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

to protest, but Lance turned away.

After several fruitless hours with no sign of Mark, the boys finally drifted off to sleep beside one another, and mercifully Lance did not suffer unpleasant dreams.

Once Arthur got wind of the mayor’s challenge, he called together a meeting of his most prominent knights. And he invited Jenny. She’d been surprised, but pleased to receive his phone call. She had been correct—one of the cellular carriers set him up with a phone and a family plan to include many of his knights whom he’d placed in leadership positions. Arthur seemed nervous speaking on the phone when he invited her to the meeting. It had to do with the mayor’s challenge, he’d said. Had she seen it on TV? She assured him she had and would attend that meeting the following day.

When she’d hung up, she’d gone to her closet and begun rooting through her clothes. She actually did something she hadn’t done in ages—fretted over what to wear.

She finally settled on dress slacks and a long-sleeved blouse that had a tunic-like feel to it. She decided she wanted to be one of Arthur’s group and not separate from it.

When she arrived the next morning, Arthur was seated on his throne nervously drumming his fingers on the armrest. Seated around him were Esteban, Reyna, Enrique, Luis, Lavern, Darnell, Tai, Duc, Jaime, and Justin. Chris sat beside Arthur’s throne, absently tossing a football up and down, looking lost and forlorn.

Arthur looked up and leapt to his feet when Jenny entered. “Good day, Lady Jenny,” he offered with an almost nervous bow.

The boys rose and bowed and said, “Welcome, Lady Jenny.” Reyna tilted her head in greeting.

So taken aback was she by the welcome that at first she failed to notice the absence of Lance. But as she collected herself and tilted her head to acknowledge the greeting, her face clouded. “Where’s Lance?”

Chris piped up, “On a quest, milady.”

A chill crept up her back. “What kind of quest?”

Arthur waved her over to sit beside him, in the large wooden chair normally reserved for Lance alone. “Alas, milady, one of our knights, Sir Mark, has gone missing.”

“You mean he ran away,” Chris mumbled with a sullen toss of the football.

Jenny instantly became concerned. “What happened?”

Arthur fell silent, and Jenny felt certain she detected guilt, maybe even embarrassment, in his eyes. “It be complicated, milady. A misunderstanding. Sirs Lance and Jack have gone in search of him.”

“Has there been any word, Arthur?” asked Reyna.

“No.”

“When’s Lance coming back, Arthur?” Chris asked sadly. “And Jack.”

Arthur patted the small boy on the head. “Soon, Sir Christopher.” Then he turned to the group. “Shall we begin?”

Jenny eyed the seat, pictured Lance sitting in it, and shook her head. “That’s Lance’s seat. I’ll sit on the floor.” And she did, right beside Reyna.

Arthur eyed her, then the empty seat, and frowned.

“So,” Jenny began, “you were right, what you said about the mayor. That city hall mural is just a publicity stunt.”

The kids agreed.

Arthur nodded soberly. “His ilk has not changed in twelve centuries.” He surveyed the group. “To what do you all attribute the mayor’s challenge to me regarding school?”

“It’s a trap, Arthur,” Esteban spoke up at once. “He’s trying to get ya to admit you be breaking the law.”

“Sir Este, be right, Arthur,” Justin chimed in. “The mayor, he wants an excuse to bust your—I mean, to arrest you and do it all nice and legal like. My dad’d probably be the guy hauling you off to jail.”

The kids laughed and then fell silent again.

Reyna raised her hand. “Unfortunately, Arthur, that’s the way things work here. We kids have to be in school Monday thru Friday, whether we learn anything or not.”

“Mostly not,” chimed in Darnell, which earned him a high five from Jaime.

“What about home schooling?” Duc suggested. “One a the kids I used to kick it with never went to school. His mom, like, taught him stuff at home. He just had to pass tests or something.”

The others nodded. Home schooling was obviously not unknown to them.

Arthur turned to Jenny. “You be silent, Jenny. Since education hath been thy livelihood, what be your opinion?”

Jenny bit her bottom lip. Their talk of home schooling had given her an idea. A plan. A crazy, audacious, probably impossible-to-execute plan.

“I have an idea,” she announced, grinning at Arthur, whose eyebrows rose questioningly.

This time it was Arthur who called Helen and asked her to set up a press conference at City Hall and she was only too delighted to help. The mayor was informed and the event scheduled again for 3:00 p.m. That particular time was at Villagrana’s insistence—he wanted to hammer home the school-hours issue. Thus he could reiterate to the public that Arthur’s kids—which he would surely bring—had not been to school that day.

Council President Sanders cautioned the mayor about losing his cool or allowing himself to be sucked into some stupid debate about “rights for children, for God’s sake.” Villagrana assured him that he, not Arthur, would control this press conference.

At five minutes before three, a crush of reporters and camera operators crowded around the stage and podium, with the Mural Project in the background. Only this time, there were no kids working on it. Scores of onlookers stood anxiously behind the reporters awaiting the arrival of Arthur.

