Battle Dress

I stepped forward and batted the canvas with my hands. Oh—come on! Where’s that stupid door flap?

  A Third Squad member banged into me from behind, and I was inside. I blinked, trying to adjust the little sight I had to the dimness. My chest rose and fell, and my ears filled with the sound of my own breath. Well, this is it—no turning back now.

  “Don’t just stand there, Dip Wad!”

  I snapped my head in the direction of another blur—an upperclassman, standing in the center of the tent. He was dressed in MOPP Four, waving me in.

  I stumbled forward, running my rubber-gloved hand along the wall of the tent to guide me. The rest of Third Squad crept inside like they were expecting a ghost to pop out at them.

  “Hustle it up, New Cadets! What are you waiting for? Christmas? Let’s go! My old granny moves faster then you!”

  I took cautious, shallow breaths. Okay. This isn’t going to be that bad. It’s really hot in here, but—

  “Welcome to my humble abode, New Cadets,” the upperclassman said. His voice came out slightly muffled through his mask, as if he were speaking with a hand clamped over his mouth. “Anyone feel a burning sensation? Or smell something like burned rubber being shoved up your nose?” He paused. “No? Good. Looks like everyone has a good seal. Believe me, you’d know it, otherwise.”

  I took another breath. No burning. No smell. Good seal. Relax. This isn’t so bad....

  “Now, when I say, ‘All clear,’ you will remove your masks . . .”

  I squinted over at the exit, judging the distance. Okay, just hold your breath till he says we can go. You can swim the length of a fifty-meter pool without coming up for air. You can do this.

  “. . . and immediately begin reciting the national anthem, starting with the second verse—loud and in a motivated manner.”

  The national anthem? Reciting it wasn’t a problem—I knew it. It had been part of Week Two’s knowledge. Reciting while holding my breath, however, was a problem. But I’d do it. Somehow . . .

  “For those of you who got hippopotamus lungs and think you can hold out on me, think again. I’m a very patriotic guy—I love the national anthem. So if you make it through the second verse, keep on going and recite the first verse. ’Cause your only ticket outa here’s that coughin’ sound. Understand?”

  I was going to have to breathe the stuff.

  “YES, SIR!”

  He paused. I waited with the others. One breath . . . two breaths . . . three breaths . . .

  “ALL CLEAR!”

  I gulped, filling my lungs with air, then pulled off my mask. The fiery slap that hit my face almost made me suck in again.

  Together we started to chant the second verse of the national anthem at triple speed: “Oh, thus be it ever when free men shall stand Between their loved homes and wild war’s desolation; Bless’d with vict’ry and peace—”

  My face burned and itched like it did whenever I’d come into my warm house after running in a subzero wind chill. But much worse. Suddenly someone tall doubled over, then whipped around for the exit. Was that Kit? Gone already?

  “. . . may the heav’n-rescued land Praise the pow’r that hath made and . . .”

  Another fled.

  “. . . preserv’d us a nation! Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just . . .”

  Another bolted. The smallest person in the tent—Gabrielle—staggered after him, clawing at her eyes.

  Don’t look! I squeezed my eyes shut—they were starting to tear. Snot leaked out of my nose, ran down my chin . . . Hold on! I really did not want to breathe that stuff.

  “. . . And this be our motto: ‘in God is our trust!’ And the star-spangled banner . . .”

  I opened my eyes. Besides the upperclassman, only one other person and I remained. He was huge. Cero? I was reaching my limit; my air was almost gone.

  “. . . in triumph shall wave . . .”

  I clenched my fists. Blood pounded against the inside of my skull.

  “. . . O’er the land of the free and the home . . .”

  No! I had taken a breath during the natural pause of the verse, just like I would’ve if I’d been singing. Dry, scratchy air, like super-concentrated car exhaust, rushed in. Mucus spewed out. I sucked in again. I’m drowning! No—my throat’s on fire! I wasn’t in an Army tent, I was in an airtight phone booth with a thousand chopped onions. I scrambled for the exit and, waving my arms wildly in front of me, found the opening in the canvas.

  “. . . of the brave.” Cero had finished the verse. Alone.

  Sunlight and cold water struck my eyes simultaneously. Shouting faces hovered above me. Hands pushed me forward. Water drenched my hair, my face, my neck.

