Operation Celt.” Kyler makes a face. “OK. Operation…” I crunch one more chip. “Operation Vercingetorix!”
“What did you say?”
“Where…kin…get…uh…rix. He was a Gaul, a French Celt, who led a revolt against Julius Caesar.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes! Where…kin…get…uh…rix. At least, that’s how Dad says it, and he took Latin in school.”
“Wow. Cool. Operation Vercingetorix.”
“Or Operation Where Can Get a Celt.” I start to giggle. “Instead of get…uh…rix!”
“Operation Getaceltorix.” Kyler wants to shout, I can tell, but he can’t so he does a sort of crazy whisper instead, contorting his lips as he speaks.
“You’re one scary dude!” I say.
Kyler gives me a double thumbs-up.
I do the same.
“Operation Getaceltorix! The hunt is on!”
The next morning, Kyler’s at my house extra early with a map he’s printed off the Internet. “Got it,” he shouts, waving the paper in my face before I can shut him up.
“What’s that, Kyler?” Mom raises her eyebrows as she sweeps veggie peelings into the trash. I should have warned Kyler she’d be here this morning. She has a sixth sense for trouble.
When she’s not on nights, Mom likes to get up and make sure I eat a good breakfast. Cooked stuff. “Protein not pastries,” she always says. She packs my lunch box, too, with salads, fruit, and carrot sticks. On these mornings, Grandpa stays in bed with his cup of coffee. “To keep it company,” he says, but he’s really keeping out of Mom’s way.
When it’s just Grandpa and me, I eat a huge bowl of cereal for breakfast. Without milk. The crunching sets me up for the day brainwise. Then Grandpa makes me a chocolate-spread sandwich the size of my military history book for lunch, and I grab a bag of chips from his poker night store hidden in the garage. Grandpa’s packed lunches are great. Mom disagrees. I’ve tried telling her chips are brain food, but she’s not bought into this yet.
“Carrots are crunchier…and nutritious!” She sounds like a health food commercial.
Anyway, the minute Kyler sees Mom in the kitchen he looks guilty. He hides the map behind his back and squeaks hello. Wrong move. Mom leans over the counter with a look that says she knows something’s up.
“The map! Great,” I say, quickly. “Miss O’Brien will give us extra credit, for sure.”
Mom chops an apple, eyebrows still raised. “Are you two working on something for school?”
Kyler nods and glances at me. I want to cover for him, but why does he leave the direct question to me? He should know by now they aren’t my strong suit.
Mom asks again, “Is that something for school?”
No, I want to say, we’re looking for a Celtic warrior in every park we can find. “No,” I find myself saying, “I mean, yeah.” I hesitate. “It’s a map of our route to school,” which is true. “And we want to work on it a bit more before class.”
“Great,” Mom says. “Is Miss O’—” She glances at the clock. “Oh! My goodness, look at the time. I have a dentist appointment in twenty minutes, and I haven’t finished your fruit salad yet. Mikey, go brush your teeth.”
We’re saved! Kyler and I run upstairs like we have rocket packs strapped to our backs.
“Lucky,” Kyler says as he slams my bedroom door. He puts the map on my desk and points with a pencil as he talks. “Now listen up.” Kyler can take stuff really seriously sometimes, but that’s OK. I’m glad he’s with me on this. “There are five parks in town. Only two are within walking distance of school. So, those are the ones we’ll try first. We’ll call them Park One and Park Two. And there are grounds around the VA, which we’ll consider Park Three. Parks Four and Five we’ll have to get someone to drive us, so let’s forget them for now.”
“He won’t have stayed at the VA last night. The police will have searched all around it.”
“Agreed…so let’s start at Park One, the farthest away, walking-distance-wise.” Kyler circles Park One on the map.
“Hey, isn’t that ‘Big Stick Park’ right by our old preschool? That’s what I used to call it. It has those great trees along the fence, with the best sticks ever, and that cool digger thing in the sandbox?” Kyler looks blank. “You lost a tooth there when you fell off the swing set.”
“You mean ‘Lost Tooth Park’?” He shudders. “I hate that park.”
“That reminds me…” I run to the bathroom and rub some toothpaste onto my front teeth.
When I come back I notice Kyler has drawn a sad face on Park One, and colored our new route to school in red.
“Hey,” he says, “I was thinking, have you looked in the flour canister?”
“What for? The Celt?” I grab the map.
“Duh, no. The guns? They could be in a plastic snack bag, taped to the bottom?” It sounds insane, but I know exactly what he means.
“Already looked,” I say. “Come on, there’s no time to think about Mom’s plastic-gun stash right now.” We head for the stairs.
Grandpa meets us on the landing as he comes out of his bedroom. “Have you brushed your teeth?” he asks. He’s wearing his grandpa-grey robe with an empty coffee cup tied to the flannel belt. This drives Mom mad, but Grandpa says it frees up his hands, and she’d be even madder if he fell down the stairs. A small trickle of coffee dribbles onto the floor. “Have a nice day, Mikey Boy. Kyler too. Don’t forget to show those teachers how smart you are, just in case they haven’t noticed. Heh, heh.” Grandpa presses chocolate-covered peppermints, his favorite candy, into our hands.
“Thanks, Grandpa,” I say. “See you later.”
As we’re hurrying out the door, Mom holds me back to stuff my lunch box into my backpack. I breathe toothpaste on her. She seems convinced, because she wishes me goodbye and gives me a kiss.
The minute the door’s closed, Kyler and I leap down the front steps. “One Mississippi, two Mississippi, go, go, go!” We’re special operations paratroopers launching out of our troop plane on our first mission of the day.
“Operation Getaceltorix here we go!” I yell. We land, throw a pretend roll, then high five each other as we step into the heavy morning mist. I know it’s unlikely we’ll find him on the first day, especially since it’s October thirteenth, which is not a lucky day if you believe those things, but it sure feels good to be looking.
Our “mom-approved” route to school is straight down the street one block, left three blocks, then right two blocks. Even so, it took
