Portal, an online novel: Chapter 24

Posted on March 16, 2013 by Richard Bowker

Chapter 23: Larry and Kevin make their way through the chaotic city, hoping to reach Glanbury and the portal. But then Larry decides they should help with the imminent battle against the New Portuguese army; they owe it to the place that has been their home for months now. They are separated, and Larry ends up bringing ammunition to the front line. Then he himself becomes part of the battle as the Portuguese army storms over the fortifications; he ends up killing a soldier not that much older than he is. New England wins the battle. But has Kevin survived?

*************

Chapter 24

Kevin wasn’t at the ammunition depot when I arrived. Sergeant Dryerson said he’d been sent to Sector 14. “Hard fighting there, I’ve heard. But don’t worry, he’ll be back. Meanwhile, you look like you’ve been through it. How’d you end up with that?” he asked, gesturing at the rifle.

I told him about getting caught in the battle.

The sergeant was impressed. “Hold onto the rifle, lad. It might come in handy. Grab some bullets for it, as long as you’re here.”

“Have you heard anything about the battle with the Canadians?” I thought to ask.

He shook his head. “But it looks like we’ve won half the war–unless the Portuguese decide to regroup and attack again tomorrow. That’s better than some of us thought we’d do.”

What good was it to win half the war, I wondered. I hung around the depot, taking care of the horse and helping to clean up. Outside, the camp was just as busy as before the battle, with wagons clattering over the dirt path and messengers on horseback galloping past them and soldiers trudging back from the fortifications. I kept looking for Kevin’s caisson, but it didn’t show up, and I became more and more nervous. It was getting dark out. What would I do if he didn’t show up?

“Come to the mess with us, lad,” Sergeant Dryerson said to me. “You need a good meal.”

“Thanks, but I guess I’ll stay here and wait for my friend.”

This time he didn’t say anything reassuring. “Do you need a place to stay the night?” he asked gently. “The barracks won’t be full, I fear.”

I just shrugged. I couldn’t think about that right now. The sergeant went off with the other soldiers, and I sat down outside the depot, shivering in the cold, with the rifle by my side. It was starting to get dark. I wondered if my father was all right. And poor fat Benjamin, who had looked so unhappy when Corporal Hennessy told him to report to Sergeant Hornbeam. And Chester, who had saved my life, even if I was a boy. And all the other soldiers I had met. How many people died today that I knew?

Don’t be dead, Kevin, I thought. It had been my idea to volunteer for the battle. He just wanted to go home. So if he died, it was my fault.

“Am I glad to see you,” a voice said.

I looked up and saw a Red Sox cap heading towards me.

For the second day in a row, I was so relieved to see Kevin I thought I’d cry. I was so relieved I didn’t have the energy to tell him how relieved I was. I just kind of waved. He sat down next to me. “It’s cold,” he said.

“Sure is.”

“Think we can get something to eat?”

“They’ll feed us over at the mess.”

We didn’t move, though. We were silent for a while. “My driver was shot,” Kevin said finally. “Killed.”

“Mine too.”

“The caisson got wrecked during the battle, so I had to walk back. Then on the way they asked me to help out on one of the ambulances, take people to the field hospital. Surgery, they call it. What a nasty place. They don’t have, you know, what’s the word?”

I thought. “Anesthesia?”

“Anesthesia. Yeah. They could sure use anesthesia.”

I shivered, thinking about it. “I killed someone, Kevin,” I said. “I got caught in the battle, and I had this rifle, and I shot a Portuguese soldier. In the chest. He wasn’t much older than us.”

“Geez,” Kevin whispered. “You okay?”

“I guess so. I keep telling myself that I didn’t have any choice. Kill or be killed, right? Still.”

“It’s a war,” Kevin said.

“Still.” We were silent some more. Finally I said, “So why don’t we go get some food?”

Kevin didn’t respond. I looked over at him, and tears were streaming down his face. “I want to go home, Larry,” he said. “I want to go home so bad.”

I put my arm around him, and we huddled together in the cold and the dark. In the distance, I thought I could hear screams from the surgery.

Finally it got too cold to just sit there, so we got up and found our way to the mess–a long, low-ceilinged, smoky building with a big fire burning in a fireplace at one end. It was crowded but quiet, despite the victory. We didn’t see Sergeant Dryerson, but we did spot Caleb and Fred, who were happy to have us join them. “You lads turn up everywhere,” Caleb said. “Aren’t you supposed to be back at headquarters?”

“Yeah,” I said, “but everyone had to help out today.”

“That’s surely true. Interesting hat, mate,” he said to Kevin. “‘B’ for Boston?”

“That’s right,” Kevin replied.

“Wish I had me one of those.”

I noticed Sergeant Hornbeam looking at us from another table, but he didn’t come over.

Caleb and Fred told us the latest war news while we ate some cold mutton and hard rolls. We had held the Canadians off for today, but everyone expected another assault; that battle had been nowhere near as decisive as this one seemed to have been. Caleb thought that some troops would be left here to defend the fortifications, but others would be shifted over to reinforce the soldiers fighting the Canadians to the north.

“Maybe the Portuguese will swing around the city and join them,” Fred suggested.

“More likely they got such a licking today that they won’t stop running till they’re back in New Portugal,” Caleb countered.

All the other soldiers at the table got into the discussion about what would happen next. Most agreed with Caleb that the Portuguese were done fighting. “That fence was enough to scare them away,” one said.

“What did that fence do, exactly?” another soldier asked.

“Don’t know, but whatever it was, they surely didn’t like it.”

Kevin didn’t seem interested in any of this discussion. Once he was finished eating, he immediately started asking where we could find a bed for the night.

“Not going back to headquarters?” Caleb asked.

He shrugged. “Maybe tomorrow.”

“By the way, where is that ciphering machine of yours?” Fred asked. “Fellows, you should have seen that machine. It was the darnedest thing . . .”

But Kevin didn’t stick around to listen to them talk about his watch. Instead he got up and left the mess.

“He’s pretty tired,” I explained.

“Don’t blame him,” Caleb said. “We’re in Barracks B, across the way. Tell the orderly to find you lads a spot. Shouldn’t be hard, I’m afraid.”

I thanked Caleb, grabbed my rifle, and went to catch up with Kevin. He was outside the mess. “What’s up?” I asked. “I was going to ask them about who died in the battle. Did I tell you about Professor Foster? He got shot.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Kevin said. “We’ve got to get some sleep and head for Glanbury first thing in the morning. Otherwise Lieutenant Carmody is going to find out we’re here and grab us. Everyone in camp is gonna know about the kids with the ciphering machine before long. You think that won’t get back to headquarters?”

“Okay,” I said. “Maybe you’re right. Do you think we can make it to Glanbury? For all we know, the Portuguese army is still out there.”

“We have a better shot than we did yesterday, Larry. And we can’t stay here. We can’t be in any more battles.”

He was shaking with emotion. He’d had enough. More than enough. “Fine,” I said. I motioned towards the building with the big letter B painted on it. “Let’s go over there and see if we can find a couple of beds. In the morning we’ll figure it out.”

Inside Barracks B a gloomy young soldier sat behind a desk. He must’ve been the orderly. He shook his head when we explained what we wanted. “That’s not procedures,” he said. “If you’re not assigned here, you need an order signed by a colonel.”

“Look,” I said. “We’ve been fighting the Portuguese all day. Now we just want someplace to sleep. We’re too tired to go looking for a colonel.”

“That’s the procedures,” he explained again, as if we were a little slow in understanding. “You’re not even soldiers,” he pointed out. “The rules say you shouldn’t even be in this building.”

“Let them have a bed, you imbecile!” a voice demanded from behind us.

It was Sergeant Hornbeam, his red mustache bristling.

The orderly looked offended. “They need an order signed–”

The sergeant was right in front of him now. “Give them a bed!” he shouted. “Do you have a casualty list?”

“Well, yes, but it’s very preliminary.”

“It doesn’t matter if it’s preliminary, now does it?” the sergeant pointed out. “If someone is listed as dead, he’s not coming back to life, is he?”

“Not procedures,” the orderly mumbled. “Highly irregular.”

“These are highly irregular times. Now do it!”

The orderly studied a piece of paper for a second, and then stood up. “Come along then,” he said, without looking at us.

“Thanks, Sergeant,” I said to Sergeant Hornbeam.

He dismissed us with a wave. “Get some sleep,” he said. “There are far too many imbeciles in this army,” he muttered as he walked out the door.

We followed the orderly into a large hall where cots were laid out in long rows. A few soldiers were snoring away, but most of the cots were empty. “There and there,” the orderly said, pointing out a couple of cots near the back.

“Thank you,” I said.

He shook his head. “It’s not right,” he replied. I felt like we had ruined his day.

Kevin slumped down onto one of the cots. “I thought an orderly was, like, someone who mopped floors,” he said.

I shrugged. “In another world,” I murmured. I put my rifle down, flopped onto the cot next to him, and pulled the thin blanket over me. “The guys who slept here last night are dead now,” I said, staring up at the ceiling, which flickered in the lamplight. “Kinda creeps me out.”

“Everything here is creeping me out,” Kevin said. And then after a pause he added: “I wonder why Sergeant Hornbeam was following us.”

“What makes you think he was following us?” I asked. “Maybe he just happened to see us come in here and wanted to do us a favor.”

“Whatever,” he said. “Tomorrow morning we head home.”

I didn’t reply. Too tired. I closed my eyes and thought about the soldier who had lain on this cot last night. Scared. Excited. Maybe too excited to fall asleep. Maybe he wasn’t a whole lot older than me. Maybe he thought he was going to be a hero. And now he was just . . . gone. Lying in the morgue. Probably be buried in the morning, in one of those big holes people like Chester dug. I shuddered and tried to stop thinking about him.

And instead I thought about that other soldier, with the wispy mustache, looking kind of scared as he rushed towards me, his sword gleaming. Where had he slept last night? What had he thought about?

I wondered what happened to the enemy dead–how did they get buried?

It had been a tough day. I just had to stop thinking.

Eventually my body must have agreed, because the next thing I knew I was riding in a wagon at top speed. The road was bumpy and I was being tossed all over the place, but I couldn’t slow down. I didn’t know why at first, and then I realized that Portuguese soldiers were chasing me on horseback. I turned to look at them, and one was the short bearded guy that Chester had killed, and the other was the kid with the wispy mustache, and I tried to shout to them that it was war, kill or be killed, nothing personal, but they didn’t understand or didn’t care, and they were closing in on my wagon, so I had to go faster, faster . . .

I opened my eyes. Kevin was shaking me. “Wake up,” he whispered. “Time to go.”

Groggily I got to my feet. There weren’t any windows, I noticed. Thin gray light came in through chinks in the boards. The soldiers snored and mumbled in their cots. Had I really slept all night? We made our way through the cots and into the outer room. The same orderly was still there. He was half-asleep, but he glared at us as we walked by like we had ruined the war for him. Then we were outside. It was bitter cold. For some reason I thought about the arguments I’d had with my mom about putting on my gloves for the short walk to the bus stop. Wouldn’t it be great if I had gloves?

“Now what?” I said.

“Now we go,” Kevin replied.

“How far is it?” I asked. “Ten miles? Twenty?” I really had no idea how far Glanbury was from Boston. “Think we’ll make it?”

“Yeah, we’ll make it.” He sounded like nothing in this world was going to keep him from making it.

“Well, how do we get past the guards at the fortifications?”

“I dunno. Why should they care? They’re supposed to keep the Portuguese out, not us in. Let’s go down back to the main road and see what’s going on.”

We hadn’t gone twenty feet, though, when I heard a voice behind me. “Hey Lawrence, what are you doing here?”

I turned around and saw Stinky Glover hurrying towards us.

Portal, an online novel: Chapter 22

Posted on March 2, 2013 by Richard Bowker

In Chapter 21: Stinky Glover saves Larry from a mugging in Cheapside. In a park, Larry has a strange encounter with the preacher from the Burger Queen world. The preacher seems to have something to do with the portal; he apologizes to Larry for what has happened to him. But then the preacher disappears; back at headquarters, Larry is relieved to find Kevin, who survived the fire at the hospital. They worry that Lieutenant Carmody believes they are too valuable to let them return to their own world. Desperately homesick, they decide to return to the camp in the morning to find Larry’s family and then find their way back to Glanbury, their hometown, after the battle.

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Chapter 22

Kevin was already awake. “Let’s go,” he said. “Before someone ships us off to Coolidge Palace or wherever.”

“Okay, okay.” I got up to my feet and used the chamber pot. The room was freezing. I put my shoes on, then the preacher’s coat. “Ready,” I mumbled.

“One thing,” Kevin said. He looked a little nervous.

“What?”

“I want to get our own clothes.”

“Huh? You mean, from our world? I don’t even know where they are.”

“They’re probably in Lieutenant Carmody’s room. Peter gave them to him after he gave us these clothes, remember?”

I remembered. “But that’s crazy, Kevin,” I said. “The lieutenant is the one guy we want to stay away from.”

“He won’t be there,” Kevin replied. “Peter said he mostly stays at the palace now.”

“But why take the chance?”

“Because it’ll be easier walking with our sneakers on.”

“Sure, but is that worth the risk?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I want my clothes. I want to wear them when I go home.”

I was about to argue some more, but I looked at him and decided he wasn’t fooling; he wasn’t going to leave without his clothes.

I shrugged. “Fine,” I said. “Whatever.”

We went downstairs. I wondered if Professor Palmer would be in his room. I had another pang, thinking about how I’d abandoned him. Could we say goodbye to him? But what if he decided to stop us? He’d certainly try. It was risky enough going to the lieutenant’s room.

We found it halfway down the corridor. For all the time I’d spent with the lieutenant, I had never been to his room before.

“You knock,” I whispered, although I didn’t really know why we should bother knocking.

Kevin hesitated, then tapped softly on the door. We waited. No answer. He turned the knob, and the door creaked open. We walked inside.

The room was smaller than I had expected. The bed was neatly made. A small window looked out on the courtyard. In front of the window was a wooden desk with an oil lamp and a few papers on it. Next to it was a small bookshelf. On the floor was a pair of shiny black boots. By the closet door was a dresser with a comb, a brush, and few coins on top. Kevin opened the closet, and we saw a neat row of uniforms hanging along a pole, with more shoes and boots on the floor.

This felt creepy. We didn’t belong here. Kevin started opening the drawers of the dresser. I just stood by the bed. “Come on,” he whispered. “Look.”

“Our clothes can’t be here,” I said. “The room is too small.”

“We don’t know till we’ve searched the place.” He finished opening the drawers, then went over to the closet. “Under the bed,” he said. “Check under the bed.”

Reluctantly I got down on my knees and took a look. On the floor I spied a large black trunk and, next to it, a canvas sack. I pulled the sack out, looked inside, and sighed with relief. “Got ’em,” I said.

Kevin came over and pulled the clothes out. Cap, t-shirt, jeans, sneakers . . . “Let’s put them on,” he said.

“Huh?”

“Under these clothes. It’s gonna be cold out there. We can leave the stupid shoes.”

He started unbuttoning his shirt. Again I wanted to argue, but I figured it’d be easier and quicker to just go along. So I put on the two layers of clothes–my “old” clothes underneath, and my “new” clothes on top. Wearing two pairs of pants felt pretty clunky, but it was great to have my sneakers on again. Kevin put on his Red Sox cap.

“You sure you want to wear that?” I asked.

“Why not?”

“People’ll think you’re strange, like when we first got here.”

“So what?” he demanded.

