s2.e4

Water Wars

            “That’s what happened, huh?” Wes said once Jace had summarized the day’s events, while an early episode of 3^rd Rock from the Sun played on their new house’s TV, the show having debuted only a few weeks ago. “Nice job with the grand slam.”           

            “Any idea how the kickball game went originally? Just… wondering.”

            The glow from the comedy show filling up the dark living room and lighting up his face, Wes rubbed his chin and tried to remember. “Ugh, it’s just… too fuzzy.”

            “What’s with you lately? You used to have a photographic memory of pretty much everything that happened in your childhood.”

            “My recollection about bigger events has been a little off recently, I admit.”

            “Is that something we should worry about? Tell me for real—don’t lie or shrug it off to make me feel better. I’m still worried about messing with the past, you know.”

            Wes looked at him from across the couch and replied honestly, “I have been giving it some thought, and maybe… as we really do begin to change more things and leave behind our ‘observation’ phase, my childhood… Maybe my childhood’s being rewritten and it’ll take time for my memories to adjust or catch up.”

            “Well, that’s just great. So… the more we ‘fix’, the harder it’ll get for you to remember what was screwed up in the first place.”

            “I hope it doesn’t get too bad. Still… there might be some times coming up where you and even Millie will have to take command and use your best judgment. At least for now, you know what you gotta do. Put the right team together and try your hardest at laser tag. You don’t even need to win. Just do better than I did the first time.”

            “I convinced Wessy to give Celeste a shot… It wasn’t easy.”

            Wes muted the TV and breathed a sigh of relief. “That’s good.”

            “But I gotta ask, again. If I wasn’t around originally and you never put Celeste on your team, how did the water gun game go the first time? If… you can remember.”

            “Oh, I still got this one,” he said and pointed to his head. “We eventually just asked Wright and Robby. They actually did… okay, nothing to write home about. Us regulars pulled most of the weight. It did suck that we had to bribe them ten bucks each just to have them run around and squirt some guns, though.”

            “You’ve been bribing kids for a while, then, huh? And… who won?”

            “Find out on your own.” Wes grinned a little. “Hey, it’ll be a big, fun thing. I don’t want to ruin it for you by letting you in on how it might end up.”

            “Wait, shouldn’t some of this stuff just be in your first run notes, anyway?”

            “What I could get. I didn’t do much spying around the school, remember?”

            “Right, right… Prison and all that. But, talking about the playground, you have to tell me something about this week. I mean, The Dump’s still closed, and there’s been a heat wave, and tensions are high, and it… kinda feels like everything’s falling apart.”

            “I do remember all the hot days we had right around now. But don’t worry too much about the… dumpster place. It’ll reopen when it’s supposed to.”

            “It’s actually been nice having everyone around on the playground, but, again, it really feels like something’s changed. Stuff doesn’t feel… as fun as it used to.”

            “Post winter break blues. I don’t mean that in a ‘oh man, we have to go back to school’ way. All your classmates are a little worried about growing up, moving onto a new school, maybe going separate ways. You’re in the second half, Jace. Of course, you already did it once before and you were probably pissed off about your friends the entire time, so your mind wasn’t where it was ‘supposed’ to be…” He looked at his nephew expecting a scowl, but he only seemed pensive. “Anyway, point is, they’re anxious.”

            “Is there anything I can, I dunno… ‘fix’ here?”

            Wes shrugged and turned the volume back up. “Maybe not. Time’s become the enemy again. Not that the good memories will stop coming entirely. Man, I really gotta start telling you some middle school stories. We had some good ones.”

            “Middle school…” Jace breathed out. “I know it’ll suck, but I feel like I should be there. I’m starting to feel…” he looked up at Wes and murmured, “Old?”

            Friday was a real scorcher—hot and dry without a cloud in the sky or even a breeze to look forward to. By the time lunch rolled around, there were rumors spreading through the cafeteria that it was too miserable for recess that day, and it would be held inside instead. But then Millie flipped the gossip by sharing that she hadn’t heard anything about it, and the rumor mill slowed and then came to a stop the moment the doors to the playground opened, flooding harsh sunlight into the hall.

            Outside, everything was bleached by the sun, and the heat distortion coming off the basketball court was visible from a mile away. Jace had seen worse from his age of screwed-up weather and climate, but for these 1996 kids, it must have felt like an oven.

            “How can they send us out in this?” Wright complained from the front of the double doors to the playground, at the front of the school’s fifth-graders.

            “What’s the holdup?” an adult man’s voice asked from behind them. Once everyone had turned to see Mr. Drake, grinning with crossed arms, he continued, “Come on, then. Recess only lasts forty minutes. Go enjoy it.”

            Jace heard Spice murmur, “How can he be this evil?”

            Resistance was futile, and the hundred or so kids piled up at the edge of air conditioning began marching into the blaze—with a few of the school’s richer students commenting that they were “totally” going to have their parents sue the place.

            By the ten-minute mark, recess was devoid of movement. Every last student was keeping still in whatever shade they had managed to secure. The space both under the central fort and its second-floor roof was filled up, several kids were sitting beneath the raised halves of the teeter-totters, one was in the shade of the basketball backboard, and most of the others had to rely on the shadows of the playground’s surrounding trees.

            “Welcome to Air is Lava…” Wessy told Jace. “Did this happen at Miller?”

            Jace replied, “Yeah…” And, remembering how the other school’s playground looked, he added, “It doesn’t really have trees, either. So… it could get rough.”

            Wessy’s circle of friends, along with a few others, had managed to make it to the top of the fort first, and were crammed inside of its housing. They could barely move, but being on the second floor did offer a good vantage point of the grounds and all the suffering of the less fortunate who had inadequate shade.

            “I suddenly wouldn’t mind getting soaked tomorrow…” Arthur sighed.

            “Winning’s more important,” Wessy replied.

            Sadie, squished between him and December, grumbled, “This is crazy. We don’t have enough places to get out of the sun, and being in a sardine can isn’t much better than rotting out there. Ugh… normally I don’t mind sweat and smelly stuff too much.”

