Lowell born and based author Pierre Comtois is out with a new book. The Boy Who Invented Himself is a ‘Tween novel about growing up in Lowell in the 1960s and serves as a prequel to another of Pierre’s books, Sometimes a Warm Rain Falls. More information about Pierre and a link to his website where the book may be purchased, comes at the end of this post. But first, a sample chapter from the new book:

The Boy Who Invented Himself

Chapter Six

In which Guy is betrayed and takes a giant step back

                    “Not graduating!”

“You heard me,” said a disheartened Nick Tropoli.

“Just over that little fight?” asked Buster.

“Yeah. It wasn’t so little as that.”

Nick had been winning the fight that night at the graduation ball when it was interrupted by the commandant himself. The others got off with only a reprimand but he and the cadet he had been fighting, were reduced in grade and forced to re do their senior cadet year.

“This is awful!” declared Dan. “We were all going to be assigned to the Attacker together.”

Nick shrugged in resignation. “You guys will have to go on by yourselves. Maybe I can be assigned to wherever you’re serving next year.”

“This is awful!” repeated Dan.

Buster remained silent.

Gateway to the Future
Guy DeMonde

     “Keep quiet, you guys,” said Jiff in an urgent whisper.

He, Guy, Chuck, Don, and Mike were approaching Tilden Street through the woods opposite Guy’s house. They’d crossed Beaver Brook over a fallen tree then climbed the slope on the other side to a concrete wall built decades before after the Merrimack River had crested and flooded the neighborhoods on the other side.

“Why don’t you guys wait here while I go ahead and scout the other side of the wall,” whispered Guy. “I’ve been there before you know.”

“Okay,” agreed Jiff. “But remember your UNCLE training.”

“Right!”

Carefully, Guy shouldered his way through a last stretch of tall grass, making sure to push it aside slowly so as not to cause a sound. At the same time, he watched his feet using bare patches of earth and rocks as stepping areas to further reduce noise. The gang considered their methods of soundless movement to be part of their UNCLE training as Jiff had said, or the way they imagined the super spies Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin must have been trained in The Man From UNCLE, currently their favorite TV show.

The Man From UNCLE had debuted on NBC television the year before, but it had taken awhile for the boys’ enthusiasm for it to translate into actual play. Mostly because they had no enemies to confront the way UNCLE had THRUSH. But when school began again the month before, and Guy was reintroduced to some of the kids from Tilden Street whom he sometimes hung around with, he was reminded how Bobby Toussaint had had a clubhouse in his backyard, the perfect target for a spying mission.

Not only that, but Bobby and his cousins, Deni and Normy Cardolet and hanger on Lester Beauchoin, could fit the bill as local THRUSH agents. Of course, that didn’t necessarily mean that they’d think of themselves that way. In fact, they didn’t, being bigger fans of the Hardy Boys books than the UNCLE TV show. Which later became a good enough reason for animosity between the two groups.

Reaching the wall, Guy slowly lifted his head until he could peek over the top.

They’d planned it just right. On the other side was the Toussaint’s back yard, or rather, the field alongside their main house lot. The field itself was used by Bobby’s father as a vegetable garden, just then looking forlorn with its dried up corn stalks standing in ragged rows. But alongside the wall, there was an uncultivated strip where a big apple tree filled the sky. It was at the base of the apple tree where Bobby’s clubhouse was located.

Looking at it, Guy recalled the times he’d come over to Bobby’s house and actually helped him work on the clubhouse. Bobby was never satisfied with it and was constantly taking it apart and rebuilding it until it reached its present form: a two story structure with a balcony on the second floor that let out onto one of the tree’s larger branches. From there, wooden steps led to a crow’s nest farther up. From up there, Guy knew, Desrosiers Street could be glimpsed across Beaver Brook.

The inside of the clubhouse was divided into a couple rooms downstairs, one of them an infirmary, and a single room upstairs equipped with bunks. Guy had to admit the whole thing was pretty impressive and wished UNCLE had such a set up. As it was, all they could do was hold their secret councils in his or Jiff’s basements.

Not seeing anyone around, Guy was emboldened. He lifted his head higher for a better look around.

Across Tilden Street, where the Cardolets lived, there was no sign of THRUSH. Nor was there back at the Toussaint house. It looked all clear.

Turning, he signaled for the others to approach.

Impressed by how silently they all moved, Guy welcomed them to the wall.

“Doesn’t look like there’s anyone around,” he whispered.

“Great,” said Jiff, peeking over the wall for himself. “Let’s you, me, and Chuck go over and search the clubhouse. Don, you and Mike stay here and keep a lookout.”

The younger boys weren’t happy about staying behind and missing out on the fun but they took their orders the way UNCLE agents should.

Quickly, the three others climbed onto the wall, their bellies hugging the rough concrete surface, before easing themselves down on the opposite side. Pausing only long enough to make sure everything was still quiet, they creeped over the shaggy grass to the corner of the clubhouse.

“So far, so good,” said Jiff.

“Let’s go inside,” urged Chuck.

