The Kingdon of No Worries Page 5

  I leave the house with The Republic in my pack and a tingle in my spine.

  It’s a great day. The sun is shining, birds are singing, and the summer is still just beginning. The music of drums is still in my head, though it is quieter now. I wonder how many people will come to the kingdom today. Our garden is amazing. There are plants of all sizes and shapes, and many colourful flowers. People take such care in planting them and watering them and talking to them, because a lot of people talk to their plants as if they were leaving them in a nursery school for the day.

  But when I come down the street, cross the river road, and step onto the bank, I get a terrible shock. Our flagpole has been knocked down. The garden has been dug up, and all the beautiful plants have been thrown onto a heap. A wooden sign stuck in the ground says, “No Trespassing!”

  I look around. There are no police in sight. I feel like I’ve been kicked in the gut. It is so upsetting. My mind races, and I try to think of the things that Merilee said. Knowledge is power. The pen is mightier than the sword. Maybe, but it’s hard to believe we can save our kingdom just by reading a book.

  A little while later Charlie and Sami show up. They are even more upset than I am, and more angry.

  SAMI: “We’re going to fight.”

  CHARLIE: “We’re going to kick their butts all over town.”

  ME: “How? We can’t do anything.”

  CHARLIE: “Yes, we can. We’re going back over there and are going to start all over again.”

  SAMI: “That’s right!”

  ME: “No! Wait, guys. We can’t do that. They’ll put us in jail.”

  SAMI: “Then let them put us in jail.”

  CHARLIE: “I want to go to jail.”

  ME: “No, you don’t.”

  CHARLIE: “Yes, I do. I want to go to jail so that every-body can see the injustice that is being done.”

  SAMI: “I agree. Let’s all go to jail.”

  CHARLIE: “And we can go on a hunger strike.”

  ME: “Are you crazy? I don’t want to go on a hunger strike. And I don’t want to go to jail. If we go to jail, we might never get out.”

  CHARLIE: “We have to fight for our country, Billie-Jean.”

  SAMI: “We have to fight, Billy.”

  ME: “Wait, guys, just wait! Let’s think about it. We don’t even know for sure that it was the police who did this.”

  SAMI: “Of course it was. Who else could it be?”

  ME: “I don’t know, I’m just saying that we never saw them do it, so we can’t know for sure.”

  SAMI: “I think we know for sure.”

  CHARLIE: “Hey, look!”

  We turn our heads and see a dozen or so people step into the kingdom from the other side of the river. They are carrying plants and chairs. They wave to us, and then they kick down the no-trespassing sign and start straightening up the flagpole.

  SAMI: “Come on! Let’s get over there!”

  So Charlie climbs on top of Sami’s back, and we rush across the river as fast as we can. We receive a warm welcome from the people there. Some have been here before, and some are new. More keep coming! Everyone is so angry that the kingdom has been vandalized and police are trying to keep people out. I’m still nervous that we are breaking the law, but it’s hard not to get carried away with the energy and enthusiasm all around us.

  By noon, the garden is replanted, bigger than before, the flagpole is up, straighter than before, and there are hundreds of people with chairs, umbrellas, coolers, guitars, Frisbees, and hula-hoops. The Senegalese drummers return in the evening, and by then there are probably a thousand people on our island kingdom.

  We see a dozen people carrying over two heavy plastic boxes, which turn out to be portable toilets. That’s great, because people were peeing in the river, or crossing to use bathrooms in fast food restaurants, which was really inconvenient.

  In the early twilight Elizabeth comes by, and this time she brings along a whole film crew, including the host of a local news show. She says they want to interview us for television. Would we mind?

  So we clear a space and set up three chairs in front of the garden. While the drummers drum softly in the background, we take turns answering the host’s questions. I’m surprised by how well we answer. You’d think we had prepared for it.

  HOST: “So what gave you boys the idea to start your own country?”

  SAMI: “We wanted to create a place that was a model of tolerance for the world.”