I couldn’t think of an answer. It was strange, but the cap seemed to make him look happier. Like putting it on brought him one step closer to going home. “Let’s go,” I said.

Apparently Kevin didn’t have any more bright ideas, because he just said, “Fine.”

We went downstairs, and I could smell food from the mess. That could be the last meal we’d have in a while, I thought. I was hungry, but I didn’t suggest stopping, and neither did Kevin. We went outside into the gray morning.

There was less activity in the courtyard than there had been last night–probably everyone had already left to take up their positions for the battle. The air was bitter cold. The artillery rumbled in the distance.

We hurried out of the courtyard and onto the street. And there, wouldn’t you know, was Peter driving the lieutenant’s carriage up to the entrance. “Mornin’, lads!” he called out, coming to a halt next to us. “Larry, people’ve been worried. Where’ve you been?”

“Nowhere special,” I said. “Gotta go.”

But before we could get away the carriage door opened and Lieutenant Carmody was staring at us. It was the same stare I remembered from the first time we met him. He was only a lieutenant, but it was the gaze of someone who knew how to make people obey him.

He looked at Kevin’s cap, then down at our sneakers. He understood what we had done, and what we were up to. “Planning on going home, lads?” he asked. “Your portal’s a long ways off, and the Portuguese army’s in the way.”

“It’s time,” Kevin said. “Time to go home.”

Lieutenant Carmody shook his head. “Believe me, you’ll be much better off staying with us than trying to go anywhere today, of all days. Hop in, lads. We’ll take care of you.”

Kevin looked at me for a second, and then he took off. I hesitated for another second, and then I took off right behind him.

“Peter!” I heard the lieutenant shout. “After them!”

We headed for a side street. The carriage clattered behind us. I thought: Peter wouldn’t shoot us, would he? We made it to the side street, then Kevin dodged into an alley, and I followed. We hopped over a wooden fence, and then cut through a yard to another street. After a minute I looked back over my shoulder: no carriage. We kept going for a few more minutes, then hid in another alley and tried to catch our breath.

“Think we’re safe?” Kevin gasped.

“Lost ’em for now,” I said. “And they can’t chase us all day, can they?”

“Hope not.”

Kevin didn’t look so good. He was hunched over, still gasping for air. Maybe this was going to be too much for him. “You okay, Kev?” I asked him.

Kevin managed to nod. “Yeah. Kinda out of shape, I guess. Just give me a minute.”

I thought about Lieutenant Carmody. He was right, of course: this was a stupid day to try to get back to Glanbury. But I had a feeling Kevin was right, too. The lieutenant probably didn’t want us to go home at all. Maybe he had never really been our friend. We were just a way of helping to win the war. And making him look good.

“Let’s go,” Kevin said finally. “Which way is the camp?”

It took me a minute to get my bearings, but I figured it out–I was really getting to know the city. We start walking. The streets were surprisingly crowded–with people from the camps, I realized.

“What’s happening?” I asked an old man with a burlap bag slung over his shoulder.

“Soldiers are gone,” he said. “Need to find some food.”

“Were you in the Fens camp? Are people still there?”

“No more camp,” he muttered as he wandered away. “Thank God, no more camp.”

Kevin and I looked at each other. “I was afraid of this,” I said.

“What should we do?”

“Might as well go check out the camp. My family might still be there.”

Kevin agreed, and we kept walking.

It turned out we weren’t far from the park where I had seen the preacher. I pointed it out to Kevin as we went past. “Sure would be good to ask him a few more questions,” Kevin said.

“No kidding.”

“But you know what?”

“What?”

“I really don’t care all that much. I’m sick of portals and sick of this world. I just want to go home.”

And that was all Kevin had to say about the preacher.

We kept going. There were no policemen in sight, no soldiers. I tried to spot familiar faces in the people we passed, but I didn’t see any. Everyone looked exhausted. Where did they think they were going? They wouldn’t find food in the city. It must have felt good to finally get out of the camp, but really, there wasn’t anyplace better. Some people had already given up and were just sitting by the side of the road, their eyes dead, waiting–just like they had waited in the camp.

The crowds were thinner in Cheapside. I don’t think people wanted to stop there. I got nervous, but no one bothered us, except for a couple of kids who shouted out comments about Kevin’s cap. He didn’t seem to mind. We just walked on.

As we got close to the camp we could see smoke billowing into the air, and we could smell the odor of charred wood. The sun was up now, but there wasn’t much sky to be seen.

All the military buildings had been set on fire: the barracks, the mess, even the food warehouse. Some were still burning, others were smoldering rubble. Beyond them, the gates to the camp stood wide open; the fence had been wrecked. There was no sign of any soldiers.

“Geez,” Kevin muttered.

There wasn’t much to say. We headed into the camp.

A few people were left, but not many. Old people who looked too weak to go anywhere. Nasty-looking men who were scavenging among the stuff that had been left behind. And animals: a pair of mangy dogs, thin as skeletons, were barking furiously at each other; an equally skinny horse gazed mournfully at them. Ahead of us a wagon lay on its side, its wheels shattered. Everywhere there was trash–books, kitchen utensils, broken toys, a single shoe.

We wandered through the camp. It was clear that my family wasn’t there, but I guess we didn’t know what else to do. Finally Kevin pulled at my sleeve and pointed. About twenty yards away from us a body lay face-down on the trampled earth. I shivered. We went over to it. It was an old man, with one hand stretched in front of him as if he were trying to reach for something just out of his grasp. But there was nothing there, just dirt. He lay motionless except for a few wisps of gray hair blowing in the wind. He was dead. “Should we bury him?” Kevin asked.

I shook my head. “We have to go,” I said. There was a lump in my throat. My family was gone. Lieutenant Carmody was chasing us. The enemy was about to attack the city. Everything was falling apart.

We had to go, but where? We weren’t returning to headquarters. And, like the lieutenant said, the Portuguese army stood between us and Glanbury. But we’d made our plan, and I couldn’t think of a better one.

“A lot of people are going to die today,” Kevin said, looking down at the corpse. “Maybe us.”

“I know,” I said. “Still, we’ve gotta go.”

He nodded. We were silent for a moment, standing in the ruins of the camp. And then we walked out of the camp and headed south, towards the battle.

Portal, an online novel: Chapter 21

Posted on February 23, 2013 by Richard Bowker

Larry tries to visit Kevin in the hospital, but the hospital has burned down, and Kevin is nowhere to be found. He brings food to his family in the refugee camp, but afterwards his mother insists that he return “home”. The camp, meanwhile, is descending into chaos. Larry makes it out, but is then accosted in Cheapside.

Can things get any worse?

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Chapter 21

I turned. There were three of them–short, scrawny kids, about my age probably, dressed in ragged shirts and pants. They quickly surrounded me.

“Where you headed, mate?”

“We’ve seen you before passin’ through Cheapside, haven’t we?”

“Comin’ from the camp? How’d you get out?”

I tried to push past them, but they closed in on me. The thing I remember most about them were their eyes. They were wild and fearless. They didn’t have anything to lose. I put my fists up, ready to defend myself. Not much point in that, it turned out, because the kid behind me cut my legs out from under me and I fell to the ground. Then the three of them were on top of me, pulling my coat off while I tried to push them away. They were small, but they were strong. One of them held my legs while the other two wrestled with the coat. I didn’t have a chance. They had it off me inside a minute, and then they glared down at me.

“Got a little spunk in you, don’t you, mate?”

“This is our turf, and you don’t pass through without payin’ the toll.”

“Reckon you’ll have to be punished for breaking the rules.”

One of them picked up a rock and grinned. I squirmed, but there was no way I could break free.

“Hey!” I heard someone shout, and a rock went whizzing past. “Let ‘im go.”

The kids looked back. “None of your concern, mate!” one of them called out. “Now shove.”

“Shove yourself. He’s a friend of mine.” Another rock went by.

The kids looked at each other. “You can have your friend,” the one holding the rock said. “He’s not worth dross. But we keep the coat. We’re off, mates.”

They let go of me and disappeared down an alley. I sat up and looked at the person who had saved me. He was walking towards me with a rock in each hand.

It was Stinky Glover.

“Hey, mate, I think I actually do know you,” he said as he came up to me.

“There were some kids chasing you in the camp yesterday,” I said. I was gasping a little, trying to catch my breath.

“That’s right, I remember. You did a good deed for me. I made up that ‘friend’ bit, but looks like I was right.”

“Thanks for getting those kids off me,” I said.

He helped me up. I felt a little bruised, but otherwise okay. “Dangerous place to be by yourself,” he replied. “Name’s Julian Glover. What’s yours?”

“Palmer. Larry Palmer. So, what are you doing outside the camp, Julian?” I asked. It was going to be really hard not to call him “Stinky.”

“I could ask you the same thing, Lawrence,” he said. “I make myself useful to the soldiers. They want something from the city, they can send me, ’cause they know I’ll come back. Beats sitting around all day in the camp doing nothing, and they’ll give me a hunk of meat or a hardtack biscuit for my troubles. I’ve got no family, so I have to fend for myself.”

“No family?” I asked. “You’re here alone?”

“Well, I’m ‘prenticed to a blacksmith, but I’ve pretty much run off from him since we got to the camp. With no smithing to be done, I’m not earning my keep, so he doesn’t care. What about you? How’d you end up here?”

I told Stinky the story I had made up. I figured it would get him interested, and it did.

“The Barnes family?” he said. “From Glanbury? I’m from Glanbury. I know the Barneses. Nice people. Well, Cassie can be a trial.”

“I know what you mean.”

“But still–maybe we’ll run into each other after all this.”

“That would be great. Anyway, thanks again. I don’t know what they would have done to me if–”

Stinky waved me silent. “We’re even. So, you headed home?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“You guess so? Where else’d you be going? Anyway, mind if I tag along? It’s dangerous out here by yourself.”

The last thing I wanted right now was for Stinky Glover to be tagging along with me. “No, that’s all right, uh, Julian. Curfew’s coming pretty soon. You better get back to the camp.”

Stinky looked sort of disappointed. “You sure? It’s no bother. I can sleep in an alleyway as well as in that camp.”

“No, really. Thanks for the help, but I’ll be fine.”

He stared at me, and then shrugged. “Suit yourself, Lawrence. And good luck.”

“Thanks, Julian.”

He turned away and headed back towards the camp.

I shivered–from the cold, and from fear. I was alone again in Cheapside. I started walking quickly towards the center of the city.

It was odd about Stinky, I thought. He didn’t look all that fat in this world–but then, it was hard to be fat after a couple of months in that camp. He probably stank, but it was hard to tell, because everyone sort of stank in this world, and I’d gotten used to it. But the main thing was, he could’ve just left me to get beaten up–what did it matter to him? But he didn’t. Maybe he wasn’t so bad; maybe this world brought out some different qualities in him.

I saw a policeman, who stopped and stared at me suspiciously. It wasn’t quite sundown, but it was close. Did the curfew really matter, with the battle about to begin, with hospitals on fire and the camps ready to explode? I remembered that my pass was in my coat. Not that it had helped with that cop last night. But losing it made me feel a little more lonely, a little more abandoned. I was just another homeless kid wandering through the city.

I was downtown now, near where Kevin and I had been that first night when we’d asked that cop for help. There were people still out on the streets, but they all look tired and worried. A lot of the stores were boarded up. I passed by a small park. In it, a man was standing on a platform, talking to a small crowd.

Not talking, I realized after a moment–preaching.

Somehow I knew who it was, even standing outside the park, without being able to hear or see him clearly. I went into the park and stood at the edge of the crowd.

It was him. The guy from the Burger Queen world, with the black beard and fierce, dark eyes. The guy who had talked about the beauty in each speck of dirt. And in the home you left behind.

He wasn’t wearing a robe this time, just a rumpled jacket and pair of pants. As before, he spoke softly, but you could understand every word he said. He was talking about suffering.

“Yes, you have suffered, you continue to suffer, but you must not let your suffering define or diminish you. You are so much more than that. The suffering diminishes you only if you let it diminish you. Even in suffering there is beauty, there is hope, there is love. More than that. In suffering lies the chance for redemption, and even the chance for greatness. How can you know what is in you unless you have struggled, unless you have been asked to do more than you thought you were capable of doing? Little consolation, perhaps, when there is not enough to eat and the enemy knocks upon our gates. But it is true nonetheless.”

Someone shouted at him from the crowd, “We need food, not words!”

“What a fool!” an old man called out.

“Listen to the man!” a woman scolded him. “Let him speak.”

“There’s been too much talk!”

And then it seemed like he was staring straight at me as he went on, ignoring the crowd’s taunts. “Our journey through life is harsh, and dangerous, and filled with sorrow and disappointment,” he said. “We say to ourselves, I just can’t take anymore. And yet there is more to be borne. And it is only by enduring the pain that we can see the beauty.”

“I’ll show you pain!” someone shouted.

“It is only by living in doubt that we can find certainty.”

“See the beauty in this!” the heckler said, and flung a rock at him. It hit him in the shoulder, but he didn’t seem to notice.

“It is only by setting out that we can finally return home,” the preacher concluded.

Then there were more rocks thrown, and fistfights broke out, and everyone was shouting. I made my way through the crowd to the preacher, who was sitting on the ground rubbing his temple.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

He looked up at me. “I’m okay,” he said. “But you look cold.”

Okay. He had said ‘okay.’ “Who are you?” I demanded.

“Just a stranger passing through,” he said. “Maybe I should have passed through a little faster,” he added, wiping some blood onto his pants.

“No, I saw you–in that other world. What’s going on? Do you know me or something? How come you know the word ‘okay’?”

He shrugged. “Excellent questions. But weren’t you listening? It’s only by living in doubt–”

“Tell me!” I screamed at him.

His dark, glittering eyes looked a little doubtful then. “I’m sorry,” he said softly. “This whole thing has been entirely my fault. I wish I could–”

“Hey you!” a voice behind me said. I turned. It was the cop I had run into the night before. He didn’t look happy to see me. “What are you doing here?”

“Listen,” I said, “could you just wait a sec–”

“Why are you causing trouble here? Now get home before I tag you.”

I didn’t know what tagging was, but I supposed I didn’t want it to happen to me. I turned back to the preacher–but he was gone. Vanished.

Except for his jacket, which lay on the ground at my feet. A parting gift? I picked it up.

“Did you hear me?” the cop demanded.

“Fine,” I said, without looking at him. “I’m leaving.”

I put the jacket on and ran out of the park, hoping to find the preacher. But there was no trace of him. I stopped to catch my breath finally in the middle of a street. I checked the pockets of his jacket; they were empty.

So who was he? Was he from another universe? My universe? Had he come here in the portal? Why? What did he mean when he said that the whole thing had been entirely his fault? What whole thing?

He hadn’t answered any of my questions, and I had a whole lot more to ask him if I ever saw him again. But what were the odds of that?

I started walking. Suddenly I was so tired I could barely stand up. I knew what I was going to have to do: go back to headquarters. The lieutenant or the professor might yell at me, but they weren’t going to throw me out, they weren’t going to let me starve. Besides, they had more important things to worry about right now than me. And they might know what happened to Kevin.

So that’s where I headed, my mind filled with the preacher and my family and Kevin and Stinky Glover and the corpse of the old woman. I felt overwhelmed; and the battle hadn’t even started yet.

The streets got more and more deserted as I walked, except for soldiers galloping by on horseback. I saw a few policemen, but they ignored me. I got the feeling that everyone was starting to hunker down to wait for the battle.

Headquarters, when I finally reached it, was anything but deserted. Soldiers rushed in and out of the courtyard; wagons were being packed; officers were conferring with each other. No one took any special notice of me.

