The Girl Who Owned a City (14 page)

“I think I can,” he said.

“Well, check it out and report to us tomorrow night.”

Their plans were very detailed. They tried to consider every possibility and take no chances. The mistakes of Grandville were mentioned. This time they wanted to be sure.

They spent hours and hours plotting defense. On many nights they talked until daylight. The room quickly filled up with candy wrappers, piles of notes and drawings, and empty soda cans that covered the table and the floor. It was an odd feeling for them to walk out of the dark and messy chamber into the bright sunlight of the hall.

The defense plan was taking shape. “Napoleon himself could learn from it,” Craig boasted one night.

They would dig a secret tunnel entrance from the bushes and then through the hill on Lake Road. Charlie's dogs would be an important part of the plan. “You'd better give us a progress report soon. Let's keep the dogs away from here till they're trained. We can collect them at the airport, maybe in a hangar,” said Lisa. She could easily imagine the dogs barking all night and giving them away.

But the roof defense was the main part of the plan. There'd be a dozen sentries on duty at all times. Dressed in black, and wearing black masks, they'd each patrol about 200 feet of roof line. A small storage shed near each sentry's station would hold guns, ammunition, and a hundred Molotov cocktails.

The brick-wall rim of the flat roof was a perfect shield. There were spaces in the rim for guns to rest on, just like the ramparts of a real castle. The rim was high enough to protect the sentries. Only their heads would show above it. The top of the barrier would be lined with bricks, glass fragments, and paper bags of sand. During an attack, the sentry could run on a board along the edge and shower the enemy with missiles.

The children invented a very dangerous weapon for serious attacks. They put drums of oil next to each sentry shed. These could be heated over wood fires, and pails of the boiling oil could be poured over the rim of the roof onto any enemies brave enough to scale the walls.

At half-hour intervals during the night, each sentry would drop a stone to the ground from his station. If the dogs stirred or barked at the sound, the sentry would know that all was well and that the guardians below were alert and ready.

All these plans made up just a small part of Glenbard's total defenses. After the Glenbard flag was raised and the city was ready, nothing would harm them. There would be no need for face-to-face fighting. The children could defend their home without going over the wall. All they had to do was keep watch and, if necessary, drop things on their attackers.

In the night, the citizens of Glenbard slipped silently from the fortress and went to all the hidden parts of Glen Ellyn, loading, looting, training, and even spying. They moved about in silence.

After the first week, the old high school still seemed deserted. Where are the children of Grand Avenue? old friends and enemies wondered.

At the same time, things were changing mysteriously around town. It was puzzling to the other children. “Hey, where did that big pile of sand go?” they'd ask one another. “It was in front of the lumber yard yesterday.” Or, “Look! Someone's been in the library . . . the shelves are almost empty.” Or, “I thought I heard someone outside the house last night, and then I heard dogs barking. It was scary. It sounded like a hundred dogs barking all at once.”

The night council meetings continued. “We'll never have it ready on schedule,” Lisa complained one night, in the second week of their work. “Charlie, how's your dog training coming along?”

“Okay, I guess, but I haven't been able to work at it for four days,” he explained. “When there's snow on the roads, we can't go out. Our tracks will lead the enemy right to our door.”

“Good thinking,” Lisa complimented him. “I'm sure glad you thought of that! Don't take any chances. We just can't make any dumb mistakes.

“Okay,” she continued, bringing the meeting to a new topic. “I want to talk about an idea that I had last night. There is safety in numbers, and we haven't come close to filling this place up. We just rattle around. There's too much work to do and too few kids to do it. Besides, it would be much safer if people were living in all parts of the building.”

“Get to the point, Lisa,” said Craig. He was tired. It had been a long day.

She glared at him for a moment. “It's just that I haven't thought it through very well. But I think we should fill Glenbard with people. I want to rent parts of our fortress to other kids.”

“Uh-oh, here she goes again,” said Craig to Jill. “I can't take this. I'm going to bed.”

“Stay where you are. It's important,” Lisa said. Jill was silent.

“You see, we've got something special here. Safety—and many things that other kids don't have, like the library, the gym, and the supplies.

“After Glenbard is finished, we can go around Glen Ellyn telling kids about the nice life they could have here. If they can follow our rules and do their share of the work, we could let them join us. They'll pay us with their work.”

“Yes,” said Jill. “I think you're right. In fact, I'm sure you're right. Just think of how much easier things would be. Julie and Nancy would have help with the cooking. And we'd have more friends, more new ideas . . . and fewer possible enemies, because they'd be in with us, instead of out there joining gangs.”

“But that's the problem,” Craig said, still in his bad mood. “When we start adding people, they'll bring new problems with them. How many of them will be spies? How many arguments will we have about rules and things? Suppose some group of kids decides to take over? And don't forget, more people eat more food.”

He was right about the spy danger, and Lisa knew it. But she defended her idea. “I've thought a lot about those problems and I'm sure we can solve them. First, we'll have a list of rules for the new people, and they'll have to sign an agreement, like a contract.”

“I think we should just take families we know personally,” said Jill. “That way we'd be safer. I can think of at least a dozen families I know of that we could trust, and so could every other kid.

“How many people do you think we should plan for, Lisa?” Jill asked.