            Colin, at the edge and trying to keep himself from going down the slide, covered his face up to his nose with his shirt and replied, “Is there anywhere else we can go?”

            Below, a scrawny boy with black hair and a plain white t-shirt walked over, enduring the heat to deliver a message. He seemed impressed by the two dozen kids that somehow managed to occupy the fort—the three under the slide and the five under the bridge giving him a laugh. He wiped off some sweat with the jacket that he was carrying around, and then slung it back over his shoulder before making his announcement.

            “I know a place with more shade if, you know, you feel a bit squeezed.”

            “Is this a new kid?” Wright asked the others. “Anyone know who that is?”

            “I’m not trusting anything he says until I do a background check,” Millie added.

            “Come on…” the messenger sighed. “I’m Park. What, you don’t recognize me?”

            “Oh, wait,” Wessy replied, “that really is Park, isn’t it?”

            “We never see you without a hoodie on, dude,” Jared told him.

            “Hey, I’ll take it off if I’m going to get heat stroke otherwise. Now do you want to hear about this shady spot or not? You’re gonna like this.”

            “How much will it cost us?” Colin asked with skepticism.

            “Nothing! Dump’s free, remember?”

            Delilah, who had been under the bridge looking like a troll, stepped out into the sunlight with a raised eyebrow and replied, “You serious?”

            “Completely. Zach says the owner gave the all clear. We’re back in business.”

            “Great, awesome!” Wessy exclaimed and ran down the slide. “Let’s go!”

            “Um, maybe we should check it out in a small group first,” Arthur suggested. “Just to be safe. The teachers with eyes on the place could’a… set a trap or something.”

            Sadie rolled her eyes. “You guys go do that. Hanging around a dumpster on a hot day when it’s extra stinky is not worth the shade. Besides. If you leave, I get more room.”

            Seeing as how she never went there anyway, the others were just fine with that, and Wessy’s crew took off to the hangout with Delilah, Wright, and Park.

            They passed by Carson and Gerald on the way, who had somehow ended up sharing the shade of the jungle gym—which, considering it was nothing but a bunch of metal bars, was scant at best. Even so, they competed for the space and refused to go elsewhere, as they were in the midst of yet another debate about pop culture favoritism.

            Another gathering spot that had proven popular for Air is Lava days was Old Bob—the tallest, oldest tree on the playground that was even now big enough to make any further growth in Jace’s fifth grade unnoticeable. Over thirty kids were packed in under its life-giving shade, but they were all giving Tamatha and Trudy a wide berth.

            “Go find your own place, Tammy!” Trudy shouted at her and pushed her away, out of the shade. “I’m not sharing Bob with you!”

            “Whoa, man, they’re really going at it,” Colin said. “This heat is driving everyone crazy, tearing friendships apart even…”

            “Not ours, man,” Wessy replied and gave him a friendly slap on the back—only to pull it away again after he instantly realized how sweaty Colin’s shirt had become.

            “Hey,” Delilah said over their squabble. “Trudy, you’re being kind of mean.”

            “Buzz off, Delilah! You’ve got no authority here. Keep your nose out of it.”

            “What’d she’d do this time, anyway? Is it so bad that you’d let her fry out here?”

            “Doesn’t matter, and I can’t remember anyway! But that’s not the point. I almost can’t stand her anymore, and I don’t even know if we can still be BFFs… Maybe we can only be regular friends now,” she declared, resulting in some shocked whispers.

            Tamatha looked ready to cry, but she held back and instead returned fire, “I bet your Lisa Frank collection isn’t even real! Probably just fake knock-off junk!”

            Trudy gasped. “Tamatha! You can’t mean that! My rainbows are real!”

            Tamatha then ran off, passing Zach on her way to the next largest tree, a few feet away. Once there, she blended in with its own collection of kids looking for sanctuary.

            Zach shook his head as he joined them. “None of us will ever be like that, right?”

            It had only taken fifty feet or so of walking under the brutal sun before everyone was sweating heavily. But then the welcoming sight of a dumpster in a school’s back alley reached their dried-out eyes, and they saw that Park was right; the angle of the sun was such that it was entirely in shade. It was also eerily empty and quiet.

            “Screw it, I’m going in,” Jared proclaimed and walked into the clubhouse.

            “Is it really open again, Zach?” Wessy asked him.

            “Yeah, I spoke to the owner about it. I asked Park here to try and get the word around, but I don’t think anyone else wanted to make the trip in this heat.”

            “It’s all good, dude!” Jared said from within The Dump as he looked around. “You could never tell we used to hang out around here, but… it’s the same place.”

            The others shrugged and joined him, with Delilah crossing her arms to look tough as usual and taking up her position as bouncer and walking adult-alarm.

            “This is great,” Wright said and slid his back down the wall. Once he was chilling out on the cool white concrete below, he added with a yawn, “Got the place all to ourselves, boys. I could take a nap down here.”

            “Man, it must be, like, only eighty degrees here,” Arthur noted. “That’s a lot better than the rest of the playground. Anyone bring a deck of cards?”

            Colin touched the metal side of the actual dumpster and pulled his hand back with a grimace. “Big Bertha’s still hot, though. Must’ve been baking in the sun.”

            “These winter heat waves, I tell ya… Crazy sometimes,” Park sighed contently, using his hoodie and his arms as a pillow. “Hey, Wes, word on the street is you and your crew have a big water gun game coming up with some middle-schoolers?”

            “Yeah,” Zach answered for him. “We’re going to kick some ass for fifth-graders everywhere. It’ll be good training for the laser tag tourney, too.”

            “Ah… So, you are doing that, huh? I was interested, but money’s a bit tight right now… As in, I’m saving it up. Don’t think I could afford the entry fee.”

            Jared, his hands in his pockets, shrugged and jokingly suggested, “Steal stuff.”

            “What? No. That isn’t me. My wares are clean. Found and used, sure, but legit.”

            Delilah suddenly turned around with a look of subdued panic and began pointing to the dumpster itself, more frantically by the second. The boys only looked at her.

            “Is she… telling us to get inside that thing?” Wright asked lazily.

            “I’m not doing that,” Colin stated. “I can smell what’s in there. It’s bad today.”

