Ignatius MacFarland (28 page)

As we ran into Art’s Square, we saw Mr. Arthur’s army pouring into the city from all directions. The creatures of Lesterville were running and slithering and hopping out of the buildings and taking off past the army guys to get away from the square. An eerie orange and red glow lit up the city as the massive blanket of flaming torches hovered above us, making the sky look like it was on fire. I saw Herfta in the center of the flying people, holding some sort of funnel that he was using as a megaphone.

“CHESTER ARTHUR, YOU HAVE ATTACKED OUR PEACEFUL CITY AND DESTROYED IT WITHOUT PROVOCATION. AND SO, AS IS WRITTEN IN PUHLUVIAN LAW, THE SAME TREATMENT SHALL BE ACCORDED TO YOU AND YOUR CITY. PLEASE EVACUATE YOUR CITIZENS IMMEDIATELY.”

“No, wait!” yelled Mr. Arthur, who pushed through his army and ran into the center of the square. “What happened to your city was a
mistake!
It was never my intention to destroy anything. We were merely trying to locate two people who we thought were criminals, and things . . . well . . . they got a bit out of hand. We never meant you or your people any ill will.”

Herfta hung in the air, burning torch in his hand, his wings slowly flapping. After a few seconds of staring down at Mr. Arthur, he slowly started to descend and said, “It was still your army, wasn’t it? And isn’t it up to you to control them? Are you saying that you, as president, have no control over your army?”

“No!” Mr. Arthur said a bit too quickly, then immediately tried to regain his composure. “I mean, of course not. I have complete control over them. They follow my orders. I
am
their leader, you know.”

“Then it’s your fault that they destroyed our city.”

“No!” Mr. Arthur said even quicker this time. I noticed that beads of sweat were starting to form on his brow. “I mean, they
didn’t
follow my orders. Because I told them to find Karen and Iggy, but I
didn’t
tell them to destroy your city.”

“So then you
don’t
control your army,” said Herfta.

“Yes, I do! I mean . . . it’s just . . .” Mr. Arthur’s voice started to sound more and more unsure. “You know, I just sort of didn’t control them at that moment.”

“And which moment would that be?” Herfta said sarcastically as he landed in front of Mr. Arthur. “The moment in which our entire city and everything we owned was completely destroyed by your army?”

Mr. Arthur stood there staring at Herfta for a long time. Then, finally, he said, “Uh . . . yeah. That’s the moment.”

Herfta looked up at all the flying people, who nodded back at him. “Okay, let’s burn the place down,” he said as he flew quickly back up to them. Then the flying people all raised their torches with a
whoosh
and prepared to throw them down at the buildings.

“Wait!” cried Mr. Arthur as he fell to his knees. “You can’t burn it down! It’s all I have. It’s all I’ve ever wanted. I realize that I might have gone too far in trying to protect it. I know that I never should have forced things on people and had an army threaten them into liking it all. But I did it for their own good. You can’t send them back to the primitive world I first found them in. This . . .” He held out his arms, motioning to all of Lesterville as his eyes started to tear up. “This is good. And the people like it. I know they do. I can see it in their faces whenever I bring them something new. Don’t ruin their world just because a mistake of mine caused the destruction of your city. None of us is thinking clearly right now. We can help you rebuild. We can disband the army. Just,
please,
don’t destroy my city!”

Mr. Arthur dropped his head and started sobbing. It was pretty embarrassing for everybody, I have to say, especially all the creatures who had spent the last few years being terrified of him. His army exchanged looks that said they were surprised to see their leader crying like this and that it was affecting their impression of him. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with crying and all, but this sort of went into the category of desperate whimpering and begging.

“Father! Wait!”

We all looked and saw Foo come flying through the torches and straight down toward us. She spread her wings and came to a halt about ten feet above me, just out of the army creatures’ reach.

“FOO!” Herfta yelled. “Get back up here! Right this minute!”

Foo suddenly looked nervous and glanced up at her father. He glared down at her with the expression all dads make when they don’t want you to do something they think is stupid. Then she looked at me. I gave her a smile and said, “If you want to say something, Foo, then you should say it.”