I was surprised to see Corporal Hennessy there; the last time I had seen him, he had brought Kevin and me over to haul bags of grain in the food warehouse. It seemed so long ago. He nodded to me. “Almost time, eh, mate?” he said.

“That’s what I’ve heard,” I replied. “What’s going to happen to the camp?”

“Don’t know. They’ve already pulled a lot of us out. Not much point in guarding it now, is there?”

I thought about the old woman. How many others were being killed as they tried to escape? “Why don’t they tell the people in the camp? Why don’t they just open the gates and let them go?”

The corporal shrugged. “Because war’s a bloody mess. If you spend your time trying to find sense in it you’ll go mad.”

That sounded about right. “Well, good luck,” I said.

He nodded. “Good luck to you, mate. And to all of us, because we’ll surely need it.”

I went inside to the mess. It was almost empty, but a grouchy cook got me the usual salt pork and stale bread, which I wolfed down like it was Harvest dinner. Then I went upstairs to my room.

I could hear muffled sobs while I was still on the stairs. I have never been so happy to hear someone crying.

I rushed into the room. Kevin was lying on his cot, his face buried in a pillow.

“Hey, Kev,” I said, and I put my hand on his shoulder.

He turned over, and his face lit up. “Larry!” he said. “Am I glad to see you.” He sat up, and we hugged for a long time.

“I went to the hospital this afternoon,” I said. “I thought maybe you were–”

“I know, I know. A cannonball hit the main building and set the place on fire. Everyone was screaming to get out. It would’ve been easy for me if they didn’t have those bars on my windows. So instead I had to go out into the corridor, and there was smoke everywhere, so I could barely see. But then a nurse grabbed me, and we found a door and got out just before the whole place collapsed. They could really use some of those red Exit signs, you know?”

“Sure. What happened then?”

“Well, I tried to help out for a while, but there really wasn’t much I could do. There wasn’t much anyone could do. It was awful, Larry. All these people were injured and dying–and the doctors were basically helpless.”

“Yeah, I saw some of that.”

“So finally I just headed back here,” Kevin went on. “I’d been in that hospital long enough anyway. I feel fine. There wasn’t much of anyone around, but then I ran into Peter, and he told me you’d disappeared and Lieutenant Carmody was really angry. So then I started to get worried. You hadn’t been to the hospital for a couple of days, and I thought: what if you’re dead? What am I gonna do here by myself? When it got dark and you still weren’t back, I guess I got pretty upset.”

“Sorry I haven’t been around, Kevin,” I said. “But see, I found my family. In the camp, just like you said. Plus Stinky Glover, and Nora Lally, except her name’s Sarah here.”

“Hey, that’s great, Larry,” Kevin said. Then he paused. “What about–you know–my family?”

I shook my head. “I didn’t find them. I don’t think they live in Glanbury. But they could be somewhere else–who knows?”

He sighed. “Well, maybe it doesn’t matter so much. At least there’s someone here from our world.” He didn’t sound convinced that it didn’t matter. “Tell me what happened,” he said.

So I told him everything. About finding my family, about how I was dead in this world, about how my father was in the army and Cassie was pretty nuts, about the meeting with the president, and Stinky helping me fight those kids in Cheapside. And about the strange preacher in the park.

“I guess you’ve been busy.” Kevin said when I finished. “What do you think that meant–the preacher apologizing to you?”

“No clue. No clue how he recognized me, either. But I think–I think he’s like us. From our world, or maybe from another world.”

Kevin was silent for a while. Then he said, “So, what do we do?”

“I don’t know. Go to sleep, I guess. I’m wasted.”

“But tomorrow. After we wake up.”

“I want–I want to help my family,” I said.

“Everyone says the battle is going to start tomorrow,” Kevin pointed out.

“I know. But you can’t believe how awful it is in that camp now. People are dying all over the place.”

“So how are you going to help your family?”

“I don’t know–bring them more food, maybe. Help them get back to Glanbury, if that’s possible.”

“If we get to Glanbury, we can find the portal,” Kevin pointed out.

I hadn’t thought about the portal in days. “Yeah,” I said. “If we can get there.”

“Talking to Peter today got me worried,” he went on. “It sounds to me like Lieutenant Carmody doesn’t want to let us go home. We’ve been too valuable.”

“But we’ve told them everything we know.”

“Not really. I mean–they’ve focused on this short-term stuff, just trying to win the war, right? But if they do win, maybe they’ll start paying attention to other stuff. Like medicine. That Doctor Dreier who runs the hospital–I guess Professor Palmer talked to him, because he was in to see me a couple of times, and he was really interested in germs and viruses and smallpox and so on. I bet we could help them a lot with that.”

I thought of the way Professor Palmer and then that doctor had wanted to bleed Kevin. “It’s not right,” I said. “We helped them. They should let us go home.”

“I know. But that’s not the way the lieutenant thinks.”

“So what are you saying?”

“I’m saying we should get out of here. First thing tomorrow morning. See if we can make it to Glanbury.”

The idea was scary, but it was what I wanted to do. “We have to go to the camp first and find my family,” I said.

“Okay. We’re going to have to wait till after the battle anyway to head south.”

So we had a plan, sort of. And we had each other again–which was more than I’d expected an hour ago. I blew the candle out, and we lay down on our cots to go to sleep. I was really tired, but my mind kept on racing. “Kevin,” I said, “if we find the portal, do you think it’ll bring us home?”

“Sure,” he replied. “It has to.”

I thought about what the preacher had said: It is only by setting out that you can finally return home. Had he been talking to me? Well, it looked like I was going to try to follow his advice.

“You want to know something funny, Larry?” Kevin asked after a while.

“What’s that?”

“Today’s my birthday. I’m a teenager.”

“Happy birthday,” I said.

“I almost didn’t make it,” he murmured. “Hard to believe, but I almost didn’t make it.”

Then he was quiet. The artillery had stopped, I noticed. I could hear someone shout an order, the creaking of wagon wheels in the courtyard. Not much of a birthday, I thought. But it could have been worse. I closed my eyes, and the next thing I knew it was dawn.

Portal, an online novel: Chapter 20

Posted on February 16, 2013 by Richard Bowker

President Gardner has decided to fight rather than surrender to the Canadian and New Portuguese soldiers besieging Boston. And Larry has decided to return to help his “family” trapped in the refugee camp.

Can New England win the battle? Will Larry be able to get back to the camp? And what about Kevin, still trapped in the hospital recovering from drikana?

Read on . . .

*************************************

Chapter 20

I awoke the next morning in the cold attic room. I could hear the artillery still booming away in the distance.

I went downstairs and out into the washyard to splash some water on myself, then over to the mess for another meager meal. Word of President Gardner’s decision had gotten around. A few officers were excited about the upcoming battle; most of them just seemed resigned.

Lieutenant Carmody wasn’t in the mess, but Professor Palmer was. He started in on me right away. “I’m most concerned about what you did yesterday afternoon, Larry–going off like that against my wishes. Really, there is too much at stake here for such behavior to be tolerated.”

I felt guilty, but I didn’t want to lie to him. Anyway, I couldn’t hold it in. “I found my family,” I said.

He stared at me. “Your family?”

“In the Fens camp,” I said. “Not the people from my world, but the same people from this world–you know what I mean. My mother and my sister and brother are in the camp. My father’s in the army.”

“You went to the Fens camp by yourself?”

“I had to. Kevin and I talked about it and–I had to find out if they were here.” I could feel my eyes start to tear up. “I know it was dangerous, but this was maybe my only chance.”

The professor shook his head. “I understand. It must be very emotional for you, Larry. But you can’t risk this sort of thing–not now. There’ll be time after the battle.”

“After the battle we may all be dead,” I pointed out.

He put his hands to his face and rubbed his eyes. Suddenly I noticed how tired he looked. He had been working awfully hard–and it hadn’t been that long since the night when he’d been shot as we rowed across the Charles. “We may all be dead very soon,” he agreed. “But we must proceed under the assumption that we will survive. There is really nothing else we can do. Come with me to Coolidge Palace, Larry. It’s the best–and safest–place for you.”

I didn’t want to hurt him. I didn’t want to be a burden. So I just said, “Okay.”

“Thank you, Larry,” he said. He asked a few questions about my family, but I could tell he had too many other things on his mind. We finished our breakfast in silence.

Pretty soon after that Peter drove us over to the palace. Everyone was busy packing up the remaining equipment, and I did what I could to help. Lieutenant Carmody was there for a while; I saw him stare at me once or twice, but he didn’t say anything. Professor Foster left in a wagon with some of the electrical equipment soon after we arrived; he looked really nervous.

The artillery hadn’t let up, and there was a haze of smoke over the city. It’s really going to happen, I thought. The president wasn’t going to surrender. The battle was coming.

I couldn’t stop thinking about my family. What was going on in the camp? Were they safe? Were they hungry? What would happen when the battle started?

Professor Palmer wanted me to stay at the palace. But how could I? It was okay while I had something to do, but now I was just hanging around. Was I going to stay here straight through the battle? Then what? I went looking for Professor Palmer, but he wasn’t around. “Heard he went off to some big strategy meeting,” a soldier told me.

I wandered over to the kitchen. One benefit of working on the palace grounds was that there was still lots of food to eat. Not as good as the roast beef we’d had the first time we were here, back when I’d saved the president’s life, but way better than what you’d get anywhere else in the city. Everyone else seemed to have already eaten, and the kitchen was pretty deserted. There was leftover chicken and roast potatoes, though, and they tasted unbelievable.

And that’s when I made my decision. It wasn’t really conscious. I just found myself walking over to the chef, pointing to the leftovers, and saying, “Could you put some of that food in a sack for me? I’m supposed to bring it back to the soldiers–a few of them are too busy to come over here, and they’re getting hungry.”

The chef wasn’t pleased about having all those soldiers dirtying up her kitchen and eating her food. She was a fussy lady with gray hair and a French accent. She just shook her head at my request. “I’m glad this nonsense is finally ending,” she muttered. “I cook for aristocrats, not common soldiers.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I replied. “Not much longer, I’ve heard. But your food has certainly been wonderful.”

She brightened at the compliment. “You’ve not had the chance to sample my cuisine when we haven’t had these annoying shortages,” she pointed out.

Lots of people were dying because of those annoying shortages, of course, but I wasn’t going to mention that. “I’m sure the food would be even more wonderful then,” I said.

She nodded in full agreement and pulled a sack out of a drawer. “Will this be enough?” she asked, shoveling in the rest of the pan.

“Yes, ma’am, That’ll do. And thank you very much.”

“Come back when this wretched war is over,” she said. “My stuffed pheasant is beyond compare.”

“I’ll certainly do that,” I replied as I hurried out of the kitchen.

I stuffed the sack down the front of my coat and headed for the palace gate. Would the guards let me out? Maybe Lieutenant Carmody had left orders not to. Maybe I was a prisoner here. Well, then, I’d have to figure out how to escape. I was feeling really guilty–about lying to get the food, about letting Professor Palmer down. But I just couldn’t help it. I had to get to my family.

The guards at the gate still wore those weird-looking tall hats with the plumes on them and stood at attention, hardly even blinking. There were more of them than usual, maybe because there were more people than usual outside. Begging to get in to see the president. Begging for food.

Would they be able to smell what was in the sack? I could get torn limb from limb if people realized what I was carrying.

“Good morning,” I said to one of the guards. “Can you let me out? I have to get back to headquarters.”

He stared down at me. “Why don’t you wait for a wagon?” he asked. “They’re arriving and departing all the time.”

“I’m supposed to go now.” More lying.

He shrugged and opened the gate for me. The people outside surged forward, and I pushed through them, just like yesterday at the camp. They ignored me. If they smelled the chicken, maybe they thought they were hallucinating.

I headed off for the camp.

I felt weird. I had really done it. Just like that, I had left. And I wasn’t going back. Lieutenant Carmody, Professor Palmer, General Aldridge–they’d all be mad at me. I probably couldn’t make them understand. They’d done a lot for me, but I was alone. I had lost my family and my world. I wasn’t sure I’d ever get my world back, but I knew where Mom and Cassie and Matthew were. And I had to be there too.

Then I stopped. I had forgotten about Kevin. He must have been going nuts, all alone in the hospital. I needed to bring him along with me, I decided. Of course, maybe he wouldn’t want to go; it wasn’t his family, after all. But I was pretty sure he would–anything was better than staying in that room by himself. So I veered off and headed towards Mass General.

The haze of smoke got thicker as I approached the hospital. It was close to the Charles–but not that close, I thought, suddenly worried. The Canadian artillery couldn’t reach it–right? I hurried down the long empty street leading to the hospital. More smoke. The artillery kept getting louder. I was really scared now.

I got as close as I could. The hospital was on fire. Horse-drawn fire trucks surrounded the building, and men were shooting streams of water into it. Didn’t look like they were doing much good. I heard people screaming and weeping. Some were lying on the ground, others just wandering around in a daze. “What happened?” I asked a doctor who was treating a little girl with a long gash on her face.

He glared at me. “What d’you think happened?” he demanded.

“The survivors–where will they go?”

He waved vaguely around him. He looked exhausted. “Everywhere. Nowhere,” he said. “What does it matter?” He went back to bandaging the girl.

I walked around and around the building, looking for Kevin. I saw lots of stuff that I’ll never forget–people bleeding, people dying–but I didn’t see him. Finally I sat down on the cobblestones and put my head in my hands. My throat was raw from the smoke. My stomach still hurt from where I’d been punched yesterday. But I didn’t really notice. People were dying all around me, and Kevin was gone.

I needed my mother.

I got up after a while and trudged away from the burning building. It took me a long time to get to the camp. I was kind of in a daze. Poor Kevin. First drikana, and now . . . He could still be alive, of course, but what if he was burned, or hurt–what if he was dying all by himself in this alien world? I saw a couple of balloons floating above the city, and they reminded me of Kevin getting the idea for them as we sat by the professor’s fireplace. He deserved better.

Cheapside was quiet. Some people were sitting on their steps, smoking long pipes, and children were running around in the lanes. It seemed strange that kids would actually be playing on a day like today, but what did I know? I wasn’t a kid anymore. No one bothered me, and the sack of food stayed safe inside my coat.

Outside the camp, things were grim. Chester and his friends were digging another big hole next to the one I’d seen yesterday. By the barracks, soldiers were silently cleaning their weapons. Sergeant Hornbeam spotted me, and he seemed angry. “What are you doing here?” he demanded.

“I’m–I’m visiting someone.”

“Don’t you know there’s a war on?” he said, sounding like Colonel Clarett.

Usually Sergeant Hornbeam scared me, but right now I didn’t feel like being a nice little boy. “Look,” I said, “all I want is to go into the camp. Can I do that or not?”

He raised an eyebrow, and then muttered, “I can’t stop you,” and he turned away.

I walked up to the main gate. There were several empty wagons lined up there, and lots of soldiers, rifles at the ready. Inside the gate was an even bigger crowd of people than I’d seen yesterday. “What’s the bloody point of aiming those guns at us?” one old man shouted at the soldiers. “Why don’t you go and fight the real enemy!”

Caleb was one of the soldiers being shouted at. He shook his head when he saw me. “Not a good day to be visitin’, mate,” he said. “Lots of angry people inside. Must not have got a good night’s sleep.”

“I know,” I said. “I’ll be careful.”

“Come on, then.” We headed over to the side gate. “What’s the news from headquarters?” he asked.

“We’re going to fight,” I said. “Tomorrow, probably, or the next day.”

