played. If you want another game, you need to change the rules.”

Mrs. Winter spoke, “ The avalanche has damaged a number of power lines and we will need to curtail electricity use quite heavily to keep essential buildings running. Furthermore, the nearest cell phone towers were damaged by the avalanche. You will likely find that cell phone reception will be hit and miss at best going forward. ”

“When did she get elected Mayor?” Owl asked.

“She didn’t. There would have to be a by-election, and they haven't done that yet. It just sort of happened.” I said.

“Wonderful.” Owl said. But he said it as one of the weird silences hit the crowd when everyone stops talking at once, and his comment echoed across the playground. Mrs. Winter looked sharply across the crowd.

“Was there a story behind that comment?” She asked, as the kids ahead of Owl shuffled away to give Mrs. Winter a better view.

“It just seems like nobody trusts anybody to be good anymore. Mayor Tailor got accused of hiding food and nobody even checked to see if it was true. We just ran him out of town. And now we don't know what happened. When did we stop trusting people to be good?” I couldn't help but notice that Owl had referred to Mr. Tailor as Mayor Tailor.

Mrs. Winter squinted down at Owl, “People don't behave because they are good. They behave because they are kept in line by rules. Rulers are the things that let people draw straight lines. Rules are the things that let people live straight lives.”

“I can't draw a deer with straight lines. I can't even draw a tree with straight lines.”

“Fortunately, we are drawing warm houses and supply boxes filled with food, not trees or deer. And those can be draw very well with straight lines.”

 * * *

I should warn you here, before you go any further, things get bad from here on out. This is happiest that you’re going to see us for a long time in the future. And not everyone who started this story is going to be here at the end.

If you aren’t one of us, if you are an adult living some place where life is still safe and nice, if you have problems with the idea that kids like us don’t always get happy endings, if you have problems with parents who let down their kids... then you need to stop reading right now.

Look, I’ll help you do it. Just pretend that we were blowing everything out of proportion. Pretend that everyone comes to their senses. Pretend that Russell and Mr. Tailor are safe on the other side of the avalanche. I’m sure we were just being kids and thinking everything was so much bigger than it was.

Kids do that right?

Nothing’s going to go horribly wrong so long as stop reading right here.

On the other hand. If you’re one of us, then you need to keep reading. You know how this ends in the long term, but you need to know how long it took to get there. You need to know the sacrifices made and losses suffered and lessons learned.

Warriors don’t look away, and if you’re one of us, that’s your job: not looking away.

All of our hands are red, and you need to understand why.

Exodus Chapter Six

Chapter Six
Pulp and Paper
 

Raven was always the group's peace maker. When Owl and I got into fights, Raven helped us patch things up. When Viper and Wolf clashed early on in their friendship, Raven helped them find common ground. Every time Owl and Viper got into a fight, it was Raven who sat them down to talk it out. The one time Wolf and I got in a fight and weren't talking to each other, it was Raven who convinced us that we were being morons.

So, I wasn't surprised when Raven called and told me that her parents had invited us kids for a dinner and games night. Raven's parents were both peace makers types themselves, and they had probably supported the idea. But our parents weren't invited, so I knew who was behind the dinner. Raven was trying to fix the group again. And a good thing too; because with strong personalities like Viper and Owl, sometimes our group was like a jack hammer in a pogostick race. Thing got a little bit shaky.

Raven called fairly early, so I had the whole day to myself before I needed to head out. I spent a bunch of my time playing Civilization on my computer. It was cold in the house and so I wrapped myself up in a couple blankets while I played. I was deep in a war with the Russians, when my mother walked in.

"Child of mine, I need you to shut off the computer unless you're doing something desperately important."

By now I didn't need to ask why, "Alright mom. Is that why the house is cold?"

She nodded, "Bundle up, because this is as warm as things will get for the next little while."

I nodded. I wondered what this felt like for the other kids. I had several adults in the know who from whom I got information- even if not always on purpose. I got to attention the town council meetings, even if the were frequently very boring. Other kids probably didn't have a clue why they couldn't play their video games or turn up the heat. How were they handling it? How would you?

With most of my usual distractions off the table, I looked for something to do. I considered watching the news again. But when I went to the living room, I saw a note on the television that said: 'Don't Use by order of your wife/mother! This means you!'

So I went back to my room and ran my fingers across the books on my bookshelf and browsed through the titles. Eventually I grabbed 'Lord of the Flies' off the shelf. I hadn't read it before, it had been a gift from my Aunt Janine who was a High School English Teacher. She had told me it was a classic about human nature and that seemed appropriate these days.

So I sat down on my bed and wrappd myself back up in piles of blankets and started reading. The book was about these kids who crash on a deserted island, and have to try and survive without the adults. They kind of hold it together in the beginning by having council meetings using a conch shell as a horn. But then they kind of go savage one by one.

The book definitely wanted me to see the kids who go wild and savage as having failed. But I noticed something that even the author was willing to admit. The kids who went savage were the one who hunted and the ones who managed to keep finding food.

The author had the wild kids hunt the last few kids who didn't want to go wild, but I couldn't figure out why. The kids kept hallucinating and it seemed kind of contrived. He definitely wanted the wilderness and the wild kids to be seen as some kind of bogey-men. And then an adult arrives and puts everything back as it should be.

I thought about the adults I knew and how they were acting. It seemed like the people on council were acting like the savages from the book. And I wondered, what if the guy who wrote this book got things backwards?

Raven lived in South End in a tan one story house. They had a vegetable garden in the front yard. Raven's dad worked with Kids from the local tribal reservation, helping them get their high school diploma and helping them get jobs and stuff like that. Raven's dad was really nice, he served as Chief for a little while, but stepped down when he said the politics were getting nasty. Raven's Dad wasn't tall, but he he seemed taller when he asked you questions. He wore sweater vests all the time and had a salt and pepper grey moustache. Raven's Mom was the only psychologist in town. She had an office on the hill that called her a Career Counsellor, because people didn't like to make appointments otherwise. She was a really tall big blonde lady who was always smiling and wore flower print everything.

Raven's Mom only went to work when she had people scheduled to talk to. The rest of the time she worked in the vegetable garden. Both Raven's front and back yards were pretty much all vegetable gardens. Raven had to play somewhere else.

