Children of the Knight, Michael J. Bowler [classic book list txt] 📗

sweep of his hand across the vast assemblage. “It be through thine efforts and loyalty that all of this has come to pass. I be truly honored by your faithfulness.”

Lance grinned and looked down in embarrassment. He still couldn’t get used to compliments, especially from Arthur.

“And I sayeth now that you are—” But Arthur stopped himself, looking uncharacteristically uncertain.

Lance had the feeling that Arthur was about to say something important, maybe about how he felt, maybe even about their relationship to each other.

Instead, Arthur squeezed Lance’s shoulder and dropped his hand back to his side, turning to the entire group.

What was he about to say, Lance wondered?

“Knights of the Table, attend!” Arthur’s voice echoed through the tunnels, and the kids gradually quelled their excitement and squeezed around him until there was barely room to breathe. “My noble and faithful knights, it be time to embark upon a quest.”

Esteban pointed his sword up in the air, his knightly method of hand raising. “What’s the plan?”

Little Lavern, resplendent in his chain mail and dark red tunic, elbowed Esteban and glared at him. Esteban almost shoved him back, but then obviously realized his error. “I, uh, mean, what will be the plan, sire?”

“We must check the appalling spread of squalor in thy neighborhoods and in so doing, win the acceptance of the people whose lives we seek to better.”

Mark threw up his hand. Lance noted that the sky-blue tunic he’d chosen set off his striking eyes. “These neighborhoods are in bad shape, Arthur. The city don’t take care of ’em, and we got nothing to fix ’em up with. What’ll we use?”

Arthur asked who amongst the assemblage had mechanical or fixing skills or experience with tools and repair work. Quite a few hands shot up.

“Excellent,” the king said, nodding. “Then you shall teach the others.” And he proceeded to lay out the plan he and Lance had hatched. The assembled listened intently. Some began to smile and nod. Others grinned with delight. All of them applauded. Arthur and Lance set up the teams and sent them out.

In groups of four, they fanned out across the city, foraging through and around various dumpsters, in back alleys, anyplace people set out their trash. Grabbing broken furniture, pieces of wood and metal and pipes, everything that could be useful, they dumped all of it into shopping carts and wheeled it back into the tunnels.

A larger group, led by Lance, went straight to the city dump. Darnell brought his homie’s pickup truck and met them there, while Esteban drove a truck he’d borrowed from his neighbor. Secretly, Lance hoped “borrowed” really meant borrowed and not stole. Reyna brought her parents’ jet-black Escalade with all the seats laid flat, generating whistles and admiring looks from Esteban and Darnell and some of the girls. Lance thought it was cool, but he just couldn’t relate to being rich, so he didn’t even try.

The director of the dumpsite gawked at the knights’ odd medieval clothing, but listened as Lance explained their mission. It sounded crazy, but he showed them the areas that he felt had the most usable stuff, and they went to work.

Esteban and Darnell made up one team, while Reyna and several girls worked a separate area, which left Lance to work with Jack. They found usable window copings, doors, cabinets and chests of drawers, beds and bedframes, and a host of other repairable items. Reyna seemed to have no problem dump diving, as the boys called it, and Esteban kept eyeing her all afternoon. For her part, she eyed him right back.

Jack and Lance were left to load one truck, while Esteban and Darnell and the girls loaded the other two. They’d found a couple of useable bathtubs and dumped them near the truck, along with other pieces of furniture. To someone like Lance who’d grown up with nothing, he couldn’t imagine tossing all this stuff.

Lance wanted to talk to Jack about Mark, but the older boy maintained a stubborn silence as they foraged. When it came time to load the truck, however, especially the bigger items, Lance looked at the tall boy with a grin.

“’Member you was gonna teach me how to lift weights?”

Jack just looked at him.

Lance indicated the heavy bathtubs and chests of drawers. “Now’d be a good time.”

Jack still said nothing. He gazed at Lance as though trying to figure something out about him. As always, the intensity of the gaze made Lance fidget. “Look, Jack, I’m not interested in Mark, okay?”

Jack tensed, but remained silent.

“I know you saw us together that night,” Lance went on, “’cause Mark told me. Nothing happened, okay? I just needed to talk, and he was there. That’s it.”

Jack stepped closer, and Lance froze, his fists clenching, afraid Jack might pound him.

I’m dead meat if he does.

However, the older boy gazed deeply into his eyes—no, into his very soul—and smiled knowingly.

Lance fought to maintain eye contact.

“You are gay, aren’t you?”

That caught Lance off guard. “Huh?”

“I knew you was too pretty to be straight,” Jack went on, planting a thick finger hard into Lance’s chest, “Well Mark is off-limits!”

Lance wanted to protest, but the fierce look in Jack’s eyes silenced his tongue. And then he saw it, saw the truth in those destitute eyes, a truth that suddenly became so obvious he was amazed he hadn’t seen it before.

“Because you’re in love with him, aren’t you?”

Jack’s gaze faltered, and the weakness won out over the hardness. He stepped back to compose himself. He lowered his arms, clenching and unclenching his fists. It took him a few moments, and then he gave a short, hollow laugh. “That obvious?”

