I am in the jungle again. My feet are rooted to the bank, like I’m ankle-deep in dried concrete.
A scream builds in my throat—and sticks there, like I’ve swallowed an egg whole.
The first boy comes into that open clearing and stands still as a statue. Waiting.
I lurch forward, and discover my feet do move. I take a slow, dragging step for the edge.
The shots begin upriver, angry fireflies flashing from a tangled mesh of vines and roots. A sudden metallic rattle.
That first boy falls stiff as a board, end over end, down into the dark river. He disappears without a splash.
“No!”
No sooner does the word tear from my lips than that awful machine-gun rattling begins again. Its murderous wail drowns me out, and a second boy slips below the surface.
Pete will be up soon. He’s in line right now, waiting his turn.
I leap. For a moment I hang between water and sky. The river is thick and warm as blood. I fight my way through it for the far bank, clawing to get my head above the surface so I can shout while I swim. When I do, I see the bank is much higher than the river. I’m going to have to climb.
A familiar shape strolls to the edge of that cliff. Tall with broad shoulders. Moppy head of hair. My brother.
“Pete! No!”
A mouthful of warm water gurgles my words.
But Pete hears me. He stops and bends slightly from the waist, looking down into the river, searching for me.
“Run!” I try to scream, just as that rattle begins again.
There is a single mosquito tapping against the inside of my bedroom window when I awake. I watch it strike the glass, buzz off angrily, circle about, and come around again, only to fly into the glass once more.
I draw a long, deep breath and let the air out into the feeble light. Dawn soon. Sights of the river and that fiery sky fade.
Inside, I’m still screaming.
Time’s running out. Pete’s eighteenth birthday is just a few weeks away. Frankie and me need to make him famous before then. Famous people don’t get drafted. Famous people don’t get sent off and killed.
I peel damp sheets away from me and kick them in a bunch down to the foot of my bed. Morning air is cool on my skin. I draw another deep breath.
Frankie. Frankie’s here. Frankie knows how to write. We’ve got him a typewriter. And he’s passed all of Pete’s tests, so he can come along on the search for that old fighter jet. Maybe we could even start the search today.
An itching on my wrist. A red bump. That mosquito bit me sometime in the night.
It’s still buzzing over by the window. Once, he dips down to the windowsill, and I think he’ll finally get out of our room. But he dips too low, and instead of flying out into the coming day, he buzzes around Frankie’s head.
Enough.
I look around for something to swat him with, but all I see is Will’s Saturday Evening Post magazine on the floor by the bunk, the one with Senator Kennedy’s boyish face on the cover. That’s no good.
Today is some sort of political decision day in California. Bobby Kennedy is expected to win. If he does, Will says, he’ll be the Democrats’ candidate for president in the fall. Will’s been waiting for it all week, and last night he fell asleep reading the magazine.
I can’t use Will’s magazine to kill a mosquito.
But then the itch on my wrist comes again, worse than before.
The mosquito circles Frankie’s sleeping face.
I decide.
Glancing carefully at my sleeping brothers, I hop down and take the magazine. I roll it up and tiptoe on creaky floorboards over to the window.
The mosquito jumps up, misses the window again, and taps the glass once. Twice.
The third time, Will’s rolled-up magazine is right behind him.
Splat.
When I bring the magazine away, I see I’ve smashed him good. He’s smeared to the glass in a sticky mess.
“Gotcha,” I whisper.
Then I look down and see the blood and bug juice on Will’s magazine.
If I’d been smarter, I’d have rolled the magazine with the front cover facing in. Those bug guts would have splattered across the Winston cigarette ad on the back cover. Instead, a blotch of blood has smeared right across the front—right across Bobby Kennedy’s smiling face.
Uh-oh.
Quickly, I try wiping it with my finger.
It smudges.
I press a little harder. Soggy paper slides under my thumb. I stop.
A sudden sigh from my brothers’ bed sends me shooting back to my own. I toss the magazine and dive into my bed, pulling up sheets still wet with my own sweat.
I roll over and pretend to be asleep. That mosquito bite on my wrist itches like mad, but I don’t scratch it. I lie still.