Fort by Cynthia DeFelice

fort.”
    Gerard opened his eyes. In a very small voice he said, “They took it and they wouldn’t give it back.” A little sob escaped from his throat.
    â€œWhat did they take?” I asked.
    He looked down at the squirrel tail in his lap and stroked it fiercely.
    â€œThey took your squirrel tail?”
    â€œAnd they wouldn’t give it back!” Gerard said, crying openly. “They wanted me to tell, and they didn’t give it back, and they kept asking me—”
    The door to the house opened then, and Gerard’s mother stepped outside. She smiled at Augie and me and started to say hello, but then she caught sight of Gerard’s tear-streaked face.
    â€œOh, lovey, what’s wrong?” she said, rushing over to him. She knelt down and put her arms around Gerard, then turned to Augie and me with fury. “Haven’t you boys anything better to do than come around here to torment a poor kid who never did you any harm?”
    â€œI—we—” I started to protest, but Mrs. DeMuth was shepherding Gerard toward the door. She stopped and looked back and, sounding more sad than angry, she said, “I’ve never seen him so happy as when you took him to that fort of yours. And now look at him! I hope you’re proud of yourselves.”
    She led Gerard inside and the door closed.
    Augie and I looked at each other.
    â€œMan,” I said.
    â€œLet’s go,” he said.
    â€œShe thinks we took him to the fort,” I said as we walked dejectedly to our bikes.
    â€œYeah,” said Augie. “Like he was our friend.”
    I felt pretty crummy right then, and I could tell Augie did, too. I’d never really thought about what it must be like to be Gerard and not have any friends.
    I could just picture what had happened. J.R. and Morrie had seen Gerard playing happily with his new squirrel tail, swiped it, then started to tease him with it: Where’d you get this, Gerardo? Really, the woods? What were you doing in the woods? Oh, there’s a fort there? Those losers Augie and Wyatt made it? Oh yeah? So where is it? No, you can’t have the squirrel tail back, not until you tell us  …
    Before we got on our bikes, Augie and I spit in our palms and shook hands on a solemn vow.
    J.R. and Morrie were going down.

 
    10
    â€œWe can plan our strategy when we get to headquarters,” Augie said as we pedaled next to each other on the way to Al’s. “I’m thinking we should call this Operation Doom.”
    â€œYeah!” I said. “Or—hey! How ’bout we call it Operation Ultimate Doom?”
    â€œHow ’bout Operation Ultimate Doom and Destruction!” Augie came back.
    â€œPerfect,” I said. Then I added, “It would be really cool if it made a good acronym.”
    â€œHuh?”
    â€œYou know, like SCUBA.”
    Augie looked at me again like, Huh?
    â€œSCUBA. It stands for Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus,” I explained. “And POTUS is President of the United States. And the first lady is FLOTUS.”
    Augie shook his head. “I never knew what that was called. So, you mean, like SOB is one of those? An ack—”
    â€œAcronym, yeah. But ours would be…” I spelled it out: “O-U-D-A-D.”
    Augie made a face. “How would you even say that? Ow-dad? Sounds like a little kid who got hurt, crying for his father. That’s dumb.”
    â€œOr Oo-dad.”
    â€œEven dumber.”
    I thought about it. “I bet SCUBA sounded dumb, too, the first time somebody said it. SCUBA, SCUBA, SCUBA.”
    Then I tried, “OUDAD, OUDAD, OUDAD. See?” I said. “It doesn’t sound any dumber than SCUBA.”
    â€œUm, Wyatt?” said Augie. “Can we just forget about the acro-whatchamacallit and concentrate on the mission?”
    â€œOkay,” I said. “Sure.”
    We were quiet for a while. My mind had gotten stuck on