Free Hold Zero! by Jean Craighead George Page B

promised we wouldn’t bother with them.”
    “Well, it’s different now,” Steve said firmly.
    “But, Steve!” Craig pleaded. “If we go out there—all of us—if we wait long enough ... they’ll come.”
    Steve turned away. “You fellows go. I won’t tell.”
    Steve went up the road whistling. Craig clenched his fists and jabbed the air. Not Steve, he thought to himself. Not Steve. He can’t let us down too. Then he was angry. He hurried home and called Johnny and Phil.
    He was able to sway Johnny almost immediately, and Phil in about three animated sentences. They were going to wait at Batta until they got some action.
    Craig threw a few things in a knapsack and ambled downstairs. His mother was working in the kitchen. “I’m going out,” he called.
    She called back, “Don’t go far, dinner’s almost ready.”
    He sauntered down the hill. The early November day smelled of walnuts and wild crab apples. The light was clear, the air warm. At last, he thought, we’re going to do something about all this.
    Phil, all grins and bravado, was at the wharf when he got there. “My folks are gonna blow their tops,” he said and threw his sack onto the swamp buggy. “I may stay forever. On the other hand,” and Phil’s voice sounded forlorn, “they may not even miss me. They’re going to a meeting tonight.”
    Johnny snapped the dry joe-pye weed stems as he jumped off the road and ran down the path. He was in a fine mood, braces gleaming behind his smile, arms swinging loosely. He jumped on the swamp buggy.
    “Hey,” Phil said as Craig started the engine, “where’s Steve?”
    Craig turned his back and yanked the cord. His anger came back to him. “He’s got a girl!” he shouted.
    “You’re kidding!” Phil said. “Not Steve. Steve’s gonna be a real scientist.”
    “Well, he isn’t now. He’s taking Cathy Smith to a dance.”
    Craig put the engine in gear. Phil and Johnny were too stunned by the news to say any more. After a time Johnny shrugged, looked toward the island, and shouted, “To shreds with them all! And now to victory!” The craft sailed out beyond the reeds and across the sleeping waters of the slow stream.
    They ate an early dinner and wandered outside to look at the rocket. “She’s beautiful,” said Craig admiringly. “She’s just right!”
    “She’s gotta go off,” said Phil, then added, “and she will!”
    Briefly they wrestled in the grass, then picked the leaves out of the command station and launching pit. Finally Craig gathered a tin can of hickory nuts. He cracked them and passed them around, occasionally contemplating a frog pressing itself into the mud for winter.
    When it grew dark and he could no longer see, Craig sat up in the grass and looked toward the town. “I don’t hear any sirens,” he said. “I wonder if they know we’re missing?”
    Phil listened. The wind sang in the hemlocks and tapped the dry willow limbs together. “Let’s turn on the receiver. We can listen to the news broadcasts about us.”
    Down inside Batta Craig felt a little sorry for himself as the four lights lit the bunks and bounced off the chrome of the receiver. He wasn’t even missed.
    Phil dialed the local radio station. There were no station breaks for an emergency, no frantic bulletins. Craig walked to the invention table, picked up one of the short-range walkie-talkies assembled from kits, and flipped it on.
    Johnny changed the battery in another. He said they were going to need them to talk to each other when everybody came out to launch the rocket and he wanted his perfect.
    The news came on. They rushed to the transceiver. The Security Council of the U.N. was meeting, a local man had won some award, and the Blue Springs football team had lost a game. Craig listened intently until a commercial came on, then he turned down the volume.
    “What time is it?” he asked.
    Phil walked to the far wall and contemplated the convoluted water clock that hung there. “It’s