He nodded. “That’s what we heard. Won’t be soon enough, for my taste. Now be careful in there, lad. People aren’t just angry, some of ’em are a bit crazy.”

Once again the guards opened the gate with bayonets fixed and I pushed my way through the crowd, making sure the sack didn’t fall out from inside my coat.

Caleb was right. Things were falling apart in the camp. I passed by several fistfights; no one seemed interested in stopping them. Some old guy who was either drunk or crazy just stood in the middle of a path, howling at the top of his lungs. And here and there a corpse lay on the ground, its face covered with a sheet or a scrap of clothing.

It took me a while to find my family in the chaos, but finally I spotted their wagon. As I approached it, I saw a red-coated soldier standing next to my mother. My first thought was: Is she in trouble? Then I recognized the soldier. It was my father.

Mom’s face lit up when she saw me, and she pointed me out to Dad.

“Larry,” she said. “It’s so wonderful you came back.”

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Barnes.” I was so relieved to be here I wanted to hug her. And Dad.

“This is Mr. Barnes,” she said, pointing to Dad. “He’s just–just here for a short while. On leave, before the battle.” She looked like she’d been crying, I noticed. “Henry, this is the boy I was telling you about.”

My father extended a hand. “A pleasure, lad.”

I shook his hand. Like Mom, he looked different in this world. He was wearing a bushy mustache. He was thin, and his hair was streaked with gray. And the uniform looked so strange on him; he had never been a soldier, and he hated guns. But it was Dad all right.

He gave me a long look. “Mrs. Barnes was talking about you,” he said. “She mentioned what a strange coincidence it was, your age and first name and all,” he said.

“Yes, sir.” He seemed almost suspicious of me, like he thought I was up to something.

“I was afraid you wouldn’t return,” Mom said, “with the bombardment starting. It’s so dangerous now.”

“I promised to come back,” I pointed out. I motioned to the makeshift tent that was attached to the wagon. “Let’s go in there,” I said. “I’ve got something to show you.”

We crawled inside. Matthew and Cassie were already in there. “Hi, Larry!” Matthew called out. He was spinning a little wooden top. “Did you see the airships in the sky?”

“I sure did,” I replied. “They call them ‘balloons.'”

“That’s a funny name. Pa says we’re doing some other things to beat the enemy, right, Pa?”

“That’s right, Matthew.”

Cassie was just sitting in a corner with her shawl wrapped around her, shivering, and rocking back and forth a little. Her eyes were dead; she didn’t even seem irritated when she saw me. She looked awful–not sick, just awful.

I pulled out the sack of food. “It’s not much,” I said, “but it’s more than you’ve been getting here.”

Everyone’s eyes widened. “Oh, you dear boy,” Mom murmured.

“This is extremely good of you, Larry,” my father said.

“I promised I’d do it,” I said.

“Where in the world did you get chicken and potatoes?” he asked as Mom passed out the food.

“My father–he got some extra rations at headquarters.”

“Really? That’s hard to believe.” He raised an eyebrow and smiled, and it was just like we were back at home, and I had said something he thought was kind of funny, although I didn’t know why. He didn’t laugh much, but he was always acting amused, like the rest of us were putting on a play just for him. It drove Cassie nuts.

Matthew was excited. “This is the best food I’ve had in months!” he said. “Thanks, Larry!” Cassie took her share and started gobbling it down, but she didn’t say anything.

Dad refused to take any. “We still get our rations,” he said.

“You need to keep your strength up,” Mom pointed out.

“I’m fine, Emma,” he replied. “Larry, why don’t you and I go outside and give them a little more space to eat.”

We scrambled out of the tent and stood by the wagon. “Mrs. Barnes has told me a lot about you, Larry,” he said. “You’ve made a deep impression on her.”

“She’s a very nice woman,” I replied.

“You believe you’re related to her?”

“Possibly, sir.”

“How is that, exactly? Emma wasn’t very clear about it.”

“I’m not really sure,” I replied. I tried to remember exactly what I’d said to her yesterday, so I could repeat the story. I did my best. He pressed me on the details, and I don’t think I did a very good job of answering him. He still seemed a little suspicious of me, even though I’d brought them the food–or maybe it was because I brought the food, without a good explanation. Or maybe he was just curious. He liked things to be logical, to make sense. And my story didn’t quite make sense.

But he let it go finally. Logically, what reason did I have to be lying? “I am very grateful to you for the food, Larry,” he said, changing the subject. “It grieves me that I can eat so well and sleep in a cot while my family has to live like this.” He gestured at the tent and the wagon. “It grieves me to be away from them.”

“Yes, sir. But you’ve got to do it.”

He nodded. “Yes, of course. I fear, though–” He looked away and didn’t finish the sentence.

“I think we’ve got a good shot at winning,” I said. “These balloons–”

“Ah, the airships,” he replied. “Matthew is so excited by them. But they’re nowhere near as useful as people hope. I’ve heard they’ll be used for surveillance of the enemy, nothing more.”

“But that’s something,” I pointed out. He could be a drag sometimes, telling us not to get our hopes up when we entered a contest or whatever. Just giving you kids a reality check, he’d say. But lots of times we didn’t want a reality check.

“It is something, of course,” he admitted. “We’ll find out soon enough what difference they’ll make.”

“Where are you stationed?” I asked.

“On the Charles,” he said. “Preparing to fight the Canadians. My captain gave some of us with families in the camps a few hours’ leave to go and see them. Very decent of him.”

“The battle is coming,” I said.

He nodded. “Yes,” he replied quietly. “It is coming.”

And some of you will never see your families again, I thought.

Matthew came bounding out of the tent then, and Dad turned his attention away from me. Mom came out a couple of minutes later; Cassie stayed inside.

Mom looked worried, of course–she had plenty of reason to be worried, with her husband going off to battle. But what worried her most now was Cassie. She made Dad go back into the tent to talk to her. “The strain is too much for the poor girl,” she said to no one in particular. “It’s such a difficult time.”

“She’ll be fine,” I said, knowing she wouldn’t be. Cassie would always find a way to feel bad. And Dad wouldn’t be able to talk her out of it. He always tried to be logical with her, and he could never get it through his head that Cassie didn’t have any use for his logic. It just made her angrier, because she thought he was talking down to her. Sure enough, I could hear her squawking after a minute: “You don’t know what I’ve been through. You don’t understand, you’ve never understood . . . ” The same old stuff, only she said it with the almost-British accent people had in this world.

I heard Dad’s voice, too low for us to make out the words, and then Cassie again, this time in a tone I’d never heard before–beyond anger, beyond despair: “Please, Papa, please take me with you. Please get me out of here, I have to get out of here. Papa, please . . . ”

And then she was sobbing, and I knew Dad had his arms around her, trying to calm her down. And I knew he wasn’t going to succeed.

“Why is Cassie the only one complaining?” Matthew wanted to know.

Mom just shook her head.

Eventually Dad came out, looking as worried as Mom. “Emma–” he said, and sort of shrugged. “It’s hard on all of us.”

“I know, Henry. I know.”

“Private Barnes!” someone shouted from the path. It was a sergeant, with a couple of soldiers alongside him. “It’s time!”

“One moment,” Dad replied. He turned back to us.

“So soon, Henry?” Mom said.

“I’m sorry.”

Matthew hugged him and started to cry. “Please, Papa, stay!” he sobbed. Mom touched Dad’s arm, in that way she had. I stayed back by the wagon; I wasn’t part of this.

When Dad had finished saying goodbye to Matthew and Mom, he ducked into the tent and said something to Cassie. I don’t think he got any response. Then he came over and shook my hand. “Thank you again, Larry,” he said.

“Please be careful, sir,” I replied.

“I will.”

Then I blurted out, “I’ll take care of your family.”

He looked puzzled. “That’s very kind of you,” he said, “but you’ve got your own family.”

I couldn’t think of anything I could say to that. Dad kissed Mom and Matthew one last time, and then left us.

The day suddenly seemed a lot colder.

“It’ll be all right,” Mom murmured. “Everything will be all right.”

Matthew cried for a while. Mom put her arm around him, and he leaned close to her, but eventually he got over it and moved away. That was how Matthew was. Cassie stayed inside the tent. Mom looked really upset. The distant artillery never stopped. We talked for a while about the war and conditions in the city. I told her about the fire at the hospital, and she was horrified. “Those poor people. Is nowhere safe?” And then she started in: “You should go home, Larry. It was wonderful of you to come and bring that food, but it’s late already.”

How could I tell her that I didn’t have a home anymore? I hadn’t thought this part through. “Well,” I said, “I was thinking of staying here and helping you out.”

She gave me a long, puzzled stare. “You can’t do that, Larry,” she said. “You have to go home. You have to be safe. How can you think about leaving your father?”

“No, it’s all right,” I insisted. “He’s really busy helping out with the war. He doesn’t pay much attention to me.”

“I’d like Larry to stay,” Matthew piped up.

Mom shook her head, almost violently. She wasn’t buying it. “Larry, you must go,” she said, in that tone she gets when she’s really serious and we’ve gone too far. “Now.”

I thought about telling her the truth. But that was stupid–she wouldn’t believe me. I could just stay somewhere else in the camp–she couldn’t make me leave–but that wasn’t the point. The point was to be with my family. I felt an awful emptiness come over me. Kevin was gone. Professor Palmer would probably be so angry that he wouldn’t want me anymore. And now Mom didn’t want me either. I thought: She’s not my real mom. This isn’t the real Matthew. But I didn’t believe that anymore.

I was all alone in this stupid world. “Please let me stay,” I whispered.

Tears came into her eyes then. She reached for Matthew and pulled him close to her. “You have to go home, Larry,” she whispered back. “You have to go home. After the war, come visit us. You’ll always be welcome.”

I didn’t move for a while, and then I slowly got up from the ground. Matthew was crying again. I gave him a long hug. I hesitated, then looked into the tent. Cassie was huddled in a corner, staring at me. “Take me with you,” she begged in a hollow voice.

She looked scary. She looked insane. I couldn’t help feeling sorry for her. But there was nothing I could do. “I’m sorry, Cassie,” I said. “I can’t.”

Her eyes turned away from me then, and she started silently rocking once more.

Outside the tent, Mom was waiting for me, her face wet with tears. “I’ll visit you,” I said. “I promise.” She hugged me then, and I didn’t want to leave her embrace. I remember once when I was little getting separated from her at the mall, and I felt so scared and lost, and suddenly I saw her, frantically looking for me by the escalator. I raced to her and jumped up into her arms, and I felt so safe there, I never wanted to be anyplace else. That was kind of how I felt there in the camp.

But Mom pushed me away finally. “Please go, Larry,” she said, “before it’s too late.”

And so I walked away.

I don’t know what I was thinking. Maybe I was beyond thinking. I made my way through the crowded, stinking camp to the main gate. It was worse there than the day before. I had to fight my way through the crowd, but when I got to the front I didn’t recognize any of the guards, and none of them looked like they wanted to hear my story or look at my pass. Off to my right people were throwing things at the guards, who just stood motionless at the fence, their rifles at the ready. Everyone was shouting.

“Let’s go!” someone yelled. “They can’t stop us all!”

There was more shouting, and people started pushing against me. I could see the guards just a few feet away, and their eyes were half-scared, half-angry. Even if one of them recognized me, he couldn’t have done anything to help me at this point. I felt like I was going to get trampled to death, like at one of those soccer games in South America.

And then I heard gunshots, and the shouting turned to screaming, and people were running every which way. I fell to the ground, and someone kicked me, but I didn’t get trampled. I could smell gunpowder in the air, and someone near me was groaning, and a woman was calling out, “Help me! Help me!”

I was scared I’d be shot if I got up, so I stayed where I was. I heard someone shouting out orders, and the gates opened. A bunch of soldiers rushed in, and one of them hoisted me to my feet.

“I think you’ve outworn your welcome here, lad,” he said, shaking his head.

It was Sergeant Hornbeam.

“Yes, sir,” I said. “I’m just leaving.”

“See that you don’t come back. This won’t be the last of it. The night is going to be long and deadly.”

“Yes, sir.”

The crowd had mostly moved back. Some of the soldiers aimed their rifles at them while others collected the wounded and the dead. Sergeant Hornbeam gestured at the gate; I walked out.

It was only after I was outside the camp that I could think about what had happened. I had been in a battle–soldiers fighting their own people. I was lucky to be alive.

I was trembling and out of breath. My ribs were sore where I’d been kicked. Two soldiers hurried past me, carrying the corpse of an old woman on a stretcher. Five minutes ago she had been alive, probably screaming at the soldiers along with everyone else. Or maybe she had just been trapped in the crowd. And now she’d be dumped in one of those graves that Chester was digging. No one would ever know what happened to her.

And what was I supposed to do?

I headed off, trudging slowly through the deepening darkness. Past the barracks and the other army buildings and on into Cheapside. Going where? To do what?

I don’t think I even noticed the footsteps behind me. What did I care? Then I heard the voice, loud and mocking, almost at my shoulder.

“Nice coat, mate!”

Portal, an online novel: Chapter 19

Posted on February 9, 2013 by Richard Bowker

In the refugee camp, Larry has finally met his family. They are much the same as in his own world, but their circumstances in this world are utterly different.

In particular, in this world Larry died as an infant. And his mother senses something about him . . . he seems to fill a gap in her heart.

Larry returns to Coolidge Palace with some decisions to make, as artillery booms in the distance and the final battle for Boston is about to begin.

*********************

Chapter 19

The carriage raced through the deserted streets towards Coolidge Palace. “What do you mean?” I asked Peter. “Chat about what?”

“Wouldn’t know,” Peter replied. “The president doesn’t tell me what’s on his mind.”

“Are people mad at me?”

Peter chuckled. “I imagine they’ve more important things to be worrying about, lad.”

We reached the palace in no time. The guards let our carriage through the gates, and we raced up the long drive to the front steps. There was still a lot of activity on the palace grounds, I noticed.

“Hurry, lad,” Peter said when the carriage stopped. I got down from the bench and ran up the steps. A green-coated butler wearing a wig opened the door for me.

Lieutenant Carmody was standing in the entrance hall, looking seriously annoyed. “Where did you get to?” he demanded.

“Well, uh, I–”

“Never mind. Let’s go.” He headed off down a long hallway to the president’s office. Another butler bowed and let us in.

President Gardner was seated by the fire, along with General Aldridge, Professor Palmer, Vice President Boatner, and the foreign minister, Lord Percival. The president wasn’t wearing his wig; he looked tired. “Ah, you’ve brought Master Barnes,” he said when we entered. “Excellent. Have a seat. General Aldridge was just finishing one of his gloomy reports.”

We bowed and sat down. The warmth of the fire felt great after being outside all day.

“The Canadian artillery pieces on the Cambridge side of the Charles are firing almost continuously,” General Aldridge said. “Damage is light so far except in the refugee camp by the river. The goal, presumably, is to create confusion and panic prior to the main assault.”

“And the Portuguese?”

“A similar strategy south of the city, except the firing is more intermittent. They may be conserving their ammunition.”

“And the balloons?” the president asked. “The electricity? All this work taking place on my back lawn–where are we with it?”

General Aldridge turned to Professor Palmer. “Professor?”

“Four balloons are in use at strategic points around the city, Your Excellency,” he said. “Two more are being completed tonight. The balloons are tethered, with ropes sufficiently long that soldiers in the balloons will be able to easily view the enemy’s troop dispositions by telescope. We have developed a semaphore signaling system that allows them to send the information back to the soldiers on the ground, so that they can adjust our own deployments of artillery and troops.”

