The Other Brothers - Chapter 5

Chapter 5a

Tommy – House call

One of the Frenchmen rolled me over.  I grasped my stomach in pain.

“Que faites-vous?” The one who seemed to be in charge yelled in French.  He yelled at the other Frenchmen for a while and they said a few things back, but then he pointed at one of the men and said, “Vous!”  Then he pointed at me, “Attrapez-le à la voiture.  Je vais l’emmener à la maison de Joseph.”

“Mais Joseph…” the pointed-at man started.

“Je n’aime pas!  Allez-y!”  He continued shouting at all the other Frenchmen as Pointed-at Man lifted me up.

I breathed hard through my teeth, trying to function in spite of the pain.  “Where are you taking me?” I asked.

“Messieurs Chasseur takes you to a doctor.”

He set me down in the backseat of an old black car.  I laid down in the backseat, holding my wound, just trying to get the blood to slow down.  I could feel the warm stickiness as my blood soaked into my shirt.

Not much later, Chasseur, the In-charge Frenchman, got into the driver’s seat and started up the engine.  One more got in the front, and a third got in the back with me, pushing me back up to a sitting position.

We pulled away from the warehouse and drove down a quiet neighborhood street.  Then we turned onto a bridge leading to an island in the river with big, rich houses.  We parked at a gray house with small Greek columns on the porch.

They pulled me out of the car and led me up to the door.  I felt dizzy and weak, my breath was coming in short gasps.  It seemed like there were a million stairs, but there were probably only five.  They knocked and the door was opened by an average-sized man.  It was hardly open a second when the man tried to close it, but Chasseur held it open and began talking to the man at the door.  A wave of dizziness swept over me and I fell forward a little.  I guess then the man saw me because he said, “Oh mon Dieu!  Qui est-il?”  Chasseur answered him in French.  Then the man at the door said in pretty good English, “An American?  He doesn’t speak French?  That’s it.  We will now speak in English so everyone can understand.”

One of the Frenchmen moaned and said, “Je déteste anglais.”

“That does not matter,” the man said.  Then he changed the subject, “I will only take care of him if you promise that he will stay at my house.”

“But we need to keep him at a facilité secure,” Chasseur said.  “All we need from you is to fix him so we may take him again.”

“No, here is the final deal.  I think he needs to stay at my house because he has lost so much blood.  You don’t want him here because you don’t trust me.  I give you permission to guard my house, as long as you agree that if he leaves my house within the remainder of this week, I can call the police and report you for kidnapping and trespassing.  Is this clear?  Do we have a deal?”

“This will work if you swear to keep it,” Chasseur said.

“I swear on my brother’s gun.” The man at the door said.

Chasseur and the man at the door shook hands stiffly and he let us in.  He grabbed me and helped me to another room and said, “Go over there and lie down.”

I struggled over to where he gestured to and collapsed onto the tableish bed-thing.  He asked me to lift my arms, so I did.  He took my shirt off and cleaned the wound a little.  He took a gauze thing and ordered me to hold it on the wound.  He chased the other men out of the room and shut the door, then spoke to me softly in English, “Are you allergic to anything?”

“No”

He gave me a shot then waited for it to kick in.  Then he took the gauze off and started messing around in my wound.  It still hurt like crazy.

“Can’t you knock me out or something?” I asked.

“No, I want to talk to you, so be quiet and listen.”

I closed my eyes to focus my strength on listening.  He continued, “I used to work for The Horrible, because I’m his brother.  But I never enjoyed it and now I have quit.  Since he and I are brothers, I don’t go to the police if he leaves me alone.

“That’s why we had to make an agreement before I let them in.  Hold still.” I held my breath as he continued working for a while, then he stopped and asked, “Would you like to keep this once it is clean?”  I opened my eyes to see what he meant.  He held in his tweezer-things the bloody bullet.  I didn’t know what to say, and probably couldn’t have said anything even if I’d known.  He put it down and said, “You will want this later, even if you don’t think you want it now.”  He closed the wound and bound it up.  I sat up on the tableish bed-thing, while he went into the other room.  I struggled onto my feet and followed him.  He was standing at a large wardrobe in the near left corner.  There was a double glass door across the room on the right, and across from me was a bed that was neatly made.

“Whoa, wish my room was this clean!” I commented, walking over to where he was.

“I am rarely here to mess it up, it is a miracle I was here for you,” he said pulling down a white button up shirt and blue sweater from the top shelf.  “Put these on.”

I took them, but before I put on the shirt he said, “Wait, give me the white shirt back.  You will want something that will not show the blood, if it bleeds through the bandage.”

I gave the white shirt back and he gave me a black shirt instead.  I put on the shirts while he got something else.  He handed me some euros.  “Get to England.  This should buy you…”

“England?  Why would I want to go to England?” I asked, holding the strange currency.

“The English will protect you and…”

“Whoa-ho, wait a second.  This isn’t Quebec, is it?”

“Oh mon Dieu,” he muttered under his breath.  His gray-blue eyes showed his pity.  “You are so lost, young one.  You are in France.”

“Oh,” I exclaimed, somewhat surprised.  “Ok, that’s pretty cool.”

“As I was saying, that money will buy you a ferry ticket across the Channel.  Take it.”

“Um, will this buy my brother a ticket, too?” I asked.

“You have a brother?” he asked, a little shocked.

“Yeah, but I think he actually got away.”

“Oh non, mon frère est fou.”  He gave me some more euros and left the room.  He came back a short time later with an old small backpack.  “I hope this will be enough food for both you and your brother.”

I took the backpack.  He grabbed my wrist and brought my hand up.  He slipped the bullet into my hand and said, “Pour la bonne chance.  There is a small rowboat downstream.  Take that down the Sane and do not exert yourself.”  With that, he gently pushed me toward the glass door and let me out.  I walked quickly out, looking back to see him flip out a cell phone and begin to talk on it.  I walked toward the river, for once feeling truly encouraged.