  HOST: “That’s very inspiring. What do you mean by tolerance? Who will you allow to enter your country?”

  ME: “Everyone, except people who are planning to hurt other people, like neo-Nazis, and haters, and terrorists.”

  HOST: “Does this mean then that you will permit people who hold different political views from yours?”

  SAMI & ME: “Yes.”

  HOST: “And different religious views?”

  CHARLIE: “Yes. All religions and genders are welcome.”

  HOST: “That sounds wonderful. You call your country a kingdom. Is it really a monarchy then? Do you have a king?”

  CHARLIE: “It’s a democracy. We just like the name of kingdom.”

  ME: “It’s a constitutional monarchy. Everyone has a vote.”

  HOST: “So it’s equal?”

  SAMI & CHARLIE & ME: “Yes.”

  HOST: “This morning you found your garden torn up, your flagpole knocked down, and no-trespassing signs posted. How do you respond to that?”

  ME: “We do not wish to break the law, we just want our country recognized.”

  HOST: “I see. And to what extent are you willing to go to have your country recognized?”

  SAMI: “We are willing to go to jail.”

  CHARLIE: “If we are put in jail, we will go on a hunger strike.”

  HOST: “Amazing. How old are you boys?”

  CHARLIE & ME: “Twelve.”

  SAMI: “I’m turning thirteen.”

  HOST: “And you’re willing to go to jail?”

  SAMI & CHARLIE: “Yes.”

  HOST: “As I look around me I see what must be a thousand people here, all enjoying themselves. This island kingdom has become some sort of retreat right in the heart of our city. How do you boys feel about that? Are you pleased that you have created a place where people can come to escape the stress of their daily lives?”

  SAMI & CHARLIE & ME: “Yes. We love that.”

  HOST: “Where do you see all this going?”

  We look at each other. We don’t know.

  ME: “Utopia.”

  I don’t know what that means exactly, but I know it’s supposed to be a good place. I’ll have to ask Merilee when I get home.

  Chapter 10

  LONG AFTER WE GO home and climb into bed, the music, laughter, and dancing continue on in the kingdom, and enough people stay right through the night to prevent anyone from tearing up the garden again or knocking down the flagpole. When we arrive the next morning, we expect to find the police there, but we don’t. Instead, we are greeted by a handful of weary-eyed partygoers who are just now on their way home to bed. The kingdom is filled with chairs, coolers left behind, the two portable toilets, and a whole bunch of umbrellas stuck in the sandy soil or folded and lying on their side. Sami, Charlie, and I walk around and fold the umbrellas so they won’t blow away, and we pick up garbage and tidy the chairs. But we leave a few umbrellas up because it’s nice to have shade from the sun. We still expect to see the police, but they don’t show up. By noon, we start receiving visitors of a different sort.

  The first is a man in a dark suit. He walks down to the riverbank and waves to us from there. He’s carrying a sign and a bag in his hand. He keeps waving and hoping we’ll cross the river to talk to him, but Sami says we should stay here and let him come to us. Charlie agrees with that so I agree, too, though I’m certain the man will never enter the river in his suit.

  I’m wrong. Once he realizes we aren’t coming over, he takes off his shoes
, socks, and jacket, rolls up his pants, rolls his socks neatly into his shoes, and steps carefully into the water. Holding the sign and bag above his head, he crosses the river in his bare feet. We all stare, bewildered, wondering what he wants.

  Judging from his sign, he’s from the Bank of Ontario, which we can see from our seats in the shade of an umbrella. Stepping out of the water, he comes over with a friendly but a kind of forced smile.

  BANKER: “Hi boys!”

  SAMI & ME: “Hi.”

  BANKER: “Nice day, hey?”

  ME: “Not too bad.”

  BANKER: “This is a terrific experiment you’ve got going here, boys. Very interesting to see.”

  CHARLIE: “What do you want?”

  The bank manager smiles.

  BANKER: “I can see that you boys have a strong sense of what’s what, so I won’t beat around the bush. I’m from the Bank of Ontario.”