            Delilah then remembered the emergency gesture all the of the club’s attendees were trained to identify and signaled them properly, by putting on her scariest scowl and pulling at her cheeks to form a super frown, making her look close to a certain adult.

            “Oh, crap!” Zach exclaimed. “Drake’s coming! Hide!”

            He was the first to open the dumpster lid and climb in. Wessy and Jared, looking freaked out, followed suit, as did Park, Arthur and Wright. While Jace took his turn and used all his strength to pull himself over the side, he gazed down at a hesitant Colin.

            “Colin, we gotta…” Jace muttered.

            “Why? Or else we lose The Dump? Is that really so bad…? I… I don’t wanna go in that hot, stinky, metal box, Jason…”

            “But… Then the kids from the next class won’t get to enjoy it. Think of them.”

            Colin thought about this for a moment and sighed. “Fine… I guess you’re right.”

            He and Jace got fully inside, stepping right into the layer of lunch room lasagna that had been disposed of some time ago. A heap of trash bags was off in the corner, broken in places and leaking a mix of unidentifiable liquids. This stinkage was amped up by the heat, and all together, it was indeed a little bit disgusting.

            “Ugh!” Jared moaned and pinched his nose shut. “I never expected to actually have to use the emergency shelter. Smells like major butt in here!”

            “Shh!” Wessy whispered, “If we get caught, hopping in here was for nothing!”

            They could hear the voice of Mr. Drake outside. “What are you doing here, young lady? I hope you weren’t planning on hiding in such a place during recess.”

            “Of course not, Mr. Drake!” Delilah had put on her innocent voice. “I just heard some rumors that this was where bad kids were hanging out, and I wanted to make sure that, um… no one was here. You know, doing bad things.”

            “Hmph. Very well, then. Go back to the playground. I’ll watch for miscreants.”

            “O-okay… Um. Bye.”

            Wright moaned, “Oh, dude, you gotta be kidding. Is he just going to stay there?”

            Arthur pressed a button on his watch to make it glow and reported from the rancid darkness, “There are still twenty minutes of recess. Great. Just awesome.”

            “It was supposed to be safe again,” Park grumbled, his voice muffled as he held his jacket over his nose and mouth. “Well, now what? We gotta force this time to go by.”

            “Twenty questions?” Arthur suggested.

            “Oh, yeah, I totally want to play that while trapped in a pitch-black dumpster.”

            “What else are we gonna do? I Spy?”

            After a long, exasperated moan, Park replied, “Animal, vegetable, or mineral?”

            As Ms. Porter wrote ‘Bring a Parent to School Week’ on the blackboard and talked about how adults spent their days at a place called work, Sadie turned to the boys with something of a repulsed expression and remarked, “You guys really stink.”

            There were similar reactions across the classroom, with students holding their noses around Park, Wright, and especially the concentration of Wessy and his friends. A few kids had even moved their desks away from the offenders by a few inches, as if it would help. Jace had never expected to smell like literal hot garbage at school.

            “Yup…” Wessy replied nonchalantly and leaned back in his seat. “It’s a thankless job, keeping The Dump open for the next generation—but worth the fight.”

            “Zach’s gotta have another talk with the owner,” Jared said after scraping off some more of the unidentifiable substance on the bottom of his shoe with a pencil. “If The Dump is gonna reopen and survive, it’s going to need some extra security.”

            “If it’s so important to you, why not just take care of Mr. Drake?” Sadie asked.

            “What, like, tie him up and put him on a bus out of town?” Arthur wondered.

            “I’m kidding, obviously. Has it really been that bad having no garbage heap recently? It gets you guys back out on the playground.”

            “I wonder if he’d take a bribe, though…” Colin mused. “To look the other way.”

            “Hey, can we talk real for a sec and not fantasy?” Wessy asked the others. “You all remember that we’re having our big strategy meeting at my place after school, right?”

            “Yeah, sure,” Sadie replied. “But you’re going to take a shower first, right?”

            Millie suddenly interjected, “You could just hose him down.”

            That got a laugh from Ash, but Wessy looked unamused and continued, “I found us our eighth squad mate, and I need you all to meet, er, them and then talk shop.”

            “Ooo, big mystery, huh?” Jared said. “Is it someone from this class?”

            “W-well, actually… Nah, just wait and find out. It’ll be a surprise. Yeah…”

            The others quickly gave up on trying to coerce an answer out of him, and Wessy gave Jace a bit of a nervous grin before turning his attention back to Ms. Porter.

            “So each day next week, we get to meet some parents!” she concluded her line of reasoning for the pointless yet standard class event Jace lived through once before. “And on the subject of growing up… a few of you may need to start using deodorant.”

            “Hi, everyone!” Wessy’s mom welcomed them as they filed into her house, trying not to comment about the smell they tracked in. “Making some little plans, right?”

            “Mom, it’s an important strategy session!” he corrected her.

            “Oh, right, right. You and your water gun games. Hm, as long as it’s exercise and team work. And hello, Sadie! I don’t get to see you too often. How’s your mom doing?”

            “Just fine, thanks for asking,” she replied politely.

            “Mom, um, that ‘special guest’ I told you about hasn’t arrived yet, right?”

            She smiled and closed the front door. “No, dear. I’ll send them up when they do. Oh, and I already put snacks up there for you and your friends.”

            “T-thanks, Mom…” Wessy then murmured, “Do you have to be so nice?”

            As they traversed the stairs up to Wessy’s room, Zach asked from right behind him, “Why do you gotta be so secretive about this, dude?”

            “He’s probably just embarrassed about this new team-mate,” Sadie replied.

            “Am… am not!” Wessy argued. “I just like surprises, that’s all. Big reveals.”

            His mom had indeed laid out a plethora of snacks, including Capri Suns and Hi-C’s to drink, with Handi-Snacks and chocolate Koala Yummies as the food. Once Jace was done looking at the options, his eyes went to Sadie, who was studying all of the toys in Wessy’s collection that been piled up on top of his entertainment center. This was the first time he had seen her in his room, and apparently, such visits were rare.