Chapter 5b

Dicky – The Sane

I woke up to a cool wind sweeping over my wet pajamas.  I sat up to look around and rubbed my aching head.  The Bad Guys’ fish-packing warehouse was nowhere in sight.  Instead, fields and farmhouses lined the river.  An elderly couple strolled along the riverside.  I felt a great tranquility.  The fields drifted past one by one, and the sun slowly broke through the clouds.  I stood and leaned against the ship’s rail and let the breeze dry out my clothes.

Then I started thinking about Tommy.  “He’s probably dead,” I thought.  “Mom and Dad will be upset, of course, but I won’t be any worse off.  Even if he is alive he won’t be any different.  He’ll just have something new to show off.  I’ll have to hear him tell all the girls at school how he was so heroically shot and he’ll take off his shirt so they’ll giggle and admire his scar.  Bleah.  I almost wish I had been shot dead instead.  Then I wouldn’t have to put up with any more stupid people.”

Then I noticed an empty rowboat coming up alongside the barge.  It was in a stronger current and moved a little faster.  It was very strange.  I started talking to myself, “What the heck?  Another idiotic person didn’t tie up his boat and here it is screaming to the world, ‘Look at me, everybody.  There’s yet another stupid person in the world!’  No one ever learns anything…”

“Why do they even bother to educate some people?”

“Exactly!  Wait a minute…”  It was then I realized that I was not the only participant in the conversation.  I then recognized the voice that had spoken, “Tommy?”

“Hey Dicky, I’m down here!”

I looked back down at the boat and there he was, sitting up in it and grinning at me like a Cheshire cat.  He was not wearing the same shirt as before.  He steered the boat close to the ship, “Come on, we’ve got to get to England!”

I climbed down the side of the ship and stepped down into the little boat.  “Man, I thought you were dead!” I exclaimed.

“Yeah, I kinda thought that, too, for a while.”  He reached into the prow of the rowboat and pulled out a small backpack.  “You hungry?” he asked.

“Oh yes, very much so.”  At this point I didn’t care where he had gotten the food.  He opened the pack and gave me a small plastic bag with a sandwich inside.  He got another just like it for himself.  I was so famished that I devoured my sandwich in a matter of seconds.

He then offered me the rest of his.  I started to object but he said, “You are obviously much hungrier than me.” I decided not to deter this rare opportunity of generosity with a grammar lesson, so I forced a thankful smile and took the half of a sandwich.  “Don’t choke on it, Dicky,” Tommy said.  I took a deep breath and deliberately paused between mouthfuls to chew.

Tommy suddenly sat up and said, “Hey Dicky!  Can I show you something?”

“Sure, I guess,” I replied still carefully chewing the last bite of Tommy’s sandwich.  Tommy reached into his pocket and pulled something out and held it in front of my face.

It took a couple seconds for me to identify it.  “Is that a bullet?”  I asked.

“Yeah, isn’t it cool?”  Then he told me everything he had experienced while I was floating down the river.

“That’s interesting, Tommy.”

He smiled a smile that was so unlike him.  He looked so much more real, in a way, and genuinely happy.  He leaned back into the prow of the boat and slung his legs across the rower’s seat.  Eventually we both fell asleep.

When I reawakened, the rowboat was moored to a small dock.  The river was much wider and there were a lot of people on shore.  Tommy stood on the dock talking to two tall, skinny guys who were standing in a motor boat moored close by.

“Regardez,” the brown-haired one said pointing at me, “the little is awake!”

“Halloo, little,” the black-haired one greeted me, “did you sleep good?”

“Um, I guess,” I replied.

“Well, mes amis, we got to go, so let’s us push off, okey?” the brown-haired one said smiling.  The two guys helped me out of the boat and onto the dock.  We shook hands and Tommy said goodbye, and then the two men went back to their boat to check that it was secure.

“Who were they?” I asked.

“They stopped us from floating out to sea.  Apparently, it is not a good idea to try and cross the English Channel in a rowboat with no oars.”

We walked off the dock and toward the street.  Tommy led us to the ferry station, but the ticket booth was closed for lunch.  As we sat waiting for the ticket booth to reopen, I started pondering our predicament.  “This is so weird,” I said aloud.

“What’s weird?  Well, other than the obvious.”

“Given the circumstances, I would have thought that I would be the one who was slow enough to get shot and who always seems to know what to do.”  Tommy shuffled his feet underneath the bench.  “I mean, back home I was always the one who had to do everything.”

“Um, about that…”

“You never take responsibility for anything; and Mom and Dad are always ‘too busy.’”

“Dicky!” Tommy snapped me out of my rant.  “About that, I want to start over.  I want to try to be myself instead of the brother I think you want me to be.”

“You thought that I wanted you to be a jerk all the time?”

“I’m sorry, Dicky.  I didn’t…”

“Sorry isn’t going to change anything!  I know you: you are mean and you don’t care about me.  Don’t even try to deny it!  A crazy trip to France and a billion dollars can’t change people.  Nothing can!”

“D…”

“Shut up!  I don’t want to hear it.”

We sat there in silence until the ferry company employee came back to his counter.  I took the money from Tommy and bought us two one-way tickets to England.  When the ferry arrived, we took our seats in silence.  I saw people trying not to stare at us.  I looked at us and tried to see what they saw.

They saw two tired-looking boys.  The short one was wearing very dirty blue and white pajamas.  His brown hair was matted and his bare feet and hands were scratched and red.  He was angry with the other one.  The blond one’s face was tearstained and very pale.  He was actually dressed and wearing shoes, but was still quite disheveled.  They saw two worn-out, pitiful boys.

I probably would have been staring at us too, if I had been one of them.