We all trickled into the Raven’s House. Viper was already there when I arrived. she gave me a cold ‘hello’, so I guess I was in trouble too for being either Owl’s friend or a boy. Owl arrived second and Viper simply refused to say anything or even look at him until Raven’s Mom gave Viper a significant look. Owl got a ‘hi’ so cold and unemotional, he almost didn’t manage a response. Wolf and Russell arrived nearly at the same time and got the same response I did. Raven was her usual self when she was set on fixing the group again: happy and supportive.

But after this awkward start Raven’s Mom, ushered us into the dining room to get right to dinner, probably sensing that nobody was going to be enjoying meaningful conversation right now anyway.

Raven's Dad listened as quietly through most of the dinner. He only spoke up when Raven used Professor Tuttle's three questions on her mother regarding desert.

"Sweetie, where did you learn those questions?"

"From Professor Tuttle dad."

"Hmm. And did he he answer the second question?"

"What do you mean dad?"

Raven's Dad grinned, "Well, you definitely learned the lesson. I meant, did he tell you how he knows about the three questions."

We both shook our heads.

"Ask him who taught him when he went to Safehope School."

"Was it you, dad?"

"Ask him."

"Sir," I asked, "Do you not like him?"

"I like him better when he stood for something."

"What do you mean, Dad?"

"Did you know you know that Mr. Tuttle got into quite a bit of trouble in 2001 for things he had written about the violence inherent in government. He was a big shot Professor at a University out east, and the government took him in for questioning. We didn't hear from him for weeks. And when we did, he'd resigned from the University and come back to Safehope. He wouldn't talk about it, and most people were so happy to have a local celebrity come home that they didn't ask."

"Dad, why don't you teach at the school anymore?"

"The same reason that I don't run for Band Chief any more. Too many battles to do too little good. I tried for years in the school system and years with the local band. And I just burned out. I couldn't stop helping people, but I got tired of doing it wrapped in bureaucratic red tape. I just sit on the the council and occasionally try to act as the voice of reason."

"Are you mad at Professor Tuttle for not telling us that you taught him?"

"No, not really. Just a little disappointed. I'm too tired to be mad at this point."

“You seemed almost mad the other day with my Dad, sir. What was it that upset you?” Wolf asked.

"I have to admit, I was highly disturbed by how Wolf's father behaved yesterday. I've been looking for allies willing to speak at the town council to undercut the false perception he's trying to create of broad support. He doesn't have support outside his own Union, and they do not represent a majority of the town. They're loud. Loud is not necessarily correct."

“So who’s on your side dad?’

"I've got Mr. and Mrs. Butters, the folks who run the Mr. Pickle Diner lined up to speak at the next town meeting. I think I've convinced Mr. Nottingham- your Vice Principal- and the other families who collectively own the movie theater on the mayor's side as well."

“So you think that will help?” Raven asked.

"I really dislike the idea of this breaking down into simple binary us versus them, but sadly your father isn't giving us an option. He's taking a page from the father of Alexander the Great- Phillip of Macedon."

“What did he do sir?” Wolf asked.

"Phillip would conquer territory, and then go to the negotiating table. And while he was negotiating, his armies would occupy more territory and conquer new land. And this would force people into a defensive mindset and they would end up making concessions that they would not have made if they had been ready for the assault. Their guard was down because they assumed that Phillip would negotiate in good faith."

“So my dad is lying to other people?” Wolf asked.

"Your father has made it abundantly clear that he considers the current events to be a military campaign. A battle. And every negotiation, every conversation is a military engagement that he believes that he must win. And everyone who is not an ally, or one of what he perceives as his troops is therefore his enemy. And he doesn't play fair against an enemy."

“My dad doesn’t really play at all. He tried to teach me chess once. It wasn’t a game- it was strategy training. He wanted me to be friends with Owl so that I could learn hunting or something from Owl’s Dad.”

“My dad isn’t such a good teacher.” Owl said quietly.

“Not true,” Raven’s Dad said,” Your father was very active in the community, both Safehope and on the Reservation for a number of years.”

“Okay, but he’s not such a good teacher now.”

"I never did find out what caused him to start drinking. He didn't drink as a young man, which is impressive in itself. The environment he grew up in didn't exactly embrace sobriety."

"Sobriety?" Owl said.

"Staying sober. Alcohol is an easy method of hiding from problems and feeling better easily."

"Is that why you never drink?" Raven asked.

"I have my own reasons for never drinking. We’ve worked hard to prevent alcoholism on the reservation, with pretty solid success. The track record across the country isn’t very encouraging. If you put people in a situation where they feel without hope and feel they have no method of improving their situation, they will look for solace. So we’ve worked at giving people hope and helping them feel as though they can have an impact on their own lives. But still, no solution is perfect. Owl's grandfather was quite a drinker, and so I was always impressed by the fact that Owl's dad stayed dry for as long as he did. But something broke him. I don't know what exactly, I never managed to get that out of him. But one day life handed him something he couldn't cope with, and he retreated to the only escape that would protect him."

"Do you think it was the divorce?" Owl asked quietly.

"Oh, your parents aren't divorced. They're just separated, but legally they're still married. But no, I don't think it was the separation. I think whatever broke him may have contributed to their separation. His drinking certainly didn't help their marriage."

"But why couldn't he fix it?"

"Without knowing what broke him, I couldn't say. I've always believed that something changed his worldview. That something betrayed his sense of how the world worked and he couldn't recover from it. He's always been very ashamed of his drinking, but he clings to it despite all attempts to help him."

"So, he's never going to get better?"

"I have no idea. Not knowing what broke him makes it very hard for me to guess at whether anything could fix him."

The conversation kind of ran out of steam there and we finished the dinner, not exactly in silence, but with only banter and small talk between our mouthfuls of homemade mac and cheese. Everyone always had to help with the post dinner clean up. But after that, we were set to the basement games room with a meaningful look directed to Owl and Viper by Raven’s Mom.

Viper wasn’t having any of it and sat looking stoically at the floor. After a long silence, Owl started talking.

"Look, I'm sorry. I haven't been trying to make you angry."

"Tell Owl that whether he tried or not, he definitely did make me angry and I'm not interested in talking to him or listening to excuses." Viper deliberately faced away.

"That's awfully lame." Wolf commented. Viper glared at him.

"Well maybe I'm not talking to you either then."

Wolf shrugged.

"This is stupid. You know me, you know who I am. Why are acting like what I like and what I want are suddenly a surprise." Owl said.

"Would somebody tell Mr. Cowboy hat that I'm not the stupid one who doesn't know how to live in the real world." Viper said.

