The Light Brigade - Chapter 1

“You must be Will Sanders. We need your help to save the town.”

This is an installment of my new serialized middle grade novel - The Light Brigade. When new kid in town Will finds himself in the midst of a sea of brainwashed middle schoolers, he has to join the Light Brigade, an unlikely group of heroes, to save them. Can he trust the Man Upstairs who guides them with fortune cookie directions? Will he find his place in the Brigade? Will he be able to stop the shadowy New Moon Group from forcing his classmates to collect acorns for a cartoon squirrel until they all collapse? Subscribed? Get caught up here.

“You must be Will Sanders. We need your help to save the town.”

Will looked up at the girl standing over him, utterly bewildered. She seemed normal enough, with her cheerleading outfit and neat ponytail. Yet, Will shifted uneasily despite this stranger’s friendly smile. Being the new kid in town, almost no one knew his name, and he had kinda been hoping to keep it that way. It might be too quiet here for his tastes but at least he could be left alone with his books. Except now I have this weird girl interrupting me just when my book was getting good, he thought.

“I’m sorry, who are you?” asked Will.

“I’m Lily, Lily Nguyen. Nice to meet you.”

She stopped again, looking down at him from behind round, gold-rimmed sunglasses. She seemed to be expecting him to pick up the conversation. Will slowly closed his book, careful to keep his finger in his place. He wouldn’t want even the craziest of conversations to make him lose his spot. He stood up from beneath the tree and shouldered his backpack, ready to run at the least sign of further insanity.

“Yeah, that didn’t answer my question,” Will said, “How did you know my name?”

“The Man Upstairs told me that I would find you here, of course. He said, ‘Go find Will Sanders under the mulberry tree out in front of school.’ And here you are! Cool, isn’t it?”

Will’s eyes widened and an involuntary chuckle escaped. “I don’t know that ‘cool’ is quite the word that I would use.”

Lily nodded. “Yeah, you’re right, like totally prescient would be way better. Anyway, we really need your help. Without you, the whole town is in mega danger.”

This seemed to be a bit over dramatic. The whole town? It seemed to Will that he would be of very little use in saving much of anyone. What help could come from a skinny 12-year-old who hasn’t even hit his growth spurt yet? But still if he could be of some use…. He might not be such a fan of his new home, but Will was certainly concerned if people were in danger.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

Lily shrugged. “I have no idea.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“I don’t know what the danger is.”

“Let me get this straight: you need my help, but you don’t know what the problem is?” Will asked.

“Exactly! So, you’ll help?”

Will rubbed his forehead – this conversation was starting to give him a headache. “How am I supposed to help if you don’t know what the problem is?”

“Well, I don’t need your help just yet but probably soon. When the problem starts.”

“I’m sorry, you’ve completely lost me now. You’re telling me that you need my help for some unknown problem that hasn’t started yet? How am I supposed to do that?”

“By not eating the school lunch today.”

“Come again?”

“Yeah, those were the instructions that the Man Upstairs gave us: don’t eat the school lunch today.”

“Us? There are more of you? You’re not the only one who talks to this Man Upstairs?” Will asked. Having a group would rule out hallucinations. Of course, she could be imagining them, too, he thought.

“Yeah! I’m part of a group of kids who save the town on the regular. We do what the Man Upstairs says, and then somehow we are able to save the town. It’s totally epic. There’s four of us, well, five now if you’ll help. We call ourselves the Light Brigade.”

“Like the poem from Tennyson?”

“Yeah, that’s the one. ‘Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do or die.’”

“Yeah, and all of them died. Because they listened to really stupid commanders.”

“True, but our commander is much wiser. You know, the Man Upstairs.”

Will rolled his eyes. “He doesn’t even have a real name?”

Lily contemplated this for a moment, twirling her ponytail – for such a simple question it seemed to take an awful lot of consideration. “I suppose he must have a real name, but I don’t know it. It’s not really relevant. He’s an excellent commander and has never steered us wrong.”

Will thought that knowing someone’s name was quite important, especially when that person was handing out mysterious orders. Lily obviously believed in the guy, but Will was getting some seriously creepy vibes from the whole situation.

“I think I’m going to have to pass on helping. This all just sounds way too weird,” Will said.

“I thought you’d say that,” said Lily, “It all does sound totally sketchy, but will you at least think about it? We’re all meeting up after school at our headquarters, that big Queen Anne house on Main Street.”

Lily seemed so expectant that Will hated to disappoint her. She seemed nice enough, normal even, if you ignored the crazy talk coming out her mouth. But Will just didn’t want to get involved. Small town life was not agreeing with him after the hustle and bustle of Chicago. He missed going to Cubs games and deep dish pizza, heck, he even missed the wind. The stink from the paper mill where his parents worked just about summed up all of Milltown in Will’s opinion.

On the other hand, perhaps whatever problem is going to happen is the excitement that he had been waiting for. At least I can go see their “headquarters.” If it turns out to be something even more odd, I can always bail, he thought.

“Ok, I’ll think about it,” said Will, “I mean, I might have a bunch of homework and not be able to come, so….”

“Great!” said Lily with a little bounce, “Here is a sandwich for you so you won’t be hungry. Oh, and the Man Upstairs had a message for you, too. What was it? Oh, right: ‘Duck when you see the platypus.’”

“Is this supposed to be some kind of joke? Duck when I see the platypus? What is that supposed to mean?” Will asked, his raised eyebrows practically disappearing into the mess of red hair.

Lily shrugged. “How am I supposed to know? It’s your message, not mine. But if it were me, I would duck when I see a platypus.”

“Great, really helpful,” said Will with an eye roll, “I’ll be sure to do that. And if I do, something good will happen to me? What, am I going to get a puppy?”

Just then, the bell rang for the start of school. “Got to go. Remember, duck when you see the platypus. The Man Upstairs always knows what he’s talking about,” said Lily. She hopped off toward class, calling over her shoulder back to Will, “See you this afternoon!”

“I only said I’d think about it!” Will hollered back. He still wasn’t sure what to think of Lily. What can someone to make of a cheerleader who is completely nuts? Maybe she wasn’t a cheerleader at all but instead just a crazy person who pretends to be a cheerleader. Yeah, that’s probably it. No real mystery here, just an unfortunate girl. Well, the excitement was nice while it lasted, he thought.

With another sigh, in what was turning into a continuous stream, Will put his bookmark in place and headed towards school, still lost in thought about this most curious of mornings.

He hadn’t taken more than a dozen steps, though, when his eyes fell on a boy sitting on the stairs, supremely undisturbed by the fact that school was about to start. His shirt had a bright orange and purple platypus on the front that appeared to be dancing the cha-cha. Will stopped and stared. There was a platypus, a real platypus! Well, a platypus shirt, but still! What are the chances? Could there really be something to the Man Upstairs? Perhaps Lily isn’t so crazy after all, thought Will.

In his dumbfounded state, Will forgot the second part of the message, the part that could have saved him a nasty bruise and quite the headache for most of first period. So, rather than following the instructions and ducking, he just stood there and stared with his mouth hanging open until he was smacked right in the forehead by a runaway Frisbee.

Once he had regained his feet and dusted himself off, Will headed on into school with a sly grin, rubbing the throbbing lump that was forming on his forehead. This town might not be so bad after all, he thought. It looked like it was finally going to be an interesting day.