The Lost Celt. A. E. Conran
homework, but I figure I am at home and I’m thinking, so this is like homework.
“OK, so, you’re a Celt, and you’ve time-traveled to the future. What would you do?” I flip some pages, looking at the pictures.
Kyler blows air through his lips and lifts his shoulders to his ears. “I dunno. Go get ice cream? Fly around the world? All the stuff I couldn’t do back in my time?”
“Kyler,” I groan. “He was freaked out.”
“OK, then I’d hide.”
“Right. He’s going to lay low someplace until he can get back to his own time again.”
“So, where do you think he is?”
I’m looking at a page about Celtic weapons and how the Celts offered swords to the gods. It talks about the druids and their sacred oak groves. An idea comes. I wait a couple of seconds to let Kyler anticipate my genius. “In a park,” I say.
Kyler snorts as if he’s not that impressed.
“No, listen. It makes sense. The Celts hated towns. They conquered Rome. Rome, Kyler! It didn’t get any better than that, and you know what? They left again. They didn’t want to live there. Celts were into wild places. They worshipped oak trees, and they left offerings for their gods in ponds and marshes. If I were this guy, I’d hide somewhere I felt safe.”
Kyler puts his head to one side. His jaw drops open.
“Got a better idea?” I say.
“No,” Kyler says slowly. “That’s good, Mikey. That’s pretty good.”
“So here’s how we start. We check out a different park every day when we walk to school. We can do it without our moms—without anyone—knowing. If you print out a map tonight, we can make our first trip tomorrow. Meanwhile, I’ll do more reading about Celts and see if I can find any other clues.”
Kyler still looks unconvinced, so I try to pump him up.
“Look, it’s a special mission. We’ll call it 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