“Follow me,” said Jiff.

The door leading inside was an old kitchen door Bobby had found someplace whose top half was open. Jiff poked his head inside to make sure no one was there and then told Chuck to stay outside and keep an eye out.

“Why me?”

“’Cause I’m in charge and Guy helped to build this place,” said Jiff. “He knows his way around it.”

“I still don’t like it. No one’s around. We should all be able to go inside.”

“Can’t take any chances,” said Jiff, pushing open the bottom half of the door while trying to keep it from squeaking. After a cautious look around, he and Guy stepped inside.

Being there again reminded Guy of earlier days when he sometimes hung around with Bobby and other friends from St. Louis Elementary School. It happened now and then but never lasted. He always ended up back with his neighborhood friends before too long. But this year, school had not even begun when he had one of the most profound shocks of his life: he found out that he would not be going on to fifth grade with Bobby and the others but staying back instead!

Guy had completed fourth grade the year before and had had no reason to think anything was amiss with his grades. They’d not been much different than previous years which was to say, average. Mostly C’s with the occasional D in math. But none of that was a surprise. The surprise came just before his family’s annual Labor Day trip to Canada when his parents lowered the boom.

“Huh?” was all a stunned Guy could say after hearing the bad news. “I’m staying back?”

“We found out a few weeks ago but didn’t want to spoil your summer vacation by telling you too soon,” explained his mother.

Although his father was strict about things like homework and grades, the fact that he himself had never graduated high school and had never been much of a reader, prevented him from mustering too much emotion about Guy staying back. However, what reaction he did give was devastating enough.

“When school starts,” said his father, “I want you to get rid of your comic books. Throw them out. No more comics during the school year.”

“No! Papa, not that!” begged Guy, already trying to imagine a life without regular doses of Spider-Man, Thor, or the Avengers. “Please! I promise to do better. I’ll study more…”

But Mr. DeMonde only shook his head. “No. Your mother and I believe they’re too much of a distraction. And no television on school nights either.”

“But…my grades. They weren’t any worse than usual.”

“It wasn’t just this year,” said his mother. “It was the fact that you haven’t improved them over the last couple of years. Too many Ds. Too many Cs. Your teachers believe that you can do better than that.”

It was all just too unbelievable. Besides the humiliation of staying back, there was also the knowledge that now Jiff would be a grade ahead of him and he’d likely be sharing a class with his younger sisters. And worse, there would be no comic books for what might as well have been forever!

He brooded over the permutations of the news all through the family’s Canada trip so that by the time he found himself walking to school on that first horrible morning, he felt like running back home and hiding under his bed. Not even the possession of a shiny new school bag with its brass clasp and cool subject dividers built inside could raise his spirits. Nor the new note pads and pencil case filled with unused pencils and erasers, water coloring kit for use on art days, and new Fireball XL-5 lunch box could do it.

Together with his sisters, he walked to school picking up other kids going the same way including friends they hadn’t seen all summer. Guy wondered what they’d say if they knew he was staying back and blushed with embarrassment just thinking about it. At school, the school yard was already filled with milling children all abuzz about coming back for another year. Some were even running around or playing hopscotch already. How could they feel so carefree and upbeat, wondered Guy, while I’m so miserable?

Looking for a familiar face, Guy finally spotted Ricky Poilette over by the rectory garage and went over to him.

“Hey, Ricky,” greeted Guy.

“Hey, yourself.”

“What’s the matter? Don’t want to go back to school?”

Ricky seemed as depressed as Guy did.

“I’m stayin’ back,” was all Ricky said.

Guy immediately felt a slight rise in his mood. I’m not alone! he reassured himself, not without some feeling of guilt however. After all, he really didn’t care to see his friend suffer the way he was.

“Stayin’ back?” Was all Guy could muster. “You sure?”

“That’s what my father said and he wasn’t happy about it neither.”

“I can imagine. Gee, Ricky. I’m sorry to hear that.”

Ricky shrugged.

“If it’s any help, I’m stayin’ back too,” he admitted.

Ricky immediately perked up. “You too?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I gotta admit, that’s a relief. I thought I was the only dumb guy in our class.”

“We’re not dumb,” insisted Guy. “We’re both smart but in different ways than show up in our grades.”

“Maybe. But in what way? If we get Ds or Fs we get Ds or Fs. What other way to find out is there?”

Guy didn’t say anything but felt instinctively neither he nor Ricky was any dumber than anyone else. They just didn’t study hard enough was all.

He was about to mention it when another voice intruded on them.

“I heard what you guys were sayin’” said Rocky Fourchin, joining them as he walked over from West Sixth Street. “You won’t be alone. I’m stayin’ back too.”

“No kiddin’?” Guy and Ricky said at the same time. Rocky was known for playing a practical joke or two in his time.

Rocky shook his head. “No kiddin’.”

“This makes it even more confusing,” said Ricky. “We can’t all be that bad!”

