Battle Dress (23 page)

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

“
D
ON’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 MREs 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.”

Hickman snorted. “Blue Blood Bryen doesn’t like MREs. What a surprise.” He spat on the ground. “Since they’re designed to sustain s
oldiers in combat.
”

Gabrielle took a swig of water from her canteen. “And your point, exactly,
Hick
”—she paused to emphasize the first syllable—“man?”

But Hickman didn’t get a chance to expound; Cadet Daily was back. “Sorry to cut it short, Third Squad, but your feast is over.”

We grabbed our gear and followed Cadet Daily down the dirt road to the first obstacle. Behind the first aluminum wall a huge upperclassman in a yellow T-shirt and BDU pants greeted us. “Welcome to the LRC,” he said. “I’m Cadet Sabo, and I will be the safety observer for this obstacle.” He extended his sun-browned, muscled arm toward a wooden wall about twelve feet high and eight feet wide that slanted away from us and was set in the middle of a sawdust pit. Except for the red areas running down its outside edges and along its bottom third, the wall was painted gray. A rope attached to the top of the wall dangled halfway down.

Gabrielle pulled my sleeve. “That’s the guy from bayonet training,” she whispered. “He’s hotter close up than from far away. Cadet Sabo—he’s no Monet.”

I frowned at her.
What is she talking about? And why is she talking?

“You know, Andi, some guys are—‘Monets.’ They look better from a distance.”

“Do you ladies have something you’d like to share?” The upperclassman, Cadet Sabo, glowered at us. “Expertise on the LRC, perhaps?” The rest of Third Squad turned to look at us. “Maybe
you’d
like to take this block of instruction?”

“No, sir!”

I glanced at Cadet Daily, leaning against the corrugated aluminum. The most prominent part of his body was his red face, turning redder.

Cadet Sabo nodded. “Then I suggest you keep your mind on the task at hand. As I was . . .”

I glared at Gabrielle.
Thanks a lot!
The last thing I wanted right now was to bring attention to myself. That was about the quickest way to becoming the leader first—annoy the guy in charge.

“. . . this is the scenario. You’ve been taking heavy fire from enemy snipers in your area of operations and have requested close-air support. Your mission is to get your squad and supplies safely across this river, represented by this sawdust pit here.” Cadet Sabo waved his hand toward the pit filled with coarse sawdust behind him. “In an estimated thirteen minutes those air strikes are gonna come fast and furious, pummeling this riverbank. That gives you a
maximum
of thirteen minutes to be safely on the other side of the river. Now, this river has an immediate thirty-five-foot dropoff from its banks. In addition the enemy has laid a narrow minefield along the edge of the water”—Cadet Sabo pointed to the red-painted piping that encircled the pit—“as you can see here.” Making a big deal of stepping over the red piping, he walked through the sawdust until he reached the gray slanted wall and leaned against it. “You must use this partially constructed bridge to cross the river. However, be advised: The bridge is also booby-trapped.” He ran his hand down the outside edge of the wall. “Anything painted red is mined. That means whatever touches red blows up. If a person touches it, he dies. If your equipment hits it, it’s lost. And if anything—equipment or personnel—falls into the
water
,” he said, stomping back to us through the sawdust, “it sinks. Plain and simple. Only
I
walk on water, people. Now, direct your attention to the partition behind you.”