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The Clubhouse War
WE THE PEEPLE of this humble Clubhowse solumly sware to uphold the caus of
justis and peece. We vow to defend and protect this Clubhowse and eech other
from all that may whish to do harm. We vow to let this Clubhowse be a Beecun of
lite and truth for all whishing sancshuery and piece from the stress of life. A
plais wear it is saif to be a kid, were no groan up shall ever entur and whear
fun may exist fourever.
-The Clubhowse Owth-
When all the ballots were in they were taken to a small room to be counted.
Finally the results were back the result was James Edwards, with six votes; John
Edwards, with three votes; and Thomas Sanders, with seven votes. Thomas Sanders
would be the new Clubhouse President. He stepped forward to be crowned.
The old Clubhouse President was James Edwards. James and John, the twins, had
always been the most popular. But surprisingly Thomas had been everybody's
favorite this year. He was the new kid, having just moved into the house across
from the canal three months earlier. He had started out shy and had slowly grown
more confident. Everybody had become his friend. Then he had joined in on the
neighborhood club. Two months after he had joined the club, the annual clubhouse
elections were started. Everybody prompted him to run for president. He went for
it. The first vote had turned up with Vinnie Roberts: Historian, as he had been
for the past five years, Daniel Evans, Ron Davis, Steve Knots, and Adam Hill as
Senate. The vote also left James, John and Thomas in line for President. The
Twins, James and John, had always switched positions every year. James would be
President and John would be Vice-President, the next year it would be the other
way around.
Now that Thomas was proclaimed President he was supposed to select his
Vice-President. He looked at all the members of the Club. He looked through the
people, Daniel, Ron, Steve, Adam, and Vinnie. They all held positions. There was
James and John. No, they had served the position along time and there was no way
to decide between the two. Then there were the others. There was Alex Roberts,
Vinnie's hyper younger brother. No! Then there was David Lewis, the resident
nerd, complete with calculator, eighteen pens, and a brain seven times that of
the average kid. He didn't really have a brain that big, but the way he acted
made a person think he did. He also wasn't very good at being a leader. Thomas
looked around again and saw Timmy Jordan, the youngest and most over looked of
all the members. Timmy always had an unkempt appearance. He was usually the one
who got stuck with guarding the Clubhouse when everybody ran off to attack the
girls with water balloons and water pistols. Thomas glanced around a final time
and finally made his decision
"Timmy Jordan will be the new Vice-President," He announced firmly.
Suddenly the clubhouse was filled with noise as everybody started to argue.
"This is outrageous you can't give Timmy power he gets all excited and pees
his pants at the first sign of pressure," Vinnie voiced.
David responded," Actually, it takes more than just stress to make
someone have to relieve himself. It…" He was suddenly cut off by a sharp
smack by Ron.
"Can't you rethink this? Choose James or maybe John," Ron said
before David could react.
"No, it is settled we need new leadership and we aren't going to find it
in people who have been in office for the past five years. I chose Timmy because
he has been lowest on the food chain since he joined the club. He needs a
chance."
James suddenly stood up," I don't care I'll just start my own club,
where it is O.K. for a person to be in office for five years. So who's with me
for starting a better club." Slowly John stood up. Then Ron stood up,
followed by Vinnie. Daniel not the one to be left out hurriedly stood up. Alex,
seeing his brother, jumped up. James started walking out followed by John,
Vinnie, Ron, Daniel, and Alex.
Thus begun the Clubhouse War. The original club, referred to as the
Old House, kept the old treehouse in the maple tree in the vacant lot on the
corner. The new club, referred to as the Rebels, found a temporary home in a
cleaned out shed across the street at James' house. James stood up to address
his followers, John Edwards, Ron Davis, Vinnie Roberts, Daniel Evans, Alex
Roberts, and newly joined Steven Evans. The Rebellion had taken place not two
hours before. That two hours had been spent finding a new home for the club. It
had been decided that the shed would serve until a new clubhouse could be
arranged. They had retrieved all of their stuff from off the lawn around the
maple tree. The Old House had carelessly thrown it all out. Slowly James drifted
back to the present. Everyone was staring at him expectantly. He decided that he
had better say something.