“Can’t the enemy just train their fire on the balloons and shoot them down?” Vice President Boatner asked. He looked as glum as he had the first time I saw him.

“The balloons are out of range of enemy artillery. They’ll be safe.”

“What about wind, snow, ice?” the president asked.

Professor Palmer nodded. “Weather is a concern, Excellency, particularly wind. But on calm days, the balloons will be effective.”

“One might say that the balloons have already served their purpose,” Lord Percival pointed out. “The enemy negotiators have seen the balloons floating over the palace. And that has provoked a change in their attitude.”

The president raised a hand. “We will get to that,” he said. “First I want to hear about the electrified fences.”

Professor Palmer spoke up again. “We have had some difficulty getting the batteries to hold sufficient charge,” he said. “We’ve tried generating the electricity directly, but–”

“Yes, yes,” the president interrupted. “These details are fascinating, I’m sure, but we need to know the consequences. What can we do now?”

“We have fences that can be deployed across a limited area,” the professor replied. “The shorter the fence, the more significant the shock it will impart.”

“The plan is to expose gaps in the fortifications that will be filled by the fences,” General Aldridge explained. “We hope the enemy will choose to attack in these gaps and be thrown into confusion by the shocks they receive. We may also be able to inflict some injuries.”

“That’s all very well,” the vice president responded, “but neither these fences nor the balloons give us a decisive military advantage. We are still besieged by enemy forces that far outnumber our own. Our citizens are dying of disease and starvation, and looting and riots are widespread. The refugee camps are about to explode. The chaos and suffering will only increase if the siege continues.

“Lord Percival is correct, however: our bargaining position has improved somewhat. At our negotiating session today, the enemy made what they termed their final offer: to let us maintain a civilian administration in New England as long as we disband our army and acknowledge the co-sovereignty of Canada and New Portugal. This seems to me to be a far better outcome than we could have hoped for a month ago. We would be foolish not to take it, and instead risk the future of our nation on a battle we have no hope of winning.”

“Solomon, when do you expect the battle?” the president asked.

“Not likely to be tomorrow,” General Aldridge replied. “But no more than a day or two after that. We assume the attacks will be coordinated. The Portuguese are still moving troops up towards the fortifications. Once they’re in place, they won’t delay further.”

That shut everyone up for a minute. Then President Gardner looked at me. “Master Barnes, what do you hear?” he asked. “Do the people in the city want us to surrender, or fight?”

I thought. How could I summarize what I had heard in the camp? Sarah Lally was all for surrender. Matthew was all for fighting. Mom longed to go back to the farm and have Dad be safe. “I think people just want it to be over, Your Excellency,” I said. “Whatever you do, do it soon.”

That brought nods from everyone.

“Might I add one more thing?” Professor Palmer said. “Obviously we have not achieved everything we would have liked with electricity. But we have a new understanding of its power. If we can continue to work on it, I believe its potential is limitless.”

President Gardner’s eyes rested on me for a moment before he replied. “We would need our independence in order to reap the rewards of such work,” he remarked.

“That is correct.”

Vice President Boatner looked like he was going to say something, but instead he folded his arms and stared into the fire. A clock in the corner of the room struck the hour. We waited.

The president turned to the vice president and Lord Percival. “Reject the enemy’s final offer,” he instructed them. “Break off negotiations, and escort the diplomats back to the front lines. We have nothing left to say to those who would destroy us. Solomon,” he said, turning to General Aldridge, “do what you have to do, and quickly. We will show them what New Englanders are made of.”

General Aldridge stood up and bowed. “Thank you, Excellency.”

I expected the vice president to say something, but he simply shrugged. He seemed to know there was no point in arguing. We all got up, bowed, and left the room. The meeting was over; the decision had been made.

“Never thought I’d see the day,” Professor Palmer said as we walked down the corridor away from the office. “His Excellency showing some gumption.”

The Vice President stopped us at the front door of the palace. “If we can help in any way,” he said to General Aldridge, “let us know. All our lives are in your hands.” He didn’t seem happy about it.

The general nodded. “Thank you, Randolph. The first thing you can do is pray for us.”

We hurried out into the night and heard the sounds of the artillery once again. “William, Alexander, come with me,” General Aldridge said to the lieutenant and the professor. “There is much to be done. Larry, you can return to headquarters.”

“And stay there,” Lieutenant Carmody ordered. “I don’t know what you’ve been up to, but you’re too important to be wandering around the city.” He signaled to Peter to take me.

Instead of getting into the carriage, I climbed up next to Peter once again. “Any news?” he asked as we headed out of the palace grounds.

“We’re going to fight,” I replied.

He didn’t seem surprised. “There’ll be many of us dead before the week is out, then,” he said. He didn’t look awfully upset about it. It was just a statement of fact.

“Aren’t you scared?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I try not to think about it,” he said. “This battle’s been coming for such a long time. So we’ll all just do our duty when it finally arrives.”

We weren’t stopped on the way to headquarters. “Thanks, Peter,” I said when he dropped me off in the courtyard.

“Don’t be wandering around the city, lad,” he advised me. “The lieutenant’s right. The situation is dangerous enough–don’t go looking for trouble.”

I went directly to the mess–I was starving. All they could give me was the usual: salt pork, stale bread, and tea. It would have to do. Then I went up to my room, too tired to think, but knowing I had a huge decision to make. Was I going to disobey Lieutenant Carmody and return to the camp?

I put out the lamp and dropped down onto my lumpy mattress,

When I closed my eyes, I saw my mother–tired and worried, just trying keep her family alive in that awful camp. Dad wasn’t around, Cassie was about to go off the deep end. It was so familiar, but so much worse than anything in our safe world.

I had to go back, I decided. No matter what. I had to help her.

But how?

Portal, an online novel: Chapter 15

Posted on January 12, 2013 by Richard Bowker

The Canadian soldiers are approaching Cambridge. It’s time for Professor Palmer and the boys to retreat to Boston with the New England soldiers. They decide to spend one last night at home — to celebrate Harvest Day.

And then Kevin comes down with the dread disease drikana. Now they all have to be quarantined for seven days, with the enemy invading their city. Will Kevin survive? Even if he does, will the Canadians discover them and burn down the house with the three of them inside?

Kevin and Larry are a long way their old lives, where all they had to worry about was getting wet willies from Stinky Glover . . .

*******************

Chapter 15

We went back inside to take care of Kevin. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, pale and shivering, trying to throw up. “Am I dying?” he managed to whisper.

“You are very ill, Kevin,” the professor replied, “but we will take care of you.”

I wrapped a blanket around him.

Was he better? Worse? I changed my mind every few minutes, and finally decided he was about the same. Which meant he still had a chance. “Larry, what did I do to deserve this?” he whispered as he lay back, gasping, after one long stretch over the chamber pot.

“Hang in there, Kev,” I told him.

“I just want to go to school. I just want to be with my family.”

“It’ll be all right.”

“This is awful. They’ll never know what happened to me. I’ll die, and–” He started to cough, and then he began retching again. He was right. It was awful.

In the middle of the afternoon he drifted off to sleep again. I was exhausted. Just sitting was a strain.

“Go to my room and rest,” the professor urged me. “I’ll take care of Kevin.”

I didn’t want to leave him, but I wasn’t doing much good sitting there, so I went across the hall and lay down on the professor’s bed. I probably fell asleep right away. This time I didn’t dream of balloon rides. I dreamed of stepping into the portal and, instead of finding a new world, this one started spinning around me. I got dizzier and dizzier, and I realized: the germs have got me. Drikana. I’m going to die. And I thought: I hate this world, I hate this world . . .

I opened my eyes. The room was dark. I blinked and shook my head. Was I dizzy? Was I dying?

No, it was just a dream. I was hungry. I had to pee. But I felt okay. I got up and went back across the hall. Kevin was still asleep. The professor was reading a book by candlelight.

“This is good, right?” I asked him. “I mean, that he can sleep?”

“It is good.”

“And if he makes it through the night . . . ?”

“That will be a very good sign. But there’s nothing certain about the course of the disease, Larry. Even if Kevin survives the first two days, he will still be very weak. Often victims succumb to another disease that overtakes them in their weakened state. In rare cases, the drikana returns, and that is certain death.”

“I just want to be able to hope,” I said.

“So do I, Larry. So do I.”

We heard the sound of gunfire in the distance. I noticed that the curtain was drawn. “We’ll have to be careful about candles and lamps at night,” I remarked.

The professor nodded. “It’s lucky we’re not on a main thoroughfare,” he said. “But our situation is still perilous.”

“How are we going to get to Boston after the claustration is over?”

The professor put down the book and rubbed his eyes. “Let us first survive these first few days,” he said. “There’ll be time to decide what we do after that.”

So we took turns watching Kevin through the night. He woke up after a while, and the professor tried feeding him a little broth, but he couldn’t keep it down. I read to him, and he seemed to like that, but he was too weak to pay much attention. I wasn’t very sleepy, so I just kept on reading, even after Kevin had closed his eyes and fallen back asleep. I was too worried to just sit there and think. Was I dizzy yet? What would I do if Kevin died? What would happen if the Canadians showed up? It was probably better not to think about those things. But it was hard to avoid, sitting in the dark bedroom in the middle of the night with your friend maybe dying next to you.

Finally I nodded off again. When I woke up, it was light out. The professor was sitting in his chair, asleep. I looked over at Kevin. He was awake. “This sucks, you know that, Larry?” he said.

I could have kissed him.

“Am I gonna be all right?” he asked.

“Of course you are.”

His voice was weak, he was too exhausted to move very much, and he had no appetite, but he was definitely better. “You are a strong young man,” the professor pronounced after he had examined Kevin. In private, he told me that Kevin still wasn’t out of danger, but I don’t think I really believed him. Kevin was okay, and the professor and I were still okay, and drikana wasn’t going to defeat us.

By the end of the day we could feed Kevin some broth. By the next morning he wanted to know what was going on–weren’t we supposed to leave Cambridge? Where were the Canadians? Professor Palmer explained to him about claustration, and how we’d had to stay behind.

“You mean this is, like, enemy territory now? And we’re stuck here?”

“We haven’t seen any Canadians yet, but yes, I expect they have taken over Cambridge at this point.”

Kevin thought this over. “And you stayed behind to save me,” he said.

The professor put on his gruff voice. “We really had no choice, you see. The entire household must be claustrated when any inhabitant falls ill with the disease. It’s the law.”

“All right,” Kevin replied. “But, thanks just the same. I’d be dead without you.”

The professor nodded. “Of course, of course.” Then he turned away, and I think maybe his eyes were moist.

So then it was a question of getting Kevin stronger and hoping the Canadians didn’t notice us until the seven days were up. No fire during the day, no matter how cold it got; candlelight only behind thick curtains at night. We went outside as little as possible–to visit the privy, to take care of the animals. Once I was out in the barn, and I heard the sound of wagon wheels and soldiers’ voices, not that far away, and I prayed the animals would keep quiet until they passed. Lieutenant Carmody’s warning kept buzzing around in my brain–when they saw the claustration sign they wouldn’t take us prisoner, they’d simply burn us up. Could there be a worse death? The sounds faded eventually, and we were still safe.

Eventually we began talking about our escape. “Anything we attempt will be dangerous,” the professor explained, “but it should not be impossible to get to Boston. I have lived here much of my life, and I know the backroads well. On a clear night we should be able to reach the river without going near the Massachusetts Road–I have sketched out a route already. The Canadians won’t be patrolling these roads, I think–their enemy is ahead of them, not behind them.”

“But what happens when we reach the river?” I asked. “How do we get across?”

“The Canadians won’t have had time to build up positions along the entire length of the Charles, even if that is their strategy,” the professor replied. “They’re probably massed on either side of the road. We’ll need to work our way upriver. I know an inlet where Harvard keeps a small boathouse for its students. If we’re lucky, it will have escaped the enemy’s notice, and we can get a boat there and row across to the Boston side.”

“Will Kevin be strong enough to travel like this?”

“We don’t leave until Kevin is ready. He can ride in the back of the carriage, but it will surely be a bumpy trip.”

“I can make it,” Kevin said.

The professor shook his head. “Not until the seven days are up, at the earliest.”

I thought of the lieutenant’s final warning: We’d be shot if we showed up in Boston before those seven days. People didn’t fool around here when it came to drikana.

Kevin had a question, too. “What happens to Susie?”

“We’ll have to leave Susie at the boathouse,” the professor replied. “It can’t be helped, I’m afraid.”

That was just awful. The professor’s horse was like part of the family. But there was nothing we could say. It was clear we couldn’t get her across the river.

So we took care of Kevin, and we waited.

The seventh night was clear and cold. Kevin was still very weak, but eager to leave. “I’m ready,” he insisted. “Let’s get out of here.”

Professor Palmer was hesitant. “A day or two more would do you a world of good,” he said.

“Every day we’re here makes it more dangerous for all of us,” Kevin replied. Couldn’t argue with that. So the professor agreed: it was time to go.

There were things to be done first. We burned all Kevin’s bedclothes–a requirement at the end of claustration. Professor Palmer took down the sign; that was a big relief. We unloaded the books and papers we had so carefully put into the professor’s carriage a week ago; we weren’t going to row them across the river. It seemed like way more than a week had gone by since we had packed the carriage, since that happy Harvest Day. If the professor was sad that we had to leave all his stuff behind, he didn’t let on. Then we hitched up Susie, who seemed plenty surprised to have to go to work at this time of night. Last of all, we brought Kevin out and made him as comfortable as we could in the back of the carriage.

“Ready?” Professor Palmer asked.

“Ready.”

We headed off. I took one look back at the house, wondering if I’d ever see it again. Then we turned a corner, and it disappeared.

The night was quiet, and we seemed to make a huge amount of noise as we clopped along in the moonlight. Leaves floated down from the trees like small dark ghosts. I thought of the pretend scariness of Halloween, and how different this was. The enemy was out there somewhere, ready to kill us.

Susie seemed confused about where we were heading; this certainly wasn’t one of her regular routes. The professor led us through little lanes and narrow paths, staying away from the main roads. Sometimes it looked like there wasn’t a path at all, and we were cutting across a meadow or through someone’s backyard. We didn’t see or hear anyone else; the town seemed entirely deserted.

“You okay, Kev?” I whispered to him after we went over a big bump.

“Hangin’ in there,” he replied, but he didn’t sound all that great. “You know what I miss this time of year?”

“What’s that?”

“The World Series. I wonder if the Red Sox–”

“Save the baseball talk for General Aldridge, Kevin.”

“Not much farther to go,” the professor said.

We made one final turn, and then I could see the rippling of water in the distance and the outline of a long, dark structure. “The boathouse,” he whispered. We had made it!

We pulled up in front of the building. “Quickly,” the professor said, getting down from the carriage. “Larry, bring the lantern. We may have to risk a light inside.”

I turned to get the lantern. And that’s when I heard the voice.

“Stop right there! Turn around and get down! Both of you, raise your hands where I can see ’em.”

I turned, my heart pounding, and saw the shape of a man aiming a rifle at me. I did as I was told.

“Laurent,” he called out. “Wake up and give us some light if you please.”

He had one of those French-Canadian accents. In a few seconds a second soldier appeared out of the boathouse; he lit a lantern and held it up.

Both of the men had long hair and beards. The one with the rifle was big and burly; Laurent was smaller, and looked nervous. They were wearing dirty gray uniforms with the jackets unbuttoned.

“Put the lantern down and search them for weapons,” the burly soldier ordered Laurent. He seemed to be the boss.

Laurent came over and patted us down. “Trying to get to Boston, eh?” the other soldier asked meanwhile.

We didn’t reply.