           The ferry finally pulled up to the dock and all the people got off and mingled with the bustling crowd.  Not knowing which way to go, I just started walking.  Tommy walked a little behind me on my right.  Suddenly, he grabbed my shirt.  Before I realized what was happening, he was on his hands and knees.

I turned my head and saw a stranger kneeling next to him.  “Let me help you up, lad,” he said.  “What’s seems to be the matter?  Queasy from the ferry?”

I went over to the stranger.  “Thank you, sir,” I said.

The kind man was a police officer.  He smiled, but looked a little confused.  “Quite odd,” he said, “I thought tourists wore shoes.”

I didn’t take any notice of the joke about my bare feet, I was watching Tommy.  He withdrew his left hand from his stomach: it was bloody.  He was bleeding through his bandages.  I froze, trying not to panic.

Tommy said weakly, “We’re not tourists; we were kidnapped…”

The policeman chuckled, “Kidnapped, eh?  By whom, may I ask?”

“…and I’ve been shot,” Tommy added.

“Shot?” the police officer asked, suddenly serious.  “Where?  May I see?”

Tommy unbuttoned the black shirt he was wearing and showed the officer his bandage.  I had to sit down, or else I would faint.  I lowered myself to the pavement.  “Quite a nasty one,” he commented as Tommy buttoned his shirt back up.  “I say we go down to the station, and get you some medical attention.  Then we’ll figure out what to do with you after that.”  He picked Tommy up so that Tommy was standing.  I stood and walked beside the policeman as he supported Tommy.  I told him briefly of our predicament.

The police officer started talking away, “Interesting tale.  I’m Sergeant McAlister, by the way.  So you say you were kidnapped by the Horrible?  He’s rather a notorious character.  He’s usually a smuggler, though he’s not been caught yet…  Mind the step here.  There we are…  It’s our policy to let the French take care of their own, but if he were ever to meddle in England, we’d put his sorry bum where it belongs!  No one knows where his base of operations is located, but we figure he’s most likely to be somewhere on the Mediterranean.” He continued talking as we continued down the street.  My mind wandered and I stopped listening to him.  We had left the busy crowds by the ferry and had turned down a small street.

Then, out of nowhere, a group of men in dark clothes with clubs came at us.  I got a blow to the stomach and fell to the ground gasping for breath.  Tommy dropped beside me as Sergeant McAlister struggled with one of the men.  A man picked me up and dragged me toward a car parked in an alley.  I started to cry out, but they covered my mouth with a chloroformed cloth.  I got slowly drowsier.  I watched them drag Tommy toward the car.  Then most of them all came at Sergeant McAlister with their clubs and started to really whack him.  My last thought before I dropped out of consciousness was, “I wonder where they’ll take us next.”

Go on to Chaper 6!

The Other Brothers - Chapter 4

Chapter 4a

Tommy – Something Fishy

The water seemed to be everywhere.  It was up my nose, dripping from my hair, in my eyes.  I felt like I was made of lead.  Maybe I was swimming, I didn’t know.  I smelled fish.  I could move a little, but mostly I just felt dead, and confused.  Another splash hit my face, I jumped this time.  I fell off a chair onto the ground.  I spluttered out some of the water from my nose and mouth.  They were laughing.  I remembered what had been happening.  I rolled onto my back and opened my eyes.  It was bright, but the Frenchmen showed up as dark blurs in my vision.  I sat up and blinked in the light.  They were handing me a phone.  I grabbed it and said, “Hello?”

Mom’s voice came over the phone, “Dicky?” she said.

“No, I’m Tommy.”

“Oh sorry, Tommy, are you guys all right?”

“Um, actually, I’m not sure.”

She started crying hysterically.  “Oh, my babies!” she sobbed.

“Is Dad there?” I asked, but then a Frenchman snatched the phone.  He waved his hand and I was dragged away as he started to shout demands to Mom.

“You’re a jerk, Frenchman!”  I yelled back at him.

It looked like we were in some kind of warehouse.  We had come out of a more officey area and were headed to the storage side.  There was intensely awful dead fish smell everywhere.  There were huge metal doors all lined against a wall, and there was a man in smudgy overalls sitting in front of one of them.  He stood up as we approached and opened the door for us.  The Frenchmen tossed me into the dark room.  It became even darker when they closed the door.  I worked on getting the tape off my wrists and ankles while my eyes adjusted to the darkness.  I felt scared and alone.  I started looking for a way to escape.  Eventually I noticed a lump a few feet from me.  I nudged it with my feet.

“Is that you Dicky?” I asked.

He moaned and asked, “Where are we?”  It was Dicky for sure.

“In some kind of storage room, I think.”

“Ugh! The smell is revolting!”

“Agreed.  Next thing you know it will overthrow the government.”

Dicky groaned and sat up.  I had my feet free by then, but I was having trouble with my wrists.  It would be easier…

“Dicky, are your wrists taped together?”

“Yeah.”

“Here, let me get that off for you.”

“I can do it, Tommy.”

“It would be easier for both of us if I undid yours and you undid mine.”

We argued back and forth; Dicky can be very stubborn.  I finally just grabbed him and started ripping the duct tape.  He then carefully peeled mine away.

“We should find a way out of this room,” I said as he was peeling.

“What’s the point?  There are probably lots of guards.  Where would we go?”

“I’ve got to try to get out, otherwise I’ll go insane.”

“We don’t even know if we’re still in the U.S..  While you were out they took us on a plane.  We could be anywhere in the North American continent.”

“like Canada or Mexico?”

“Yes, but not overseas.  Their plane was too small for a long trip.”

“Or we could be in Kansas, not far from the local police station.  Come on, Dicky.  I’m going to try, whether you help me or not.”