            “Ya know, Wes, you really should get rid of some of this stuff,” Sadie suggested. “Do you really need to show off all these Happy Meal toys, for example? Some of these I remember back from the 80s… And what’s with the empty M&M candy dispenser?”

            “Ugh, Sadie, you promised not to judge me last time you were up here!”

            “Yeah, you know he likes to be surrounded by his… stuff,” Colin reminded her.

            “I can’t believe you guys still have sleep overs up here. Where do you all sleep? Do you gotta cram together really close? It’s a cool room, but not very big…”

            “It’s getting tougher when it’s all of us, actually,” Zach replied. “Wonder why.”

            “Um, Zach, maybe because you’re not all eight anymore. You’re growing.”

            “Quiet, everyone,” Jared said. “Someone’s coming up the stairs.”

            Arthur replied after a yawn, “So, we finally get to see the mystery boy.”

            “Is it Wright? Did you get Wright on our team, Wes? Or…” Jared trailed off.

            Celeste was standing in the doorway, her eyes darting around Wessy’s room. All the boys except for Jace and Wes looked shocked, but Sadie quickly took on a grin.

            Jared was the first to respond verbally with, “What the absolute crap, Wes?”

            “Yeah, hello to you, too,” Celeste replied and closed the door behind her.

            “You have to be joking,” Zach muttered. “Seriously…”

            “Come on, guys,” Sadie said and walked over to Celeste. “I think Wes made a brave and mature choice inviting her. Come to think of it… when we go to the arcade with Ash sometimes, Cel’ is pretty good at the light gun games…”

            “Hear me out, guys,” Wessy exclaimed. He then reluctantly added to her defense, “What Sadie just called her—Cel—that’s a name that’s all over the arcades, sometimes even above Gavin and Vanni’s best scores. I noticed it a while back, and, you know, I wanted to give her a chance, so I rang her up and…”

            Arthur, who had been looking at Wessy’s Virtual Boy that was already gathering dust, said with a laugh, “You have her number? Aw, do you want a moment together?”

            “What? N-no! Our moms are just old friends, remember? Her house’s number is in my mom’s phonebook thing… But, seriously, she can shoot.”

            Zach scratched his head and grumbled, “Ah, I don’t know, man… You and Celeste can get so weird when you’re together, and who says being good with a light gun means she’ll be good at shooting in real life, or working on a team?”

            “Okay, first of all, she gets weird around me. I’m just fine.”

            After she glared at Wessy for a moment, Celeste uncrossed her arms and grabbed her slingshot. Just to prove a point, she pulled a penny out of her pocket, loaded up the sling, and shot the coin to impressively remove the hat off of Wessy’s Alan Grant action figure that stood among his Jurassic Park toy collection on his desk.

            “Good enough shot for ya?” she asked Zach.

            “You’re a girl version of Bart Simpson, big deal,” Jared scoffed.

            “Bev from It helped kill Pennywise with a slingshot…” Colin reminded him.

            “You and your monster clowns, Colin. We don’t even use slingshots.”

            “But there’s no rule against it,” Sadie argued.

            Celeste sheathed her weapon and continued, “Give me a sidearm water pistol and a bunch of little water balloons, and I won’t disappoint you.”

            Jared wasn’t finished yet. “But, Wes, these games are much more than just aiming and firing. She’s probably never even done a block-wide water shooter. How’s she going to help the team? Does she even know the rules?”

            “I’ll give her a crash course, okay?” Sadie groaned. “Lay off, J.”

            “Maybe he’s just still mad about that kickball game,” Celeste said, and smiled once she saw his look of surprise. “Yeah. Word reached Miller about that.”

            “Guys,” Wessy spoke over the others before things could escalate. “Celeste can actually give us something really good: a battlefield advantage. We agreed with the other team that we wouldn’t scout out the arena before the game, to make it more interesting, but Celeste here used to live on that block, before she moved for first grade.”

            “So?” Zach said with a shrug. “Jason lives there, too.”

            Celeste sighed, grabbed a Capri Sun pouch, and punctured its bottom with the straw like a pro. Once she had downed about half its contents, she explained what was up, “Yeah, but he just moved there and doesn’t know his way around. When I was a kid on that block, I ran around it inside and out. I could get into pretty much anyone’s backyard, I made my own short cuts, I climbed trees and fences. I made that place my giant playground. Got yelled at by some adults, too, but they could never catch me. It’s barely changed since then. I can draw up a map of all the secrets, let you get the jump on those seventh-graders, give you the best spot to make your flag fort. So. Good enough?”

            Zach pushed down his shades and stared. “Holy crap, what kinda kindergartener were you?” He looked at the others, adding, “I dunno, guys. I think she deserves a shot.”

            Celeste finished her drink and crumpled up the pouch. “And I’m not staying behind to guard the stupid flag. Wanna take a vote, then? Who doesn’t want me in?”

            The kids eyeballed one another, with only Jared half-way raising his hand before quickly dropping it again. Sadie grinned and gave her friend a friendly back slap. Once the deal was sealed, Tiger came meandering into the room. As one of Celeste’s old canine friends, he contently let her get in close and ruffle up his shaggy hair a bit.

            “Man, no offense…” Jared muttered. “But I just don’t get ‘tough’ girls.”

            “Aw,” Sadie replied. “Should we all wear bows and pretty dresses, J? Still, even I have my limits… You guys need to do something about that smell before we talk strats.”

            Celeste looked up from her dog-petting spot on the floor to ask, “What smell?”

            At eight in the morning the next day, Jace took his bike, Super Soaker, and a water bottle to a quiet neighborhood intersection at the other side of his block. Wes had chosen to sleep in like he did on every Saturday, but had wished him good luck the night before. Jace rode in with confidence, however short the ride might’ve been for him.

            “There he is,” Wessy said as he brought in the gang, all also on bikes and ready for the long, hot day ahead in their shorts and t-shirts. Once they dismounted at the corner, he asked, “You ready, Jason? Hey, just stick with me and you’ll do fine.”