“They don’t look like spies, Robert,” Laurent said when he was done. He pronounced it “Row-bare.”

“And what exactly do spies look like?” Robert snapped. “Do they wear red uniforms with ‘New England’ written on the sleeves?”

“We’re not spies,” the professor said. “We’re merely residents of Cambridge who delayed in evacuating.”

“Well, you delayed too long,” Robert said. “This is Canadian territory now. D’ye think we’re too stupid to guard this boathouse?”

“Shall we shoot them, Robert?” Laurent asked.

Robert looked annoyed. “No, fool, we bring them to headquarters and have them interrogated. Even if they’re not spies, they may have valuable information. Get some rope and tie them up.”

“Where’s the rope?”

Robert muttered what sounded like a French swear under his breath. “Hold the rifle and give me the lantern,” he said. “If either of them moves, shoot them both.”

“But I thought you said–”

Robert said the French word louder, then grabbed the lantern from Laurent and went back into the boat house. The professor and I stayed where we were. Laurent aimed the rifle at us in the moonlight.

And that’s when Kevin moved in the back of the carriage.

“What’s that?” Laurent demanded.

“That,” said the professor, “is our drikana patient.”

“Mon Dieu!” Laurent whispered, and he shifted the rifle and blessed himself. “Robert!” he called out. “Robert!”

Robert came back out of the boathouse a moment later, carrying another rifle along with the lantern. “What the devil is it?” he demanded, when he saw that neither of us had moved.

“D-drikana,” Laurent said, pointing to the carriage. “In the back.”

Robert went over to the carriage, shined the lantern inside, and saw Kevin lying down amid pillows and blankets.

“We were under claustration,” the professor said. “That’s why we were delayed in leaving.”

Why is he telling them about that? I wondered. They’ll want nothing to do with drikana, Lieutenant Carmody had said. They’d just burn us alive.

“Now let’s shoot them,” Laurent begged, proving my point.

“If you shoot us,” the professor pointed out, “you’ll have to bury us.”

Robert backed away from the carriage. “How do we know it’s drikana?” he said.

“Why else would we stay behind enemy lines instead of leaving with everyone else?” the professor replied.

“Please let’s shoot them,” Laurent said.

“Shut up!” Robert ordered him. “The claustration, it is over?” he asked the professor.

“It ended tonight. And now you can kill us and deal with our bodies, or you can let us row our patient over to the city.”

So then I understood what the professor was up to. The best solution for the Canadians was to let us go and bring the disease across the river into Boston. Let New England deal with us.

Robert got the point. “The boy is definitely ill,” he said. “Could be consumption, I suppose.”

“Could be,” the professor agreed. “But it’s drikana.”

Laurent looked very unhappy. “My sister died of it,” he said.

“It is not a pleasant disease.”

“Laurent, get a boat out for ’em,” Robert ordered. “They’re going to Boston.”

Laurent didn’t have to be told twice. He ran back into the boathouse, and soon after that we could hear him dragging a boat out into the water.

“This gun will be trained on you as you cross,” Robert said to us. “If I see you turning back, you’ll all be dead before you reach the shore.”

“We understand,” the professor replied. “Believe me, we have no desire to return to Cambridge.”

Robert motioned with the rifle. “Get the boy,” he ordered.

We put our hands down–my arms were really tired–and went to get Kevin. “Sorry,” he said.

“Sorry for what?” I replied. “Come on, Kev. Let’s get into the boat.”

The professor and I half-carried Kevin along a narrow path to the dock, where the boat was waiting. Laurent was standing as far away from us as he could on the dock. We arranged Kevin in the boat as well as possible, but he looked pretty uncomfortable. “We need the blankets,” Professor Palmer said to Laurent, and he motioned with the rifle to go back and get them. “Larry, you stay with Kevin,” the professor said.

“Say goodbye to Susie for us,” I said.

He patted me on the head and then returned to the carriage. “That was a smart move by the professor,” Kevin said while we waited.

“I bet he planned it all along, and just didn’t want to tell us.”

He returned in a minute with the blankets and pillows. “Can you row?” he asked me.

“A little.” Thank goodness I had taken lessons at camp last summer.

“We’ll take turns. You begin.”

Robert was on the dock now, too. “To Boston,” he reminded us. “Return, and you die.”

I picked up the oars, fit them into the oarlocks, and moved us away from the dock. “So far so good,” I said.

“Indeed,” the professor replied. “Unfortunately, now it begins to be really dangerous.”

Why? I didn’t want to ask. I focused on getting us out of the inlet and onto the river. I was pretty rusty at rowing, but I got back the hang of it quickly. The dock was out of sight once we were on the river, and I wondered how the Canadian soldiers were going to track us. Had Robert just been bluffing? The river was calm; its surface was like glass in the moonlight. There were just a few dim lights on either shore. And there wasn’t a sound except for the swooshing of the oars. It felt incredibly peaceful.

When we were about in the middle of the river, the professor said, “I’ll take over now.”

“I’m not tired,” I said. “I can make it the whole way.”

“Larry, let me take over,” he repeated. “I want you to get down in the bottom of the boat with Kevin.”

“Why?”

“Because I expect the New England soldiers will start shooting at us any moment now.”

“Huh? But the claustration is over! We’re okay.”

After a few weeks with us, the professor didn’t need a translation of “okay”. “They don’t know who we are,” he said. “They just see a boat heading toward them from enemy territory. They’re first instinct will be to shoot at it. Now do as I say and get down with Kevin.”

I didn’t really have a choice. I awkwardly switched positions with the professor, then scrunched down next to Kevin. “Scary, huh?” I said.

“Wouldn’t it be great just to feel safe again?” he replied.

“Not gonna happen anytime soon.”

We approached the Boston shore. The professor was a pretty good rower, for someone his age. “Won’t be long now,” he muttered. And then he shouted, “This is Alexander Palmer! Let us come ashore!”

He barely got the second sentence out when the guns started firing. The sound was like a punch in the stomach. The bullets sprayed the water around us. One of them nicked an oarlock. Kevin and I huddled together.

“Alexander Palmer!” the professor repeated at the top of his lungs. “I’m Professor Alexander Palmer! Don’t shoot! Let us come ashore!”

There was a pause. “You all right?” I asked the professor.

“Yes, yes. But their aim will get better as we get closer.” He shouted out his name again, and then added: “We are friends of Lieutenant William Carmody. We have no weapons.”

They fired a couple more shots at us, then I heard a shout from the shore that I couldn’t understand. But the shooting stopped after that, and we continued to make our way toward Boston. I sat up a little, and I saw a lantern ahead of us. “Over here,” a voice called out. “Stay in the boat.”

We eased up to the bank. A squad of soldiers approached, with rifles aimed at us. “You have the drikana patient with you?” one of them demanded.

“We do,” Professor Palmer replied.

The soldier came up to the boat. He was a short, plump lieutenant, and he carried a pistol instead of a rifle.

“He is much improved,” the professor said. “And the claustration is complete.”

The lieutenant peered in at Kevin. “Hi,” Kevin said.

“Sergeant,” the lieutenant called out. “Have you found the order from headquarters?”

“Yes, sir,” one of the other soldiers replied.

“What time does it expire?”

“Midnight, sir.”

The lieutenant took out his watch and made a big deal of checking it. What a jerk, I thought. We hadn’t left Cambridge till after midnight. Obviously the time was up. “Very well,” he said. “I don’t approve, but the order is clear. Sergeant, find a wagon and get these people to hospital without delay. And keep everyone away from them.”

“Yes, sir.” The sergeant headed off away from the bank.

The lieutenant turned back to us. “Can he walk?”

“We can help him,” Professor Palmer replied.

“Follow the sergeant up the path. Don’t touch anyone. Don’t talk to anyone.”

“Let’s go, lads,” the professor said without replying to the lieutenant.

The lieutenant stepped back away from us as we got out of the boat. “Corporal,” he said to another soldier, “burn the boat and everything in it.”

“Welcome back to Boston, eh?” the professor said to us as we headed towards the path leading away from the river, and all the soldiers shrank back.

“Could have been worse,” I said.

“Indeed it could,” the professor replied. “Indeed it could.”

Portal, an online novel: Chapter 7

Posted on November 17, 2012 by Richard Bowker

Stuck in some kind of alternate universe with Boston under siege by the Portuguese and Canadians, Kevin and Larry found their way to the refugee camp in the Fenway. Then Kevin had the bright idea of showing his calculator/watch to the soldiers. That got them out of the crowded, dangerous camp, but instead they ended up in the brig — not much better! What will the new day bring them?

Earlier chapters are up there on the menu, under “Portal.”

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Chapter 7

When I woke up it was light out, and at first I had no clue where I was. Why wasn’t I looking at the Final Fantasy poster in my bedroom? How come I was so uncomfortable? What was that weird dream I’d had? Who was that huge man glaring at me from across the room?

Chester. All the memories of yesterday came flooding back. This wasn’t a dream.

I looked over at Kevin. He was still asleep.

“Boys,” Chester rumbled. “I don’t like boys.”

“Uh, hi,” I said.

Chester just shook his head and glared at me some more.

Benjamin must have heard us, because he unlocked the door and stuck his head in. “‘Morning, gents,” he said. “Chester, you may be excused. Go thou and sin no more.”

“I’m hungry,” Chester said.

Benjamin shook his head. “Not my problem, Chester. Now be off to the mess, before we become angry.”

Amazingly, Chester got to his feet, dusted off his dirty red jacket, glared at me one final time, and then obediently walked out of the brig.

Benjamin then turned his attention to Kevin and me. “Sleep well, lads?”

I nodded. Kevin had awakened and was rubbing his eyes sleepily.

“Did Sergeant Hornbeam say anything about what’s going to happen to us?” I asked.

“Sergeant Hornbeam is not with us at the moment. You’ll need to stay here until he sends instruction.”

“Any chance we could go to the mess?” I asked. “I’m pretty hungry.”

“Let me see what I can do,” Benjamin said, and he left, locking the door behind him.

Kevin sat up. “I dreamed that this was all a dream,” he said.

“Maybe we’ll wake up again, and you’ll be right.”

“Wouldn’t that be good.” He sighed. “I’ve gotta use that thing over there,” he said, pointing to the pot in the corner of the cell. I closed my eyes while Kevin did his business.

Were there any flush toilets in this world, I wondered. Did they have toothpaste? Hot showers?

Eventually Benjamin came back with a tray of food: cups of tea and bowls of, well, mush. It could have been oatmeal, but it didn’t have any milk or sugar, and it was all I could do to get a few spoonfuls down. I’d never drunk tea before, and that didn’t taste much better. When I had finished trying to eat, I was as hungry as when I started. Kevin had barely touched his food either. He was looking pretty glum.

After a while Benjamin came for the trays. “Porridge not to your liking?” he asked.

“Can we go outside?” Kevin asked back. “We won’t leave, I promise.”

Benjamin considered. “All right. It’s going to be hot–not a good day to spend in the brig. But stay right by the barracks.”

We followed him out of the cell. There were only a few soldiers in the barracks, plus an old man mopping the floor. We went outside. It did feel like it was going to be a hot day. No air conditioning, I thought. No fans. I looked around. None of the buildings had been painted, and there was lumber lying around on the ground. They had been put up in a hurry, I realized.

We sat down on some boards by the entrance to the barracks and watched the wagons go by, heading for the camp.

“Maybe now’s the time to leave,” Kevin said.

“You mean: go back to Glanbury?”

“Yeah. We could stay off the main road and hide from the Portuguese army. If we started now, we could probably make it by dark.”

“You think the New England soldiers’d let us out that gate we went through?”

Kevin thought for a second. “I don’t know. Anyway, there’s got to be a way around,” he decided. “They can’t fence in the whole city.”

“And you think the Portuguese army wouldn’t shoot us if they caught us?” I said. “Or at least treat us worse than this? You think we’re smart enough to find the portal without getting caught? It was your idea to do this thing with the watch, Kevin. Why don’t we just see what happens?”

He didn’t answer. “I wish I was in school,” he said.

“I wish I had a bowl of Frosted Flakes and a big glass of orange juice.”

We fell silent, and just sat there in the hot sun.

Eventually Caleb came by. “Morning, mates,” he said. “Anything happen yet with your ciphering machine?”

We shook our heads. “I hope Sergeant Hornbeam hasn’t forgotten about us,” Kevin said.

“No, no, he wouldn’t do that. He’s a busy man, though. We’re all busy, more’s the pity. Looks like the camp’ll fill up today. Have to open up another one somewhere. Never knew there was this many people in all of New England.”

“Is there some way we could talk to him?” Kevin asked.

“Oh, he’ll be around. Never worry, mates. Just enjoy the day.”

Then he went off, and we were left to ourselves again. Soldiers came and went. Most of them knew seemed to know about us and asked about the “ciphering machine.” A couple of them looked at us like we were going to put a curse on them. The sun got hotter. There was no sign of Sergeant Hornbeam.

Then a carriage pulled up in front of the barracks, and a fat officer got out. The soldiers guarding the entrance stood at attention and saluted. The officer was bald, with red cheeks and bushy gray eyebrows, and his uniform was soaked with sweat. When he saw us, he stopped. “Who the devil are you?” he demanded.

“We’re waiting for Sergeant Hornbeam, sir,” Kevin said. “He has a watch of mine that–”

“Oh, that nonsense. Just a gewgaw, if you ask me. Well, you can’t just sit around idly all day. There’s a war on, in case you haven’t noticed.” He turned to one of the soldiers. “Corporal–er?”

“Hennessy, sir.”

“Corporal Hennessy,” he repeated. “Find ’em something to do.” Then he went inside the barracks and started yelling at the soldiers there about shaping up and looking sharp, there was a war on.

Corporal Hennessy looked at us. “Colonel Clarett worries that we’ll forget we’re at war,” he said. “I think his concern is misplaced, don’t you? Anyway, let’s find you a chore.”

We got up and went with him. “Is Colonel Clarett in charge of the camp?” Kevin asked.

The corporal nodded. “And a nasty job it is, too. No matter what you do, someone’ll criticize you. Treat folks too well, you’re wasting food. Treat ’em too poorly, you’re starving good New England citizens. Let’s just hope this doesn’t last long.”

“He said our watch was nonsense,” Kevin went on. “Does that mean–”

“Means nothing, mate. I heard about that watch. Lucky for you Sergeant Hornbeam was on duty last night. He’ll know what to do with it.”

The corporal led us into another long, unpainted building behind the barracks. It had an awful stench coming out of it. “What’s that smell?” Kevin asked.

The corporal gave him an odd look. “Luncheon,” he said. “Have you never smelled salt pork before?”

We went inside. There was one long room, with tables and benches along the wall. There were no screens on the open windows, and flies were buzzing everywhere. A few soldiers were sitting at one of the tables and eating off tin plates. They were stabbing their meat with their knives and sticking it straight into their mouths, I noticed. Didn’t they have forks here? My mother went nuts if she caught any of us putting a knife in our mouths.

We went through the room. Beyond it was a kitchen, where a shirtless, sweating man was standing over steaming pots set on woodstoves. Corporal Hennessy greeted him cheerily. “Coolest place in Boston, eh, Jonathan?”

Jonathan responded with a string of words my mother would have shot me for saying. This didn’t seem to bother the corporal. “Need any help here?” he asked. “I have a couple of lads willing to pitch in.”

Jonathan glanced at us and shook his head. “Try the warehouse,” he said.

“Very well, then. Your loss.” We went out through the kitchen and saw a much larger building surrounded by guards. Soldiers were lugging sacks out of it and loading them onto a bunch of wagons. The corporal went up to a big, bearded soldier who was supervising the loading and said, “Need a couple of extra hands, Tom?”