“It’s in your eyes, man.” He gazed at the intimidating boy with genuine compassion. “Why don’t you just tell him?”

Jack suddenly looked weak and vulnerable, terror-stricken almost. “I can’t, Lance, and you can’t either.”

“Why not? You guys are great together.”

Jack wilted like a dying flower, no longer muscular and hard and powerfully tall. Lance saw the real Jack, the one he probably kept hidden from the whole world. Even from the boy he loved.

Those brimming brown eyes gazed desperately into Lance’s own, and Jack stammered, “I just couldn’t take it if… if he… if he didn’t want me.”

Lance soaked up this new image of Jack, and felt a connection to the older boy he’d never thought could exist. Jack’s soul had been exposed and laid bare to him, and Lance surprised himself by accepting it.

“Okay. But I want you—” Jack looked up, startled. “––for a friend,” Lance finished, sticking out his hand. “We’re already brothers in arms, so we might as well be friends too, right?”

Jack hesitated and then swiped the tears from his eyes before grinning with relief. He gripped Lance’s hand. “I’m sorry, you know, about calling you gay. It was a cheap shot.”

Lance released his hand and leaned closer so no one would hear. “Since we’re friends, and brothers, I’ll tell you the same as I told Mark—I don’t know what I am.” He pulled back and searched Jack’s eyes. “You okay with that?”

“Yeah. Took me a while to figure it all out too.”

With a twinkle in his eyes, Lance flexed his not-very-intimidating right arm. “So, buff man, you gonna show me how to get guns like yours?”

“You mean these guns?” Grinning rakishly, Jack struck the double bicep pose, except his biceps bulged like grapefruits, even through the long sleeves of his scarlet tunic.

Lance gasped in amazement. “Oh my God, you gotta show me how to get those!”

Jack laughed and proceeded to do just that. He taught Lance how to lift heavy objects and focus more on the biceps and back, and how to heft heavy items so as to build up the chest and shoulders, and the two of them loaded all the weighty furniture into the back of the truck, laughing as they did so.

When they were finished, Lance could feel the soreness in his muscles and knew he’d gotten a hard workout.

“Thanks, Jack,” he said shyly, dropping his gaze from the older boy’s face. “Oh, that was only the first lesson, my friend,” Jack told him with a painful squeeze of Lance’s left bicep. “We got a long way to go.”

Lance groaned dramatically, and both of them laughed.

The MTS football field was located at the rear of the campus and had to be accessed by crossing railroad tracks that were still in use by the rail companies. It had always amused Lance the few times he attended PE when a long-ass train had taken, like, the entire period to go across, and the class would be trapped on the other side. Crazy-ass setup, he’d always thought. But no train was crossing this day as he hurriedly dragged Jenny out to the field.

He’d come to her classroom while she was scrambling to get her grades finished in time for graduation the next day, and insisted he accompany her. She’d asked him numerous questions, but he refused to answer. He just told her she needed to come with him and literally pulled her from the room.

As Lance drew her along a narrow walkway between the baseball field and back of the bleachers, Jenny finally became exasperated and yanked her hand from his (which wasn’t easy, she noted – he had an iron grip!)

The boy turned to her in frustration. He was dressed in a long-sleeve green tunic that set off his eyes well, brown drawstring leather pants, and leather boots up to his knees. His odd, but fancy attire made her feel like a slob in her jeans and short-sleeved, blue shirt that she’d bought at Ross.

“You must come with me, Lady Jenny!”

She stood her ground, hands on her hips, and shook her head. “Not till you tell me what’s going on, Lance. Where is Arthur? And what’s with this Lady Jenny stuff?”

The boy turned on the charm and gazed imploringly at her with those eyes and that beautiful face that always reminded her of a Botticelli painting. “All your questions shall be answered, milady, but you must come now. Please!”

She reluctantly followed him. He rounded the corner where the bleachers ended and turned to step underneath them. As Jenny followed she found herself face-to-face with Arthur. His sudden presence startled her, and she gasped.

Arthur bowed courteously then gently took her hand and kissed it. He was dressed in a royal-purple tunic, with light brown leather pants, soft leather boots, his long red cloak, and a circlet crown on his head.

“We meet again, Lady Jenny.”

Jenny jerked her hand back. “What do you want?”

Lance whispered to Arthur, “Told ya she don’t trust you.”

“Stand guard, Sir Lance. Alert me at anyone’s approach.”

The boy bowed respectfully. “Yes, sire.” Casting a backward glance in Jenny’s direction, he hurried to the edge of the bleachers and stood at attention.

Jenny watched him go and then turned to face the man she’d so badly wanted to find. “Sir Lance?”

Arthur nodded. “He hath been knighted, milady, as have all the others.”

Jenny felt triumphant. “So I was right. You’re recreating the Round Table and filling it with children.”

Arthur bowed slightly in deference to her conclusions. “Thou art as insightful as thou art lovely. We must needs talk, Lady Jenny. I require thy help. There be much I must tell and show thee, and methinks we have little time. Be you willing to accompany Lance and myself?”

She paused and considered. This was what she’d wanted. She needed to know what the