It’s 4:30 AM, and I’ve just shoved Butch awake.  We agreed that whoever woke up first hadda wake up the other, and it turned out to be me.  We GOTTA start really early so we can get it all done before anyone in the neighborhood wakes up.  Now, I’m all dressed, and Butch will be ready in just a minute.

So, once he’s got his shoes on, we sneak down the hall toward the kitchen and both grab a big glass of milk.  No time to stop and eat cause the sun is already comin’ up, and we gotta hurry.  Milk will have to do it for now.

Out the garage door, but this time we make sure we DON’T let it slam.  We wouldn’t be in trouble for bein’ up so early, but there’s no doubt that Mom and Dad would be curious about what we’re up to.  They don’t get up until about 7, and we’re usually outside and playing by the time breakfast is cookin’.  But, 4:30 is WAY earlier than that!

So, why so early?  Well, come on along and watch.  But you gotta be REALLY quiet.  You’ll see why in a minute.

I grab the big red wagon from the back yard, and we start out across our street exactly as planned.  Our house has an alley behind it, and it runs north and south just like Avenue D (our street), but right across the street from our front door, there’s an ally that runs east and west - behind Donnie’s house, in fact.  But their back door is a long way from the ally, and we don’t think they’ll notice us this time of year.  They’ll have their air conditioning running and won’t be able to hear so good.  There’s NO air conditioning at William’s house.  So, that’s why we’re takin’ this route.  You’ll see in a few minutes.  We gotta REALLY, REALLY sneak!

As we pull the wagon down Donny’s ally, we pick it up and carry it past his house, and we do that just in case the rattle, rattle of the wheels might accidentally be heard.  Then once we’re clear of his back fence, we put it down and start walkin’ fast.  No one along the rest of the ally will care if we’re here or not.  We’re just two boys on a summer mornin’ - out haulin’ their red wagon. 

Who cares, right?  Well, just watch!

Once we get to Avenue C, we naturally turn left, which is north, and we’re really haulin’ it now cause we gotta get to the fort fast.  That’s when Phase 2 will kick in!  This is just Phase 1 of our Win The War Plan!

Next we cross 5th street and we’re half way there.

Then comes the end of William’s ally that’s a full block from William’s house.  See,  he and Margie Ann live at the very corner of Avenue D and 5th Street.

Now, we gotta turn left down the alley, and about half way from the start of the ally to the vacant lot, we slow down and make sure that we’re so very, very quiet.  Now!  See that?  That’s the entrance trail on our right.  Turn in there and we’ll be at the fort in just a minute.

After a few quick turns around the huge cactus patch and a bunch of mesquite bushes, we’re here!  There it is in all its glory!  OUR fort!  Not William and Donnie’s fort.  OUR Fort!

It looks like they’ve taken pretty good care of it for the past few days while we were banned, but they haven’t added anything.  And that’s good, ‘cause we’re about to steal it all back.  Yep!  That’s right, we’re gonna steel every last board – and especially MY door!

So, we work quick.  Butch grabs board after board and we gradually stack ‘em all and balance ‘em on our wagon.  At first, I wonder if we’ll be able to get ‘em all in one load, but we do.  It looks like quite a pile, and one of us has to walk right beside the wagon to balance the stuff that’s piled way up over our heads, but we soon find that we can do it.  We even get around the cactus patch without even one thorn stuck in our backsides!

And get this!  With all this load, the wagon is quiet now.  It’s got so much weight in it, it can’t rattle like usual.  So, as we turn left into the ally and look over at the back door of William’s house, we start to think we’ll maybe actually pull this off.  It doesn’t look like anyone is awake at all, and we’ve got every single board travelin’ with us!  Thank you, God for protecting us!  (But please forgive us for stealin’ back what’s already ours.  Dang it!) 

The walk down the alley goes so, so smoothly.  No noise, and we’re able to keep the whole pile of boards neatly balanced even when we hit some rough spots.  Of course, we have to take turns pullin’ the wagon and balancin’ the load because it’s really hard to pull the heavy thing across the dirt and rock path of the ally. 

Once we get back to Avenue C, though, we turn right and head back south toward our end of the neighborhood.  Only a couple more danger spots in our way, and then we’re home free!  We should be done in time for breakfast, and I am SO impressed with myself for comin’ up with this plan.  I really didn’t expect it to work, but it dang sure seems to be doin’ exactly that!