"We can't just let them get away with this. They have chosen to go
against the laws of the club. Never before in all the years of this club has
such an outrage occurred. That is why we have chosen to meet this day. We must
not let their crimes go unpunished," James said at last.
"We can't win against them they have all the water balloons and squirt
guns," Ron said in argument.
"Yes, that they may have, but look out that window. What do you
see?"
"I see Mrs. Wilson's garden."
"And what is there in Mrs. Wilson's garden?"
"Tomatoes, a peach tree, some zucchini, and peas." Slowly a look of
realization crawled across his face. "We aren't going to steal from her
garden are we? She would kill us."
"Of course we're not going to steal from her garden. We will just go
over there and ask her. She is always willing to give tomatoes, zucchini and
peas to everybody. She will just figure are parents sent us over."
"But what if we get caught?"
"We won't get caught. I promise you."
"Lets go then"
They all jumped up and walked out the door. James stopped just for a second
and then headed out the door. This would be his finest hour.
"They're moving again," Adam said as he looked through some
binoculars out at the shed across the street.
"O.K. keep an eye on them," Thomas said looking up from his review
of the supplies. He had known that eventually the Rebels would decide to attack.
He had decided to toss their stuff out rather than letting them back in just to
avoid a fight for as long as he could. He was now carefully looking over
everything that they had at their disposal, 378 water balloons, enough squirt
guns for everyone to have two, and a hose. Timmy was sitting on a chair acting
completely royal as if the entire world was his to command. He had at first
tried to voice his objections but everybody there stood by him. Then he had
finally resigned to the fact that he was Vice-President and was now acting like
King. David was busy adjusting the water balloon slingshot so that the water
balloons would hit the shed. You had to give it to him he was pretty smart. The
rest were busy filling water balloons.
"They can't do that," Adam shouted breaking the silence.
"What are they doing," Thomas responded in surprise.
"They are coming out of Mrs. Wilson's house with armloads of tomatoes,
zucchini, and bags of peas."
"They are doing what?" Thomas shouted half out of shock half out of
admiration. James must have some kind of plan in order to get tomatoes and peas
out of Mrs. Wilson. She hated children. "We can't let them get away with
this. We need to think of something."
"We could rush-em we have more people and more water balloons,"
Steve suggested.
"We are trying to avoid a fight, "Thomas responded, "Any other
Ideas."
"I know. I know," Timmy spoke up suddenly.
"What is your plan," Thomas said with a bright smile upon his face.
"We could sneak over and take the tomatoes from them at night when
everybody is asleep."
"We would have to find away to sneak out of the house," Thomas
said.
"We could climb out the window," Steve suggested
"That wouldn't work we all have rooms on the second floor and there is a
ten foot drop to the ground," David countered
"We could tie bed sheets together," Steve responded
"Why don't we just spend the night here. We've all done it before and
are parents won't mind," Timmy suggested again to everybody's surprise.
"Great idea, lets do it," Thomas said in resolution. "Lets
head home and meet back her at six O'clock."
With these final words they all departed.
At six O' clock everybody met back at the clubhouse. They all spread out the
sleeping bags. They all settled down to wait. Thomas and Adam took the first
watch, allowing everybody else to sleep. About ten O' clock Timmy and David took
over. Finally at two AM they woke everybody up. They climbed down the stairs and
slowly walked across the street. They silently crept around to the back of the
house. They slowly opened the squeaky door making as little noise as possible.
They looked in hurriedly to make sure nobody was there. It was empty. Nobody was
there. The place looked deserted.
"Where is everything," Thomas whispered.
Nobody was prepared to answer that as they walked back to the treehouse. They
were just about to the edge of the sidewalk when suddenly they heard a splat,
Thomas yelled, and they heard someone shouting, "get-em." Suddenly
they were in a deluge of water balloons. The members of the Old House started
running back to the other side of the street.