            Arthur removed the backpack he was lugging around, opened it, and began passing out walkie-talkies. “Looks like we got here first, so I might as well hand these out. We’re on channel four, guys. And be careful with them! I’ve never borrowed this many from my dad before.” He then checked his watch. “They should be here…”

            Celeste grabbed her walkie and strapped it to her belt—which also held a dozen small balloons filled with red food coloring, while the others pumped their rifles.

            “Remember, Cel…” Sadie spoke up. “Splash damage doesn’t count. You gotta land a direct hit with those things.”

            “Yeah, I know. Won’t be a problem.”

            “Are they really any better than rifles?” Colin wondered as he strapped on the knee pads he had brought for the occasion. “I’m sure you can aim, but, it’s just…”

            “What? Not as simple? I sling, I shoot. I got better range and don’t need to keep up the air pressure.” She then pointed to her orange pistol. “Besides, I still got this.”

            “Zach,” Wessy said and turned to him. “Try to take this a little more seriously than you usually do, okay? This might be a once in a lifetime game for all we know.”

            He tapped his shades and mumbled, “Aw, what, you saying we can’t have fun?”

            “Have fun, but don’t… go off on your own trying to be cool, maybe?”

            Before Zach could offer a retort, they noticed the other group of eight kids walking their bikes to the corner on the opposite side of the intersection. All of them were older, and a couple were quite noticeably taller; a trait of being twelve and up.

            Gavin gave them a smirk from across the street. With him were Stu, Mikey, and a couple of mean-looking girls—one with long red hair, and the other sporting a short, spikey style not unlike Jace’s. Towering above two shorter black boys was a kid even taller than Hutch, with a tooth sticking out and a dark shirt with the word “Korn” on it.

            “Hey, you kiddos showed up,” Gavin scoffed. “Ready to get burned?”

            “Ah, great, he’s trash-talking already…” Colin sighed. “It’s too early for that.”

            The two teams got closer to each other so they wouldn’t have to yell, meeting in the middle of the empty road’s intersection with their bikes at their sides.

            “So, do you all go to Cookton?” Wessy asked Gavin.

            “Yeah, man. This is my crew. Stu and Mikey here I’m sure you’ve seen around already. Janice,” he pointed to the girl with spiky hair, “is Mikey-boy’s girlfriend.”

            “Sup,” she responded, trying to sound like a tween badass.

            “Dude, the kid with the braces has a girlfriend?” Jared whispered to the others.

            “And that’s her friend, Dierdre.” Gavin gestured to the red-haired girl, who didn’t say anything but noticeably had two Soakers; like Zach, she also dual-wielded. “The gruesome twosome over here…” he turned to the black boys, who looked like they were the only ones in the group to have not hit puberty yet, “well, they’re Daron and Duvall. Best friends who do everything together, always have each other’s backs.”

            Wessy and his group watched the two kids share a joke and then laugh about it hysterically, as if they were seemingly locked into their own little world.

            Zach quietly commented, “… Huh, that’s creepily familiar…”

            Gavin continued, “And this Hulk is a kid we used to call The Terror on our side of the neighborhood. Your typical bully menace, now trying to reform himself.”

            “That is not a seventh-grader,” Arthur stated.

            “He got held back. I’m his tutor, and I taught him how to redirect aggression.”

            “Hey guys,” he said with a friendly wave, revealing the Super Soaker 300 water tank backpack he had strapped on—which, along with both his own size and his rifle’s, made him the ‘heavy gunner’ of the group. “Um… I’m, uh… Let’s have a good game.”

            “Does he… have a name other than ‘The Terror’?” Celeste wondered.

            Gavin laughed. “The one his mama gave him, but let’s just go with it so it makes you all scared of him and junk. All right. You guys ready for some Hydro Commandos?”

            Jared swallowed a laugh and snorted, “Hydro Commandos…”

            “Yeah. What? What do you call it? Never mind. Doesn’t matter. Me and Wes agreed on the rules. Twenty-minute prep, our flag forts are on opposite sides of the block—the long sides—and we play until noon, even if we only get one big round in.”

            Wessy added, “So, it’s two out of three, three out of five, or just one winner-take-all, depending on how long the game takes. Then we enjoy the rest of our Saturday.”

            “Yeah,” Gavin replied with another smirk. “Enjoy it while wallowing in defeat.”

            “Ooh, we’re squeezing in some more zingers before the game, huh? Hey, Arthur, you want in on this?”

            Arthur stepped up, nudged his glasses, and submitted for approval, “It could be a long game. Don’t worry, if you run out of water, you can use your own tears.”

            The Terror snorted and chortled back, “Not bad.”

            “Yeah, well…” Gavin began a comeback, only to have to stop so the sixteen kids could back away and let a car pass through. He then shouted his retort, “Tell your moms to keep their walkies on, in case you wanna cry for help.”

            Wessy yelled back, “Whatever. We want this end of the block, by the way.”

            With that, Arthur set his stopwatch for twenty minutes, and the two teams broke up, with Wessy’s red team heading to Jace’s place. As Zach dug into his backpack for their six resupply bottles, Wessy stopped them on the block’s short side.

            “Hold on, Arty—you brought a camera, right? We should save this moment.”

            “Oh, totally. Okay. We’ll do cool combat poses and stuff.”

            “I’ll take the picture,” Jace instinctively offered, and held out his hand.

            “Are you sure, man? Feels like you never get to show up in any of our photos…”

            “It’s fine. I like taking photos. Besides, all your Soakers are cooler than mine.”

            “Well, all right…” Arthur said and handed him his newest disposable camera.

            Directed by Jace, the other seven stepped into the empty street and struck their best Rambo and Terminator poses. Celeste, near Sadie, pulled back her slingshot and aimed at the camera—worrying Jace that she’d let something fly, despite it being empty.

            After the flimsy shutter went off, he returned the camera and they got together for a quick pep-talk, with Wessy suddenly looking like a fearless leader as he spoke.

            “Okay, guys. We’re totally going to show them that just being two grades below doesn’t make us a bunch of pushovers. Zach! How many rounds you wanna win?”

            He beamed. “All of ‘em, man! I’m thinking ten out of ten would be a good start.”