Something didn’t add up, that was for sure, thought Guy. He knew for a fact that he, Ricky, and Rocky were just ordinary students, hardly any different than the other guys in the class. So why did the nuns pick on them to stay back? For sure, St. Louis had strict academic standards, more strict than the public schools. Still it was strange and inexplicable. The only reason Guy could come up with, and it was far fetched, was that the nuns must think that he and his friends were smarter than their grades indicated and that by keeping them back, they weren’t punishing them but actually trying to help them!

This totally original thought was just beginning to sink in when it was interrupted by the ringing of a hand bell that echoed across the expansive school yard.

All activity stopped and slowly, hundreds of children began to gravitate toward an assembly area at the rear of the towering, red brick school building.

“Second graders, rooms A and B line up over here,” said Seour Antoinette after the new first graders had already been led inside.

With the second graders in place, standing two by two with the girls in front, it was easy for the remaining grades from the third to the eighth to take their own places to the right of each other.

Guy and his friends were confused for a moment about where they should line up until Rocky shrugged and said “Might as well line up with the new fourth graders.”

He wasn’t sure about his friends, but Guy felt acutely embarrassed to have his former class mates including Bobby Toussaint, Don “Tornado” Nadeau, Geof Germain, and Mike Boucher, watch him line up with the new fourth graders in a public advertisement of his personal failure.

Of course, Guy had participated in this annual first day of school practice and had watched other kids stay back and join their new classes and recalled feeling embarrassed for them as well as relief that it hadn’t been him. Well, now it was, and he now knew what those other unfortunate kids must have felt leaving their old classmates behind.

There was murmuring among the ranks at first as there always was, but soon enough everyone forgot about the students staying back as they concentrated on the new experiences and lessons they would have over the coming year.

Not so fortunate, Guy, like the other kids staying back, could only look forward to another year made boring by having to go over all the same lessons they covered the year before. Phooey!

Then, after each grade had been sorted out, the principal, a stern looking Seour Vincent, began her annual welcome back speech in a mix of French and English.

Having heard the speech before, Guy sort of tuned her out, as he felt a growing determination to bear down in the coming year to make sure he’d never stay back again. It’d happened before to some kids. Even a third time wasn’t unknown. But when that happened, the kid usually disappeared from St. Louis to attend the local public school instead or even Santa Maria. The latter was located in a handsome stone mansion atop a hill along Lakeview Avenue. Again, operated by nuns, Guy had heard its classes were so small that it was almost as if students were being tutored. It may have been unfair, but students who ended up there were said to be “slow.” Guy wanted to make sure that such a horrible fate never happened to him!

So, for Guy, it was bad enough to have stayed back, but worse was to come.

The first Saturday after that first week of school, his father told him to gather his comic book collection.

“What for?” asked Guy but he knew the answer: the dread day had arrived.

“I want you to get rid of them,” said Mr. DeMonde. “No comic books while you’re in school. From now on, after supper, it’ll be only homework or reading. And if you don’t want to do either one of those things, you can go to bed.”

“Even on weekends?”

“You can do your homework on Saturday or Sunday, but no comic books at all. What’s the matter?”

“I really didn’t want to believe that you meant it before that you wanted me to get rid of my comics.”

“It’s your own fault. You should have done better in school.”

Even though he’d been expecting the news ever since his parents had first told him that he was staying back, the demand still came as a devastating shock. How could he face a future without comic books? A whole year! Or at least most of a year clear to the following summer which might as well have been a whole year.

Still, the idea of simply throwing them in the trash was just too much for Guy to bear. Instead, he’d take them to a store downtown that friends at school told him about. A store that bought used books and old comic books. They paid two cents each for them and resold them at five cents so at least he’d be able to make some money from his personal disaster.

After asking Jiff if he wanted to go downtown with him, the two boys set off on their bikes.

“Do you know where this store is?” asked Jiff, as they set off on their trusty Schwinn’s down busy Lakeview Avenue.

“Sorta,” said Guy from over his shoulder. “The kids I talked to said it was on Central Street.”

“Well, do ya know where Central Street is?” Jiff persisted.

“Not really, but I guess we can ask someone once we get downtown.”

Guy had been downtown many times before but not by himself. Each week, his mother and a friend went shopping at the many stores there and lunched in the Dutch Tea Room. Each time, she’d take either his twin sisters or himself with her and it was an occasion they all looked forward to with eagerness because their mother would invariably buy them a little something before treating them to lunch at the Tea Room. Usually, going with his mother meant a book for Guy that he eagerly added to his meager collection of Tom Swift or Brains Benton sets.

But going downtown with his mother meant going by cab so that Guy only had a vague idea of how to get there let alone find his way around. He did know where Prince’s book store was on Merrimack Street and figured to start there in the search for the used bookstore.

Riding their bikes on the sidewalks where possible, Guy and Jiff hugged the parked cars along the roads until reaching the city hall and veering onto Merrimack Street, the main drag in downtown Lowell. They passed the Bon Marche, the city’s department store, and Pollard’s, and Cherry and Webb before arriving at Prince’s.