"Last time I checked you thought the real world ended at the edge of town."

"Somebody here needs to realize he's a baby who does want to grow up."

"Have you looked at how the grown ups are acting? They're terrified that I'm right."

"At least they don't want the world to end."

"Have you been listening? The world doesn't end at your dumb picket fence!"

"Stop this right now!" Raven's voice cracked, she wasn't yelling, but she was loud enough that owl and Viper stopped right away.

"You guys are being mean for no reason." She turned to Viper, "You know how important this is to him. He's scared he'll turn out like his Dad! And you aren't being fair to him."

And spun around back to Owl, "And you know she's right. If the world goes bad like everyone's afraid, then a lot of people are going to get hurt. And maybe even die. And that's not good. It's bad. So of course most people aren't happy that it may be about to happen. And you're being stupid for not listening to people when they say that."

"You know this.” Raven continued, “I shouldn't have to tell you guys this. Remember when we had to play Pioneer Town when were little? Because Viper wanted to play 'House' and Owl wanted to play 'Hunter'? This isn't new."

I interjected in the pause, "The problem isn't what you guys want. The problem is that all the fear and backstabbing that the adults are doing is driving us crazy."

"And everyone thinks somebody else knows something or is spying on somebody." Wolf added.
"Who's supposed to be spying?" Raven asked.
"Well, we are, for Bart." I pointed out, "But apparently Mrs. Winters has her own group of kids who are spying for her. And some of the other kids think Viper is one of them."

"What? I am not! Who said that?" Viper's voice rose as she spoke.

"Well, Skunk said it first." Wolf admitted.

"And you did compliment Wolf's Dad." I added carefully.

"That doesn't make me a spy!"

"We're all spies. That's not the point. The point here is whether one of us is a double spy." Owl said, "I think its safe to say that none of us are. But why don't we prove it to each other, and maybe get some real information for Bart at the same time."

"Diggity." Wolf said.

"What were you thinking?" I asked.

"We sneak into the school and look in Mrs. Winters' office for information."

"She isn't just going to leave that lying around." Viper said dismissively.

Raven shook her head, "Mrs. Winters writes down everything. She's one of those crazy organized people who can draw perfect straight lines without a ruler. She would have it written down. And the school is closed. It would be a great place to hide stuff."

"So, we're breaking into the Principal's office now?" Viper crossed her arms.

"What? Now you don't want to know what's really going on?"

"This is bigger though. I mean we could actually get in trouble for this." Viper said.

"I'm always in trouble." Owl said, he was grinning again.

Viper was very quiet for a minute.

"alright fine. But you and I are friends and nothing more."

"Were we more than friends before?" Owl asked, clearly surprised by the idea.

"No, because you're a moron." Viper said, arms crossed.

It was always crazy easy to sneak away from Raven’s parents. They were really good people, and they expected the best from people. That was part of their jobs I guess. They saw the best, or at least the good in everyone. It helped them them win people’s trust, it also let them down every so often.

We snuck out the back way. The plan was pretty simple. Sneak into the school and get a look at Mrs. Winters’ office. It was a stupid plan I guess, but the only other option would have been trying to sneak into the office in Wolf’s house where his dad kept papers. None of us were going to do that.

Mrs. Winters was nowhere near as scary as Wolf’s dad.

We stuck to the back streets, not too far of the main road. Owl could find his way around at night like nobody’s business, but the rest of us weren’t as good at this sneaky thing. I could see Owl wince whenever we kicked a stone or stepped on something loose.

We were getting close to the school when a low whistle stopped us cold. I turned and looked up and back in the direction of the whistle and saw Mouse looking at us from his window. He had binoculars in his hands. He waved, and then gave a shushing motion with his finger and disappeared from the window.

A few minutes later he reappeared at the back door.

“What are you guys doing? I’m watching out for suspicious activity. You know. Like you dad told us to.” Mouse said, looking at Wolf as he finished up.

Owl glanced back at Wolf and me, “We’re looking for clues too. We’re looking for answers.”

“Cool. Like what?” Mouse asked.

“Nothing solid yet.” I said, before the others could speak, “We’ll tell you if it’s anything cool. We don’t want to disappoint Wolf’s Dad if it turns out to be nothing.”

Mouse nodded, and grinned really big. Owl put a finger to his lips, and Mouse nodded and gave a thumbs up. He closed the door and we kept moving.

Everything went pretty normal until we reached the school. Even from the wooded area beside the school, we could see men patrolling the school grounds. They were all big men, and it was a safe bet that they were all part of the Pulp and Paper Union.

Owl changed when we got to the school grounds. He seemed to transform. I knew that Owl really liked the outdoors, the woods. And I knew that he was uncomfortable with everyday life. But as I watched him start to move across the field, I began to really understood just how much at home Owl was in the wild places.

Owl seemed to breathe with his whole body, slowly and gently. And as I watched, he seemed to fade into the darkness. I could see him, but only because I knew where he had been before. Even in regular clothes, even with his cowboy hat, he seemed entirely a part of his surroundings.

I watched the deer as the feed on the school field.

Owl looked back at me and shook his head.

"Don't look at them. They can tell." Owl whispered to me.

A deer raised its head to look in our direction and we stayed as still as possible.

"How can they tell?" I asked in an even lower whisper.

"No idea, but they can tell every time. You have to think like you're grass or a rock or a tree. You can't think like a person. They can tell."

We all waited in silence until Owl began moving again, and then we followed- keeping our eyes averted and trying to mimic Owl's movements as best we could. He was a shadow in a dark room. We... weren't.

Fortunately the deer seemed not to notice the sounds of our footfalls, no matter how loud they sounded to me.

Occasionally I would steal glances up at the school we were approaching. The lights were all off, but we could hear the heavy footsteps of men in boots.

We held close to the tree line that ran up to the school, staying in shadow and moving slowly. The school loomed liked a fortress or a prison in front of us, a pile of sharp and ominous shadows wrapping around the building like a cloak.

We could see flashlight beams swinging back and forth at the other side of the school, near the gym. They weren't close, but we froze whenever they swung in our direction.

When we finally reached the school itself, we paused for breath and Viper tried the door.

“It’s locked genius.” She said. “Now what do we do?”

“Can anyone pick a lock?” I asked as a joke.

“Nope, but I can climb.” Owl motioned to the windows. The windows in the school were big picture windows that didn’t open. But above those windows were smaller windows that swung upon for ventilation. And one of those windows had been left open just a crack by somebody when the school was locked up and closed down.