Dicky sighed and then looked around.  I didn’t see any way out except through the front door, but then Dicky said, “Do you think you could reach that air vent on the ceiling?”

 Chapter 4b

Dicky – Not in Kansas

Tommy wobbled underneath me as I sat on his shoulders.  “Could you please hold still?” I snapped.

“Give me a break!  I’m doing the best I can under these circumstances!” he replied.

I felt along the edge of the vent, trying to wedge my finger in between the vent and the ceiling.  I got one finger into the crack, then a few more.  The vent bent and then popped.  “I got it!” I exclaimed.  I pried it loose and dropped it.

“Hey,” Tommy wobbled underneath me again, “Watch where you’re throwing that stuff!”

I ignored him and put my arms up into the vent hole, “let go of my feet.”

Tommy put my feet on his shoulders, and then let go.  I pondered which direction I should go, right or left.  I felt a slight breeze from the right, so I pulled myself up into the right-hand side of the shaft.  I crawled a few feet, and then dropped onto my stomach to rest my arms.  A couple seconds later, I heard Tommy jump up to pull himself into the shaft and crawl up behind me.  “Keep moving, Dick,” he whispered, “It won’t be long before they come to check on us.”

I sighed and kept crawling through the shaft.  Every move we made created a sound that echoed back and forth through the duct work.  I came to another vent, and started crawling across it.  Suddenly I plunged down through the opening.  My fingers caught the edge.  I dangled as the metal cut into my fingers.  I looked up at Tommy, afraid to look down.

“Let go,” Tommy said.

“How far is it?” I asked, fearing the worst.

“Only twenty feet or so,” he replied.

I let out a squeal and tried to scramble up.

“I was kidding!  Calm down!” he exclaimed.  He squirmed around and got his feet out.  He sat on the edge of the hole and put his feet next to my hands.  “Grab my ankles,” he ordered.  I released one hand and firmly grasped his left ankle.  Then I grabbed the other one.

“Good, now hang on.”  He slowly lowered his feet, until he was sitting on the edge of the shaft with me dangling perpendicular to the ceiling.  “You can let go, Dicky,” he said.

“How far is it?”

“Four inches”

I looked down and dropped the rest of the way, only a little more than four inches, and then Tommy jumped down, too.

We were in a small access hall with a door at one end.  The sign above the door read, “Sortie.”

“The sign’s in French,” I said.  “We must be in Quebec.”

“Well, I guess we’re not in Kansas anymore, To-to.”  Tommy stepped forward and opened the door; a cold, wet wind blew in.  We went outside.  There was a big truck parked next to the door.  On the other side was a stack of boxes and ropes.  Tommy peeked around the boxes while I snuck around the truck.  The side of the truck sported a dead cartoon fish, and the words “Viande de Qualité, Soc.  Conditionnement du Poisson.”  I went up to the driver’s door and looked through the windows.  There was a small parking lot, an empty street, and a couple men in fish-packing uniform standing by the warehouse door smoking.  We wouldn’t be able to get away in that direction.

I got down off the step to go see what Tommy was doing, but the inscription on the door caught my eye.  It said, “Viande de Qualité, Soc.  Conditionnement du Poisson Entrepôt. Paris, France.”  I almost panicked, but then a ‘poof’ noise followed shortly by a ‘clank’ right behind me interrupted my realization that I was over 4,000 miles further away from home than I had thought I was.

Tommy grabbed the back of my shirt and pushed me past the pile of boxes.  “Run, Dicky,” he yelled.  “They’ve seen us!”  I looked to the left and saw a dozen men coming out of the warehouse, all with guns.

“Poof, poof, poof.”  The guns all started firing.  They had silencers, but the bullets seemed to scream as they whizzed by me.

“Run faster!” Tommy shouted.  “Head for the river!”

I turned toward the right and ran toward the water, zig-zagging between crates and boxes.  I was running faster than I had ever run before, Tommy wasn’t passing me.  I heard him behind me calling out, “Run! Faster!”

A man jumped out in front of me and fired, but I ducked, lost my balance and rolled around a pile of something under a tarpaulin.  I picked myself up and continued to run.

I ran so quickly that Tommy’s voice sounded far away, “Run, idiot!  Go!  Run!”

I dived into the water and glided a few yards to a flat barge.  I climbed up the side and splatted onto the deck.  I breathed heavily and laughed a breathless laugh.  I was safe.  We had done it.  Wait.  I held my breath.  I didn’t hear Tommy breathing.  I sat up and looked around.  He wasn’t there.  I stood up and looked back at the warehouse.  He was lying on the pavement about five feet from the edge of the dock.  The bad guys were gathering around him.

“Tommy!” I called out.  He looked at me and gave me a “Shut up” look.  I ducked down for a moment to avoid being seen by a bad guy who thought he had heard me.  I stood back up to see what the bad guys would do.  Then I saw… I started to get lightheaded… blood; … my knees wobbled… Tommy’s blood… I passed out.

Go on to Chapter 5!

The Other Brothers - Chapter 3

Chapter 3a

Tommy – Time to Escape

I opened my eyes and saw the two henchmen who had attacked me.  I lashed out on first impulse.  One of them hit me over the head.  “Bad idea,” I thought as my vision faded brown and the crown of my head throbbed.  I blinked away the unconsciousness.  I took a deep breath, looked around, and saw Dicky sitting beside me.  I sat up and my head started spinning.  It was then that I noticed we were in a moving vehicle.

Dicky whispered to me, “They said if we promise to be quiet, they’ll take off our gags.”

I looked up at one of the thugs.  He smirked and asked, “Promise?”  I nodded vigorously, so he took off the duct-tape that held the gag in.

“Ow,” I complained.  “How quiet do we have to be?”

“As quiet as we want you,” one of the thugs said.  His English was heavily accented.

“How do we know how quiet that is?” I asked.

