Free Fort by Cynthia DeFelice

matches and raised him two. He saw my two and raised two more.
    Uh-oh. Was I overplaying my hand? No! I didn’t think so, anyway. I raised two more.
    Dad threw in two more matches. “Okay, hotshot,” he said. “This is getting too rich for me. I see you and call you.”
    I laid down my full house. Dad groaned and put down a queen-high flush in clubs, a pretty decent hand.
    â€œRead ’em and weep!” I said, something I’d learned from watching movies. I made a big show of hauling in all the matches. “Are you sure you want to keep playing?” I teased. “Your match pile is looking a little, uh, low .”
    â€œIt’s considered bad form to gloat when you win,” Dad observed.
    â€œSorry. I couldn’t help it.”
    â€œIt’s getting late. You’d better give your mom a call.”
    â€œOh, right. I forgot.”
    After we’d talked for a while, I asked Mom, very casually, if I’d had a tetanus shot. Pranking Augie about having lockjaw had been fun, but I didn’t want to be sick for real. Immediately, I wished I’d never brought it up. Mom asked me a million questions and made me put Dad on to make sure I didn’t need an ambulance or something. Anyway, the good news was, I did have the shot.
    Monday morning, Augie and I met up to head back out to the fort. The plan, approved by both Dad and Gram, was that we could stay there until dinnertime Wednesday. Then we had to come home for a night to “get re-civilized,” as Gram put it.
    Augie came to my house and we loaded up our backpacks with supplies. Dad had helped me pick out stuff that doesn’t spoil, like cans of tuna fish, beef jerky, saltines, nuts, dried fruit, granola bars, and a new tub of margarine. He’d also let me get junk food like potato chips and Cheetos, which we didn’t usually buy, but he winked and said he’d heard they went well with squirrel. I’d spent part of my allowance on extra flashlight batteries.
    â€œGood score,” Augie said approvingly. He had two new comics to contribute, as well as some homemade cookies from Gram, some tomatoes from her garden, and marbles for the slingshot. We planned to hunt squirrels again.
    Al and Unk weren’t there yet when we stopped to stash our bikes at the junkyard. We headed straight for the fort. As we crossed the stream, we saw right away that the rock was overturned again. This time, the squirrel skin and innards had been disturbed. Actually, they were gone.
    Augie and I looked at each other.
    â€œI guess maybe it was an animal before,” I said uncertainly.
    â€œI guess maybe,” Augie agreed.
    But when we got to the fort, the flap was hanging crookedly, half-open. And when we looked inside, it was obvious right away that someone had been there again.
    First, we were hit with a horrible smell that almost made me toss my breakfast.
    We hadn’t exactly cleaned up on Saturday morning, but we’d left our sleeping bags rolled in one corner and our other stuff in the orange crate shelf or on the table. Now our cards and comics were thrown all around. There was a heap of blackened stubs, as if somebody had lit one match after another and watched them burn down.
    The smell came from the remains of the squirrel, which sat in a disgusting, stinky pile on top of one of the sleeping bags—which just happened to be mine. Worst of all, the whole pile looked like it was moving, which was really creepy. Then I realized it was moving—crawling with maggots, actually—which was way creepier.
    â€œOh, man!” I said. “Gross!”
    I picked up the sleeping bag—making sure not to touch anywhere near the maggots—and took it outside, where I gave it a good shake, sending the guts and maggots flying. I probably should have walked farther away from the fort, but I just wanted that stuff off my sleeping bag .
    Going back into the fort, I looked around again. “What