She stared at me, thinking. Then she smiled, looked up at Herfta, and said, “No, father, I’m going to speak.”

Herfta looked stunned, then gave her a rather begrudging nod that said “I’m not happy about this but go ahead.”

“Mr. Arthur is right,” she said, loud enough so that all the flying people could also hear her. “None of us is thinking clearly right now. You have always taught me that we should never make any decisions out of anger and passion. That we are a rational and fair people, and that this is what makes us the people of the sky. For us to throw that all away on one act of revenge would lessen who we are. And none of us would ever want that to happen.”

Foo locked eyes with her father to let him know just how serious she was. Herfta stared at his daughter. It was hard to tell what he was thinking. Mr. Arthur glanced up and sniffled as he looked at Herfta with a “
please
listen to your daughter” look on his face.

“You speak the truth, my girl,” Herfta said after a few seconds. He then flew down to Foo, put his hand up, and brushed it against her cheek as Foo smiled at him, proud and relieved. “But the offenses that have been committed against us are grave, more grave than any our people have ever encountered. What would you propose we do?”

Foo turned and looked down at me. “We should let the newcomer decide.”

A murmur went up through the flying people, as well as the creatures in the army. Herfta got a surprised look and Karen’s mouth dropped open, although I’m sure nobody’s face was showing more surprise than mine at that moment.

“Foo, now
you’re
letting your emotions get the best of you,” Herfta said as he gave me a dirty look. “Just because you like this boy doesn’t mean the fate of this city should be decided by him.”

Foo made an angry face that made her suddenly look very much like her dad. “Don’t insult me, Father,” she said sharply. “Whether or not I like the newcomer is irrelevant. The reason I think he should be the one to decide is that he is the only one among us who can truly be fair.”

“Wait a minute,” said Karen as she stepped forward. “What about me? I’ve been trying to stop Chester ever since I got here a year ago.”

“Which is exactly why you’re not the right person to make this decision,” Foo said to Karen with a friendly but firm smile. “Iggy is the most open-minded person we have. And . . .” Foo looked down and gave me the same smile she did before she put her hand on my face when we got in trouble with Herfta. “I know that he is a very wise and honest person. He would never do something that wasn’t rational.”

There’s nothing like the feeling you get when thousands of people turn and look at you at the exact same time. Which is exactly what happened at that moment. The flying people, the army, Mr. Arthur, Karen, and all the creatures who lived in Lesterville looked at me from wherever they were standing or flying at that moment. The Lestervillians were all packed into the streets that led out of the square, ready to make a quick escape in case their city was set ablaze.

Karen gave me a look that said “Tell them to burn it down.” Mr. Arthur gave me a look that said “Please, tell them
not
to burn it down.” The army guys were all giving me looks that said “Why do you suddenly have more power than our president?” And the creatures of Lesterville? Well, I honestly couldn’t tell what they were thinking. They seemed to be staring at me with a look that said “If you’re the one who’s going to decide our fate, then maybe you’re going to be our new president and so we don’t want to do anything to get on your bad side.” I have to say it was a look that made me feel really bad for them, since it was the look of a bunch of people who hadn’t gotten to make a decision on their own for a really long time.

Which suddenly made me realize exactly what the answer was to this whole situation.

“Um . . .” I said as I stepped forward. I’ve never been good at public speaking, anyway, and so doing it right now in front of so many people at such a high-pressure moment was more than terrifying. But I knew that this was one of those times in life when you had to put all your fears and insecurities away and do the right thing. “The only people who can really make this decision and who
should
make this decision are the people who it affects the most. The citizens of Lesterville.”

Foo smiled at me as if she approved of my answer. The army all exchanged looks, then stared over at the mass of creatures who were packed into the side streets. Mr. Arthur looked up hopefully. The flying people looked at Herfta, who was considering what I had just said. After a few moments, he looked around at the other flying people, then down at the creatures in the streets.