“Here it is,” said Guy, pulling up in front of the store and leaning his bike gently against its plate glass display window. “Wait here. I’ll go in and ask where the used book store is.”

Inside, the store seemed narrow and crammed mostly with office supplies but it did have a modest display of new books ranged against one wall. Guy would have liked to look through them but hadn’t the time. He waited for the proprietress to finish with a customer before asking about the used book store.

“A used book store?” wondered the woman. “Hmm. Let me see.”

She went to a back room and Guy heard her talking to someone. When she came back, she had an answer.

“There’s one right around the corner on Central Street,” she said, gesturing vaguely in the direction of outside. “Go down about two blocks. It’s called Harvey’s.”

“Thank you,” said Guy and rejoined Jiff outside.

“It’s around the corner,” he told Jiff, remounting his bike.

“Is it far?”

“Don’t think so.”

They rode their bikes slowly along the sidewalk, careful to avoid the many pedestrians who crowded the midday streets. A street sign indicated Central Street and they cruised along, reading store signs as they went. Guy had just begun to wonder if he’d been given the wrong directions when they found it.

“Harvey’s Bookland,” read the unprofessional looking sign over the entrance of the store.

“This is it.”

“Doesn’t look very promising,” said Jiff, cupping his face against the display window to see inside the darkened store. A few yellowing hard cover books lay just inside the window.

Leaning their bikes inside the foyer leading up to the door, they entered. A small bell over the door tinkled, signaling their arrival to the owner who was busy behind the counter pricing a stack of books.

“Hello, boys,” he said in friendly greeting. “Looking for anything?”

Guy was still adjusting his eyes to the gloomy interior after coming in from the bright outdoors and so took a second to reply. The only way he could tell he was in the right place was the musty scent of the store: the smell of pulp paper was heavy on the air. He lifted the bag he’d brought along with him.

“Do you buy old comic books?” he asked.

“Certainly do! Have you got any?”

In response, Guy made his way to the wooden counter and heaved up the heavy bag.

“My father wants me to get rid of them now that school’s started,” he explained.

“I know how that is,” said the man, whom Guy assumed was the Harvey of the store’s name. “Lots of kids come in about this time to do the same.”

“Really?” In a funny way, knowing that he wasn’t the only comic book reader to suffer the indignity of having to sell his collection made him feel a little better about it. But only a little.

Removing the comics from the bag, Harvey began to count them out.

“At two cents each, that comes to a dollar and sixty-four cents,” he said. “Do you want that in cash or trade?”

“Huh?”

“Well, you can either take the dollar and sixty-four cents now, or you can pick out some books or more comics or records instead.”

“Take the money,” Jiff whispered in his ear.

“I’ll take the cash,” said Guy.

With a ring of the ancient cash register, Harvey reached in the drawer and counted out the money, handing it to Guy.

“There you go.”

“Thank you.”

Except on a birthday, Guy had never had so much money at one time and was a bit stunned by how much his comics had yielded. Too stunned to notice the rest of the store for a few moments. Not until Jiff called him over to some shelves that lined the wall opposite from the counter and on the other side of a rank of bins filled with old records.

“Guy, take a look at this!” said Jiff.

“What?”

But that was all Guy could get out before noticing what Jiff had been pointing too.

Shelf upon shelf of paperback books…and all science fiction! As Guy took a closer look, he was astonished to find all the authors he’d ever heard of from the free Scholastic Books catalogues the nuns handed out at school. Those catalogues always listed great sounding science fiction books that Guy never had the money to buy.

One by one, he went through the books on the dusty shelves, and looked longingly at their covers, some depicting astronauts adrift in space or exploring the surface of unknown worlds, some with streamlined rockets pulsing among the stars, some with alien monsters threatening beautiful maidens while others were less definite, with garishly painted covers that seemed intended to suggest weirdness rather than show it.

“These look great!” said Jiff, enthralled by the vistas opened up by the cover artists.

“I wanna read ‘em all,” said Guy, fingering the money Harvey had just given him. Idly, he wondered if his father would consider science fiction books as distracting as comic books and so forbid him to read them during the school year? Since his father had said that only home work or reading would be allowed after supper on school days, Guy reasoned that science fiction books would not be banned.

“I think I’ll take a chance and buy one,” he told Jiff.

“Can I borrow it to read when you’re done?” asked Jiff.

“Sure.”

With that incentive, Jiff helped Guy to pick a book that they both might like. Which wasn’t hard since their tastes in the fantastic ran mostly in the same direction.

Unfortunately for Guy, however, none of the authors were familiar to him, making it hard to judge which books might be better than others. There was Isaac Asimov and Edmond Hamilton. Jack Williamson and Henry Kuttner. Philip K. Dick and John Campbell. And there were whole shelves dedicated to Edgar Rice Burroughs whose name at that point, didn’t mean anything to the boys. Finally, they decided on a book called The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury.

“The stories all sound pretty good,” noted Jiff as they perused the contents page.

“Yeah, and if they’re all about Mars, how bad can it be?” agreed Guy, taking the book over to the counter.

