depiction of their world, their domain. Doug had captured everything in loving detail: their homes and the roads between them, the surrounding forests, the cemetery, the homes of their enemies, and the location of the Dugout. The area devoted to Bowman's Woods was filled with handdrawn trees, each one meticulously rendered. The graveyard had hundreds of tiny tombstones. Catcher's driveway had an illustration of a growling dog along with the words, Here There Be Monsters.
'How long did this take you?' Barry asked. 'You must have worked on it, like, forever.' Smiling, Doug shrugged. 'It was easy. I did a lot at night, after my mom had gone to sleep or was watching TV. I stayed up late. It was fun. Used a whole box of colored pencils.' Timmy's eyes shone. 'This is so cool. We can mark off stuff as we discover it. And you even left room around the edges.'
'Yeah. I figured when we explore those places, we can add it to the map.' Timmy's index finger traced the roads. 'Cool. You even added Ronny, Jason, and Steve's forts.'
'The one's we know about, at least.'
'We can use this to plan our strategy before we raid them. Make sure we have escape routes and stuff like that.'
'That's what I figured,' Doug agreed. 'We can hang it up, and you can mark stuff on it, just like a real general would.'
Timmy smiled. 'General Graco. I like the sound of that.'
'How come you get to be the general?' Barry flicked Timmy's ear with his thumb and index finger. 'I didn't vote for you.'
'You don't vote for generals,' Doug said.
'Yeah, well, I outrank you, even if Timmy's the general.'
'No way.'
Timmy turned their attention back to the map. 'Hey, we could even'
'Listen,' Barry whispered, interrupting. 'You guys hear that?'
'What?' Doug asked.
They tilted their heads upward, straining to listen.
'Timmmmmyyyyyyy!'
The voice was faint, but drawing closer. It was his mother.
'Timmy? Where are you?'
'Oh, man,' Timmy moaned, 'if she finds out about this place, she'll never let me play here again.'
Barry rolled up the map. 'Why not?'
'Because she'll freak out and worry that it will collapse on us or something.'
'What do you think she wants?' Barry stuffed the map back in its protective tube.
'It ain't lunch time.'
'Probably wants me to help my dad. Let's just stay down here till she's gone.'
'Timmmmyyyy? Timmy, answer me!'
Barry slapped his forehead. 'Oh shit. The bikes are up there, man. If she sees them, she'll know we're around here somewhere.'
'So? We're underground. She can't find us.'
'Yeah, but if she's looking in this spot, she might notice the stovepipe, and figure it out.'
'Shit. You're right.' Timmy thought of his grandfather. The stovepipe had given the fort's location away to him as well.
Quickly, they blew out the lantern and clambered up the ladder again, scrambling for the bikes. Timmy's mother stood about fifty yards away on the cemetery' s lower road. Her back was turned to them as they approached. She called out again, hands cupped around her mouth.
Timmy pedaled towards her before acknowledging her cries.
'I'm here, Mom.'
Elizabeth Graco spun around, and Timmy was surprised to see that she was crying. Black mascara ran down her cheeks. Her eyes were red and puffy. Her expression was frantic and worried.
'Timmy, where were you? We've been looking all over!' His spirits sank. He was in trouble now. It appeared that his grandfather had been unsuccessful in convincing his father to let Timmy have the day off.
'II was just…'
'Come home, now. Your father's on his way to the Hanover Hospital.'
Timmy's pulse accelerated. 'The hospital? What happened? Is he okay?'
'It's your grandfather.' She took a deep breath. 'He… he had a heart attack.'
'Grandpa?'
Sobbing, his mother nodded.
'What's wrong with Grandpa?'
'The paramedics think it was a heart attack,' she repeated.
'Is he going to be okay?'
She began sobbing again.
'Mom? Is he all right?'
'No… He's gone, Timmy. He passed away.'
Chapter Three
Dane Graco had suffered a massive heart attack just after Timmy and Doug left the house. He was dead before the paramedics arrived. Timmy' s mother had found him slumped over on the couch when she came into the living room to tell Timmy to go help his father in the garden.
Although the next morning was Sunday, the Graco's didn't go to church, the first time since winter of the previous year when they' d all had the flu. Elizabeth went to church every Sunday because she believed. Her belief was sincere. Randy went out of deferment to his wife. His belief was one of convenience. Timmy went because he wasn 't offered a choice. He didn't know what he believed yet.
For the next few days, they moped around the tooquiet house. It seemed empty without Dane Graco' s lively presence. Randy and Timmy were too stunned to do more than stare at the walls. Both cried off and on, and Elizabeth did her best to console them, trying to stay strong for her husband and son. It wasn't enough. Randy took a few days off work from the paper mill, contacted his father's friends and distant relatives, he made the funeral preparations and tried to keep busy. It wasn' t enough. Timmy stayed in his bedroom a lot, consoling himself with comic books, trying to escape his grief by escaping into stories of men in brightly colored costumes so that he wouldn ' t have to think about his own reality. It wasn 't enough.
The funeral was held the following Tuesday at the Golgotha Lutheran Church. The weather was chilly for summer. The sky was gray and overcast, and a cold light drizzle fell all morning long. It suited Timmy's mood. When he walked inside the church for the viewing, Timmy heard muted voices.
He followed his parents through the vestibule doors and into the church itself, and stopped in the doorway. He was stunned by the turnout, and for a few moments, the crowd's size took his mind off the fact that his grandfather was lying in a casket at the front of the church. Everybody was there. Barry and his parents. Clark Smeltzer appeared sober and sincere, and offered his condolences to the Gracos, shaking Timmy's hand as if nothing had happened between them the Saturday before. Timmy noticed that in addition to his new gold watch, Barry's father was also sporting an antiquelooking solid gold tie clip. Doug and his mother, Carol, who wore a skirt several inches too short and dark sunglasses to hide what were no doubt even darker circles beneath her eyes, were there, as were Bill and Kathryn Wahl, the elderly couple who lived next door to the Smeltzers. There were several distant relatives of his grandfather whom Timmy had either never met or barely recalled. He hadn 't even known his grandfather had cousins until nowhis grandfather had never mentioned them. Others in attendance included Luke Jones, who owned the farm bordering the cemetery and the Dugout, and some fellow Freemasons from his grandfather's lodge. Dane had achieved the rank of a fourthdegree mark master in life. There were friends of his grandfather 's from within the community, church members, and the LeHorn family, who attended the Brethren church in Seven Valleys. Mr. LeHorn' s father had been a good friend of Dane Graco's. Even Mr. Messinger, who ran the newsstand in town and sold the boys their comic books and cards, was on hand, looking both solemn and uncomfortable in his suit and tie. Reverend Moore was there, too, along with his wife, Sylvia, and their
