Only Child(34)

“Yeah, and the wall behind us is good protection for our camp,” Andy said.

Liza pointed at the left and right side of her house. “That way enemies can only come from there and there and we can see them coming.” On the right side of her house was their patio, where Mommy and Daddy were hanging out with Liza’s parents and the other grown-ups for the barbecue.

“We still need a name for our tribe,” James said. He was working on making a long spear for hunting.

“Maybe Lost Boys like in Peter Pan when they start to be friends with the Indians,” I said. “Well, Lost Boys and Girls,” I said, because of Liza and June.

“OK, that’s dumb,” Andy said. “We’ll use the names of all the tribe members, or maybe the first two letters of all the names.” For a while we tried out how we could put the first two letters of everyone’s names together. In the end, we decided on “JaZaJuLiAnAi.” It sounded Indian, and we practiced saying it fast: “JaZaJuLiAnAi, JaZaJuLiAnAi, JaZaJuLiAnAi.”

“That’s also going to be our battle cry for when we go into battle with enemy tribes,” Andy told us, and he hollered, “JAZAJULIANAI!”

“JaZaJuLiAnAi!” It came back to us like a little echo from Liza’s house.

All our supplies were spread out on the rock: sticks and different-colored strings for making bows and arrows and spears, and feathers and beads. We also had two little bags with arrowheads inside, they were mine and Andy’s and we got them when we went to a park with camp a couple weeks ago and we did mining. Mining is when you get a big bag and it looks like only sand is in it. You get a board that has a net in the middle with little holes, and then you go to the river. When you put the board with the net in the water and pour the sand in, all the sand gets washed away through the holes, and then you see fancy rocks that were hiding in the sand. And arrowheads if you got lucky. They were real arrowheads that the Indians made out of black shiny rocks, and they were very sharp on the sides and pointy at the top. Me and Andy both brought a whole bag home from mining, full of rocks and arrowheads.

The strings and feathers were from Liza and June, they had them at home in their art supplies. They kept remembering other supplies we could use for decorating the arrows and spears and ran off to get them.

“Zach, we need more perfect sticks for bows. Go look in our yard, too,” Andy said, and I did. The sticks for the bows had to be long and thin, so you could bend them. Andy did a cut at the ends of the sticks, and we tied string on both ends. You had to tie it to one end first and then pull that end down with the string and tie it to the other end so it looked like a big D. The sticks for arrows had to be shorter and not so thin, and Andy did a cut on only one end. He made an X with two cuts so we could put feathers on that end, and then we tied the arrowheads to the other end with string. Spears were longer and thicker sticks. We didn’t have enough arrowheads for those, and they weren’t big enough anyway for spears, so we made fake arrowheads out of cardboard.

We worked on our weapons for a long time, and we talked about what the battles with the enemies were going to be like. We worked like a real tribe team. There was no fighting and I never played with Andy like this before. We laughed because our feet were really dirty and black, but that’s how you know you’re real Indians, Andy said. We had mosquito bites all over us, especially me because mosquitos love me, but we didn’t care.

Finally, when all the weapons were done, it was time to go into battle. We split up into two teams. I thought we were all going to be in the same tribe, but Andy said he changed his mind about it and it wouldn’t be so much fun to go into battle against an invisible enemy, so he changed it to two teams, and they were going to be enemy tribes. I wanted to be with Andy, but he picked Aiden first, not me, and he didn’t want two six-year-olds on his team. So now we were going to be enemies again.

Andy’s tribe disappeared around the left side of Liza’s house, and I saw Andy, the chief, run ahead and June and Aiden follow him. Me and James and Liza spread out in the bushes to be on the lookout for them. We carried our bows and arrows and spears, and we ran behind the bushes and trees for cover, from Liza’s backyard, around her house, across the street into our backyard, and into the yards of our other neighbors.

“Can you see them?” Liza whispered, and her voice sounded like she was scared, so then I started to get a scared feeling in my stomach. My heart was beating fast. It was like we were hunting for a real enemy. But then I thought about when Andy disappeared in the darkness he didn’t look scared, he looked brave. I decided that I was going to do that, too, be brave.

“Take cover,” I said with a loud whispering voice, and I ducked behind a tree. James and Liza ducked behind the tree next to me. “Don’t make a sound,” I said.

My breath was going in and out fast, and I tried to make it go slower. Then I heard a loud “JAZAJULIANAI!” coming from somewhere in front of us, and I couldn’t see where it was coming from, but I jumped out from behind the tree and I yelled, “ATTACK!” It was like I was a real Indian who was brave and going into battle.

I heard another loud “JAZAJULIANAI!” that sounded like Andy’s voice coming from somewhere in front of us. All of a sudden, James was next to me, and he threw his spear in the direction from where Andy’s battle cry was coming. I got my bow and arrow ready.

“JAZAJULIANAI!” I heard again, and it sounded closer this time. I fired an arrow and it disappeared into the darkness. A second later I heard a loud scream: “Aaaaaahhhh!”