“Find something, did you?” asked Harvey.

“You have a lot of cool science fiction books over there,” said Guy, handing him twenty cents for the book (which, as it turned out, was a ridiculous bargain for a book that would transport the boys to incredible worlds of wonder)

“And I always have more coming in,” said Harvey, slipping the book into a paper bag. “It’s real popular.”

Guy took the bag and the boys made their way back outdoors.

“Can’t wait to read that book,” said Jiff, backing his bike out onto the busy sidewalk.

“Me too. I just hope my father doesn’t take it away from me.”

“Why should he do that?”

“I don’t know. My mother and father both think stuff like super-heroes and science fiction is crazy stuff.”

“Huh. Well, if they do take it away, tell ‘em to give it to me!” laughed Jiff.

Guy had to laugh along with his friend. The idea that his father would forbid the book did seem ridiculous. A book was a book. His father shouldn’t have any objection to it…maybe.

“Hey, look over there,” said Jiff, interrupting Guy’s thoughts.

“Where?”

“Over there!”

Guy looked where Jiff was pointing and saw the marquee of a theater extending over the sidewalk across the street.

“The Strand,” said Jiff, reading the name above the marquee.

“Didn’t know there was a movie theater here.”

“Me neither. Let’s go over and take a look.”

“Okay.”

Waiting for a break in the steady flow of traffic along Central Street, the boys were able to cross when a traffic light down the street changed to red.

“C’mon!”

Together, they quickly walked their bikes across and reached the other side just as the light turned green.

“Over here,” said Jiff, going over to some display cases to the side of the entrance which appeared to be a tunnel that led into the darkened interior of the theater.

In the cases, were framed stills from the movies being shown inside.

“Hey, look! The Beatles’ new movie, Help.”

Guy shrugged.

“The Sound of Music.”

“My mother would probably like that,” said Guy.

Together, they made their way along the wall before crossing to the other side and there, they hit paydirt.

“Planet of the Vampires!”

“Where?”

“Right here,” exclaimed Jiff, pointing at a still showing an eerie scene from the movie.

“Aw, wicked!”

“I gotta see that one!”

“And look over here! Die, Monster, Die!”

“Is that Boris Karloff?”

“Yeah, says so here.”

“Hey, does this say what I think it says?”

“What?”

“It’s a double bill!”

“So?”

“Dummy! That means they’re shown together, one after the other. For the price of one!”

“No kiddin’? That’d be a bargain all right.”

“It says here on Saturday afternoon matinees it’s only a dollar.”

Suddenly, Guy balked. A dollar was real money.

“We gotta come back here and see these movies!” Jiff was saying.

It was easy for Jiff to say. His parents usually gave him money for things he wanted. But it’d be a lot harder for Guy to do the same. Especially after staying back. What’s more, soon, his father would be quitting the ice cream route for the winter. That would put a severe cramp in his ability to earn money. If only he had that paper route! He felt the dollar bill he had in his pocket from selling his comics and considered. Was it worth it? He looked at the stills in the display case again: the spooky mansion and the zoo filled with monsters in Die, Monster, Die and the spaceships resting on the surface of a fog bound planet in Planet of the Vampires and his mind was made up.

“How ‘bout next Saturday?”

“You’re on!” said Jiff, ready to ride home with new found energy.

Together, they hopped aboard their bikes and headed back to the familiar Desrosiers Street neighborhood, the world having already begun to open up, revealing new and heretofore unsuspected possibilities.

Back at school the next Monday, Guy had finally settled in to the new routine, a routine that had become familiar to him due to having already covered the material the year before, including the same books. (Among which was The Founders of Freedom, covering Western Civilization and that contributed to Guy’s mounting interest in the subject; in particular, he loved the book’s maps describing the Roman, Holy Roman, and British Empires; history, as it turned out, had been his best subject) But he soon realized that the familiarity helped give him an advantage in his studies so that he was sure he could raise his grades with little more effort than usual.

Aside from his studies, he was able to reacquaint himself with school friends Ricky and Rocky. Added to the mix was Billy Beaulois, who developed a somewhat slavish attachment to Guy that could be annoying at times. Mostly when Guy decided to hang around with his neighborhood friends instead of his school friends. But Bill never got the message and insisted on following him home and inserting himself in their play.

Recently, Rocky’s family had moved from a second floor apartment they’d rented near the school to a house on Lakeview Avenue. Soon after their move, Rocky invited the others over to have a look see. And though they were all happy to see that the Fourchins had moved into a big two story home, what really impressed them was what they found in the back yard.

“What about this shed?” asked Ricky.

“Right now, it’s filled with junk the old owners left behind,” replied Rocky. “But my Dad wants to get rid of it all as soon as he has the time.”

“It would make a great clubhouse,” observed Guy. “I know a kid who has almost the same kind of shed and he turned the back half into a clubhouse. It was really cool.”

Rocky pushed the shed’s rickety door inward with a scrape and stepped inside. The others followed but it was so crowded with junk, they could barely fit.

