The fort was wrecked. Someone or something had bashed in the walls and knocked down the posts. The branches lay broken, sticking in the hole like kindling. The trapdoor was cracked in half.
Ray’s shoulders slumped. “Geez,” he murmured.
I felt sick as I looked at the destruction. “It was such a good fort,” I said.
“Yeah,” Ray said. He began to pull branches from the heap. Then he stopped. “I don’t think we can fix it.” He was right; it was obliterated. I tied up Jack and dragged myself to the ruins.
“Maybe we could just use the hole,” I said, “like, for campfires and stuff.”
Ray considered the idea. “Yeah, that would be good.”
But not nearly as good as having a fort. Ray and I had worked hard on this one. We’d nailed a plank up high for squirrels to run across, and even that had been destroyed.
Anger burned in my heart. “I don’t think an animal did this.”
Ray examined the debris and tapped a branch against his leg. “I don’t think so either.”
Neither of us said anything after that. It was hard work, stooping over the hole and heaving the logs out. Prickers were in the brambles we’d scattered over the roof; I grabbed a pile of branches and got stuck by one.
“Ow!” I said and dropped the pile. Blood trickled from little pinpoints on my hands.
“You okay?” Ray asked.
“Just some prickers,” I said and wiped my hands on my shorts. As I bent down to pick up the pile again, I saw a flat, odd-looking piece in the brambles. I shook it loose from the other twigs and branches and held it in my hands—a leather strap etched with the figure of a horse. Drops of my own blood stained it.
“Prater!” I snarled. My lips tightened and I squeezed my hands into fists.
Ray stopped. “What?”
I slapped the wristband into his hand.
He straightened up, giving a curt laugh. “Alan,” he said. “I can’t believe he wrecked our fort.”
“I can! He’s a mean, stupid idiot!” I picked up a stick and hurled it through the woods. “I know he’s your cousin, but—”
“He shouldn’t get away with this.” Ray looked mad.
Something unleashed inside of me. I stomped over to Ray and snatched the wristband from him. “He’s not going to.” I went over and untied Jack.
Ray followed me. “What are you going to do?”
Energy pumped through me. My heart was hard as a rock. “He wrecked our fort—I’m going to wreck his.”
“No,” Ray said. “That won’t solve anything.”
“Yes, it will. We’ll be even.” Prater would know what it felt like. Stupid wristband. But when I looked at it, really looked at it, I thought it was cool. If I had one of Jack, I’d wear it, too. The wristband wasn’t stupid—Prater was. I wanted to go over there with a shovel and fling horse manure all over his stupid dressed-up little tree house.
“Let’s go talk to him.” Ray crossed his arms. “See what he has to say.”
Talk? That’s not what I had in mind. But I could sure think of a few choice things to say.