Free Crap Kingdom by D. C. Pierson

catch one of our citizens outside the Wall. They’d take them back and torture them and try to find out how to bring it down. There’s a couple of words, and everyone knows them, but no one would ever tell. Ever.”
    “Maybe what I’m supposed to do is like . . . defeat them?”
    “Sure! Maybe you’ll work so hard in the Rat-Snottery we’ll accumulate tons of rat-snot and they’ll be really intimidated and surrender?”
    Tom realized Gark was not being sarcastic.
    “Speaking of which, they close soon! We’d better hurry so you can check out your office.”
    “I’ll check it out next time.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “It’s late at night in my world. I should probably be heading back.”
    “Oh . . . okay,” Gark said. “Let’s go find my conveyance.”

    There was a diaper hanging on a stick poking up out of the sea of old clothes. Gark told Tom that all he had to do was hold his breath and hold on to the stick and go ten or so feet down and before he knew it, that little part of the universe would swoosh around like a revolving door and deposit him back in his own world. The sun was on its way to setting and the water was cooling off. The oarsmen who had agreed to take Tom and Gark out to this spot lit a torch as Tom climbed into the water.
    “So,” Gark said, “I’ll be back tomorrow and then we’ll get started?”
    “Give me a few days, okay?” Tom said.
    “I really think you should’ve taken a look at the Rat-Snottery,” Gark said. “They’re doing some great things these days with nostril wideners.”
    “It’s just . . . I have to think about it,” Tom said.
    “Think about what?” Gark said.
    “All of this,” Tom said. “It’s a lot, is all. So, I’ll see you in a few days?”
    “Uhm . . . okay,” Gark said. “Are you mad at me?”
    “What?” Tom said. “No! No. I mean . . . the pretending-to-be-my-dad thing. That was . . . weird. If you could not do that again, that’d be good.”
    “Yeah,” Gark said. “Yeah . . . that was dumb.”
    “It’s okay,” Tom said. “Well . . . bye.”
    “Bye,” Gark said, the way you said it when someone was leaving much sooner than you’d expected them to.
    Tom grabbed the pole and went down hand-over-hand into the water. Despite the burning, he opened his eyes and watched the dark hulk of the bottom of the raft outlined in the dying daylight and the glow of the oarsmen’s torch as it rowed away from him. The boat had disappeared and his lungs were starting to burn as much as his eyes when the revolving door turned and spat him and a whole lot of soapy water back into the donation box.
    The box’s chute screeched as he pushed it open. He climbed out. It was still nighttime. He took his phone out to check the time but he remembered his phone was very likely broken from having been underwater. The screen was dark. He held down the power button. The screen flashed bright white before going dark again, this time for good.
    Tom started walking home, a boy in saturated clothing walking alone through a darkened subdivision. He didn’t love the idea of almost drowning twice every time he wanted to make a trip to his nameless kingdom. At least he’d know better than to bring electronics next time.
    He reached the apartment building. Tired as he was, he took the stairs two at a time so he could be home that much sooner. From the open balcony hallway of the second floor he could see the sun just starting to rise in the distance. He tried to put his key in the door as quietly as possible.
    There was someone sitting in the recliner in their living room. It was his mom. She was asleep in a bathrobe. Quiet as he’d tried to be, her eyes sprang open as soon as he stepped off the welcome mat.
    “Where were you?”
    His life in this world was about to get worse.

8
    “DUDE?”
    It was lunch period on Friday, the day after the first night of the fall play. Tom and his best friend, Kyle, were sitting at their usual table in