“Need a boost bud?” Wolf asked.

Owl nodded and Wolf interlaced his hands and cupped them for Owl to step on. Owl climbed up, but it was too low even with Owl’s boost.

Raven whispered, “If you stand on their shoulders you should reach.”

“Who’s they?” Wolf asked.

“You and Rabbit.”

I shook my head and stepped up. Owl adjusted until he was awkwardly balanced on our shoulders. Now Owl is a really skinny kid, but that’s still heavy and Owl still wears cowboy boots. It hurt, no lie. But Owl could just reach the window and, after scrambling a little to pull the thing open, he was able to squeeze that skinny body of his through the window and down into the classroom.

Then we waited and tried to think about the fact that we were rocks or grass or anything but kids out too late in a place they weren’t supposed to be that was guarded by adults doing things other adults didn’t like. We could hear heavy footsteps getting closer.

“What’s taking Owl so long?” Wolf whispered.

“We’re being stupid. What’s he going to do? Get a ladder?” Viper suddenly whispered.

“What?” I asked.

“There aren’t any doors from the classrooms, other than the fire escape doors. And we know that the fire alarms go off if you use those.”

Wolf nodded, “Yeah Skunk found that out.”

“So where’s Owl?” I asked.

Viper pointed, “At the main entrance.”

And right about then a flashlight beam appeared around the corner. We froze.

“Into the bushes!” Viper whispered, “No! Not back there! The ones against the school!”

She pointed at the nasty prickly shrubs that lined the school. Wolf shrugged and dove in. Raven and I squirmed after him. And Viper followed close after.

Moments later, a big black figure- backlit against his own flashlight- stomped past our hiding place.

He stopped a feet away as a another figure came from the other direction.

Viper whispered, “We’re rocks.”

We all nodded and tried to be rocks.

“You got a match? Or a lighter?” The first figure said.

“The Principal doesn’t like us smoking on school grounds.” The second figure replied.

“It’s not like there’s going to be any kids here for a long time.”

“I know that. And so does she. She thinks its a safety hazard.”

“I’m not going to be lighting anything on fire other than a cigarette. Do you have a match?”

“Yeah, fine. Take the whole book. If the place explodes because you were a moron, I don’t want them thinking it was my fault.”

“Yeah, alright coward. If I somehow manage to detonate the whole stockpile, I won’t tell them who gave me the match.”

We heard the shuffling of cloth and then the sound and light of somebody striking a match. And finally the two figure turned and went back the way they had come.

Once they were out of sight, we crept to the main entrance and found Owl peering through a crack in the door. He let us in and we made our way to Mrs. Winters’ office. Mrs. Winter had always taught the class for students in grades ten to twelve. Her office was the last room on the left, right next to the gymnasium- now warehouse.

Mrs. Winter's office was always sticky to touch clean and always always smelled like chemical lemons and tinfoil on the teeth. Her desk was not the comfortable old wooden desks that the other teachers favored. Instead, Mrs. Winter held court behind a heavy welded steel desk that was painted a spearmint green and looked like it had escaped from some war movie briefing room.

The only decoration were two winter blue painted bookshelf with piles of big heavy books. The  shelves were also metal and built to withstand artillery fire. On these shelves were packed books full of political theory, behavioral science, disciplinary theory, management strategy, and several translations of Sun Tzu's "On the Art of War". The books had titles that talked about Illuminati, and Rosicrucian's and Knights Templar and the Rothschild family. They had pictures of world maps, and pyramids with eyes, and old men in suits. The dust jackets talked about world conspiracies and secret governments and world domination plans. The books were generally hard covers with black dust jackets and ominous covers.

Mrs. Winter wasn't just scary, she was crazy scary.

Wolf looked at me and whispered, "You think she believes this stuff?"

I shrugged.

"I can't even pretend to imagine how her brain works."

The walls were white and had nothing decorating them. The windows had blackout curtains between the blinds and the windows. All the other teacher's office lights were hanging lights with big frosted glass globes to diffuse the light from the light bulbs. But Mrs. Winter had actually removed the glass globe and left the bare bulb hanging above her desk to cast harsh light over everything and cut shadows across the room.

There was a saying in town, one the adults said when they thought us kids couldn't hear them. Winter froze her man into Summer's bed. We had a pretty good idea what it meant. It definitely explained why Mrs. Winter seemed to hate men and boys more than she hated everyone else.

The only thing that we didn't know, was who Summer was supposed to be. The adults didn't seem to know either. I didn't know anybody in town named Summer, either as a first or a last name. It had to be a nickname, or maybe the gossips just added it to make the joke work and the real name got lost in the mix.

We dug through the books on her shelves and the files in her desk and her filing cabinet. She had lists of every child that she considered ‘problems’, they were almost all boys. We were just about ready to give up, when Viper began taking hard cover books off the shelves and started pulling dust jackets off.

“What are you doing?” Raven asked.

“When I got books that my parents didn’t like…”

“Like that horrible vampire book?” Raven grinned.

Viper stuck her tongue out at her friend and continued, “When I got books that my parents didn’t like, I would put dust jackets from other books on them to hide them. Ah-hah! This isn’t World History!”

Underneath a dust jacket for “The Rise and Fall of Great Nations”, was a hard cover notebook. Viper laid it on the table, and flipped it open.

“Did she make a table of contents for her own notebook?” Wolf asked.

“Yup.” I nodded.

“Let’s see here,” Raven started reading “Crisis and laying the foundation with preparation… Consolidation and how to place allies into positions of power… Survival and how to last the early shortages… Order and how to build a new civilization… The Illuminati and other enemies… Balkanization and how to use isolation to prevent outside interference…”

“This is really creepy,” Viper said.

“Yeah, why would anyone go along with this?” Raven flipped through the book, “She’s trying to make her own little empire here according to this book. She’s been hoping for a crisis for years now, and she’s planning to use this to reshape things to the way she wants them. What’s this? ‘Possible allies and how to sway them to your cause’. Okay, here she talks about using the fear of disorder and collapse to make her actions seem righteous and necessary to others. Well, she says that showing them the results of disorder will convince them of her rightness. But it’s the same thing.”

“That makes sense.” Wolf said.

“It does?” I asked in surprise.