  He points to his building.

  BANKER: “As we have noticed, you boys are receiving quite a bit of attention for this experiment you’ve got going here …”

  CHARLIE: “It’s not an experiment; it’s a country.”

  BANKER: “My apologies, your country. As you are receiving quite a bit of attention, we at our bank are wondering if we can make a deal with you.”

  SAMI: “What kind of deal?”

  BANKER: “We are willing to offer you boys a small sum of money if you would allow us to place our sign on this island in a strategically visible spot.”

  CHARLIE: “How much money?”

  BANKER: “Two hundred dollars.”

  We don’t know what to do. I can tell that Charlie really wants the money. Well, we all want it. Sami doesn’t need it like Charlie and I do. I don’t have any allowance anymore, though I’ve been too busy lately to notice. But the main problem is that we don’t know how it will look to have the bank’s sign on the ground. I know this is what we are all thinking, even though we never have a chance to discuss it first.

  BANKER: “It’s just a small advertisement, boys. You’ll hardly see it.”

  CHARLIE: “I don’t see any problem with that.”

  Charlie looks at Sami and me.

  ME: “I don’t care, I guess.”

  Sami never says anything, but sort of nods his head.

  CHARLIE: “But it will cost you three hundred dollars.”

  The bank manager never blinks.

  BANKER: “Three hundred dollars it is.”

  He takes an envelope out of the plastic bag. It has several hundred-dollar bills inside. I wonder how high he would have gone. He hands us each a hundred-dollar bill, then pulls a hammer out of the bag, walks over to a spot in front of the flagpole, and hammers the sign into the ground. It is a golden sign and it looks kind of nice there.

  By suppertime, there are four more signs in front of the flagpole: two from insurance companies, one from another bank, and one for a hospital fund. We don’t charge the hospital but charge the insurance companies the same as the banks. Nobody blinks at the cost. Suddenly, we have twelve hundred dollars, well, twelve hundred and two.

  And that isn’t the only deal we make that day. A pizza deliveryman from Green Daddy’s Pizza, the best pizza in Briffin, crosses the river with three extra-large pizzas on his head. They’re freebies, and he tells us we can have free pizza every day of the summer if we hang a Green Daddy’s Pizza banner on one of the portable toilets. We agree immediately.

  A little while later, we’re sitting in our chairs, watching the sun go down, eating pizza, listening to drums, and discussing what to do with our money, when two ladies cross the river with cardboard boxes above their heads. They have unhappy expressions on their faces. We watch them come out of the water and walk straight to us, even though there are lots of other people around. Everyone knows us from the newspapers.

  The two ladies put the boxes down in front of us, stand up, and wipe the sweat from their faces. Their clothes are all wet now and cling tightly to their bodies, which doesn’t look very good. The people who come to the island and stay usually carry extra clothes, and change in the portable toilets. Even though it’s warm out, the wind can make you cold if you are soaking wet.

  One of the ladies does all the talking. The other one looks too shy.

  LADY: “Hello there.”

  SAMI & CHARLIE & ME: “Hi.”

  LADY: “We have come here as a last resort. We have been all over the city, trying to find support to help us keep our shelter open.”

  ME: “Shelter?”

  LADY: “Our animal shelter.”

  ME: “Oh.”

  LADY: “We run the Briffin Shelter for Wounded Puppies and Kittens, but the city has cut our funding in favour of the bigger, fancier shelters, even though most of them don’t give as much attention to the younger wounded animals that are less likely to be adopted, and so the crippled little creatures usually end up on our doorstep. But if we don’t keep up with an increase in our rent, we’ll be out on the street by the end of the week. And so we’re going all over the city to try to raise enough money to keep our shelter open, but …”

  Both ladies look ready to cry.

  LADY: “No one seems to care.”

  I look at Sami and Charlie. Sami has a “Why are these people bothering us?” look on his face, and Charlie has a “They can’t have any of our money” look on his face. I’m not sure. Then the ladies open up the boxes and show us what is inside.