            “That’s what I like to hear. All right, every game of Bullet Water has led to this.” He went for a good old huddle hand-stack, in which everyone participated. “Let’s rock!”

            Three and a half hours later.

            Wessy’s team was exhausted and battered by water, their clothing doused by the blue food coloring that had gotten each of them killed repeatedly. They were running low on their liquid ammunition, and found themselves taking another breather at their base—in front of the shed in the small backyard of Jace’s new house. Rules forbid them from placing their flag inside a structure, so it was instead stabbed into the ground in the middle of a circle of stones that some time ago protected flowers. Like Gavin’s team, their pennant was a bright marker a cable company used to indicate buried wiring.

            Celeste left the tree where she had been keeping watch, her last three balloons at her side. She was the driest, having only been hit twice since the marathon event began.

            “Still don’t see anyone moving around out in the other yards,” she reported.

            “Guys…” Arthur sighed and rubbed his sore muscles as he checked his watch. “We’ve been playing for over three hours. We have to score.”

            “I tried,” Jared huffed tiredly, his nearly empty water rifle resting near him. “I actually managed to get their flag two hours ago… I was so close to scoring…”

            “You didn’t even make it to the sidewalk before getting ambushed and losing it,” Sadie replied. “Ugh… eight players on both teams might just be too much…”

            “Hey, at least they haven’t scored, either,” Zach said. “Maybe we can tie.”

            “I don’t want to tie,” Wessy muttered. “Come on, guys, we can still do this.”

            “We don’t even know where they are,” Colin groaned. “I think they’re just playing mind games with us, trying to psych us out.”

            “Maybe they’re still mad we didn’t tell them one of us had a house on the block.”

            Celeste yanked at her pigtails in an angsty way and replied, “What if they’re not even out there anymore, and they just went home to leave us hanging?”

            “Nah, they wouldn’t officially forfeit just to get back at us.”

            As they debated what to do next, Jace heard a noise from inside the house. He walked up to one of the open windows and saw Wes messing with wiring on the other side of the screen, out of sight from the kids using his backyard as a fort.

            Wes noticed Jace looking in and stopped for a second. “Hey, bud. Still playing?”

            Looking desperate, Jace answered, “Our water’s almost gone—even the refill bucket is empty—and no one’s scored yet. Ready to tell me how this ends?”

            “I really can’t. The fort’s in a different spot, and there are different players. Still, the block’s the same, and if it’s deadlocked, maybe the result will be similar. By the way, do you still have the five bucks I gave you?” Once Jace pulled out the paper and showed it to him, Wes offered his only piece of wisdom before walking away, “Hold onto it.”

            Disappointed by the lack of any real assistance, Jace returned to the others, who sounded like they were already deep into strategizing a last-ditch effort.

            “It’s that Terror kid that scares me most,” Jared said. “Remember when he took down four of us in just one spray? He’s like a T-1000. And his pack’s still a third full.”

            Colin replied, “He’d never sneak up on us, so we just can’t give him a clear shot.”

            “Crazy idea,” Celeste spoke up. “We still have one last reserve bottle out there—the one we stuck in the very back of that for-sale house. If we go right down the middle to their base on the far edge of the block’s other side, we could grab it on the way.”

            “What do you mean… ‘down the middle’?” Zach asked her.

            “Think about it. All this game, we get killed on the sidewalks, because for some reason we keep getting yelled at if we try to spread out even a little into people’s yards. Why don’t we just avoid those death zones and use all my shortcuts in one run?”

            Sadie stared at her. “What’re we gonna do? Run on top of fences and stuff?”

            “We can make it to their flag in three minutes flat if we run. And we’ll take ‘em completely by surprise. We get it and bring it back before they can even take ours.”

            “Hold on, who’s guarding our flag?” Arthur wondered.

            “Not me, man,” Jared grumbled. “I’ve been on flag duty six times already.”

            “No one,” Celeste answered. “All eight of us go, broken into two or three groups. They’ll never expect it. They could take down seven of us, and then, surprise! It’s Sadie!”

            “No one would ever abandon their flag, leave it unguarded…” Colin noted.

            “Exactly! Besides, aren’t you tired of ‘protect the flag’ backyard skirmishes?”

            Wessy rubbed his chin. “I dunno. What do you think, Jason? Is it worth a try?”

            Jace didn’t know why he was suddenly the decider, but saying no to such an insane gamble, especially after nothing else had earned them a point, seemed wrong.

            So, at ten minutes before noon, two separate groups hopped the short chain-link fence around Jace’s house’s backyard, and then split off running across all the backyards that followed, each of them determined to get to the other side of the block.

            On the west side were Wes, Jared, and Jace. Separated by a tall wooden fence that ran alongside the older chain-link were Sadie, Colin, Zach, and Arthur. On top of the chain-link itself was Celeste, guiding them from her vantage point. For Wes’ team, she was behind the wooden fence, with everything below her shoulders obscured.

            “Wes and the ‘J’s—I’m protected on your side,” she said as she used the wooden fence as support, her sneakers rattling the other fence’s overlapping metal strands. “Eyes open, keep moving. Sadie, fall back and do your thing in case you need to save us all.”

            “Got it,” Jace could hear her say. “Switching to stealth mode.”

            “Can you still hear me?” Wessy spoke into his walkie. “Hello, copy?”

            “Their batteries must be really low by this point,” Jared said. “I don’t think she’s gonna let us get too far apart. anyway. But when did Celeste become the captain?”

            Wessy shrugged once he had checked the back corner of a yard’s house. “Hey, none of our strategies have gotten us a point. Got any better ideas? Because I ran out.”

            Celeste stopped where four yards and their fences intersected and watched over her teammates as they climbed the next set of chain-links, exclaiming, “Come on, climb over, I got you covered! I don’t see ‘em over on this side, either…”

            Her tall wooden shield ran through the middle of the next residences, again keeping Celeste from being able to fully aid Wessy’s group, but at the same time still providing the three with cover from anyone waiting to ambush them from the east.