Tom gave us the look we were used to by now. “What are those outfits?” he asked. “Costumes for harvest festival?”

“We’re, uh, not from around here,” Kevin said.

“No, and you haven’t done much laboring, from the look of you. Well, we can remedy that. Head on inside and grab some sacks. The camp awaits its midday meal.”

“Keep ’em alive, Tom,” Corporal Hennessy said. “They’re guests of Colonel Clarett.”

Tom just grunted.

“Fare you well, lads,” the corporal said to us, and headed back to the barracks. Tom waved us inside the building.

It was filled with shelves, and on the shelves were the sacks the soldiers were loading onto the wagons. “What’s in them?” Kevin asked one of the soldiers.

“Corn,” he replied as he slung a sack over his shoulder. “Folks’ll be mighty tired of corn before long.”

I tried lifting a sack; I couldn’t. Kevin was a shrimp, and he obviously wasn’t going to be able to pick one up. “We’ll have to do it together,” I said.

“This is embarrassing,” Kevin muttered.

“Just shut up and help.”

So the two of us picked up a sack and staggered outside with it. Tom laughed when he saw us. “Nicely done, lads,” he said as we managed to push it onto a wagon. “Heft twenty or thirty more, and you’ll have it mastered.”

We managed to load about half a dozen sacks before our arms turned to rubber and we had to take a break. There was a barrel of warm water in a corner, and we splashed some over us and drank what we could, but it tasted awful. “This is going to kill us,” Kevin said.

“Let’s just slow down. They don’t seem to care what we do, as long as we don’t look like we’re goofing off.”

We tried that, but it was still too hard. I always thought of myself as being in pretty good shape. I play soccer, and I have some ten-pound dumbbells that I work out with sometimes at home. But this was just way beyond me.

Luckily, after we’d loaded a few more sacks Tom decided there was enough food for the camp, and it was time for us all to take a break and have our own lunch. The wagons went off to the camp, and we went into the mess hall for some salt pork, boiled corn, and tea. I was hungry enough now that the food actually didn’t taste too bad. I think I needed the salt after all the sweating I’d done.

While we ate we listened to the men complain. “We’re soldiers, not laborers,” a thin, wiry man said. “They should get the farmfolk to do this.”

“They’d just stuff their pockets full of grain,” the soldier sitting next to him pointed out.

“Shoot ’em if they steal. That’s what’d happen to us.”

“We should make ’em all soldiers,” a third soldier said. “You think we can defeat the Portuguese and the Canadians with the army we’ve got now?”

“I hear they’re signing up all the able-bodied men,” the thin soldier said. “We’d be worse off if we had to take the rest of them.”

“Doesn’t matter who we get,” yet another soldier muttered. “We’ve no hope of winning in any case.”

That caused everyone to fall silent until Tom ordered us back to work in the warehouse. Now we had to clean up the spilled grain. This was a whole lot easier than lugging the sacks, but the heat inside the building was almost unbearable. “Wish I had a Pepsi,” Kevin said.

“A Sprite.”

“Dr. Pepper.”

“Diet Fresca.”

We came up with all the soft drink names we could think of. But we weren’t going to get any. All we had was a barrel of warm water that was probably crawling with germs.

“What happens when the food runs out?” Kevin asked the thin soldier.

He shook his head. “That’s when we surrender, mate. Let’s hope we don’t have too many die before that happens.”

“How long till it’s gone?”

“Don’t know. Depends on how many people show up and how much they bring with ’em. Couple of months, I reckon.”

That didn’t sound good. Kevin was about to ask another question when we noticed Sergeant Hornbeam standing in the doorway. His red hair looked like it was on fire. “What are you boys doing?” he demanded.

“Colonel Clarett told us we had to work,” I explained. “So Corporal Hennessy brought us over here.”

Sergeant Hornbeam rolled his eyes. “Naturally,” he muttered. “Have to put you two back in the brig,” he said to us. “Come along.”

I dropped my broom without a complaint. Hard to believe I’d be happy to go to jail, but I was.

“What happened with the watch, sir?” Kevin asked the sergeant as we headed back to the barracks. “Did you show it to anyone?”

Sergeant Hornbeam didn’t bother to answer. He was walking so fast, it was hard to keep up.

“Please don’t just hold onto it,” Kevin persisted. “It’s more than a toy.”

“Still don’t understand how you boys got hold of that thing,” the sergeant said.

“Well, it’s complicated, sir,” Kevin began. But Sergeant Hornbeam waved him silent. We had reached the barracks, and he started shouting for Benjamin, who came waddling in, stuffing his shirt into his pants.

“Sorry, Sergeant,” he said. “Making a visit to the outhouse.”

“Kindly lock these two up once again,” Sergeant Hornbeam ordered him. “And this time don’t let ’em out on anyone’s word except mine.”

“What about the colonel, Sergeant?”

The sergeant muttered something under his breath, then turned and strode out of the barracks without answering.

Benjamin turned to us. “Sorry, lads. What was it you did, anyway?”

“Nothing, really,” I said.

He shrugged and ushered us back into the cell, locking the door behind us. It was still empty. I slumped back down on the floor, and Kevin slumped next to me.

“This is good,” he said.

“Good not to be hauling sacks of grain,” I agreed.

“Yeah, but good because Hornbeam thinks we’re so important he has to keep us locked up.”

“If you say so. I just wish something would happen.”

“Yeah, I know. I was thinking,” he went on. “Remember how Stinky Glover and Nora Lally showed up in that other world you visited? I wonder if people from our world are here, too.”

“This place is a whole lot different than our world,” I pointed out.

“I know, but it’s not totally different. There’s still a Glanbury, still a Boston. So it’s a possibility, right? What if our families were living in Glanbury? What if they’re in that camp over there right now?”

I closed my eyes and felt a lump rising in my throat. “You know what, Kevin? I don’t really want to think about that.”

“Yeah,” he said softly, “I guess you’re right.”

We must have fallen asleep then, because the next thing I knew, a loud voice was shouting, “Wake up, dammit, don’t you know there’s a war on?”

I opened my eyes and saw Colonel Clarett standing over us. Behind him was Benjamin, holding a lantern and yawning.

“Come on, come on,” the colonel said. “We don’t have all night.”

I struggled to my feet, then helped Kevin up.

“That’s it, then,” the colonel said. “Let’s go.”

We followed him out of the cell.

“It’s all nonsense,” he told us, “but there you have it. The enemy’s at our gates, and they’re interested in gewgaws.” He led us to a room in a corner of the barracks. “My own office,” he muttered. “And where do I go meanwhile?”

He opened the door, and we went inside. A tall, black-haired man in a uniform was standing behind a desk.

“Here they are, Lieutenant,” Colonel Clarett said. “And much luck may you have of ’em. If you want my opinion, they’re a pair of thieves, and that’s that. Look at the hat on the little one,” he said, gesturing at Kevin’s Red Sox cap as if its existence proved he was a criminal.

“Thank you, Colonel,” the lieutenant said.

Colonel Clarett looked like he wanted to stay, but the lieutenant was obviously waiting for him to leave, so he turned and walked out, slamming the door behind him.

The lieutenant smiled at us. “Now,” he said, “I think it’s time for a little chat.”

Portal, an online novel: Chapter 5

Posted on November 3, 2012 by Richard Bowker

Here’s the latest chapter of the online novel I’m perpetrating. You’ll notice that I’ve got Portal up there in the menu now. Click on it to see the chapters I’ve already published. Yet another service we provide for our customers!

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Chapter 5

The wagon was piled high with clothes and furniture, which swayed as the wagon rattled along the bumpy road. Two small children–a boy and a girl–huddled in one corner, staring at us. The woman had twisted around to look at us, too. She was wearing a long coat and a bonnet. “How come you to be in those woods, lads?” she asked. Her accent was a little strange–not quite American, not quite English.

“It’s, um, a long story,” I said. What was I supposed to say?

“You talk funny,” the little girl piped up.

“Hush, Rachel,” the mother said. “Are you from Glanbury?” she asked us.

“Yes, we are.”

“Listen,” Kevin interrupted, “can you stop the wagon? We have to go back.”

The man pulled on the reins to slow the horse and turned back to look at us, too. “Why?” he asked.

“Their clothes are funny,” the girl said.

“Could you please just stop the wagon?” Kevin pleaded.

“There’s nothing to go back to,” the woman explained. “The Portuguese army is destroying nigh everything. If you’re separated from your parents, best stay with us till we get you to Boston. You can find them there.”

“Along with everyone else in New England,” the man muttered.

“Are you in the navy?” the little girl asked Kevin. She was pointing at his Old Navy t-shirt.

“What should we do?” Kevin asked me.

“I don’t know. This was all your idea.”

Kevin glared at me. We heard gunfire in the distance.

My parents would know what to do. But we had left them far, far behind. “We won’t be able to get to it,” I murmured to Kevin. And then I asked the woman, “Will we be safe in Boston?”

“As safe as anywhere,” she replied, “with the Portuguese on one side of us and the Canadians on the other.”

“Maybe we should go to Boston,” I said to Kevin. “We can come back when–when–”

When?

“What if it’s gone?” he said. “What if we can’t find it?”

What if we find it, I thought, and it doesn’t take us home?

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know.”

Kevin slumped down in the wagon. I slumped down next to him. The man flicked the reins and the horse sped up. “I bet I know what the ‘B’ on your hat stands for,” the little girl said to Kevin.

I thought the woman might press us about why we were in those woods, but she didn’t. She and her husband started arguing about why he had waited till the last minute to leave their farm and how all their neighbors were safe in Boston by now, and here they were, barely outracing the Portuguese and endangering their children. He said he couldn’t care less about their neighbors, he wasn’t going to give in so easily, he just hoped the cowardly government didn’t surrender without putting up a fight.

Kevin’s face was scrunched up, an expression he gets when he’s thinking hard. Or maybe he was just trying to keep from crying. We had screwed up so bad. This was a totally different universe. There was a Glanbury and a Boston, but what were the Portuguese doing here? And where were the cars? Where were the buildings? And now that we’d landed here, would we ever be able to get back?

The wagon continued along the road to Boston, and the gunfire faded behind us. My family drives to Boston a lot, but I didn’t know how far it was from Glanbury. I don’t think it took very long, except when there was a lot of traffic. How long was it going to take by horse? The road wasn’t that great, and we kept getting knocked around in the back of the wagon. My back hurt, and I started to get seasick.

“What time is it?” I whispered to Kevin after a while.

He looked at his watch. “Four o’clock,” he said.

Late for my piano lesson. I thought about Mom, probably standing on our deck and looking out into the woods for me, worried and angry at the same time, and I got a lump in my throat. Pretty soon everyone would start looking for us, and we’d be gone–just gone, without a trace. Mom always read those stories about missing children in the paper. She’d figure this had something to do with that guy lurking by schoolbuses in Rhode Island. But she’d never know where I went, if I was okay . . .

When they started searching they’d be bound to find the portal, I thought, and then they’d figure it out and come after us.

But that wouldn’t work, I realized. If there were a kazillion universes, who knew which one they’d end up in?

I should never have come, I thought. How could I have been so stupid? It was all Kevin’s fault . . .

“Larry, do you have any of those Oreos?” Kevin asked.

I shook my head, suddenly getting hungry myself. Probably no Oreos in this world, I thought. No Coke, no pizza, no Burger King–or Burger Queen.

The fog faded away as we rode. Occasionally a man on horseback passed us on the way to Boston. No one was heading in the opposite direction, south towards Glanbury. The riders would slow down and exchange news with us, then speed up until they disappeared up ahead. There were some houses along the road, and a few inns and shops that looked like they came out of an old movie. All of them appeared deserted.

We stopped once to give the horse some food and water, and we all went to the bathroom in the woods; it was gross, but the family didn’t seem to mind.

“What’s that?” the little boy asked, pointing at Kevin’s watch.

He shrugged. “A watch,” he said.

“My papa has a watch, but he keeps it in his pocket.”

Kevin shrugged again.

“Don’t be frightened,” the boy went on. “We’re going to stay with Uncle John, and he’ll take care of us. He has a big house in the city, and that’s where all the army is, so the Portuguese won’t be able to get us.”

“That’s great.”

The father took Kevin and me aside and spoke to us before we got back into the wagon. “I know every soul in Glanbury, and I don’t know you boys,” he said. “I’ve certainly never seen anyone wearing clothes like that, or heard an accent like that. Where are you really from? China?”

Kevin shook his head. “No, we’re from America.”

“Where is America?” the man asked suspiciously. “I’ve never heard of it.”

Kevin looked at me, and we felt a little more desperate. Just how different was this world? “What–what’s the name of this country?” he asked the man.

The man shook his head in astonishment. “Never heard of the like. We’re in New England, lad. The United States of New England. Where’s America?”

Far, far away, apparently. “Samuel, please come!” his wife called out to him from the wagon. “If we don’t hurry we’ll not make it to Boston by dark.”

Samuel looked back at us. “I think you lads have some explaining to do, but now’s not the time, I judge. Let’s go, if you still want a ride to Boston.”

He headed off to the wagon. “This may be our last chance,” Kevin said to me. “What do you think?”

I shook my head. “It’s too late, Kevin. We have to go to Boston.”

Kevin didn’t argue, and we silently trudged back to the wagon.

When we got in, the mother was feeding the kids apples and bread. She offered us some, and we took the food gratefully. Kevin ate his share like he didn’t think he’d get another meal.

We started up again. The sun was lower in the sky now, and it was getting colder out. After a while there were more shops and houses, and a few signs of life. Dogs barked at us. On one side street I saw a bunch of hogs eating garbage in the middle of the road. Another road merged with ours, and suddenly there was traffic–more wagons carrying furniture and frightened families. Some of the wagons had a cow, a goat, or even an ox tied up behind them. Everyone was headed towards Boston.

Finally we crossed a bridge over a river, and a little ways beyond was a long high wooden fence that stretched out as far as I could see in both directions. There were slits for guns high up in the fence, I noticed. A pair of gates were open, but a group of soldiers stood by them, examining everyone before they let them pass through.

They looked like soldiers, but their uniform was different from any I had ever seen. They wore short red jackets, black pants, and metal helmets with little brims, almost like batting helmets. Each of them had a rifle slung over his arm and a pistol in his belt. When we finally reached the gates one of the soldiers came up to us. He half-saluted Samuel and said, “Name, sir?”

He had an accent that was almost English.

“Harper. Samuel Harper. That’s my wife Martha.”

“And where are you coming from?”

“Up from Glanbury,” Samuel replied.

“Waited till the last minute, did you?”

“They were right behind us. There was some skirmishing, and I thought it best to leave. If they weren’t so interested in looting, they’d be right behind us still.”

“Why did you wait so long?”

“I didn’t want to yield my farm to any Portuguese, I tell you that. I fired my house and barn before I left. I don’t know how it got to this.”

The soldier nodded and looked into the wagon. “This your family, sir?”

“Except for those two strays back there,” Samuel said, meaning us. “I don’t know who or what they are.”

The soldier came around and took a close look at Kevin and me. “Strange outfits,” he said. “And your family is where, mates?”

“Murdered,” Kevin blurted out. “By the Portuguese. But we managed to escape.”

Why did he say that?

“But I thought you were in the navy,” the little girl objected.

“I know nothing of any murdering,” Mr. Harper said.

The soldier’s eyes darkened. “Well?” he demanded.

But just then another soldier called to him. “Move it along, Corporal! We’ll be all night getting these people inside.”