“When I hit you, you are too loud.”

That made sense, but otherwise I was confused.  “Dicky,” I said, “Do you know what’s going on?”

“Well, I’ve had some time to think about it…”

“How long?” I interrupted.

“Oh, fifteen minutes, I guess.”

“Where do you think we are?”

“How should I know?  Can I continue?”

“With what?”

“With what’s going on.”

“Oh, right.  Sure.”

“I think they are French…”

“French?  Oh that’s really bad.”

“And they captured us for ransom.”

“Ransom?  Oh crap.”

“Exactly.”

Suddenly, the van swerved wildly and a car horn honked.  Dicky and I were thrown against the side of the vehicle.  We swerved again and the sound of screeching brakes was followed by the sound of crunching metal and breaking glass.  My head hit the wall as we slammed to a stop.  “Ow, whiplash,” I grumbled.

“Stay here,” one of the Frenchmen said.  They left out the back doors, and then slammed them shut.  I crawled to the door and tried the handle with my foot.  The door popped open.

“Alright,” I whispered excitedly.  I swung my legs out the door and stood up.  I ran into the woods beside the road.

“Tommy!” I heard from behind.  I turned to look.  Dicky sat in the door way of the van with his feet taped together, dangling down.

“Oh Great!” I walked back towards Dicky.

“Carry me!” He whispered.

“No way!”

“Tommy!”

“Dicky…” I started to protest, but then I changed my mind.  “Alright, whatever.”  I turned my back toward him and he swung his hands over my head.  I hoisted him up and headed for the trees.  My foot went into a little dip in the ground and twisted.  I buckled under Dicky’s added weight.  “Have you considered going on a diet?” I asked.

“Tommy, look,” he whispered.  His voice was oddly shaky.

I dumped him off my back and turned to see.  A car was crashed against a tree.  There were two men in the front; one was slumped over the steering wheel, and the other was pinned in the passenger seat, but trying to escape.  I recognized them as the lawyers who had brought the will of Dad’s French cousin.  The Frenchmen were gathered around.  The man was crying for help switching between French and English, “Sortez-moi!  Call an ambulance!  I’m stuck! S'il vous plaît!  Get me out! Je suis coincé! Appelez une ambulance!”  One of the bad guys started shouting at the man in the car in French, and the man in the car replied back, a little angry and a little scared.

“I wonder what they’re saying.” I whispered.

“The Bad Guy wants the original will and all copies,” Dicky started translating, “but the French lawyer doesn’t want to tell him where they are.  The Bad Guy claims that Dad’s cousin’s money should belong to a guy called ‘The Horrible’…”  Dicky gasped, and then French lawyer gasped.

“What’s wrong?” I asked nervously.

“Oh crap,” Dicky said.

“What?” I asked again.

At this point, the man in the car started screaming, “Non! No! Mercy! Pitié! S'il vous plaît!”

The Frenchman in charge dramatically put on a pair of gloves, and then ripped a piece of metal off the smashed car.  He slowly pushed it through the French lawyer’s chest.  The lawyer screamed in pain, until he choked on the blood flooding his lungs and mouth.

The Frenchmen left the scene of the crime.  I hoisted Dicky back up and snuck over to the car.  I knew for certain the guy that had been conscious was now dead, but I was curious about the other guy, the American.  I felt the artery in his neck and felt a weak pulse.  He was still alive, but probably wouldn’t be if he didn’t get to a hospital.  I heard the Frenchmen yelling.  They had noticed we were gone.  I ran away as fast as I could.  Then I saw a small gas station down the road.  When I got there, I saw that it was closed for the night.  Then I remembered, I had my cell phone in my pocket!  I set Dicky on the ground and stuck both my hands into my pocket and pulled out my phone.  I really had no idea that it was so difficult to use a phone with your hands taped together.  I dialed 911.

“Hello?  What’s your emergency?” a man’s voice said.

“We were kidnapped.  We got away, but there’s been a car crash.”

“Were there any injuries?”

“Yeah, one man dead, uh, murdered actually, and the other one seriously injured.”

“Murdered?  Are the crash victims the ones who kidnapped you?”

“What?  No, the kidnappers crashed their van into the car and they crashed.  Then the kidnappers, they’re French, stabbed one of them with a piece of the car, but the other one was out, so they thought he was dead.”

“Do you know the kidnappers or the collision victims?”

“No, we just figured out they were French.”

“How?”

“They were speaking French.”

“How many…”

“They’re coming,” I saw the van’s headlights.  “There’s six of them.”

“There are” Dicky muttered from the ground as he tried to free his ankles.

“There are six,” I repeated.  “Most of them have dark hair and the leader is kinda thin and, well, very French-looking, with a big nose like Charles DeGaulle.  We’ve got to go.  I’m going to leave my phone on in my pocket so you can hear them and trace the call or something.  I can’t talk any more. We can’t get away.”

I pushed my phone into my pocket and dashed down the road.  Dicky followed. “Where are you going?” Dicky asked in a harsh whisper.

I kept running.  I heard Dicky being tackled behind me.  I got a couple more yards, and then was tackled from behind.  I tried to squirm away, yelling, “Let go of me, loser!”

“Shut up!” the leader shouted at me as he walked toward where I was pinned to the ground.  “You are not going to get away from me again!”  I looked up at his ugly French face and wished that I didn’t believe him.  One of the Frenchmen tied my ankles together and stood me up.  “L'assommer! Je ne supporte pas ce plus.” the leader yelled, “et obtenir que le téléphone de sa poche!”

Chapter 3b

Dicky – Trapped!

One of the bad guys pulled Tommy’s phone out of his pocket and smashed it on the ground.  Then they held Tommy against the side of the SUV as the leader pulled a small briefcase out of the front seat.  He handed it to one of the other men who said, “C'est une bonne chose que nous apporté supplémentaire, n'est ce pas?”  The bad guy opened the case and pulled out a small syringe.  He jabbed it into the side of Tommy’s neck.  Tommy almost instantly went limp.  I panicked.