  “Keep moving forward, Davis!”

  “You’re doing okay!”

  “No stalling! Someone’s right behind you!”

  More snot than I ever imagined my body could produce covered my face and MOPP suit. Thick lines of drool hung from my mouth to my waist. No sunburn, not even the one I got on my first day of lifeguarding two summers ago, had ever fried my face like this. I bent over and coughed until I was sure that I’d see foamy chunks of lung fly out of my mouth.

  Someone’s hand came down on my shoulder, hard.

  I reeled around. Cero. His eyes were red. His face, covered with slime. His MOPP jacket dripped water and goo.

  “Davis! Just wanted to say . . .” He turned away from me and spewed mucus out of his mouth. “I just wanted to say . . . I’m glad you left when you did.... I couldn’t . . .” He started coughing, then cleared his throat and spat again. “. . . hold out . . . much longer.” He wiped his nose on his sleeve. “Man! That stings! That MOPP suit really . . . soaked up that stuff.”

  I shook my head. “Hold out . . . much . . . longer?” My words came out in wheezy gasps.

  “Yeah.” He held his mask under his arm and peeled off his gloves. “I just wanted . . . to be the last guy . . . out of the tent, that’s all.” He paused to take three raspy breaths. “You know, to really . . . experience the stuff.”

  “Experience the stuff, Cero?” I shook my head again. “Not me! I just didn’t want to inhale, that’s why I stayed in so long.” I coughed, then swallowed. Coughed, then swallowed. And finally spat. “Procrastination, I guess.”

  “Man, I thought you guys would never come outa that fiery furnace!” I turned around. Kit was standing behind me, a canteen in his hand. “I was starting to think you were doing a Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.”

  “A what?” I squinted at Kit and started coughing again. “Kit, sometimes . . . I think . . . you belong . . . on another planet . . . or something.” I wiped my mouth on my shoulder. Ouch! My lips burned like I’d smeared them with Tabasco sauce.

  Kit winked. “What can I say? I’m just a pilgrim traveling through. Here.” He handed me his canteen. “You look like you need a drink.”

  I took a swig, swishing the water around my mouth before I swallowed. “Sorry, but I think the gas has affected both your brains, guys.”

  “Me?” Kit wheezed a laugh. “I wasn’t in there long enough, Andi. I took my obligatory breath, and I was outa there. I figured, why prolong the misery? But this guy”—he pointed at Cero—“just admitted that he wanted to experience the gas. Now tell me who’s killed some serious brain cells!”

  Cero opened his mouth to say something, then just smiled and shook his head.

  “You’ve got a point there, Kit.” I reached down between my MOPP pants and my BDU trousers, feeling for the cargo pocket that held my glasses.

  “All I can say is you guys are way more ‘hu-ah’ than me,” Kit said.

  Cero shrugged. “‘Hu-ah’ probably isn’t the right word, Bogus.” He glanced at me. “I’m speaking for myself, of course. Sentimental would be more accurate, I think.”

  “Sentimental?” Kit and I said together.

  I slid my TEDs on my face. Finally—I’ve got my eyes back!

  Cero frowned. “Okay, now I do sound like my brain’s been affected.
Forget I mentioned it.” He scanned the packs of slime-covered, hacking new cadets who were milling around all over the training site. “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m ready to shed these threads. Where’s Third Squad at?”

  “I’m the guy to ask,” Kit said. “I just came from there to police you two up.” Then he looked at me. “And I’ll tell you what, Andi—Gab’s one unhappy camper right now.”

  I felt my heart speed up. “Why? What happened? She’s okay, isn’t she?”

  “Oh, she’s okay,” Kit said. “But she wore her contacts today and—”

  “She lost them.”

  Kit nodded. I shook my head. Poor Gab! These past twenty-four hours had been rough ones for her.

  As we made our way over to Third Squad, Kit said, “Okay, Cero. I’m not letting you off the hook. You just can’t say something like ‘CS gas makes me feel sentimental’ and drop it.”

  Cero flexed his jaw and stared straight ahead.

  I nudged him. “Yeah, that’s right, Cero. There’s nothing sentimental about coughing your guts out!”