“See? With all this stuff in here, we can’t even make it to the back,” said Rocky.

Where they stood, the shed was piled high with cardboard boxes, old lawn equipment, and who knew what else. Over all was a thick smell of mustiness. There were mouse droppings on the floor.

“Wow,” said Billy, his hands perpetually stuck in his pockets. “Gonna take a long time to empty this place out.”

“Yeah,” agreed Guy. “Reminds me that Bobby Toussaint has a clubhouse too. But he made his own from scratch; it wasn’t a shed before or anything like that.”

“I heard about it,” said Rocky. “Wouldn’t mind checking it out.”

“I can show it to you one of these days,” said Guy. “But it’ll have to be on the sly ‘cause me and my friends aren’t exactly wanted over there.”

“How come?” asked Rocky.

“Well we sorta started a war with them. UNCLE versus THRUSH. You know, like the TV show?”

“Really? I wouldn’t mind bein’ a part of that.”

“Next time you come over, maybe you can join us,” said Guy. UNCLE was always looking to recruit new agents! In fact, they hadn’t made any new recruits beyond he, Jiff, Don, and Mike since they started while THRUSH had added a new kid, Lester Beauchoin, who’d moved into their neighborhood.

It was about a week later, as autumn was moving in quickly with trees beginning to blaze with colors of red, orange, and yellow and Halloween right around the corner, that Rocky came over one day after school.

Jiff was eager to introduce him to Jiff and the others but to his disappointment, none of them were around.

“Rats,” said Guy, stepping down from Jiff’s porch. “He stayed after school.”

“Well, why don’t you show me Bobby’s clubhouse anyway?”

“Okay,” agreed Guy, and led the way to Beaver Brook and the concrete wall that bordered Bobby’s house.

“Wow, you were right,” breathed Rocky as he gazed upon the two story splendor of the clubhouse. “And that crow’s nest that leads out of the second floor is the coolest.”

“I remember Bobby was always fooling around and rebuilding the clubhouse from the days when I used to hang around with him. He was always tearing parts of it down and improving it.”

“Let’s take a closer look,” said Rocky.

“Okay,” agreed Guy. “The coast looks clear.”

Together, they slipped over the wall and dropped down on the other side, in the shadow of the apple tree whose leaves had fallen into a thick carpet beneath their feet.

“C’mon,” said Guy, dashing for the door to the clubhouse.

Rocky was right behind him, eager to look inside.

“Slow down!” warned Guy as Rocky began to push the door in.

Luckily, there was no one inside and in another moment they were standing in the single ground floor room. There were items of furniture, cast offs looted from roadside trash pickups, a desk with pens and paper neatly placed, a row of Hardy Boys books on a shelf. A tiny room to the side, filling a small addition to the first floor was curtained off. Looking in, Guy saw that it was outfitted as an infirmary with boxes of band aids and rolls of gauze arranged neatly on shelves and a single bunk on the dirt floor. Likely it was where Bobby’s sister acted as the gang’s nurse.

“Will ya look at this,” Guy was saying, but Rocky had already vanished up a ladder leading to the second floor. “For cryin’ out loud!”

Going to the ladder, Guy called up in a loud whisper: “Rocky! Be careful! Bobby and Deni could still be around!”

Bobby’s house was right on the other side of the field, and Deni, his cousin, directly across the street with the clubhouse in plain sight of both.

When Guy poked his head into the second floor space, he just had time to catch Rocky’s legs as they disappeared onto a platform outside. Hoisting himself up, Guy found himself in a bunk room complete with home made matresses on the bunks and sleeping bags rolled up ready for use. Two actual glass windows gave views out to the field and Bobby’s house. Quickly, he followed Rocky outside only to find he’d scrambled up the wooden steps to the upper reaches of the tree where the crow’s nest was.

“This is so cool!” exclaimed Rocky. “I can see the whole neighborhood from up here.”

“Get down from there,” insisted Guy, getting more nervous by the moment. “They’ll see you!”

“Okay, I’ll…uh, oh.”

A chill ran down Guy’s spine. “What do you mean ‘uh, oh?’”

“Somebody’s comin’ out of Deni’s house,” said Rocky. Then “It’s Deni! And Bobby! And there’s a couple of other guys with ‘em!”

“Get down from there right now!” insisted Guy, panicking. “We’ve gotta get outta here before they get here!”

Not wanting to be trapped in the clubhouse when Bobby and Deni arrived, Guy dashed down the ladder without waiting for Rocky. Quickly, he went out the door and stopped. Bobby and Deni and yes, they had Lester and Normy with them too, were already across the street and at the garden gate.

“Rocky! Where are you?”

But there was no reply.

Bobby and Deni had separated, each taking one of the others with them in an obvious attempt to surround him.

“Rocky!” he called again. But time had run out. He’d have to run now or be captured!

He ran for the wall but it was higher on this side than it was on the other, making it harder to scramble up and over. The delay would be too long. Deni was already practically on top of him coming in from the right. Guy left the wall and dashed around to place the clubhouse between him and Deni.