Suddenly, a ripple of excitement filtered through them as the king appeared, flanked by his leadership team. Arthur carried Chris in his arms, and Jenny walked at his right side. A buzz went through the crowd because no one had ever seen her before.

Arthur and his crew strode up to the platform where the mayor, flashing his most camera-ready smile, greeted them.

“Welcome, King Arthur. We meet at last.”

The crowd cheered, not for the mayor, but for Arthur. They started chanting, “Arthur, Arthur, Arthur, Arthur!” causing Villagrana to lose that pasted- on smile very quickly.

Arthur held up a gauntleted hand to the crowd, and they settled down at once. He felt resplendent in his purple tunic and scarlet cloak and golden crown. He set Chris down, and Reyna stepped up to take the boy’s hand.

The mayor indicated the microphone embedded in the podium, and Arthur hesitated.

“You talk into it,” Reyna whispered in his ear.

He gave her a grateful grin and moved closer to the mic. “Ye have challenged me, Mr. Mayor, to return my knights to thy schools. Does that be correct?”

He stepped back, and the mayor leaned in. “That’s correct, yes.”

“And yet,” Arthur went on, returning to the mic, “methinks thy schools have already had their chance. Thy system hath not only failed to educate these children in counting and linguistic skills, it cannot even teach such basics as right and wrong.”

The crowd roared its approval.

The mayor leaned in. “It’s not the job of schools to teach right and wrong.”

“Then may I ask whose job it d be?”

“It’s the job of parents.”

“Do parents spend every moment with their children, Mr. Mayor? It seems to me that teaching and modeling right from wrong be the responsibility of all adults.”

The crowd roared even louder.

Villagrana stepped to the mic. “Look, we’re not here to debate. The law says these kids must be in school, period. Do you have any idea how much money you’re costing the schools by keeping your kids out?”

“What hath money to do with this issue?”

The mayor sighed smugly. “Let me educate you, King. In this country schools are funded with money by how many students are present each day. Every kid in every school each day is worth money to that school.”

“So, if I understand thee correctly, it be important for these knights of mine to be in school for the school to have money, whether they actually learn anything of value or not?”

Another roar of approval soared out from the crowd. Jenny and Arthur’s knights exchanged quick looks of approval.

Villagrana glared daggers at Arthur. “You are in violation of state law, sir. I could have you arrested here and now.”

The crowd booed vociferously.

“And all of my knights as well?” Arthur replied calmly, indicating those with him. “I could call upon the other thousand to join us.”

The crowd hooted with laugher, and Villagrana squirmed like a fish on a hook.

“Ye and thine have failed these children, Mr. Mayor,” Arthur said, looking straight at the man. “I be their teacher now, and there be nothing you can do to change that. And do you know why? Because I give them a choice. You and yours do not.”

Villagrana was fuming. “You are not a credentialed teacher!”

That was Jenny’s cue, and she stepped forward to the mic, practically shoving the mayor aside. “I am. I have a multi-subject credential and a single- subject credential, and I’ve resigned my position at Mark Twain High School to work exclusively with Arthur’s knights. Between he and I, they’ll learn all the lessons they need.”

A wild cheer and thunderous clapping arose from the crowd.

Arthur faced off against Villagrana and bowed respectfully. “Good day to you, sir.”

The flabbergasted mayor stood open-mouthed as Arthur took Jenny’s arm, leading her and his knights off the podium and through the phalanx of reporters. They threw ad-libbed questions his way, but he just smiled and moved on to the crowd of onlookers. These were the people he needed on his side, and he thanked them all for coming out to support him. After he and the kids signed numerous autographs, the posse set off on their return journey to The Hub.

Most of the leadership team went their separate ways, peeling off to their homes upon agreement to meet as usual tomorrow. They would clean up some areas in Van Nuys in the morning while Jenny decided how best the school lessons should be dispensed. Obviously, she could not teach a thousand kids at once, though that would be the ultimate extension of today’s public school policy, she’d mused, since nowadays the goal seemed to be cramming as many kids into one room as possible.

No. More likely, they’d work in shifts, just like home schooling was done, with she and Arthur supervising the older kids and the older ones helping to teach the younger. Half of each day, they decided as they left City Hall, would be devoted to learning, and the other half to doing. The clean-ups were going so well that these could not be halted. Two half-days in a given area should suffice for clean-up of that entire neighborhood.

Enrique, Lavern, and Luis had remained behind to work on the mural, calling the other artists on their cells to join them. Since the mayor refused to let them work during school hours, they only had a brief window of sunlight each day to work with.

As soon as Arthur entered The Hub, Chris trailing behind, he pulled out his phone to check for messages.

“No word from Lance?” Jenny asked from beside him.

Arthur shook his head. Something was wrong. He could feel it. In the first Camelot, the seed of doom had been Mordred. But there was no Mordred this time. So why did he feel that shadow of doom approaching?

“Can we play catch, sire?” Chris asked, running to snatch up the football he’d left beside Arthur’s throne.

Arthur smiled down at him. Such innocence, he thought as he gently stroked the boy’s long blond hair.

How much like Mark he looks.

“In a bit, Sir Christopher,” he replied with a smile. “I must needs speak