  Cero slowed his steps, then stopped completely. His eyes bounced between my face and Kit’s. “Look, guys,” he finally said. “It’s no enigma, okay? It’s just that, well, tear gas and my family go way back, that’s all.” He glared at us. “It’s not a joke, guys.”

  Kit stared back at him. “You see us laughing, Cero?”

  Cero stared at the toe of his boot, kicking a stone that was stuck in the dirt. “Look, when my grandma was about my age, she got a good dose of tear gas. My uncle, too. Same age, same town, twenty-seven years later. End of story.”

  “Oh! So they were in the Army, too?” I don’t know why exactly, but I regretted the question the second I asked it. I started pulling off my gloves to give me something to do.

  “Not exactly. Not unless,” Cero said, dropping his voice as if he were talking more to himself than to me, “you think the color of your skin is some sort of uniform.” Then he looked at us, his eyes guarded. “No, during the Watts riots, 1965, and the Rodney King riots, 1992. Respectively.” He crossed his arms. “L.A.’s the place to be if you wanna get gassed.”

  I didn’t know how to respond to that, and apparently neither did Kit, because we said nothing together.

  “Nope, my family’s no fan of the Army,” Cero said. “Or West Point, for that matter.” He shook his head and laughed softly. “Definitely not West Point.” He let out a long, tired breath. “My grandma’s the toughest lady you’ll ever meet. She raised me and my brothers when my mom took off. But back when she was my age, she had two passions—antiwar protests and civil rights. And she’s never let them go. For as long as I remember, she’s combined the two in hating the military.” He paused. “Her first husband was K.I.A. in Vietnam.”

  Killed in Action. “Sorry . . .” I chewed on my thumbnail. It tasted like burned rubber.

  “Yeah.” Cero stooped down to pick up the stone he’d been working out of the dirt all this time, then tossed it from one hand to the other, one hand to the other. “She’s always going around saying stuff like ‘Vietnam was the black man’s war’ and quoting Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.” He clenched his fist over the stone and closed his eyes. Lines creased his forehead. “‘We have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together in brutal solidarity, realizing that they would never live on the same block in Detroit.’” He opened his eyes. “Pretty good, huh? Yeah, my grandma has his speeches memorized like preachers know the Gospels.” He shrugged, his eyes wary again. “But hey—this means nothing to you guys. You don’t want to hear this.”

  I looked back at the tent. Mass pandemonium still encircled it. “No, Cero! It’s really great. ’Cause today you got to carry out the family tradition. It didn’t happen during a riot”—I nodded at the tent—“exactly. But it is the sixth week of Beast, you know. That should count for something!” I smiled, hoping that this time I had said the right thing.

  A little spark flashed in his eyes, and I knew I had.

  “That’s right,” Kit said. “You got your own square on the ol’ family quilt, now.”

  What a cool thing to say!

  “Yeah.” Cero turned toward Kit, a grin creeping across his face. “Yeah. ‘A square on my ol’ family quilt.’ Hey, that’s good, Bogus. I like that.” He paused, scratching the side of his face. “You know, I haven’t written my grandma all summer, except when Cadet Daily told us to, of course. But now I think I’ve got something to write home about. Something she can relate to. Maybe she’ll finally see that, well, we all have our causes.” He chucked the stone toward the woods. “Mine’s making it through this place. East L.A. ain’t gonna be my cage.”

  We watched the stone sail through the air, then hit a branch before bouncing off the leaves as it dropped to the ground.

  “Well, Cero,” I said, “when you write her, tell her about us.” I nodded my head toward Kit. “Tell her that we live on the same hallway as you. Okay?”

  “I will.” He nodded. “I want her to know that.” Cero clapped us both across the back. “Thanks, guys.” Then he squared his shoulders and the hardness was back in his eyes—just like that. “‘Nuff said. Let’s hook up with Third Squad. They’re waitin’ on us!”

  As I sat with Third Squad in the copse of trees, peeling off my soggy MOPP suit and listening to Gabrielle’s requiem for her lost contact lenses, I felt like a real human being for the first time all summer. For a few minutes Cero had cracked open his onyx exterior and let me see inside.

  And I realized that I wasn’t the only one with a quilt square to stitch.

  CHAPTER 13

  SATURDAY, 7 AUGUST 1250

  Our doubts are traitors,

  And make us lose the good we oft might win,

  By fearing to attempt.