“Well,” she answered carefully, “I think we should start really small, just to see what problems come up. Let's say, for example, that we took in three families to start with—no more than a dozen new kids altogether. That would give my plan a good test, and we could grow from there.”

Craig seemed encouraged by the idea. His harsh look faded.

Lisa went on. “I have been studying the floor plan of Glenbard, and it seems to me that we might eventually have a city of about 800.”

Craig got up and left the room. “Eight hundred,” he muttered to himself. “Eight hundred!” He felt like swearing out loud.

“He's really mad, Lisa.” Jill started after him.

“Wait, Jill. Let him go. I'll talk to him when he cools off a little. Something else is bothering him, I can tell. He's been acting strange. I hate to say it, but I don't think he likes it here. He's probably got the farm on his mind again!”

The two girls talked about Lisa's new idea in detail. It seemed to have endless possibilities. “As soon as the city is finished, we'll go out and talk to some families,” Jill said. “We'll each find one. Three families will make a good test.”

“Yes, but let's not talk about it with Craig much. We'll wait and let him get interested on his own. Maybe he'll see that it would mean more students for his school and more teachers, too. And even more farmers, for that matter.”

The two girls stared at the candle for some time, thinking about the new plan. Finally Jill spoke, changing the subject.

“Lisa, why do you keep calling it
your
city—saying that it's
your
property?”

“Because it is! I thought I told everyone that on the very first day.”

“But we've all helped to build it, haven't we?” argued Jill. “The kids are starting to call you selfish. They don't like it when you call it yours. They want to own it too.”

“Selfish? I guess I am. But there's more to it than that. Don't forget, it was
my
discovery. The place was just sitting here empty, belonging to no one. I found it, I planned it, I filled it with
my
supplies, and now I run it.

“Nobody else seems to want my job, you know. Craig will probably wind up going off to
his
farm. And you'll leave too, someday, and start
your
hospital. Will it be selfish for him to own his own farm? Will people call him selfish for selling the crops from
his
farm?

“Why should this be any different? At first, I didn't think it made any difference at all, but then I started to imagine what would happen to Glenbard if more than one person was in charge. If a city belonged to no one in particular, it wouldn't get anywhere!

“No, Jill. I know that you like to share things, but it just doesn't work out the way you'd like it to. In the first place, nothing would ever get done. With no one in charge and no one to make decisions, the group would argue all the time about whose property should be shared. And then everybody would be squabbling about how to divide things up, and they'd be too busy to accomplish anything.

“I do own this place, and I don't force anyone to stay. I didn't force you or anyone else to come here. It's a free thing. I'm willing to take the worries and the responsibility, but I'll keep control, thanks.

“Call me selfish all you like, but I don't want to
own
anybody. I don't want anyone to
own
me, and that's what a sharing group wants to do.”

Jill didn't feel like arguing. “Well, anyway,” she said, “I think you're in for trouble if you keep calling it
your
city.”

Lisa considered her next words carefully. “Freedom is more important than sharing, Jill. This is my city. I plan to run it well and build it into something good. But I have to do it the way I think is best.”

Jill left Lisa alone in the tower chamber. Jill was angry, like Craig, though her thoughts about Lisa weren't as critical as his. She sure is stubborn, thought Jill. I hope she doesn't regret it!

Lisa's thoughts were more harsh. I'm not being very smart, she told herself. I need their help, and it's dumb to make them angry. I suppose I can talk more about
our
city, if that will make them happy. But I can't lose control. If I'm ever going to rebuild things, it's got to start with this city. To fill Glenbard with more people would be good for every one of us. It would make life safer and easier.

But she also began to see her job more clearly. She would have to work hard to
earn
her goals. She'd have to offer something better to the children than they could find anywhere else. Like in the kingdom of Real Fun, she thought, smiling.

Lisa didn't sleep that night, except for brief moments in front of the candle, when her head rested on her crossed arms.

On the night of January 16, the ghostly old school building came mysteriously to life. Lights filled the upstairs windows, and there was joyous shouting and excitement on the roof. The glow of a dozen torches dotted the roof line. Horns blared, and a hundred dogs below barked as if to drown out the sounds above them. To the silent audience below, Glenbard looked like a castle.

Cherry bombs burst as they fell from the rim of the roof. Bottle rockets were shot at the moon and then fell to the lake below.

The children on the rooftop said that this celebration was even better than the first holiday in Grandville. There was a lot more to celebrate. The blistered hands that clapped and touched other hands had built something new.

The children on the outside, watching from dozens of dark places, finally had the answer to their mystery. They knew where Grand Avenue had gone. The strange night happenings of the past weeks at last made sense.

If those watching children had been able to stand in the cold throughout the night, they would have learned even more. The celebration lasted till dawn. The citizens of Glenbard sang a new song, and they shouted cheers and challenges that broke the silence of the icy night.

At sunrise, an awkward, small bugler sounded a new call. Slowly, a bright orange-and-yellow flag was raised above the new city.

CHAPTER TWELVE

T

he next year was a busy, happy time at Glenbard. Word of the new city spread quickly. Every day, children called up from the street to a rooftop sentry, “Can we join your city?” A committee of three would emerge from a heavy door under the protection of the rooftop sentries. The committee would ask: “Who are you? Where did you live? Why did you leave? What gang did you join? Who was the leader? Why did you quit?” All of these questions and several more had to be answered.