Rounding the corner of the building, he almost ran into Normy but Normy was as surprised as he was allowing Guy to give him a good shove that landed him on his rear end amid the garden’s dry stand of corn stalks. Without breaking his stride, Guy kept running. Just then, Lester leaped at him and while he was still about a foot off the ground, Guy did a most unusual thing for him. He punched Lester in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him!

By then, Bobby was on him, taking hold of his jacket. They struggled, swinging each other around and Guy wondered where the heck was Rocky? He’d still not appeared from inside the clubhouse. Was he afraid? Did he think he could hide in there? But Guy had no time to wonder any further, nor wait around for his friend. With a tear of fabric, he managed to break away from Bobby and run in the direction of Bobby’s house. Tilden Street was a dead end but what Guy had heard from his father was that it was supposed to have hooked up with Desrosiers Street on the other side of the woods but was never completed. Running as fast as he could, he took a chance to look behind him and saw Bobby was hot on his trail. But ahead there was nothing. He was in the clear, so long as he could make the woods. He had no choice but to leave Rocky to his fate.

Which was where things stood when Guy had gathered the rest of the UNCLE agents for a rescue mission.

Luckily, Jiff’s after school stay was not a serious issue and he was home when Guy arrived, still breathless from his narrow escape.

“Let’s get the others, quick!” was all Jiff said after Guy had made his hurried explanations. “You find Mike and I’ll get Don. We’ll meet at Chuck’s.”

Guy found Mike raking leaves in his yard.

“C’mon! We got an UNCLE mission!”

Mike immediately dropped the rake he’d been using and ran after Guy, getting briefed on the mission on the way. By the time they’d gathered in front of Chuck’s house, everyone was up to speed and they wasted no time making their way to the end of Desrosiers Street and entering the woods.

“So what’s the deal with this Rocky guy?” asked Chuck. “Is he a jerk or what?”

“Of course not!” replied Guy, getting defensive about his friend. “He must have thought he was trapped in the clubhouse and couldn’t risk coming out.”

“Doesn’t sound right to me,” gruffed Chuck.

“All right, you guys,” said Jiff. “Keep it down, we’re almost at the wall.”

“So, what’s the plan?” asked Chuck. “We just goin’ to bust in on ‘em?”

“We’ll see when we get there,” said Jiff, who’d stuffed his new sling shot in his back pocket. It was very cool in that it had a built in sight in the handle to help with aiming. The others began to collect apples that had fallen to the ground on this side of the wall from the tree in the Toussaints’ yard and stuffing their pockets with them.

Now, their pockets bulging with apples and more filling their hands, Jiff and Guy entered the quiet clubhouse. Inside, all was as Guy remembered it from the first time he was there with Rocky. There was no sign of a struggle.

Suddenly, there was a shout from outside and as they turned in the direction of the door, someone jumped down through the ladder hole leading to the second floor! It was Bobby Toussaint and right behind him came Rocky, hopping off the ladder two rungs short of the bottom.

“Rocky!” cried Guy, moving to maneuver Bobby into the far corner. “Out the door! Follow Jiff!”

But instead, Rocky moved to grab Guy in a bear hug!

“Rocky!” gasped Guy. “What’re you doin’?”

“Some friend you got there, Guy,” said Jiff, grabbing hold of Rocky’s arms before Bobby could make a move. “Looks to me like he’s a traitor!”

Guy ducked down and squeezed free of Rocky’s embrace, then spun away toward the door. Jiff following.

“Are you a traitor?” asked Guy.

“Whatever you wanna call it,” admitted Rocky.

“How come? I thought you wanted to join UNCLE?”

Rocky laughed. “That’s corny. And besides, these guys have this cool clubhouse. Lots better than just meeting in someone’s basement!”

In some part of his mind, Guy couldn’t blame Rocky entirely for his about face. Bobby did have a great clubhouse, the kind he and his friends wished they had. But they comforted themselves in the knowledge that as UNCLE agents, they were in the right.

The next thing, Guy was outside the clubhouse with Jiff where Chuck was in a shoving match with Deni while Normy and Lester were kept busy by a constant barrage of apples being thrown by Don and Mike from behind the concrete wall.

“We gotta get out outta here,” shouted Jiff. “We’re outnumbered with your pal on their side and Don and Mike stuck on the other side of the wall.”

“We need to make a run for it towards the woods,” said Guy, recalling his successful escape by that route earlier in the day. By that point, the sun had begun to set behind the distant trees and shadows were lengthening across Bobby’s yard. “C’mon, Chuck, head for the woods!”

Together, the three friends high tailed it for the end of the street, figuring that Don and Mike would see them and get the message to retreat themselves in the other direction. They’d meet again on Desrosiers Street.

Behind them, the entire THRUSH gang was hot on their heels but they reached the woods first and ducked into the brush, browning leaves crunching underfoot. Around them, most of the trees were stripped bare, their grey trunks seeming to meld together in a spooky, lonely feeling with only the occasional beam of fading sunlight among them.