He shrugged and stepped back. “Any disease here?” he asked loudly. “Smallpox? Diphtheria? Drikana?”

“No,” Mr. Harper said. “We’re all healthy, thank God.”

“Pray God you stay healthy,” the soldier replied. “The city is getting more crowded by the hour. There is little food, and the water is bad. You are welcome to enter, but you’ll have a hard time of it. If there is a siege, conditions will get far worse. You’ll have to stay in a camp.”

“I have a brother in the city who will take us in,” Mr. Harper said.

“Then count yourself lucky, sir. The camps’ll not be pleasant places. You may pass.”

Mr. Harper grunted and flicked the reins, and the horse started through the gates. “A siege,” he muttered. “They want to delay as long as they can while they parley with the Europeans, as if any European has ever helped New England before. And meanwhile, all I’ve worked for has been destroyed.”

“You needn’t have set fire to the–” his wife started to say, but he quickly interrupted her.

“Better me than the Portuguese, woman. If we all did what I did, there’d be no food to sustain them, and they’d have to slink like dogs back where they came from.”

I looked at the fence. Soldiers were piling up sandbags against it. Getting ready for a siege, I thought. There were sieges in plenty of video games I’d played. Sieges could last forever.

“Was your family really murdered?” the little boy asked Kevin.

Kevin shook his head. “No, but I don’t think I’ll ever see them again.”

“Oh. That’s sad.”

Kevin nodded and looked away.

We were passing through a big military camp. The soldiers stared at us grimly as we went by. In the distance to our right I could see the ocean. I smelled fish and horse manure, and worse stuff. It was really getting dark now, and there weren’t any street lights. I was hungry and stiff and still a little queasy from the bumpy ride. This was awful.

“Are you sure John will take us in?” Martha asked her husband.

“He’d better, hadn’t he?” he replied.

“What about these boys?”

“What about them? I won’t ask my brother to house and feed anyone who isn’t kin, not with what’s about to happen. Anyway, they haven’t told the truth about anything since we met them. They can fend for themselves.”

“But they’re so young, Samuel.”

“They’re old enough to join the army, I daresay. The redbacks will need everyone they can get. They should be grateful to us. If we hadn’t taken them with us, they’d be lying dead in the road by now. Or worse.”

Martha gave us a look full of sympathy, but she didn’t argue with her husband. The little boy said, “I’d like to join the army,” but she hushed him.

My stomach started to growl.

We were past the military camp now. The road crossed some marshland, and on the other side there were a lot of shacks and tents jammed together, and some of the people in wagons got off the road to join the crowd. Was this one of the refugee camps? “Fools,” Mr. Harper muttered. “Camping in the swamp. Half of them will have the flux by morning.” We kept going, and after a while some of the buildings were built of brick, the road became paved with cobblestones, and there were even sidewalks.

“At last,” Mr. Harper said. “Now, if I can only find the street.”

The sidewalks grew crowded as we traveled further into the city. Kids younger than Kevin and me, dirty-faced and dressed in raggedy old clothes, were selling newspapers or flowers. Soldiers walked alongside women wearing too much makeup. There were lots of old people–and some not so old–holding out their hands or tin cups, begging for food or money. Policemen, dressed like the soldiers except in blue, directed traffic at every intersection. Some people on the streets rode something that looked like a bicycle with very wide wooden wheels. There were no traffic lights, and only a few dim, flickering lamps instead of street lights.

Mr. Harper made a few turns, asked directions a couple of times, and finally pulled up in front of a small house on a dark side street. A bearded man walked out of the house, holding a lantern. “Samuel,” he said, “about time you came to town.”

“Held out as long as I could, John,” Samuel replied. “I’ve lost everything but what we’ve got in this wagon.”

“I’m very sorry for that,” John said, coming over to the wagon. “but of course you’re welcome to stay here. Martha,” he said, nodding to the woman. “And how are little Rachel and Samuel?” He reached into the wagon and patted them on the heads. Then he turned to Kevin and me with a puzzled expression. “And you are–?”

Samuel had joined his brother and was unlatching the back of the wagon. “Passers-by,” he said. “Everyone had to get out or be shot. We gave them a ride, out of the goodness of our hearts.”

We climbed down, followed by Martha and the children. Samuel and his brother walked back to the front of the wagon, unhitched the horse, and led it behind the house. Martha looked at us. “Will you be all right?” she asked.

I didn’t know what to say. “I guess so,” I said.

She reached back into the wagon and filled a small bag with apples, bread, and cheese. “Good luck,” she said, handing me the bag. “I’m sorry we can’t do more. It’s a hard time for everyone.” She turned to her kids. “Come on, children. Let’s go inside.”

Kevin and I watched them go into the small house. And then we were all alone on the dark street, in the strange world, and neither of us had a clue what to do next.

Portal — an online novel: Chapter 3

Posted on October 21, 2012 by Richard Bowker

Here’s Chapter 3 of Portal.

We also have Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 for your reading pleasure. There’s no telling what chapter I’ll publish next!

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Chapter 3

I stepped through the clouds inside the thing and out the other side.

“Hey! Where’d you go?” a voice called.

It was Stinky. My Stinky. Standing in the woods–my woods–looking puzzled.

I tried to catch my breath. “Hiding,” I said. I didn’t think I could be happy to see Stinky Glover, but right then I sure was.

He still looked puzzled. “Hiding where?”

I waved vaguely. “Behind a tree.” I didn’t want him to know about the time machine, or whatever it was. I moved quickly away from it.

He seemed to get back his Stinkiness. “Why are you hiding?” he said. “You afraid of me, Lawrence?”

I was no longer happy to see him. I didn’t answer. Instead I just kept walking, back towards my house.

“Don’t you like wet willies, Lawrence?” he called out.

I ignored him. This time he didn’t follow me.

When I finally saw our swing set I stopped and took a deep breath. Man, that had been strange.

I ran through the yard and inside our house, and there was Mom, frowning at me. “Larry, I thought you were going to do your homework,” she said.

“Mom, you wouldn’t believe–” I began.

“Wouldn’t believe what?”

I stared at her. “Well, uh, what a beautiful day it is,” I said finally. “I just had to get some fresh air before I started my homework.”

She looked at me a little funny, and then just shrugged and said, “All right, but I don’t want you going too far into the woods.”

“Okay, sure.”

So, I didn’t tell Stinky because I just don’t like him. And I didn’t tell Mom because I knew she’d yell at me–first, for disobeying her by going to the army buildings, and second, for doing something idiotically dangerous like actually stepping inside the invisibility thing. Maybe I should have–but you don’t know my Mom.

I had to tell someone, though.

I figured I could tell my Dad. He wouldn’t be too bothered by the disobedience thing, especially if it turned out I had made some important scientific discovery, which obviously I had. But he wasn’t home from work yet.

In the meantime, I decided to call Kevin Albright. This was just the sort of thing he’d love.

I went into my dad’s study and picked up the phone. That turned out to be a mistake. Cassie had arrived home while I was in the woods, and of course she was already on the extension in her room talking to one of her high-school-loser buddies. She’d been demanding her own cellphone, which had caused more eyerolling from Dad. So far, no cellphone.

“Hang up, snot-for-brains!” she screamed at me.

How creative. I banged down the receiver and waited for her to wear herself out talking about how cute her math teacher was or whatever. It took a while. For someone who is always too exhausted to do any chores, she certainly has a lot of energy when she’s talking on the phone.

When she finally got off I called Kevin. “You’ll never guess what just happened to me,” I said.

“Want me to try?” he asked.

“Not really. Listen.” And I told him about my adventure. I have to admit it sounded pretty whacked, but Kevin didn’t have any problem believing me. More than that–he was ready with an explanation.

“Larry, this is so awesome,” he said. “You’ve found a portal to another universe.”

“A portal,” I repeated.

“Yeah, you know, a portal–a gateway. An opening into a parallel universe. Not the future, not the past–just different.”

I thought about it. “Okay, I sort of get the idea of parallel universes. But, I mean, that’s just Star Trek stuff. They’re not for real.”

“Well, maybe,” Kevin said. “But there’s this theory I read about. It says that every time anyone makes a choice–you know, turn left or turn right, watch the Red Sox game or watch the Celtics, whatever, a whole other universe splits off from this one. And in that other universe, everything is exactly the same as this one, except that in one of them you changed the channel and in the other you didn’t.”

“But that’s nuts,” I protested. “That would mean there’d be, like, kazillions of universes.”

“Okay, well, it’s just a theory,” Kevin said. “But what if it’s true? Or something like it? In the place you went to, what if the guy who started Dairy Queen back whenever decided to name it “Dairy King” instead? So another universe splits off, and things go on from there. When some other guy is starting Burger King, well, in this world the “King” part is already taken, so he names it “Burger Queen” instead.”

“Okay, but what about all the other stuff–the different clothes, the cars, a whole new Glanbury Plaza in the conservation land behind my house? All that’s because somebody decided to name his business ‘Dairy King’?”

“The butterfly effect,” Kevin said. “You know–the idea that a butterfly flaps its wings in China and changes the weather in America. One event ends up making a big difference. Maybe the Dairy King choice wasn’t when that universe split off. Maybe something else happened a whole lot earlier. Doesn’t really matter. The point is, the changes just keep piling up from when it started, until finally everything is just a little bit different, or maybe a lot different, and there’s no way of tracing everything back to that one little event that started it.”

“But Stinky was there,” I pointed out. “And Nora Lally.”

“It was a different Stinky and Nora,” Kevin replied. “And a different Glanbury. But not entirely different. No reason why they couldn’t be there. No reason why we couldn’t be there, for that matter.”

That was a strange thought. But it made sense. Something else still didn’t make sense, though. “Okay, let’s say you’re right, and there are all kinds of parallel universes. There’s no way of traveling between them, right? No one has ever been to a parallel universe. So what’s up with this–this portal? Where did it come from? How come it’s back there in the woods behind my house?”

“Beats me,” Kevin admitted. “Maybe it’s like black holes before they got discovered. Maybe these things are all over our universe but no one has noticed them before.”

“Or maybe somebody put it there,” I suggested. “Aliens–like that black slab in 2001.”

“Yeah, could be.”

“But the thing is, why was I the first one to find it? I know it’s invisible, and it’s kind of out of the way in the woods, but it’s not that out of the way.”

“Maybe you weren’t, but other people kept it secret,” he suggested. “Or the government took them away. What if it only shows up every few years–like a comet? I don’t know, Larry. Anyway, when can I see it?”

“Well, I was going to show it to my Dad tonight, and–”

“Larry, come on, you can’t do that!”

“Why not?”

“Because once you talk to your father, the grownups’ll be in charge–scientists, the army. Like in ET. We’ll never get near the thing. This could be the most amazing thing that ever happens in our lives. You can’t just give it up without doing a little exploring.”

“Kevin, I almost didn’t get out of that other universe,” I pointed out. “What if I couldn’t find the thing again? It’s invisible, remember?”

“Well, we just have to be more careful. Where’s your sense of adventure?”

All of a sudden Cassie was standing in the doorway of Dad’s study, shooting death-rays at me with her eyes. “Are you going to be on the phone all day?” she demanded.

Dad says Cassie speaks in italics, and I think I know what he means. I ignored her. “Look, Kevin, I gotta go,” I said. “Let me think about it.”

“Please, Larry,” Kevin begged. “One more time. Just one more time.”

I hung up, and Cassie stomped off to make another call. Why wouldn’t Dad just give in and get her a cellphone? I went upstairs to my room.

Matthew was playing my Assassin’s Creed on the Xbox.

“Matthew!” I screamed.

“Oh. Sorry,” he said, as if he’d never heard the one about not messing with my stuff. Then he started talking endlessly about some video game he wanted to invent that would be way better than Assassin’s Creed.

I ignored him and lay down on my bed.

A portal to a parallel universe, practically in my backyard. That was so cool. But did I want to go back inside it? It would be fun going with Kevin. And there was Nora Lally and her smile . . . maybe I’d run into her again.

But what about those kids who had chased me? I could wear different clothing if I went back, so I could blend in better. And I’d stay away from Stinky–that was always a good idea.

Just once more, I thought, then I could turn it over to the grownups. Would I become famous? The First Human to Travel to Another Universe . . . Or would it all be top-secret, and we could never tell anyone?

Thinking about all that stuff, I kind of blew off my homework, and before I knew it, it was time for supper.

Dad sometimes doesn’t make it home for supper, which drives Mom nuts, but he managed to make it tonight. Not that it helped. Family suppers are usually not very pleasant. Lately Cassie has been on some weird diet that only she understands, so she automatically hates everything Mom cooks, which gets Mom in a bad mood. And of course Matthew never shuts up, which gets the rest of us in a bad mood.

“So how was everyone’s day?” Dad asked. He always asks that. And he expects an answer.

Cassie rolled her eyes. She acts like she’d rather have her fingernails pulled out than talk to any of us.

I tried to think of something, but if I wasn’t going to mention the portal, what else was there? “Fine,” I said–my usual answer.

“Did you practice the piano?”

That was the last thing on my mind. My parents have made me take lessons for years, but I’m still not very good. “Uh, no, not yet,” I said.

“You have a lesson tomorrow afternoon,” Mom pointed out.

“Okay, okay, I’ll get to it.”

“How about you, Matthew?” Dad said. “Anything interesting happen at school?”

That was all the opening Matthew needed. “We had gym today,” he said, “but Jeremy Finkel is such a ball-hog, he only passes to Luke Kelly. Luke isn’t as much of a ball-hog as Jeremy, only like maybe seventy-two percent, but he thinks he’s so cool and tries to dribble through his legs, but most of the time the ball just bounces off his ankle. Anyway, I was on a team with Peter Gorman and Chet Pillogi, and we were playing this game the gym teacher made up–well, it’s kind of complicated, see . . . ”

Dad always tries to look interested when Matthew gets going, but after a few minutes of that sort of thing, even he starts to fade. I just zoned out until the usual fight started because Cassie left the table without asking to be excused, and who did she think she was? And she started screaming about how she hated this food and this family and her entire life, and why couldn’t everyone just leave her alone?

When the Cassie storm blew over, Dad asked Matthew and me if we wanted to go outside and play catch after supper, but we didn’t, so he just stared at his plate like we’d kicked him in the teeth. He seems to think playing catch is such a great thing, but Matthew and I don’t like to play catch. It’s boring. Baseball is boring. I’d actually rather practice the piano. So after supper I did, just long enough to get my parents off my back. Then I knocked off the rest of my homework, watched some TV, and went to bed.

Matthew was already in bed, but he wasn’t asleep, so of course he wanted to talk. “Larry?”

“What?”

“I don’t like it when we all yell at each other.”

“Me neither.”

“How come we can’t get along better?”

“I don’t know. How come you won’t stop playing my videogames without permission?”

“I’ll stop, really I will.”

“Okay.” He really meant it, too. For now.

He paused, and I thought maybe he’d given up. But then he said, “Larry?”

Give it up, I thought. “What?”

“I don’t know what Cassie gets so mad about. Life is okay, don’t you think?”

“If you say so, Matthew.”

And that was it–at least, that’s all I remember. Life is okay. Sometimes Matthew could be surprising.

The last thing I thought about before falling asleep was not Nora Lally’s smile, but that long-haired man in the park, and the way his glittering eyes fixed on me.

This world is not only stranger than you imagine, it is stranger than you can imagine.

That portal back in the woods had certainly turned my world strange.

Eventually I drifted off to sleep, and a bunch of strange dreams. And before I knew it, it was time to get up and go to The Gross again.