"My dad is retired army. This is the only way he understands. He served as a peacekeeper in other countries. He was used to setting rules and making people obey them. He likes things in neat little lines, under control. And then mom got a lump in her brain. The size of a walnut. She lost who she was. I didn't know my mom. She couldn't control herself and dad couldn't control the situation except to keep her out of sight. And then, when she died and he, and he, he couldn't save her- he said he would make sure nobody died because he couldn't do anything every again."

"I'm so sorry."

"This is what Winter used get him on side. She made him see this as a way to save people, and now they're doing this. And I think they’re going to make things worse."

"I think this was always going to get worse."

"Winter won't help though. How long do you think she's been planning for this?"

"Judging from this book? For as long as she's been teaching, maybe longer."

Owl looked at Viper. He didn’t say anything, and she didn’t either. They just kind of stared at each other. I couldn’t tell if this was them finally understanding each other or if they were still fighting. But as they stood looking at each other, a flashlight beam spotlighted them through the dusty glass.

“Hey! Who’s in there?”

“Crap!”

“Run!”

“Take the book!”

“No leave it!”

“Put it back in the jacket!”

“No time!”

“They’ll know we know!”

“Only if we get caught! Better they know somebody knows and we escape, than for them to know we snuck in at all.”

“Right! Go!”

And we ran. We bolted out of the office and scrambled out the door into the field before the guards could get around to the entrance we had used.

We were sprinting full throttle into the trees, sending deer everywhere when the guards came around the corners.

“That way! Follow them!”

“Did you see them?”

“Nothing clear! Go!”

And we kept running. Branches scraped at my face and I kept stumbling on loose rocks until we finally came out the other side of the woods. For a moment I thought we were in the clear, and then I heard the crackle of a radio ahead of us. I could hear the guards pushing through the trees behind us.

“Follow me!” Owl hissed and suddenly turned and sprinted off. We followed him as best we could. Owl was fast and we were having trouble keeping up. All around us now we could hear movement. As we moved, I realized where Owl was going. He was heading us back towards Bart’s office.

“Everyone down! Flat on your bellies!” Owl hissed, motioning us into the ditch by the road. We lay flat and still, and waited for whatever Owl had noticed. I could hear the sounds of hundreds, probably thousands of insects. I could hear the sounds of people, but not close by, as they spoke to each other- clearly searching for something. I couldn’t hear anything that sounded like a threat, but I did trust Owl.

Viper clearly didn’t agree though.

“This is stupid. You are so stupid, look what you got us into.” She whispered, “And now we’re hiding from nothing, after we’ve got away. I am not playing anymore. I’m going home.”

Viper started to get to her feet, but Owl grabbed her by the shoulder and pulled her back down sharply.

Viper glared at him and opened her mouth to say something. And then a flashlight beam swept across the street and across the ditch we lay flattened. We were all silent as a huge black figure walked up the street, backlight by the flashlight. The flashlight beam moved across the ditch again, and I was certain we’d been seen. But the figure kept walking, and I realized that the shadows of the ditch had hidden us from his view.

“We need to tell Bart about this. “ Owl said quietly, “With luck, he can hide us. I don’t think that they’ve identified us.”

And so we went. Moving from shadow to shadow. Staying away from lit lamp posts. Hiding whenever union members passed by. I hadn’t realized how many people were acting on order from Wolf’s Dad until I had to hide from them.

We all paused between two buildings as the sound of footrprints got closer. Owl pointed to the tree line at the edge of main street, where the town met the woods. We all ran for the cover of the trees.

The dark concealing shadows of the forest were almost within reach when the ground sled out from under me as my foot hit a round stone and turned in the wrong direction. I hit the asphalt and rolled with  it, coming up on my hands and knees and scrambling in to the shadows. But the stone had skipped off across the road, and the footsteps were closing in.

We huddled in the concealing darkness as the large black human shape approached and switched on a flashlight. The beam scanned across the trees. I don't know about the others, but I was thinking very intently about how I was a rock, just a very large rock.

Time seemed to slow down, as the flashlight passed back and forth, seemingly far too many times. And then then the silence was broken by a hoot from the trees.

"hoo hoo ho-ho, hoo hoo ho-hoooooaw"

The flashlight beam darted upwards to reveal a barred owl, with its round earless head and brown feathers spattered with white. The owl twisted its head impossibly and called again.

"hoo ho-ho, hoo ho-hoooooaw"

The figure with the flashlight grunted, and shurgged its shoulders, and then turned and walked away.
"That owl is my hero." Viper whispered.

We crept across town to Bart's office. As we got within sight of it, I noticed that no lights were on.

"Nobody's there." I whispered.

"Of course not," Viper said, "It's way too late. He'll be at home- where we should be."

"So now what?" Wolf asked, "I don't want to explain this to my dad."

As we stared up at the darkened building, a beam of  light swept across us and we froze.

"Got you! Did you think you were going to get away with your spying?"

I froze. I didn't know what to do, know that we had been caught. I didn't know the man before us, couldn't even see his face behind the glare of the flashlight.

Viper whispered to us, as the figure approached, "We use this, where we are. We use it as cover. Your dad wanted us to spy for him. So we were spying for him. On Bart."

"let's hope that works." Owl whispered.

"Your plan didn't leave us many other options." Viper whispered back.

"I ought to beat you blue for the spying you little brats did."

He waved the heavy steel flashlight menacingly. And then a second flashlight beam swept across us and across the man interrogating us.

"What is going on here?" A second voice asked, and Professor Tuttle strode out of the shadows in full teacher and disciplinarian mode.

"Hey Professor. I got our spies right here."

Professor Tuttle turned and regarded us gravely. Then he shook his head and turned back to the man with the flashlight.

"And how do you know that?"

"Because they were out at night, and they shouldn't be."

Tuttle turned back to look at us.

"You are correct that the children are out at night. And you are likely correct that their parents would probably not approve. But that does not mean that they were the ones trespassing in the school. The children are a long way from the school. How do you know that they were 'spying'?"

"I guess I don't know for sure, do I?" He said sullenly.

"That's correct. You don't. Now that does not mean that you are wrong, but it does mean that we should look closer. Perhaps the children have a reason to explain why they were out."

Wolf looked grim, but sounded calm as he spoke, "We have a report to give to my dad."
"Hey! I know you. You're the boss's kid.” The figure straightened and then chuckled, "Little soldiers huh? Well let's get you to him then." The man turned and looked up a Bart's offices, and then spat. Then he turned and marched off, signalling for us to follow with a stiff armed wave.