“Please don’t drug me!  I’ll be good, I promise I will.  Tommy’s always…”

The bad guy with the needle started laughing, “Que pensez-vous, Chasseur? Devrais-je lui drogue ou pas?”

The leader, Chasseur, chuckled.  “Laissez-le.” he said.  “Nous pouvons avoir besoin le reste plus tard.”

I breathed a sigh of relief as the syringe was placed back into its case.  Then I was pushed into the back of the SUV.  When all the bad guys were situated, they took off down the road.  I could see the gas station as we drove away.  “Where are they taking me?” I wondered.  “Will the police be able to find us from what Tommy said?”

The bad guy sitting to my right chuckled to himself, then he addressed me, “Your face when I took the needle was very… risible, ou comme vous le dites… fun… funny?”

“Mais oui! Et quand il a été la mendicité,” the other bad guy said, then he started in a high, squeaky voice, “‘Please, do not hurt me! I’ll good, I’ll good!’”

Laughter filled the back of the SUV.  They continued their conversation in French, cracking dirty jokes and making fun of me.  I didn’t want to listen to them, but I couldn’t ignore them completely.  “Tommy probably didn’t give the police enough information,” I thought as tears came to my eyes.  “They’re never going to find us.”

We pulled off the highway after a while.  Our guards quickly pulled a large black screen down from the front.  They pushed Tommy in closer to me, and then latched the screen onto the floor, concealing us beneath it.

“What’s going…” I started.

“Shh!  You said you did not need drug, now quiet!”

I heard the guards’ heavy breathing as we stopped.  The sound of a conversation drifted through the screen, but I couldn’t hear it well enough to tell what they were saying; then came a great clanking of a chain link gate opening.  The SUV went forward.  I couldn’t tell where we were, everything was so quiet.  We went through another noisy gate, and then stopped.  The SUV’s doors opened, and its engine cut off.  Suddenly a much bigger engine sputtered, then roared.  The screen was opened and I was dragged out of the SUV.

An airplane!  It was a small cargo plane.  They had parked in the hangar, so that the airport security would not see that they had captives.

Go on to Chapter 4!

The Other Brothers - Chapter 2

Chapter 2a

Tommy – Good News

I jumped out my bedroom window into our sandy lawn.  I stood and stared out at the ocean as it lapped gently against the beach.  “Why can’t I ever do anything right?” I whispered.  “I’ve tried to be better and cool, smarter than I am so that people will like me.”  A stubborn tear fell down my cheek and I quickly brushed it away.  Then I laughed at myself.  “You don’t care if I cry, do you Pacific?  Can’t hide anything from you.  I guess you probably don’t like me either, coming out here all the time talking your ears off about my problems.”  The breeze flicked my blond hair, and I sighed in response.  “I suppose that if I were as honest with everybody as I am with you, then no one would like me.  Why can’t I just be somebody else?”

My thoughts were interrupted by headlights from behind me, gleaming on the ocean.  The car had stopped at our house.  I ran back to the window and climbed in.  I wiped my face on my blanket so no one would know I’d cried and walked quickly out to the door.  Dad had invited them in.  They were in the sitting room.  I went in, too.

“I have a cousin in France?” Dad was asking.

“Yes a very distant cousin, Jean L’Autre,” one of them said.  “You were his closest relative.”

“Yeah, I think I met him once.  What’s going on?  Is he dead?”

“Yes, and you are the sole benefactor of his last will and testament.  Everything he had, he gave to you.”

“Everything?”

“Yes, would you like to see a copy of the will?”

“Definitely,” Dad said.  The man who had not yet spoken pulled a piece of paper from his briefcase and handed it to Dad.

“It is in French.” The first man said.

“That’s alright; I took French in hi…” he stopped abruptly.  He blinked a couple of times, and then reached into a drawer for his reading glasses.  He placed them on his nose and looked again.  “Is this…?” Dad started to ask.

“…Correct?” the man finished.  “Yes,” the man stood up to sit on the couch next to Dad.  “This sum is the amount in his Swiss account, this the amount in his Bermuda account, this the Luxembourg account, and this is his French account.”  The man pointed at different points on the paper.  “This is the cash-value of the landholdings in the United States, and this is the cash-value of the landholdings in France.  This is the amount of all the money, this is the combined cash-value of all landholdings, and this is the total amount.  It’s all in Euros here, of course, so just the money, not the landholdings, would be worth five billion, five hundred thousand, seven hundred dollars, and two cents at current exchange rates.”

I sank to my knees and held my head, trying to keep it from bursting as Dad slumped down in the sofa.  Mom entered the room, closely followed by Dicky.  “Did you just say five billion dollars?” Mom asked.

“That is approximately the correct sum,” the man said standing up. “Of course, you also own over twice that much in landholdings and business shares.”

“T-t-twice?” Mom almost teetered over but Dicky put his arm around her waist to keep her up.

I crawled to my room and scrambled into my bed.  I drifted into a dream of expensive cars and a huge house in France with a topless beach.  It soon changed into a nightmare.  I was made of gold and everyone I knew came and ripped a piece off of me until I was gone.  The only person who realized I was missing was my math teacher, who failed me for not studying.  I woke up and headed to my desk.

Chapter 2b

Dicky – Bad News

I thought I heard someone rummaging in my desk.  I lifted my sleep mask and sat up in bed.  Tommy was peeking at my homework.  “What are you doing?” I asked.

“I just needed a hint,” he said as he closed my notebook and went back to his side of the room.

“Oh yes, I’m sure that’s all you were doing.  How would you even know I’m right?” I pulled my mask back over my eyes to shut out the light from his lamp.