            Halfway across the next yard, as they were crossing through some dried-up shrubbery, shouting erupted on the other side of the big barrier. Jace recognized the voices of those instigating the firefight—that of the girls, Janice and Dierdre, who had frequently paired up over the day. Wessy and Jace went quiet and looked through a hole in the fence. The blue team ladies had gotten the jump on the group, likely springing out from behind a garden trellis. Even Celeste had been hit before she could react.

            She groaned, crossed her arms, and turned to their attackers, keeping her back against the wood while her feet remained firmly planted on top of the chain-link.

            Jared whispered, “Did they get all of them? We might have to leave ‘em behind.”

            “Where do you think you’re going?” Janice asked the others. “Sneaky, sneaky.”

            “You can get down from there, you know,” Dierdre told Celeste with a laugh.

            She replied, “Nope, I’m frozen. I take this game very seriously. And so does she.”

            Sadie had managed to sneak up on them by climbing up onto a low-hanging tree limb, walking across it, and then leaping onto a garden shed attached to the house. By the time the girls turned to her, it was too late, and both got blasted in the face.

            “Ugh!” Dierdre responded and spat out water. “Sadie! You again? Seriously?”

            She smirked, jumped down, and unfroze her buddies. As the Cookton girls had been tagged by headshots, they weren’t allowed to radio a message out, and the other half of the blue team began moving again.

            “No wood fencing from here out,” Celeste told Wessy. “Watch both sides.”

            To avoid bunching up, Wes had his squad follow a few meters behind the others. Celeste running on top of the dividing chain-link made for a crazy sight, but they stayed focused, jumping the next fence to a yard where a cranky old man yelled at them again.

            “Hey, you kids!” he shouted from the back window. “You keep running through my driveway all day, and now you’re in my backyard? Where are your parents?”

            “Let’s hurry before he calls the cops,” Wessy said with a laugh.

            “Yeah,” Jared huffed back as they sprinted. “And let’s not go through here again.”

            After another fence climb, the three reached the back of the empty house, where the last of their reserve bottle was waiting, which they would likely need to score.

            Wessy spoke into his walkie, “Hey, we’re at the cache. Gonna need a minute.”

            “Got it,” Zach’s voice weakly replied. “We’re a house ahead of you. We’re gonna keep moving, but a little slower and more carefully from here out. Try to catch up.”

            Jared reached behind the house’s old, broken heat pump unit and pulled out the liter soda bottle filled with the red-colored life blood of liquid ammo. He unscrewed the cap and his soaker’s tank, looking ready to pour it in, when Wessy stopped him.

            “J, we gotta split that into thirds. We all need some of it.”

            “But I need more of it, man! I only have a few bursts left.”

            “That’s your fault. You don’t try to conserve water when you’re firing.”

            Having to endure another insufferable argument between the two, Jace backed off a bit and checked around the corner of the house. When he turned back around, he saw Daron and Duvall emerging from the opposite side. They effortlessly snuck up on Wessy and Jared, doused them, and then high-fived each other without noticing Jace.

            “Great job, J!” Wessy said as water dripped off his face. “That’s your fault, too!”

            “No way, dude!” Jared yelled back, and then fumbled the bottle, dropping it to the dirt where its contents quickly began to empty. “Now look what you made me do!”

            The bestie boys began laughing, now more interested in watching Jared and Wes instead of moving on. Jace lost his patience and ran at them. The moment the boys saw him, they fired—but their water pressure was low, and they lacked range. Jace returned fire, spraying all four of them, taking out the “D Duo” in the process. Wes and Jared kept arguing even as Jace unfroze them. The two had been like that on and off all day.

            “Aw, man…” Duvall grumbled. “I’m sorry, Daron. That was my bad.”

            “No way, bro. That one was on me. I got caught up in the show here.”

            “This wasn’t a show,” Wessy grumbled. “Anyway, thanks Jace, but now we’re not getting our resupply. I don’t think we’ll be of much use for the raid.”

            “You guys trying some last-ditch run?” Duvall asked. “Man, we gave up on scoring a long time ago. We just started patrolling the block trying to run out the clock.”

            “Then your captain’s a quitter! I don’t do ties if I can help it.”

            “Wes, Jason, we’re good,” Jared told them. “Don’t worry about ammo.”

            “Huh? What’re you talking about?”

            “We’re fine. Let’s just keep moving. Trust me!”

            Wessy shrugged, and they followed Jared into the next yard, leaving the slightly older, slightly more male versions of Tam and Trudy to chat amongst themselves behind an empty house. On the way, Jace began to wonder about Jared’s intentions.

            The next residence was a small vacation home, which had been vacant for weeks. Before they hurried along to the following yard, Jared gestured them to follow him as he walked all sneaky-like to a faucet near the home’s back door.

            “J, what are we doing?” Wessy asked him. “We gotta catch up with the others.”

            “Hold on,” Jared said and began filling his tank with water. “Just a sec.”

            “Jared, what the heck? You can’t do that. It’s cheating.”

            “It’s okay. They’ll never know.” He took out a small bottle of red food coloring. “I got enough to make it look real. You just gotta shake up the tank…”

            Wes looked at Jace, and then back at Jared, squatting near the faucet and about to put a few drops into his supply. With a sigh, Wes took out his pistol and pointed it at the cheater. Upon hearing Wes’ finger on the plastic trigger, Jared stood and faced him.

            “Have you been doing this for a long time, J? You know… cheating?”

            “Are you serious right now? C’mon, it’s no big deal. You know running out of ammo has always been a dumb rule. Any faucet should be an unlimited refill station!”

            “We all agreed to it. That’s all that matters. I’m kinda disappointed in you.”

            “Aw, get over yourself! What are you going to do, shoot me?”

            “Friendly fire’s on for this game, remember? So I totally can.”

            “But you need me, if you want to win. You need me, and some red water…”

            “J, get over yourself,” Wes said and squirted him several times, the red water mixing in with the blue stains and turning purple. “Just chill here until the game ends.”

            “Ugh!” Jared said angrily and sank to the ground. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

            “Sorry you had to see that, Jason,” Wes told him. “C’mon, let’s find the others.”