The union guy who found us, brought us back to the school. As he walked us through the hallways I saw a light on in one of the classrooms. And I could hear Mrs. Winter’s voice.

“I don’t have all night. You are going to explain yourself, or there will be repercussions far beyond just yourself young man.”

I couldn’t see into the classroom, and we kept walking we were in Vice Principal Nottingham’s office. Wolf father stood at ease, military style with his back to us. The union guy cleared his throat.

“Sir, your son and his friends. They were found by that punk Bart’s offices when we were out searching. They said that they had news for you.”

He didn’t turn around, he just nodded. The union guy took this as his cue and left us, closing the door behind him. Only then did Wolf’s dad turn around. He seemed a little surprised to see the girls, but recovered quickly.

"What have you heard, men? I assume you were out at night looking for information.”

We paused and looked at each other. Did we tell him about Bartholomew and his secret tribe? No, of course not. But, and I could see this in the fear on Wolf and Owl's faces, we all knew we had to tell him about something. And he expected us to have news.

“Honestly sir,” Wolf said, “Tonight was a bit of a bust. We couldn’t get into his office. And then your guy caught us.”

“What made you think that you could break in?” He asked.

“Well sir, you wanted to know about him. I didn’t think it would be too hard.” Owl said.

“He’s right,” Viper chimed in, “We talked to him before and the office is a total mess. It doesn’t look like he keeps anything clean. I couldn’t imagine he has much in the way of security. I mean the sign says there are cameras, but I don’t think they even work.”

Wolf’s Dad actually chuckled at this. And I realized that Viper was playing on his expectations to keep us safe. I was actually starting to feel a little safer at that point, and then he asked, "And what about what Mr. Bartholomew said earlier? You said you managed to speak to him when his office was open."

"He tried to fink out on the bike bell offer." I answered, hoping to draw Mr. Wolf away from the dangerous topics.

“And?” He asked.

“He thinks you’re the villain sir. He wants to expose you as the bad guy sir.” Wolf said.

“That doesn’t surprise me. And what else?

Viper chimed in again, “Well this may be off topic, but earlier Professor Tuttle talked about how the whole world was run on spider webs stretched from one place to another."

His eyebrows went up a little bit.

"Did he elaborate on this?"

"Yeah, he said that everything that we depended on was there because these of these spiderwebs, and if the strands of the web fell we would start to lose the fun things that we were used to having. I got the sense that he was trying to warn us that things could get really tough."

Mr. Wolf was silent for a several long moments.

"I always dismissed Tuttle as too abstract. I may have to approach him and see where he stands. This is useful, thank you men. Why bring this up?"

“Well, because Bart was asking about it when we visited him.”

Wolf father narrowed his eyes when Viper said this, “That man is a perceptive annoyance. Anything else?”

"My dad says things are about to get bad, but I don't know if that counts for anything." Owl said quietly.

Mr. Wolf's face softened for a second, and he looked interested.

"Really? Did he say why?"

"He rambled a lot. I didn't catch all of it. But it sounded a lot like what Professor Tuttle and you said. He told me to be careful. Why would anything my dad says matter?"

"You dad used to be a really solid man, somebody you could rely on. Never held much in the way of a day job, but he helped everyone, provided for people with lower incomes. When Wolf was in diapers, and I was just working the line at the mill. We were short on money and short of food one winter, and your dad just showed up one snowy November night with half a white tailed deer worth of meat in a cooler. Didn't ask for anything in return, wouldn't accept anything but thanks."

"So why's my dad such a... the way he is now?"

"I don't know. He wouldn't talk about it. I remember when happened. He got beaten up by some of the Sumpter crowd just before he started drinking, but when I asked him about it, he always denied the two things were connected. he just said there was no point in trying anymore."

"Well he's said that if he's right, he's about to stop drinking."

"That would be good. I miss the man he was."

He paused for a moment.

“This is all useful. Nothing to disregard, but nothing shocking or amazing either. Do you have anything else? Anything that I can use? Anything of strategic value?”

I could see we weren’t getting out of here without giving up something good. But I couldn’t think of what we could give without looking bad ourselves.

“Well sir, Mr. and Mrs. Butters and Mr. Nottingham are going to side with Mayor Tailor at the next council meeting. Does that help?” Viper said cautiously.

It was the scariest thing, his eyes lit up like some Bond Villain about to activate his master plan.

“Yes. Yes, that is of strategic value. Alright men. You’ve done well. I’ll have to think on how best to use this intel, but you’ve done well.”

I squirmed, and I noticed that Raven looked sick. I could understand why, after all it was her dad who told us about Mr. Nottingham and Mr. and Mrs. Butters. I looked back up at Wolf’s Dad. He seemed lost in thought. We waited. He was silent a long time, and looked a little sad briefly- which surprised me. Then he spoke again.

"I have some bad news men. Your friend, the Mayor's son, was caught trying to spy on our operations."

"Russell?"

"Clearly, his father put him up to it. Mayor Tailor is a weak man who isn't up to the task of shepherding people through this crisis. He clearly sees our efforts as a threat to his power. You boy's shouldn't trust Mayor Tailor or his kid. He's a weak man, brittle like glass. Poke him and he can see cracks, push him and he shatters. He's still in our way. We need to outflank him if we're going to get into a position to protect the town and our way of life. His weakness could endanger us all. I'm going to have to take measures to limit his influence in the coming days."

"What about Russell?"

"Until further notice, Russell will be grounded and may not leave his house unless in the company of his parents. That is what his father told me when we delivered the boy back to his father."

"Are you sure he was spying?"

"Yes. The evidence is clear. I have my associate dealing him now."

I felt sick, it was becoming a familiar sensation these days. I should have said something, but then what? My mother would end up looking bad if I said anything. And nobody wanted to admit to Wolf's Dad that we weren't on his side. The thought of him angry was terrifying.

“You kids should get home. I appreciate the sacrifice you made, but you got caught and word may trickle back to your parents. I will instruct my men to forget that we found you. We have our spy in any event. But I don’t think it would be wise to deny anything if word does leak out. I expect you’ll be willing to endure a grounding for a greater cause if it comes to that?”

We all nodded quietly. He turned away and one of the union guys ushered us out of the room.

"My Dad is getting even scarier than usual." Wolf said as we left.

"Your dad was totally doing the Darth Vader thing. 'Join me and together we can rule the galaxy as father and son!' He was trying to get us to turn dark side." I said.

