Jude
Jude told Spider they were going someplace magic. If Spider breathed a word to anyone, especially—especially—their mother, the place would disappear. Spider bought it. He took his Super Soaker, and by the time they got to the fortress, he’d shot dead a mess of cars, squirrels, trees, cats, and other little kids. He tried to shoot up a bench of old men but one of them knocked the gun away with his cane, quick as a Ninja assassin.
As they walked up the house’s driveway, brown grasshoppers busted out of the tall grass. Bees hummed in the flowers tumbling over the fence. Usually bees freaked Spider out, but he was too excited to notice. When Jude showed him the fortress, though, he looked confused.
“That’s magic?” he asked.
Jabari was already there, straining his nonexisting muscles to drag a massive board from behind the garage.
“Help me, JD,” he grunted. “Watch the nails.”
Killer nails stuck out all over the board. It would’ve made a great weapon if it didn’t weigh as much as a baby elephant. Jabari said it’d make their fortress 100 percent impenetrable. By the time they’d dragged it across the yard, Spider was inside the fortress. When Jude checked, his baby brother looked up, all bug-eyed.
“It is magic,” he said.
“I’m making a wish.”
Jude almost laughed. Or cried. Or something. “For what?”
Spider didn’t answer. He got busy lining up pebbles and twigs on the Beautyrest. Whispering to himself, something about a train going into outer space. Jude had to smile. Maybe he hadn’t been lying. This place was magic. When you came here, you got lifted out of the real world and set down someplace where you were a different, better version of yourself. Jabari wasn’t bully bait—he was in charge. Spider was contented. He was...what? Easier. Not mad, not worried. Jude almost wished their mother could see them now. See what Jude had built and how good Spider was behaving. Maybe she’d be a little proud.
Yeah right.
Do not even think about her.
Jude grabbed Spider’s Super Soaker and went inside the house. He filled the gun under the kitchen faucet. Some kid had crayoned his name on the wall. ted. The E had like ten lines instead of three. Jude bet Ted got in big trouble for writing on the wall.
Outside, Jabari was bending over, butt in the air. Perfect ambush position! Jude’s finger was on the trigger when he heard a scream that took his scalp off.
“Bees! Bees!”
Spider busted out of the fortress. His eyes were shut and he was slapping the air with both hands.
“Spy! Look out!”
Too late. Spider tripped. Sucked in a breath, his mouth a hole, and fell over sideways. In slow motion and high definition, it seemed like, so Jude could see the big nail waiting to poke his eye out.
Spider let out a howl like a black wind.
“They stinged me!”
For a wild second Jude hoped it was true. Spider had gotten stung and was freaking out—that was all. Then he saw the cut. Spider’s eye was still in his head, but just above it, a jagged cut poured down blood.
And more blood.
“Spidey. It’s okay.” Jude wiped it with his T-shirt. “You’re okay, Spy!”
“Here!” Jabari came running with some gray stuff. “Spiderweb. Gram says it stops bleeding.”
“Are you whack? Get that away from him!”
“I’m blooding!” screamed Spider. “I’m dying!”
“Suck it,” Jabari told Jude.
“What?!”
“To get the poison out.”
Jude was pretty sure that’s what you did for snakebites, not puncture wounds, but he put his lips to his little brother’s head and sucked. The salty taste of blood filled his mouth. Spider, weirdest kid on planet Earth, laughed.
“That tickles,” he said, then cried even harder. “I want Mom!”
Desperate, Jude took the sticky web and patted it on the cut.
“Did he have his shots?” Jabari wanted to know.
“What?” Jude couldn’t believe how calm Jabari was. Either he didn’t get that this was the last day of Jude’s life or he didn’t care.
“You know. The shots you get when you’re a baby. One’s for tetanus. The disease you get from rusty nails.”
Wasn’t getting a hole ripped in your flesh bad enough? You could get a disease, too? Jude looked at the nails sticking out of the board. Rusty. Rusty for sure.
Jabari pulled out his phone and read out loud the tetanus symptoms. Fever. Tightening of the jaw. Swelling. Difficulty swallowing...
“Shut up!” said Jude.
Jabari looked surprised. Even a little hurt. “He probably got his shots,” he said. “You probably don’t have to worry.”
Spider was doing that gulping thing that happens when you cry yourself dry. As far as Jude could tell, his jaw looked normal. But blood was smeared all over his face, his hair, his hands. Jude would’ve given anything to reverse time and put his little brother back inside the fortress, making his magic train, acting so sweet you loved him with no problem.
“He might need stitches though,” Jabari said. “The time my sister split her head open on the coffee table—”
“Guess what?” Jude exploded. “This would’ve never happened except for you. I told you we shouldn’t bring him but you talked me into it. Same with that freaking board. This whole thing was your jerk-face idea.”
Jabari stared, confused. He really did look sorry, and for some reason, that made Jude even madder. With strength he didn’t know he had, he picked up the board and threw it. It knocked a sheet of plywood sideways, then kept on going, flattening a corner of the fortress and dragging off the tarp.
“Look what you did!” Stupid Jabari looked like he might stupid cry. “What’d you do that for?”
“This fort was the world’s lamest idea!”
“It’s a fortress.”
“The only thing lamer is you!”
“You didn’t have to wreck it!”
“Shut your face before I do it for you!”
Jude was afraid his brother might refuse to walk, but he let Jude take his hand.
“Why are you blaming me?” Jabari yelped. “It was an accident. It’s nobody’s fault he got hurt.”
Jabari knew nothing. Nothing.
Jabari kept calling after them, but guess who refused to turn around?