The trip down Avenue C goes quick because we’re able to roll the wagon faster and faster, and now we’re turnin’ toward the next danger zone--Donnie’s Ally!  Donnie’s got a big mean dad too, but we’ve never seen HIM really get mad.  That’s not true of William’s dad.  He’s got a temper!  When Donnie called him a “toothless so in so”, we thought he was gonna kill Donnie, but instead he just smiled big and showed him that he really did have some teeth.  Scared the sweet potaters outta me, but nothin’ really happened--thank goodness! 

Now, as we carefully make our way down Donnie’s ally, we really slow down and sorta tip toe past Donnie’s back fence.  We can hear their air conditioner goin’.  So, that makes us feel better, but we never know when some parent is gonna accidentally get up early and see us.  We can’t afford that.  So, we sorta crouch down low while we ease on by. 

There!  Now I feel a lot better.  We can see our front door right past the end of the ally, and if somethin’ bad does happen, we can execute Plan B--which is to dump the boards right where we are and run straight home--WITH our wagon—and then on into the safety of our own house.    Hopefully, we won’t need Plan B, and it looks like we won’t because we’re about to execute Phase 3!

As we get well past Donnie’s garbage can and back gate, we can see our objective—the vacant garage barn building behind the vacant house that’s right across the street from our house.  I discovered a week ago that even though the store room part of the old wooden building has a locked door, there’s a way to climb up over the wall and get inside that closed room.  More importantly, there’s room to shove our boards over that wall and into the locked store room--our very own secret storage vault!

So, that’s what we do.  I shimmy up over the wall, and Butch starts shoving up board after board.  On the inside, I stand on an old shelf thing and catch each board as it begins to rock over the top of the wall.  Then I gently bring it down and stack it inside the room.  We gotta be quiet.  After only about 10 minutes, I see my big green wooden door, and I know that’s it!  We’ve done it!  All fort pieces stolen back and safely hidden from Donnie and William!  Dang, we’re smart!  We Win!

With that done, and with grins from ear to ear, Butch and I carefully haul our big red wagon across the street and on home.  We both put it on the back patio where I got it at about 4:45 this mornin’, and then we head on inside and see the clock.  6:15!  Heck man!  Plenty of time.  So, we go back to bed for a while and pretend that nothin’ ever happened!

We really did Win!!!!

-Present Day-

As I wrote this story I started thinking, “They’re never gonna believe this!”, but I have to say, it’s TOTALLY true! 

At the time, it didn’t seem like we’d ever get away with it, but we felt like we had to try.  With threats of all kinds of bad things, William and Donnie had kept us out of the fort that Butch and I had worked very hard to create, and they’d been able to keep us out for more than two weeks.  At our age, that amount of time seemed like forever, and we just ran out of patience.

Our little war started over some stupid argument, and no one could remember what it was, but it turned serious very quickly.  One insult led to another, and pretty soon the threats started.  So, we had no choice.  We had to go into our planning mode, and then we had to just to execute our well-thought-out Plan to Win the War. 

Later that morning, William and Donnie found that “their” fort was missing, and they both got really angry!  They both told their parents, and pretty soon, the whole neighborhood was in an uproar.  But no one but Butch and I knew where the fort went, and WE kept our mouths shut.  All we had to do was say nothing and act like maybe some other big kids from another neighborhood came in overnight and stole it all.  It was pretty easy to let that be the assumption because no one could quite believe that Butch and I could have pulled off such a cool plan.  We most certainly DID, though!

However, after only a few days, I couldn’t stand it.  I didn’t feel guilty at all, but I did feel pretty darned clever.  So, I just HAD to tell William and Donnie so they could see how to REALLY plan and execute an attack.  Since we never did really “fight”, there was no danger of actual injury, and the conversation went well.  And when I showed them where Butch and I had hidden the boards, they were quite happy because not only could we all get back to havin’ fun in the fort for the rest of the summer, we also knew that we could use that secret storage room for other things--together!

Of course, it took longer to rebuild the fort than it took Butch and me to tear it down; but, as always, we had lots of fun doin’ it.  In fact, we were able to make some much needed improvements because we found some cool “new” boards right there in our very own secret storage room! 

By the way, William’s dad really wasn’t mean.  We all just said that to make life more interesting around our wonderful little neighborhood.

By the time September rolled around, we all agreed that we had had one of the funnest summers EVER that year.  That’s saying something, because we had a LOT of totally fun summers in our youthful days 

And we had them all right there in good ole Del Rio, Texas.  The BEST little home town in the history of Earth!

Copyright 2013

William Richard Meredith