            They left a sulking Jared behind, and transitioned to the northern, nicer part of the block, with wooden fences exclusively. They hopped the bordering pickets, landing in a backyard with a swimming pool. The moment they landed, Wessy’s walkie buzzed.

            “Wes, where are you?” Zach came in, amid shouting. “We need backup! We’re at their base and can see their flag, but they got us pinned! Maybe, I dunno, flank ‘em?”

            “On our way,” Wes replied and turned to Jace. “Guess they’re counting on us.”

            He replied, “Let’s find that loose fence Celeste mentioned. If it is still useable…”

            “We can sneak up on ‘em! You had all the good ideas today. I… like your style.”

            “Hey, I’ve had some experience. In my old neighborhood.”

            Figuring they wouldn’t run into any foes on the way, they picked up the pace and crossed another three yards, which brought them to the side of Team Blue’s base: the back of another for-sale home. The sound of yelling and blasting water guns reached their ears, and they quickly found a hole in the fence they could use to survey the scene.

            Gavin and Mikey were up in a low-altitude treehouse, taking turns behind cover or firing a few potshots out of the windows once their soakers were pressurized again. But the kid keeping Team Red from advancing was The Terror, who simply stood in the treehouse’s door firing a constant stream from his tank’s seemingly endless water supply.

            Gavin’s team abided by the outdoor flag rule, keeping theirs just out of reach in the sandbox between the treehouse and a rusted swing set that had an old refrigerator door propped up against it, able to absorb all manner of water-based gunfire.

            Team Red was piled up behind it, taking turns peeking over and firing sporadic shots, hoping to hit someone. If they got tagged, they had to wait five seconds before they could be revived, which was a rule just for big skirmishes to make it possible—albeit difficult—to wipe out a clustered team and keep them from insta-unfreezing.

            “All right…” Wessy said in thought. “Blue has the high ground and good cover, but they’re trapped, waiting for us to waste our ammo… What do we do?”

            “Terror’s being backed up by one kid at a time,” Jace replied. “Problem is, they can hit our friends, but our guns barely reach them. But… Celeste has range.”

            “So… you thinkin’ we have her do her thing and grab the flag while two of ‘em are down?” Wes watched Jace nod, tested the loose fence plank, and then got on his walkie, “Okay! Cel, time to use those balloons. I’ll grab the flag before they revive.”

            “Countin’ on you, Wes,” she replied. “Ready? Here goes…”

            She waited for Mikey to take cover and Gavin to start shooting next from the window—and just as he took position, she jolted up, loaded her sling, and lobbed an effective water grenade right at him with pinpoint accuracy. The Terror let out a war cry and aimed at her, but couldn’t get a burst out before also taking a balloon to the chest.

            Wessy leapt into action, with Jace right behind, heart racing just as it did during any intense online FPS match. After three seconds, Wes had already slipped through the fence and nabbed the flag from the sandbox, only tripping at the five second mark as he tried to run off. Mikey tagged back in The Terror—who then got hit again by Celeste right away; there was no respawn invincibility to prevent it. Gavin let out an audible swear, as Mikey couldn’t cross the doorway to unfreeze him without risking getting hit.

            “You guys get out of here!” Zach shouted. “I’ll keep them in the treehouse!”

            “Okay, have fun sacrificing yourself,” Sadie said as they all agreed to the idea.

            “Yeah, baby…” He stood up and adjusted his shades. “I’ll do it in style.”

            He suppressive-fired both Super Soaker 50’s at the treehouse, looking pretty cool as he did so. But he only had enough water to keep it up for a minute at most.

            “Careful, guys,” Arthur huffed once they were in the next yard over. “Haven’t seen Stu in a while. He’s like the Sadie of their team; probably off reviving everyone.”

            Celeste pocketed her slingshot, took out her pistol, and said between breaths, “It’s a long run back to base… Hey, what happened to Jared, anyway?”

            Wessy replied with vagueness, “He, uh, didn’t make it.”

            As they were running in another yard, Janice and Dierdre ambushed them with devastating results—both Wessy and Arthur went down before Celeste could react and return fire with her sidearm, taking out Janice and sending Dierdre back to cover.

            “Just keep running!” Wes yelled at them. “You can make it! Bring it home!”

            He had managed to toss the flag like a javelin to Colin just before being hit, who caught it and began sprinting and hopping fences with all his strength. It felt like there was a helicopter at the end of everything waiting to bring them out of a warzone.

            After another two yards, Daron and Duvall flanked them from the top of a fence and sprayed down a deadly blue rain. Sadie was hit, Jace ducked to avoid it, and Celeste shoved Colin away and got her back soaked in his place. She enjoyed one of her rare chances to cool off on a hot day, giving them a thumbs up as they left her behind.

            “Oh, man…” Colin panted. “Oh, man, it’s just us, Jason. I—I can’t do it, I won’t make it. The entire blue team is gonna converge on us. I’m gonna screw it up.”

            “No way. You got this, Colin. I’ll watch out for Stu.”

            It turned out that Team Blue’s sneaky small kid who focused on unfreezing his teammates was waiting for them in Jace’s own backyard, right in the bushes. He shot at Colin as he ran by, but he didn’t feel any water hit him and kept going, somehow avoiding the stream long enough for Jace to get a bead on his attacker.

            Stu soaked Jace just as Jace soaked Stu, locking the two in place. As Daron, Duvall, Janice, and Dierdre jumped the last fence in pursuit and shot out a torrent of H2O, they all watched as Colin’s experience in baseball came out. He slid home, and planted the blue flag right next to the orange, getting a face full of dirt in the process.

            “Colin!” Jace called out and got on his walkie. “He did it, guys! Colin scored!”

            There were distant shouts of triumph throughout the neighborhood, while the invading Blues groaned and caught their breath. Colin looked up from the ground and saw Gavin ahead of him, who had just arrived from the opposite side of the yard.

            “Ah…” He nearly keeled over as he struggled for air. “I ran… all the way across the block… for nothin’… So close… Whew… Man… Man, what a game…”

            Colin stood up, brushed himself off, and looked at the others. “So… what now?”

            “Why don’t we… get our bikes off your lawn and… Eat some pizza?”