“We already have turned to the dark side, or at least let the dark side do its thing.” Viper said bitterly.

“Do you see another way?” Wolf asked.

“With your dad? No!” Viper said.

"The thing is, he's one of the few adults that is telling us anything," Owl said, "He scares me, but he actually talks to us. What we found in Winter’s office scares me. But what if their right? I mean Bart talks all heroic, but he feels like he's playing us."

"I always feel like my Dad is playing with me." Wolf said.

"And Raven's Dad talks to us, so does Professor Tuttle and Mildred Sanger." I objected.

"The teachers don't tell you anything, they're playing with us too." Owl said, "And Raven's dad is nice, but what can he do?"

"He's got a lot of respect from the other adults." I said.

"Yeah, but no power." Owl said.

“We should warn Bart about what’s going on.”

“How much do we tell him?”

“I don’t know.”

The next morning, we met in front of the Mr. Pickle Diner, and I couldn’t help but notice that the diner wasn’t open. The closed sign was up. The light were off. A plywood board had been nailed across the plate glass window from the inside. And there was a sign taped to the window. The sign read: ‘Closed For Business Until Further Notice’.

None of us commented on the sign, or the fact that the diner was closed the morning after we had ratted out the Butters family to Wolf’s Dad. But we were all thinking it. We headed over to Bart’s office as soon as everyone arrived. Everyone except Russell, but we weren’t expecting Russell to show up. None of us had even tried to knock on the Tailor’s front door. We didn’t want to deal with that. Bart’s office was open, the ground floor empty, as before. We climbed to the second floor, and found him waiting for us.

"So what have my rebel crusaders discovered?" Bartholomew said with a colorful smile.

"My dad doesn't like you." Wolf said flaty.

"I knew that." he answered, still grinning.

"He was asking about you, point blank. He knew we were here and he wanted to know everything we knew." Owl added.

"And what did you end up telling him?" He was still smiling like a maniac.

"A little as we could," I added.

"You didn't reveal the secret tribe did you?"

"We don't think so."

“Where’s Mayor Tailor’s son? Isn’t he normally with you guys?”

“He was caught out at night last night, and was accused of spying on my Dad. He’s been grounded until further notice.”

Bart looked surprised, “How’d you hear about this?”

“We were out spying too. We got caught and told my dad that we were spying for him on you. It worked.”

Bart laughed.

“You find anything good then?”

“Mrs. Winter is crazy. Like conspiracy theory, secret governments and flying saucers crazy. She seems to want things to fall apart, so that her group can take power.”

Bart’s expression changed, “She actually wants things to fall apart?”

“That’s what it sounded like from her notes. We didn’t get to read much before we had to run though.”

“That changes things. That makes her very dangerous. Before we assumed that we could trust her to act like a civilized person. But if she wants things to break down, then she’s only going to pretend to play by society’s rules. That’s a scary thoughts my fellow crusaders. A very scary thought indeed.”

“But it’s not her in charge. That’s my dad- he’s the one with the power.”

“Are you so sure about that? I’m not.”

Bart closed his eyes and looked away from us for a moment, then he turned back around, “The theater, the diner and Maggie’s Apparel are boarded up with signs that say they’re closed until further notice. They were all allies on the Mayor’s side. His son is grounded. And now it looks like the other side isn’t playing by the same rule book that we are. I need to talk to the Mayor and we need to plan a response. This is all really good stuff. I won’t tell them where I got it, but good work. I need you guys to leave me alone to think before I head out to find Mayor Tailor, so I’ll talk to you later. That cool?”

We nodded and left him to his thoughts.

When we reached the front door Raven spoke, “Everyone is thanking us for acting like snitches. I feel like a total creep lately, like everyone we do hurts other people.”

“I agree,” I said, “And I don’t feel like this is making any more sense than before. The more we learn about what’s going on, the more it seems like everything is just falling apart. How can everything just fall apart?”

Viper shook her head, "It doesn't matter. We don't know what's causing all of this. Not really. We don't know for sure what's going wrong outside of our own little town. And we don't need to. I mean we can guess little bits of it, and every adults seems to have theories. Stuff isn't getting delivered where it should, and people can't buy, so people can't make money so stuff isn't getting fixed and people don't have enough. We know that, because that's happening here. We don't know what started it, but we aren't going to go fix that stuff, are we? So we can deal with what broke things later. We might never know, but we do need to know how to deal with it right here in our little town. If we don't we aren't going to have a little town left."

"Exactly," Owl said.

"No, don't you exactly me. You like this. Just like Mrs. Winter. You don’t want to become king, you just want an excuse to run away. But you still wanted this. You don't want this town to make it. I do. I want the house when I grow up, with a dog and a cat and a car and two girls and a white picket fence. You want a bush fort and a .22 hunting rifle."

"I have a dog," Owl said.

"So not the point. We all can see that something is going very wrong. Wolf's Dad and Mrs. Winter are scary people. But Mr. Tailor doesn't seem to know what to do. Rabbit's Mom is cool, and she's talking with Mrs. Winter. Maybe they are scary, but maybe we need scary."

"If my Dad is in charge, he'll run this place like an army base, Viper. He'll have you doing push ups and saying 'yes sir'. You know he will, that's all he knows anymore. Mom took something from him when she died. And you read Mrs. Winter’s notes. You even just said she wants let things fall to become king or queen or whatever."

"Maybe that's okay, if that’s what it takes to keep things together." Viper said, " Maybe we can’t save everything. But Mrs. Winter’s notes at least told us that she wants to save something. I'm not saying I like them. They both give me the creeps. I'm saying that I want Safehope Bluff to still be my town when this is over."

"And what if it's never over?" Owl asked.

"Everything is over eventually." Viper said.

"And what if it ends, and they've changed everything so much that it isn't your town anymore?" Raven asked.

"They couldn't do that." Viper said.

"My dad used to be Chief, remember?" Raven said, "It happened to us. This used to be a string of small tribal villages. And then new people arrived, and by the time it was done my Grandfather and Grandmother didn't live in a village, they lived on a reservation. Things can change, and then you look up and you don't recognize it anymore." Raven said quietly.

Nobody knew what to say at that point, and we were basically just wandering through town like shell shocked victims. As we turned a corner, I actually bumped right into Mildred Sanger coming from the opposite direction. She looked at us, and seemed to size us up quickly.