Back on the other side of the street they did a quick count to make sure that
everybody was there. David and Timmy were missing. They looked around and saw
two shadows running around underneath the treehouse. Tomatoes, mashed peas and
zucchini, and water balloons were landing all around the figures. Unexpectedly
two things happened at once a door opened and somebody started to shout, and the
smaller of the figures went down. The neighborhood was suddenly wide-awake and
screaming, "What was this madness? Who was responsible? Who was going to
pay the consequences?"
The treehouse was totally quiet. Nearly everybody was trying to find his or
her kids. Everybody else was looking on in wonder at all of the excitement. All
of the kids were found except two, James Edwards and Timmy Jordan. A piercing
scream broke through the noise. A heavy layer of silence seemed to fall across
all who could hear the scream.
There, at the end of the street, by the canal, the struggle could be seen.
James was beating Timmy senseless. Timmy jumped up to get away. James lurched
after him, grabbed him by the shoulder, and tripped on a tree root. James and
Timmy fell toward the canal. James tried to right himself, pushed Timmy
headfirst into the water. James looked back trying to see Timmy.
He saw a small figure fighting to swim a few yards downstream. "Oh
No!," James muttered under his breath. He ran and jumped in. He swam
towards the Timmy. He grabbed him around the waist and started swimming towards
shore. He grabbed a branch just as the current sped up. It was heading down
towards a bridge. James was reaching up to catch one of the supports for the
bridge when his head collided with the pillar. He could feel himself losing
consciousness.
Timmy reached up and grabbed the support with one hand and James with the
other. He was fighting a losing battle as the current tried to sweep him away.
He used pure force of will and held on. He could here voices above him shouting.
Then he saw a man floating there in the middle of the air. Timmy glanced
longingly at the man, looked at James and looked at the support beam. He pulled
James towards the floating man. The floating man grabbed James and shouted
something. Then he floated back up beyond view. Timmy tried to grab the support
beam with his other hand, but slipped as the icy water sucked away his remaining
strength. He felt himself drift away. He was surrounded by a deep warm darkness.
He floated through the darkness in quiet contentment. Without warning something
ripped through the darkness and pulled him up. He felt a shock as the cold air
hit his body. Everything came back to him. Was James okay? He looked around
franticly trying to find James. A calm reassuring voice kept saying, "It's
all right, everything is going to be okay."
The rescue crew pulled the boy up in the arms of one of their crewmen. The
boy was mumbling something as he struggled, "James, James, James."
"It's all right, everything is going to be okay. James is in good
hands."
After that the boy slowly relaxed.
The following afternoon Timmy was sitting up in bed looking across at James.
James was still asleep. Slowly James' eyes opened and he looked around. He
looked up at the ceiling and quickly sat up in bed. Then he looked across to
Timmy. Tears flowed into his eyes and down his cheek, as he looked at him. He
remembered how last night he had been so mad at what Timmy had done to them. The
club had been strong until Timmy had been made Vice-President. James had been so
filled with anger. He was without a job for the first time in five years. He was
a broken man with no power. He figured starting a new club would give him that
power. He took those who would follow him. He had spent some time listening to
the radio transmitter he had stashed underneath the floorboards several years
previous. When he had heard about the plan he was filled with even more anger.
His friends were planning to steal from him. He had told everybody else what he
had heard. Later they had sat waiting for the Old House to leave. Then they had
climbed in with the tomatoes, mashed zucchini, and mashed peas. When he had seen
Timmy go down he knew it was his chance. He had run down to see Timmy running
off down the street. He had rushed after and simply lost control. He was jerked
back to reality. Timmy was saying something.
"What?" James said.
"I said, 'I forgive you,'" Timmy said again
James didn't know what to say. He final responded by saying, "I forgive
you too."
Tears rushed down both of their faces they climbed out of bed and hugged each
other. They stayed that way for a long time. It would be a happy friendship and
would last many years.
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