“Very well. Even though we were given no choice in the matter of the destruction of our city, and even though we, like yourselves, had done nothing to justify the loss of our homes, we, as a fair and rational people, leave it to you, the citizens of Lesterville, to tell us what to do.”

There was silence, except for the sound of the army creatures, who were shifting around uncomfortably, clearly unsure of what was about to happen and not at all happy to be standing under the rumbling crackle of thousands of lit torches. The creatures of Lesterville all looked around at each other and considered their decision without speaking. Whatever they were communicating with their eyes seemed to be more important than any words or language at that moment.

Finally, the creatures all looked back at me. Then, softly, I heard them begin to chant.

“. . . burn it . . . burn it . . . burn it . . . burn it . . .”

Mr. Arthur’s face dropped as the army started to look around at one another and then up at the flying people.

Karen leaned over to Mr. Arthur, clearly unsure how to feel about the realization that her dream of bringing down Mr. Arthur’s empire was about to come true in a major way. “Chester, I’d get all your fire equipment ready if I were you.”

“We don’t have any fire equipment,” Mr. Arthur said as he stared blankly, sounding like he was about to start crying. “We don’t have anything to fight fires with because I never thought anything bad would ever happen here. And it doesn’t really matter anyway . . . because my army is terrified of fire.”

As their chant got louder and louder, the Lesterville creatures began to back away down the side streets, moving to safety.

“Burn it, burn it, burn it!” they continued in unison.

The flying people raised their torches, which
whoosh
ed and crackled, and started to come down lower. The army started to back away, looking like nervous cattle in a cowboy movie, as a feel stepped forward out of the Lesterville crowd. He raised his floaty arm and pointed his sucker at the army.

“And drive the armed ones back to their valley!”

And with that, half of the flying people suddenly swooped down like a squadron of jet fighters and dove straight at the army. The gorilla guards, octopus guys, and potato bugs all screamed in terror at the wall of fire flying toward them and started running and rolling and galloping out of the square in a panic, stampeding through the streets toward the hills beyond the White House. The mole commander and the other members of the army who had formerly been citizens of Lesterville all took off running in the opposite direction, as if they simply wanted to get away from what seemed like a pretty unfriendly mob. Karen grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the square so we wouldn’t get trampled by the running army guys. I looked back and saw Mr. Arthur just standing in the middle of it all, staring at his city for the last time.

“Chester!” Karen yelled back at him. “C’mon! Get out of there!”

But he didn’t move. As we kept running, we saw him get swallowed up by the crowd of running guards who swarmed around him in their desperation to escape. Then we saw the flying people throw their torches down at all the buildings in Art’s Square and beyond. The roar of a thousand torches flying through the air made it sound like a squadron of jet fighters was dive-bombing the city, and the streaks of red flame streaming down through the air looked like a shower of meteors from outer space. The torches hit the sides and tops of all the structures, breaking through windows and puncturing the thin walls.

WHOOSH! The buildings burst into flames immediately, going up like piles of oily rags. Whatever wood and other materials the city was made out of seemed like they were about the most flammable things that could have possibly been used. Within seconds, all of Art’s Square was on fire and burning so brightly that it felt like the backs of our bodies were going to melt as we ran away. I looked up and saw Foo flying above us, keeping an eye on Karen and me as we ran through the street and past the theater where
Hamlet
was playing. As I looked back at the theater, it, too, exploded into flames, Mr. Arthur’s picture on the marquee melting like the face of that Nazi guy in
Raiders of the Lost Ark.

“Hey, Iggy,” Karen said as we sprinted along. “Just for the record, even though things probably didn’t turn out the way you imagined they would, well . . . I thought the way you handled yourself back there was really smart. Probably smarter than I would have done it. I guess you’re not such an idiot after all.”

I looked at her to make sure that she wasn’t just making fun of me, but she actually seemed sincere. She smiled at me and it was a really nice moment right up until one of the skyscrapers behind us fell over and burning debris exploded all around us.

As we zigzagged through the fiery deluge, I looked ahead and saw that all the army guys were running past the White House and over the hill that led to the gold mines, as the cloud of flying people chased behind them, driving them back to the valley where they used to live.