“Faster!” said Jiff, leading the way, branches and thorn bushes brushing against his legs.

“They’re right behind us,” said Guy, bringing up the rear.

Gradually, by the sounds, it appeared that THRUSH had fallen behind but were still in pursuit. Still, the boys were able to burst out onto Desrosiers Street in plenty of time to reach Guy’s yard and prepare to meet them. Jiff grabbed the slingshot from his back pocket and loaded it with a pebble he’d picked up. Then, just as Bobby emerged from the woods, he let fly a warning shot that whizzed overhead, slashing through some pine branches.

Bobby heard the sound and recognized it. He stopped, the others bunching up behind him.

“Don’t come any closer or the next shot won’t be a warning,” called Jiff, pulling back on the rubber band of his slingshot.

Just then, Don and Mike ran over to join them.

“Slingshot, huh?” mocked Bobby. “We can play that game too!”

Turning to Deni, he motioned with his hand.

Deni produced his own slingshot. He kept pebbles in his pockets for just such an emergency. He loaded and let one go.

In Guy’s yard, the boys ducked instinctively, hearing the pock sound as the flying pebble struck the side of the house.

Immediately, Lester followed up by throwing a rotten tomato in Don’s direction. It fell short, but had the effect of starting a duel between he and Normy and Don and Mike as they threw the remainder of the apples they’d collected at each other. No hits were scored.

Meanwhile, Jiff had reloaded his slingshot and sent a pebble of his own toward Deni but made sure it stayed well above his head. In reality, neither side wanted things to escalate to the point where real injury might occur so he and Deni traded a few more desultory shots before everyone realized the battle had become a standoff.

After a while, Bobby and the others began to melt away into the woods, Rocky with them leaving Guy feeling frustrated and betrayed. He thought Rocky was his friend. And in fact, they were real tight at school and would remain so, both compartmentalizing their experiences here and not allowing it to interfere with their friendship away from Tilden Street. It would be a strange sort of truce and one neither would ever need to mention again despite Rocky joining THRUSH for one more encounter. A circumstance that relieved Guy not only for the preservation of a friendship he valued, but for his standing among his Desrosiers Street friends who might have suspected his judgment when it came to the friends he brought home from school.

“Well, I guess things didn’t turn out so bad after all,” said Jiff.

“I hope Guy’ll pick better friends in the future,” said Chuck.

“Ah, shuddup, Chuck,” said Guy, defensively. “Anyone could make a mistake. It was Bobby’s clubhouse that did it. Every time we get a new recruit for UNCLE, they get one look at that clubhouse and we lose ‘em.”

It was true. Such betrayals had happened before.

“Guy’s right. Not his fault,” agreed Don.

“Anyway, it was a great fight!” enthused Mike, an apple in each hand. “You see the way me and Don kept Lester at bay from over the wall?”

“And how Jiff scared ‘em off with his slingshot?” said Chuck. “Lemme see that thing, Jiff.”

As it was getting late, the boys broke up and went their separate ways. For Guy, it was almost supper time and then homework and studying to make sure he never stayed back at school again.

But thinking it over, he found himself secretly grateful for Rocky. His actions still ended up providing UNCLE with one its most thrilling battles yet. What a blast!

****

Visit pierrevcomtois.com to order your copy of the new book.

Pierre V. Comtois has been a reporter and fiction and non-fiction writer for over forty years. He has been the editor and publisher of Fungi, the Magazine of Fantasy and Weird Fiction since 1984 and has had a number of books released over the years including Goat Mother and Others, A Well Ordered Universe, Talismanic, and Scheduled for Extinction. The latest volume in his Science Agents series, Solve Gorgoni was released in 2023 by Rogue Phoenix Press and was preceded by Extra Galaxia and Novus Intelligens. The author is also expecting the release in 2024 of Marvel Comics 1961-1965: An Issue by Issue Field Guide to a Pop Culture Phenomenon, the latest volume in his history of Marvel Comics series from Twomorrows Pubs that also includes volumes covering the 1970s and 80s. Other recent releases include Fantastic Cinema in the Years Before CGI; Gats, Gams, and Guts: A Field Guide to the Dark World of Film Noir; a collection of science fictions stories entitled Different Futures; and the best of the author’s horror and weird stories in Autumnal Tales. Comtois has contributed fiction to many small press magazines over the years including various Chaosium Books anthologies. The author has also written a number of other books including novels such as Strange Company and Sometimes a Warm Rain Falls; non-fiction such as Our Lives, Our Fortunes, Our Sacred Honor; and short story collections such as The Way the Future Was, Different Futures, and The Portable Pierre V. Comtois. Comtois has also found the time to contribute non-fiction articles to such magazines as World War II, America’s Civil War, Wild West, and Military History, many of which were collected in Hazardous History. Most recently, Comtois has seen the release of a new ‘tween novel, The Boy Who Invented Himself, the latest issue of Fungi Magazine, and the forthcoming Marvel Comics in the Late 1960s. For more information about the author, visit www.pierrevcomtois.com