“Ninety-five times out of a hundred you are right,” he said, “Mr. Straight A’s”

He was right for once.  I put on my headphones, rolled over, and turned on my music.  As the mellow sound of classical piano softly reverberated off my ear drums, I contemplated what I would do with Dad’s new-found wealth.  With that kind of money I could go to any college in the world and get as far away from my idiotic family as possible.

I heard Tommy’s bed squeak as he jumped into it.  He turned on his mp3 player.

“I can hear your music,” I complained.

He turned it down.  “Better?”

“Yeah.”  I could still hear it, but I just turned the knob on my radio and adjusted my headphones.  There, it was gone.

I woke up later to someone mashing his hand over my mouth.  It seemed stronger than Tommy.  I started to struggle.  He pressed down harder.  I ripped my mask off.  He was dressed in black.  No, there were two of them.  The one not holding me duck-taped my wrists together and then took off my headphones.  Tommy’s music was on max, probably so Mom and Dad wouldn’t hear the commotion.  Then the curtain between my side of the room and Tommy’s clattered to the ground.  Surprised, I stopped struggling to watch what was going on.  Tommy kicked and squirmed as a man dressed in black clamped his hand over Tommy’s mouth.  Another man in black untangled himself from our curtain and picked himself up.  The man holding Tommy pinched Tommy’s nose shut and held his mouth.  After a while, Tommy stopped struggling.  The man let go.  Tommy fell with a squeak onto his bed, unconscious.  I panicked.  The men who had a hold of me gagged me.  They gagged Tommy, too.  There were four men, two of them carried Tommy to the window and tossed him out, one held me, and the fourth held the duck tape.  I started stomping on the floor, hoping Mom and Dad would hear.  The man holding me lifted me off the floor.

“Pourriez-vous retenir ses jambes?” he said.  They were French.

The duck tape man taped my ankles together.  They brought me to the window.  On the beach, between our house and the sea, there were two ATV’s and a large four-wheel drive SUV.  Two men were outside, tossing Tommy into the back of the SUV.  The men came back and I was tossed out the window.  They caught me.

“J'ai ce garçon,” said one of the men, “Vous allez démarrer la voiture.”

The man who had spoken grabbed my ankles and slung me upside down over his back.  The back of my head collided against his backside as he walked .  My hands dangled below me.  I saw the other four men jump out the window.  Suddenly I was flung into the back of the SUV.  I landed on top of Tommy.  Two of the men climbed in the back of the SUV and the doors slammed shut.

Go on to Chapter 3!

The Other Brothers - Chapter 1

Chapter 1a - Tommy Other

I held my hands above my head, making a triangle, an ‘A’ for ‘attack’.  My friends walked up to my brother.

“Hey, Dicky,” Will called out.

“Shorty,” echoed Kale.

“Richard,” my brother muttered as I snuck up behind him.

“We lost your brother at math class.  He totally disappeared,” said Will.

“Like, whoosh,” said Kale with a large gesture.  I silently unzipped the main pocket of Dicky’s backpack.

“I haven’t seen him,” said Dicky as I pulled his laptop out of his bag.

Dicky started to turn around, but Will saved the mission by grabbing Dicky’s shoulders.  “This is serious, dude!”  I backed away and waved the prize, Dicky’s laptop, above my head.  Both Will and Kale stared over Dicky’s head.  Dicky turned around to see what they were staring at.

His eyes almost glowed red in anger.  “That’s my new laptop!” he snarled.

“Run for it Tom!” shouted Will.

“He’s like really mad, dude,” observed Kale.

Dicky started running for me, so I turned and ran, too.

I jumped through a crowd of people and ran for the exit, smiling at a pretty girl as I went.  She smiled a huge smile, and then turned to her friends, excitedly telling them, “Did you see that?  Tommy Other smiled at me!  He is so cute!”

Dicky was hot on my tail as I rushed through the doors.  As soon as I was out the doors I threw the laptop up in the air.

“No!” Dicky yelled as the laptop flipped way up.  I caught it when it came down.  Kale was there holding two skateboards.  He threw mine onto the ground and I jumped and spun in midair.  I briefly saw Dicky fumbling with his bike chain.  The cute freshman girls gasped and pointed as I waved to them, landed on my skateboard and zoomed away.  Will ran up beside me and tossed me my helmet.  I set it on my head and accelerated down the street.  I glanced behind me to see Dicky gaining on his bike.  I switched the laptop from my right hand to my left then leaned down and grabbed a rock.  I looked behind me again and saw Dicky fumbling with his helmet.  He thought I was going to throw the rock at him.  Just another block.  I looked at Dicky to see that the helmet thing had slowed him down.  There it was; the Wilson’s dog’s house.  I threw the rock and it crashed through the dog’s roof.  The dog rushed out of his house.  I really put on the speed.  Then, I heard the sound of screeching brakes, sliding tires, and Dicky yelling.  I turned around and rolled backwards for a while.  Dicky was warding off the crazy dog.  His bike was five or six feet down the road.  I laughed at the stupid dog trying to eat Dicky’s shirt.  I continued home, feeling just a little bit as confident as I always acted.

The whole thing was a competition, I guess.  I would invent new ways to steal Dicky’s laptop and hide it before he got home.  I gauged my intelligence by how long it took him to find it and whether or not I actually made it home with it.  I made it home that day without Dicky and cooked myself a pizza.  I almost dropped the pizza box into the recycle, but then I had a lightbulb moment.

“Dad?” I called out.

“Yes, Thomas?” He answered from his office.

“Does cold hurt computers?” I asked.

“What?  No, Thomas, I don’t think so.”

“Thanks, Dad”

“No problem.”

I slipped the laptop into the pizza box and put it in the freezer.

