The Fence
The earth thumped, shaking the dewdrops off the banana leaves.
Three children held on to the chain link fence. Their heads popped up just above the shiny metal top bar. Their feet dug into the black and red windscreen strapped on to the steel. Their legs pressed the passion fruit vines, covering the VitAgra corporation logo on the windscreen. They strained their necks to see through the razor wire coiled a few inches from their noses.
Kalen, a tall, skinny, caramel skinned boy with overly large eyes, held his cupped hand to his eye, staring through a circle he had made by clamping his thumb to the tips of his fingers. His messy hair fell around the rest of his face.
“What are you doing?” asked Jayden, the boy next to him. He had really white teeth and a big smile with dimples, dark brown skin and hair so curly it looked like black trampoline springs.
“It isolates all the color and detail,” Kalen replied. “It blocks out all of the other things your eye would focus on.”
“Oh, so like it, umm, what?” asked Jayden.
Kalen kept his hand held to his eye. “Dude, it works. Try it.”
“Shhhh,” whispered Corrine, the sunburned redheaded girl in the middle. “They might have robots that can hear what we’re saying.” She raised one eyebrow and dipped her freckled cheeks and insanely wavy hair below the bar. One chubby hand gripped the rod at the top tightly as she poked at the razor wire with the other. She gasped when it slit her fingertip.
Corrine popped the cut finger into her mouth and sucked on it.
“They don’t have robots,” replied Kalen. He scanned his head from one side to the other, then stopped. “Wait a minute… they do have robots!”
“Oh no way!” Jayden said. He put his cupped hand up to his eye. “Cool!”
Inside the fenced off property was a machine bigger than a house. A long mechanical arm with a flat hammer plate attached, extended into the sky. With tremendous force, it smashed down to the ground and the fence shook again.
Kalen, Jayden and Corrine grabbed on tighter as their bodies jiggled.
“I bet it’s building more robots,” said Jayden. “If I were a robot, I would do that. Then you could have an army of robot clones and live forever.”
“That is a really good idea,” said Kalen. “But I think realistically, it’s building laser cannons.”
Behind them, a wooden flute played in the distance.
“Last one to class is a stinker!” Corrine farted and let go of the fence, turned and dropped down into the vines and leaves of the soft rainforest floor. She scrambled through the thick plants, under the banana trees and out into a clearing.
Jayden dropped down, sinking into the mud. “Oh man!” he said. He pulled his feet out with an icky slurp and dragged the muck over the fallen brush.
Jayden turned back and looked up. “Kalen what are you waiting for? Are you scared?”
“I’m not scared, I’m cautious,” said Kalen. He was frozen at the top of the fence.
“You don’t have to be scared. It’s a nice, soft landing,” said Jayden.
Kalen closed his eyes and let go, dropping like a stone. He landed in the twisted, squishy roots below.
“Bakaaawk!” a wild, brightly colored rooster flapped its wings and popped out of the bush next to him.
Kalen screamed and tried to stand up. He fell back into the muck. His feet kicked out over his head, waving in the air.
The chicken flew into a clearing and ran in a zigzag until it disappeared over the hill.
Jayden laughed so hard that little tears streamed down his face. “Do you want a hand?” he asked. He walked to Kalen and helped him to his feet.
Kalen stood up and brushed mud off of his shoulders. “Yuck.”
The branches parted and Penelope stepped through. She put her hands on her hips. Her Latina eyes scowled at the boys. “Why are you always late for class? Come on!” she yelled.
“We were just having fun,” Jayden said
“You think breaking the rules is fun?” Penelope asked. “Now you’re going to bring all that mud in the classroom and the rest of us are going have to clean it up.” She turned her back to them, flipping her perfectly combed ponytail behind her head. “I think your parents would be ashamed,” she called, walking off.
“I don’t even live with my parents,” Jayden called back to her. He and Kalen trudged through the thick undergrowth.
“Yeah, my mom would never be ashamed of me,” said Kalen. “Unless I acted like a bossy pants to all my friends.”
“Yeah. But Penelope is really pretty for a bossy pants,” said Jayden. “Don’t you think?”
“Umm no,” said Kalen, smiling. “Unless you mean, she’s pretty bossy pants.”
Kalen and Jayden giggled as they pushed the last of the vines away and stepped into the clearing.
The sun had risen over the trees. The day was bright now, but grey clouds loomed in the distance. The playground was empty.
Jayden jogged to the door.
Kalen was right behind him, puffing and wheezing.
Their teacher, Mr. Fox blocked the sliding wood door to the classroom. He was tall and thin, with wavy hair and kind eyes. His Hawaiian skin was tanned from too much sun and wrinkled from lots of smiling. “Whoa, hold up,” he said. He slipped his wooden flute into a rawhide utility belt. “It looks like you two got an early start with the digging today.” He tossed them each a rag.
Corrine stood behind Mr. Fox and peered out at the boys. She pinched her nose and pointed at Kalen, smiling. “Stinker!” she whispered.
Mr. Fox turned to her. “Corrine you weren’t climbing that new fence again, were you?”
Corrine looked at her hands. The silvery metal from the fence had rubbed off on them. The fresh cut from the wire was still red and leaked a tiny droplet of blood. She smiled up at Mr. Fox and shrugged her shoulders. She shook her head ‘no.’
Mr. Fox tilted his head to the side. “The barbed wire at the top is very sharp, and you could be hurt badly if you tried to go over it. Plus, that fence is their way of telling us we are not welcome there. Please don’t climb that fence.”
Corrine ducked her head and ran inside.
Mr. Fox turned back to Kalen and Jayden. “Let’s finish up quickly and efficiently, boys. We have a lot of ferns to get into the ground and there is another hurricane warning for Kauai. It might get ugly real quick today.” He wiped his feet and went inside the class.
Kalen and Jayden dipped their rags in a bucket of catchment water. They began to scrub the mud off their feet, ankles, elbows, and shoulders. Each swipe only spread the mud thicker.
“Scrubbing mud is for servants,” said Kalen. “Watch this.” He pulled out a battery and two wires, connecting them to a paper clip and a popsicle stick. Hooking up the device, he tried to reach back and scrub behind his shoulders, where the mud had started to dry and form reddish brown cracks. Nothing happened.
“That looks super cool, Kalen. You always have the best ideas!” said Jayden. He reached out and brushed some of the mud off Kalen’s back. “I’m just going to scrub the mud with my hands until you get it to work.”
Kalen shuddered. “Ugh. I totally am a stinker.”
In the distance, the ground thumped so hard that the catchment water rippled. Jayden and Kalen craned their necks trying to see over the fence.