“This doesn’t look good.” She said, “What’s bothering you?”

“Everything,” Viper said.

“Nothing.” Owl said.

“My dad.” Wolf said.

“The town.” Raven said.

“We don’t really know.” I finished.

“This sounds big. I suspect, my advice to stay out of the way has gone unheeded.”

We didn’t answer.

“Very well. The diner is closed,” She said, “But you need a coffee break and somebody to listen to you, I suspect. So come with me, we’ll have tea at my house.”

We followed Mildred to her little cob brick cottage. Her parents had built one just like it when they arrived, and Mildred had apparently built her own when she turned eighteen. The house was dark with no overhead lights. Sunlight streamed in through carefully aimed windows to light the living room enough to see and read, but probably only on sunny days. The house seemed to have no sharp edges and no corners. Everything was rounded and smooth and made of cob brick: a material that looked a little like mud or clay. A few gaudy grandmother type lamps with bright colored glass shades sat unlit on end tables around the room. The place felt like a hobbit hole and a wizard's tower and a spider's lair all at once. And despite all this the house still felt like a grandmother owned it.

"From here, I need to know what's brought you to this point. I see you lot together most days. You stick together like a gang or a tribe, and so to see you fighting so fiercely is telling."

"What do you mean telling?" Raven asked.

"Friends and family normally accept each other and the differences of opinion that are inevitable. Mother doesn’t constantly point out that she thinks Father's need to upgrade the car each year is wasteful, and Father doesn't comment that he thinks Mother's cosmetics budget is excessive. But all of this changes when push comes to shove, when the situation turns tense, when people move from abundance to lack. Father gets laid off from his job and things change. Suddenly Mother is on Father's case about the car- and Father is on Mother's case about the cosmetics. What they could accept in times of plenty, they are less willing to accept in times of need."

"So what does that have to do with us?" I asked.

"And this is precisely my question to you." Mildred Sanger said.

We were quiet for a long time, and finally Viper spoke.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that you are in a time a lack, where things that you previously tolerated, you now find intolerable. In the details of what you are lacking, we will find the source of your problems. So what do you lack?"

"A way to fix things." Viper said.

"A way out." Owl said.

"Answers from the adults." I said.

"Good defenses against what's coming." Wolf added.

"Community spirit." Raven said.

Mildred laughed.

"There, you see? I think that you are all speaking of the same concern, but look how you frame it. Viper, our young scholar- wants information to repair what has been damaged. Owl of course, who sees the current way as being wrong and unjust- seeks a way to free his spirit. Rabbit seeks truth. Wolf, our young fighter- seeks strategy. And Raven, our peacemaker- seeks something to bring people back together."

"So what does that mean? If we all think we're missing different things?" Viper asked.

"It means you aren't looking deep enough. Each of you is drawing conclusions, based on what you value. What you think you lack, is lacking because something else is missing- something closer to the core of your problem."

"That's the problem." Owl answered, "We don't really know what that is. We know something big is going on. Stuff is running out. Professor Tuttle was talking about how these kind of spiderwebs connect factories and stores and stuff, and the other adults are talking about this like things are going wrong- like there being less oil than people thought and people panicking. But we don't know what exactly. It’s all so big and fuzzy and nobody can seem to spell it out for us."

"Those spider webs are called supply lines. And you are correct that you haven't reached the root of the problem. But have you reached deeper than previously. What you are all lacking is certainty, and this is caused by a shortage of basic necessities of modern life. Things haven't run out, but there is less than there was. You see the tension this causes with your parents and the other adults. You are not blind as your parents seem to have assumed. You can see that this shortage could last a long time, and could damage those things in your life that you value. Yes?"

"Well, yeah." Raven said.

"So the dispute was caused by that tension. You all have given different importance to different things, and as you become aware of problems which could limit can be done, you are less willing to accept the differing opinions of your friends, because after all that could mean that their preferences continue while your preferences are sacrificed as the problems get worse."

"Yeah, that sounds exactly right." Owl conceded.

"And of course, your parents are experiencing the exact same things. This is why they are arguing and jockeying for power and control. Nobody wants to be powerless when the shortage becomes severe and people are required to give up things in order to get by. Everyone is positioning themselves to protect what they value, because everyone can tell that bad times are coming."

"But can't we fix them?" Viper asked.

"Whether we can fix them isn't the question at the moment I'm afraid. The question is what will those people in power do in response to the situation? And additionally, who is in power?"

"That would be Mayor Tailor and Rabbit's mom for the most part. Wolf's Dad and Mrs. Winters are putting a lot of pressure on them lately though," Owl said, "They are all talking about shortages of stuff all over the place. They all seem to want to prepare for when the shortages get really bad, but they still seem to argue a lot."

"They're arguing for the same reason that we were, aren't they?" Viper asked, "They're arguing over what's missing, but they aren't looking deep enough- right?"

"I am not on the Town Council, so I am not aware of what the Council is debating. But I think you are probably right. Russell's father has always been very concerned with keeping people happy. Rose- Rabbit's Mother- has always been focused on keeping things reasonably managed. Principal Winters has always been concerned with keeping things in order. and Wolf's Father has always been concerned with keeping things under control. On the surface these things should match up nicely, but as shortages limit options I expect that we will see these priorities butting up against each other."

"They already are," Owl said, "But what do we do?"

"That depends on what you want?"

"We want things be alright." Raven said, Viper nodded.

"And what is that? A wish that you can close your eyes and the world will change before you open them? Now is not the time for fairy tales. I am not asking for your wishes. I am asking for your choices. We are experiencing shortages in many important or essential things. Supply lines are struggling. Small towns are not getting goods delivered because there isn't as much left after the big cities take their fill. These are not things you can change. You do not get to decide what the world will give you. You only get to decide what to do with what you are given."

"Okay, but what can we do?" Wolf crossed his arms as he spoke.

"Mmmm. I think I will approach this from a different direction. I mentioned fairy tales and said you shouldn't believe in them. But fairy tales in their original form served useful purposes- they transmitted information. This is a fairy tale, in the sense that it did not happen- not in the way I will tell it. This is a true story in the sense that it explains what happened, even if the story itself never happened."

"What does that mean?" Viper asked.

"It means listen, and then decide if you need to ask me that."

And this is where Mildred Sanger told us the story from the beginning of the book: The Story of the Brave Young Man and the Corn Lady.

Go back and read it again if you need to. I'm not going to rewrite it here just to save you flipping pages.