  The first one holds a little kitten on a towel. It’s stinky because the kitten has gone to the bathroom on the towel. The kitten is very small and weak, and when it looks up at us we see that it has only one eye. One of its ears has been chewed off, too.

  LADY: “We found her in an alley. Someone threw her out, and she was attacked by a raccoon. She’s still pretty weak, but she’ll make it if we can find her a home.”

  My heart jumps into my throat. I look over at Charlie. His face is melting like ice cream on a hot stove. I’ve never seen him look like that before. I look at Sami. His face is turning into a baloney sandwich. He’s upset. Then the lady opens up the other box, and we see a little puppy looking up at us with the saddest eyes. It is frightened to death and shaking, as if it thinks we are going to beat it. The lady picks him up, and then we see that he has only three legs. She passes him to Sami, who takes him and cuddles him in his arms as if he is the most precious thing in the world.

  SAMI: “He has no place to live?”

  His voice sounds broken.

  LADY: “None. But we’re looking after him.”

  CHARLIE: “But what if you can’t pay your rent?”

  LADY: “We’ll find a way. We won’t abandon them.”

  The warm wind comes gently up the river. The sound of drums and people laughing and dancing and having fun are all around us, but none of that seems to matter anymore.

  ME: “How much money do you need to stay open?”

  LADY: “Five thousand dollars.”

  She wipes the sweat from her face again.

  LADY: “But we know the Lord will provide. We have collected some already.”

  CHARLIE: “How much?”

  LADY: “Three hundred dollars.”

  She hands the kitten to Charlie, who can’t take his eyes off it. Charlie holds the kitten close to his chest, and the kitten looks up at him sideways with its one eye, and Charlie looks down at it, and his eyes are full of water.

  CHARLIE: “We can give you twelve hundred dollars.”

  I swallow hard. That’s all of our money. I look over at Sami. He’s patting the puppy gently and nodding his head. The lady’s mouth drops and her eyes open wide.

  LADY: “Really? Really, boys? Can you help us that much?”

  CHARLIE: “We want to help the animals.”

  SAMI: “That’s what the Kingdom of No Worries is all about.”

  So we give the ladies the twelve hundred dollars the kingdom has earned this very day, and they carry the kitten and puppy back across the river. Then we sit down
and finish our pizza. We feel like kings.

  Chapter 11

  THE DAYS ARE LONG on the river. The sun and wind have a way of sucking the energy out of you like moisture from a flower, so that when I go home each night, I fall asleep instantly. Sometimes I don’t even undress; I just collapse on my bed, planning to get up and brush my teeth in a minute, and then don’t wake until the sun is up.

  The night we give our money to the shelter I meet Merilee on my way upstairs. She has a strange look on her face, and I know she wants to talk. I’m afraid she’ll try to keep me up, and I’m desperate to sleep, so I try to control the conversation and keep walking towards my room. But she stands in my way.

  “How’s school?” I say.

  “Pretty good,” she says. She looks funny. Now I’m wondering what’s on her mind.

  “What are you studying?” I hate even asking what somebody is studying in the summertime. It feels like a betrayal to life.

  “Current events.”

  “Oh.” I yawn as loudly as I can.

  “We watch news clips from around the country. Then we write essays about them.”

  “Interesting.” I try to get past her, but she blocks my way.

  “Do you want to know what we watched today?”

  Not really. “What?”

  “You.”

  “What? Me?”

  “Yeah. Isn’t that a hoot? We watched an interview you and your buddies made for the current events channel. It was surprisingly good. You guys actually sounded like you knew what you were talking about.”

  “We were faking it. Are you really studying us in school?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s weird.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  For a moment we don’t speak. I’m wondering if I can ask for my allowance back. Probably not. She wouldn’t give it back on principle. I can still smell dog poo in my room, unless it’s just my imagination. Maybe she dropped a little bit on the floor. I should clean my room.

  “Anyway … we have to come over and interview you.”