  —WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, MEASURE FOR MEASURE

  “DON’T TELL ME,” Gabrielle said. “That’s lunch.” I pulled my eyes away from “Scott’s Fixed Opinion” in my Bugle Notes and followed Gabrielle’s gaze. Cadet Daily was at the rear of one of the deuce-and-a-halfs parked near the entrance of the site, pulling brown plastic packages out of a box.

  “Yep,” Ping said. “Good old MREs. The perfect midday snack.”

  “Good old MREs.” Gabrielle made a face and, with one practiced jab of her index finger, stopped her TEDs from sliding down her nose. “Meals Ready to Eat. Three lies in one.”

  Most of Third Squad laughed.

  Gabrielle smiled, obviously proud of her joke. “And I thought there was an honor code around here.”

  “Hey,” Kit said. “Food is food, Gab. They actually let us eat, out here at Lake Frederick, so whatever they throw my way, I’m eating. I’ll take quantity over quality every time.”

  Cero yawned, looking at Gabrielle out of one half-opened eye. “All I’ve got to say, Bryen, is out here, there’s no more inch-sized bites, ‘order arms,’ or sitting at attention. No room inspections and no drill. And that’s good enough for me.” He scooted back a few feet and leaned against a tree trunk. “All we’ve got to do all day is run around in the woods, then chill out at night—play cards, go swimming, hang out, rack.” He tipped his Kevlar over his eyes. “I’ll tell you what, life at Lake Frederick is good.”

  “Yeah, life is good now,” Jason said. “But in a few days, we’ll be back to the ol’ same old same old.”

  Cadet Daily arrived, tossing each of us an MRE. “Okay, Third Squad—chow’s here. And no sniveling about what you get,” he said. “I ain’t your maître d’.”

  My MRE landed in my lap. I shoved my Bugle Notes into my back pocket and flipped the package over to read what was to be my lunch. Stamped onto the industrial-strength plastic was: MEAL NO. 8. HAM SLICE.

  Ham slice? Well, it can’t be any worse than the stuff my mother pops out of a can and serves at Christmas.

  Cadet Daily looked at his watch. “You boneheads have about twenty minutes to scarf down those M
REs before the first obstacle of the Leader Reaction Course.” He pointed down the dirt road in the middle of the woods. Off to the right, high walls of corrugated aluminum loomed, sandwiching each obstacle and hiding it from our view. “We’ll get to see how you guys work as a team. And there are eight obstacles—just enough for each of you to get a turn being the leader.”

  Each of us will be the leader? I ran my finger along the edge of my MRE.

  “I’ll be evaluating each leader’s reaction—hence the name, Leader Reaction Course—as he”—Cadet Daily paused, glancing at Gabrielle and me—“or she assesses the situation, comes up with a plan to clear the obstacle, and motivates the squad to execute the plan. This is gonna be a good time, Third Squad. So eat up. I’ll be back in a few.”

  Come up with a plan? That everyone has to follow? I looked at the Third Squad members around me. What if I can’t figure out what to do? Or they think my plan is stupid?

  I knew one thing about myself: I’d much rather be part of a group, taking orders. Not giving them. And I’d always been that way. My mother used to sneer at me and say, “You are such a follower. You never think on your own. You’d walk right off a ten-story building if someone told you to.” I hated hearing it. But even worse was admitting that she was right.

  I bit on the inside of my lip as I tore a hole in the tough plastic package and reached inside for the lumpy vacuum-packed packets: Ham Slice with Natural Juices . . . Potatoes au Gratin . . . Accessory Packet . . . Crackers . . . Cheese Spread . . . Brownie, Chocolate Covered . . .

  “Anybody wanna trade?” Bonanno held up his MRE. “Chicken with Rice. I had it yesterday. It was pretty good if you use the Tabasco sauce.”

  “And if you like coagulated chicken grease,” Gabrielle said. “No thanks. But here, take mine—Spaghetti with Meat and Sauce.” She tossed Bonanno her unopened MRE.

  “Spaghetti? Really?” Bonanno snatched the MRE out of the air. “You’re the best, Bryen.”

  “I know. But I have my motives: I’d rather not eat than waste thirty-five hundred calories on manufactured vomit.”