Chapter 1b - Dicky Other

I staggered into the house and headed toward the kitchen, where Mom was microwaving her dinner.

She turned toward me and asked, “Why were you so late today, Dicky?”  Her microwave beeped and she turned to get her meal.

“I went to Jesse’s house to get away from Tommy,” I replied as Dad entered the kitchen.

“Who’s Jesse?” Dad asked.

“Is it a girl?” Mom asked hopefully.

“Jesse’s a guy,” Tommy shouted from the TV room, “He’s been Dicky’s geek partner since, like, 3^rd grade.”

“Thanks Tom,” I said sarcastically.

“No Problem,” he shouted back.

“Oh… hmm” Mom sighed.

“What’s that?” Dad asked as I set down my backpack.

“Oh this?” Mom asked.  “It’s a protein bar.  My friend Martha…”

They weren’t going to ask me any more questions.  They didn’t seem to notice that my shirt was torn or that I was covered in cuts and bruises, so I ignored them.  I went toward the bathroom, walking through the TV room.  Tommy was lounging on the couch with a Coke in one hand and the video game controller in the other.  He hacked down several computer animated people while chugging his soda.  I continued to the bathroom and grabbed the band-aids and the Neosporin.

Tommy walked in and leaned on the wall as I sat on the edge of the tub to apply my bandages.  “Are you alright?” he asked.

“I guess, no thanks to you.”

“Did you think I was going to throw that rock at you?”

“Yes,” I said curtly.

“Wasn’t that a brilliant trick, though?”

I looked at him with his “innocent” little smile, thinking he was so smart, and I overflowed with anger. “If you’re fishing for a compliment on your little murder plot, you’re not going to get it from me, jerk.”

I turned back to my wounds.  I heard him moving nervously.  He drew in his breath like he was going to say something, but he just let it out in a sigh.

He left and I heard his video game fire back up, turned up much too loudly.  Then it turned off suddenly.

“Have you done your homework yet?” I heard Dad ask, but Tommy remained silent.  “Thomas…” started Dad.

“No Dad!  Will you leave me alone?” Tommy shouted.  He stormed past the bathroom and into our room, slamming the door behind him.

I came out of the bathroom and got my backpack.  I brought it to our room and set it under my desk.  “Tommy what did you have for supper?” I asked.

A muffled moan came from Tommy’s side of the room.  I put my hand on the curtain that divided our room to enter his side of the room.

“Pizza,” he replied.  “Go away,” his voice was a little hoarse, like it gets when he’s about to hit something, so I left.

Pizza sounded good so I went to the fridge.  I opened the freezer and stood back so I could see up there.  There was only one cheese pizza left, so I reached for it.  I noticed that it was already open.  “Oh great,” I thought, “Tommy ate my pizza.”  I put my hand under the opening and tilted the box, expecting a few crumbs and out slipped my laptop.

Go on to Chapter 2!

The Other Brothers

The Other Brothers documents the adventures of two brothers who are kidnapped and taken far away from home.  They must learn to work together and appreciate each other's talents to escape the evil henchmen and make it back home.

I've been writing this story since I was in ninth grade.  My sister has decided that this is one of her favorite stories, so I've dedicated it to her.  I don't think I would have even finished it if she hadn't been so enthusiastic about it.

I decided to use a first person narrative switching back and forth between the brothers.  I read a book in that style once, found it intriguing, and wanted to try it out.

I also incorporated two foreign languages with the help of Google Translate.  That is the part of the story I've been most concerned about. If you are fluent in either language, please let me know if anything I've written is awkward or not right.

Hope you enjoy The Other Brothers, a story that has taken so long to go to paper from my mind.

I Long For Death

An old man on his cold bed lay.

His clothes were brown, his hair was gray.

His health, fame, fortune: gone away.

He took a deeper breath to say,

“I long for death;

For death, you see,

Is life to me.”

“No, no!” I cried and grabbed his hand.

“Don’t say such things!  You must understand.

Hope for life, there is no Further Land.

Don’t long for death

For death

Is death.”

He shook his head and closed his eyes.

He breathed his last, a peaceful sigh.

He longed for death

That was his doom,

Leading to his final ruin.

Feeling death so close, I left to see the lively world.

Out on the porch was a little girl:

Bows and buttons, ribbons and curls.

So far from death

No death for me

Just life to see.

This little girl stared at the sky.

She breathed a little dreaming sigh.

“What do you wish, girl?” quoth I.

A moment of contemplation, then a reply,

“I long for death;

For death, you see,

Is life to me.”

I in frustration clutched my head.

How horrid!  That one so young wished herself dead!

“You have life, wish not for death instead!

Family, future, friends; husband, children, homestead…

Don’t long for death,

For death

Is death!”

Their point of view seemed so deranged,

‘Gainst all I’d heard of the world’s familiar strain.

But after that day I began to hear a new refrain

More ancient than the world’s beat and bang,

“O long for death;

For death, you see,

Is life to me.”

How strange, but true, the point did ring

That now I hear the angels sing

A Saviour came, the oddest thing,

Who by His blood Salvation brings.

He changed death;

And death by Him,

Is life to me.

So wrong before, but now I say,

O I proclaim it all the day,

“I long for death;

For death, you see,

Is life to me.”

Blog Purpose

I am creating this blog to share with the world, or my friends at least, some of the things I have written in prose and poetry.  I had a blog on which I published stories when I was in seventh grade, but they weren't any good so I'm starting over.

I plan to publish longer stories one chapter at a time with an introduction post before I begin.  The posts will all be tagged with the name of the story so you can find all the chapters easily.  Any poetry will just be in posts by themselves and I will try not to post things out of order. :)  Please post comments, I want to know what you think of my stories, and feel free to be as harsh as you'd like.

Thanks for taking the time to read these crazy ideas that escape from my mind.