Midget

Midget

Willson Baker stood silently in his basement, watching his father lift weights. At least he looked like he was watching. Really Will was trying to come up with a strategy for his chess club but his father didn’t know that. Anderson Baker, military Officer, was Will’s dad and he didn’t tolerate “chess”.

“Why be smart, he said often, when you can be strong?” Will and his father didn’t have much in common but Will’s dad had not lost hope that someday he would want to be an officer just like him.

“Your turn”, said Will’s dad and Will was snapped out of his daydream. Groaning quietly Will lifted the weight above his head. It wasn’t hard because Will spent a lot of his time rock climbing, which was a

“useless waste of time” according to his dad. “Good”, said his father, nodding in approval, “maybe I will make a good cadet out of you after all”. Will shook his head.

“I want to be an engineer”, he said.

“Nonsense” said his father, “you will soon understand that a military Officer is the only job for you, just like Adrian did”. Will didn’t want to think about Adrien. His older brother was extremely athletic and eager to follow orders. Adrian had always wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps but Will didn’t understand why anyone would want to fight. Will just shrugged and walked away. Unfortunately at that very moment Adrian walked into the room.

“Out of my way midget” he said, shoving Will aside. Will’s father didn’t even react. he thought a little rough housing was good for his boys, and Will just continued walking away.

Just like any time Will was angry or sad, he went straight to the gym to cool down. After he had some fun on the rock wall Will turned to see a group of kids entering the gym. Their names were Tom, Amanda, George, Jeff, and Tina. With surprising speed Will climb down the rock wall and tried to exit the gym unseen, but he failed miserably.

“Hey look” called George, “it’s the Brainiac!” Tom looked around quickly to check that the gym was empty and then the five bullies surrounded Will.

“Hey Brainiac” said Tom, “this is our gym, understand?” Will looked around helplessly, but didn’t answer.

“I think Brainiac needs to be taught a lesson” said Tina. George pinned Will’s arms behind his back while Tom reached up to strike. Suddenly Will kicked out behind him and sent George flying. Fists flew out and soon everybody was punching and kicking. When Will finally got away he had several bruises, but so did Tom. When he got home Will’s father was surprised to see the many cuts and bruises  all over him. his mother, Maria was very worried but Will’s father was not.

“Whoever did that to you”, he said, “you had better teach them a lesson.” Thanks dad, said Will,

“but I’m going to go go to bed now.”

“Midget,” said Adrian.

The next day was monday and Will really did not want to go to school.he just couldn’t face the bullies from last night. He tried to fake being sick but his dad just told  him to toughen up. When Will was finally out of excuses, he knew he was going to school.

When he arrived at the playground Will saw Tom, Amanda, George, Jeff, and Tina in the corner whispering to each other. Will got as far away from them as possible. The rest of the day Will spent terrified that the five bullies would notice him, but they didn’t, and at the end of the day Will felt relieved as he walked away from his locker. The relief was short lived. Will’s heart felt like a stone in his chest as George approached him. Tom jumped on him from behind and George bound his arms with duct tape. Jeff dragged a screaming Will across the floor but as they turned the corner the five bullies and their victim bumped into Mrs Gatwind,

“hello boys” said the school principal.

Will sat in the principal’s office, gingerly rubbing the red spots where he had pulled off duct tape. A blue car pulled up in the parking lot and Will’s mother stepped out. After talking about a bunch of adult stuff Mrs Gatwind finally said that

“all five children would be suspended and that she would pay for damage of any of Will’s things.”

“Let’s go home now” said Will. his mother nodded. When they got home Will was surprised to see that his father was not standing next to the door, ready to express his disappointment.

“Where’s dad?” he asked.

“Your father is at work, Apparently Commander Jay called about some urgent matter.” Will shrugged and went to bed. He wondered what his father was doing.

Anderson Baker stood, watching fifty eighteen year old cadets marching up and down the field. Each of them wore a dark green suit and thick brown boots. Mr. Baker yelled things like “faster!”

A young boy ran up to Mr. Baker.

“Sir he said, I have a message from commander Jay.” You are to report immediately to room 412. Mr. Baker nodded and the boy ran off. Mr. Baker headed to room 412 immediately.

Mr. Baker walked into a room full of grim faced adults talking quietly amongst themselves.  One of the younger ladys looked up.

Ahhh Mr. Baker she said. I have some urgent news to share  with you. Langavia has declared war on us because of the resources that we are incapable of giving them.

Will’s father did not come back the next day. At school nobody wondered where the 5 bullies were because they often skipped school. Will sat alone at lunch as usual and after school his father was still not home. Things were the same all week. Once again as he lay down to sleep Will wondered when his father would come home.

Anderson Baker was drowning in work. There were cadets to train, paperwork to fill out and ally’s to contact. Everyday Mr. Baker lay down on a cot in a top security room with an iron door and no windows. Because of all this extreme caution everybody was surprised to find that on friday morning half of Mr. Baker’s belongings were missing. There was a note, but all it said was “from Langavia”. Security alarms went off, doors were locked the whole building went on lockdown, but the thief was not found. That day was just like any other. Five cadets were promoted and three new 18 year olds signed up. It was getting harder everyday for Mr. Baker to keep up with his overfull schedules.

Saturday morning the security system had been hacked, all of the army’s  guns had been disabled, and Anderson Baker was missing. On his bed was a note. It said, we took his things, now we took him, from Langavia.

Will lay on the couch watching T.V.  when the phone rang. It was a call from Commander Jay.

“Willson? I Have some news. You father has been captured by a classified enemy. More information will be on the news tomorrow but for now that is all I can tell you, but we will bring your father back, I promise, goodbye Willson.”

Will walked slowly to school on Monday. He dragged his feet in the mud and sighed.

“Hey brainiac” said a familiar voice. Tom, George, Jeff Amanda, and Tina approached Will.

“it’s good to be  back” said Tom.

“yeah” said George, “so we can finally teach brainiac a lesson”. Jeff was suddenly right beside him. Will could hear police cars behind him as Jeff chased after him. The police car pulled up beside the boys. An young man stepped out. George leaned on Will’s backpack and sneakily dropped something into it.

“A store has recently been robbed,You all need to empty your bags.” Will  dumped out his bag. Among all of his school supplies was an expensive looking hoverboard. George must have put it there to get him in trouble. The police looked at Will expectantly,

“I have no idea how that got there” Said Will, I think George put it there to frame me!”

“You all need to come with me” said the angry looking policeman

When They got to the police station Will and his companions waited while the police ran a fingerprint test and checked the security tapes. It was obvious that Will had had nothing to do with the robbery, so he left.

Anderson Baker was shackled to the wall of a small submarine that was swiftly towards Langavia. Mr. Baker had given up on trying to break out, he couldn’t even move.

Will was in his bedroom packing clothes into his school bag. He added a toothbrush, and ran downstairs where he grabbed some gatorade and power bars and then walked out of the house. Willson Baker was going to find his father.

Will walked swiftly towards the army base. The Sun was high on the sky, because it was midday. Will had been walking for three hours. Finally Will looked up to see the huge gray building. Jay came to the door.

“I want to help find my father,” said Will.

“I’m sorry Will”, said Commander Jay, “but Langavia is too dangerous, go home.” Will pretended to be dissapointed but inside he was smiling hugely. Commander Jay had just told him where to find his father.  Will headed in the direction of home but really as soon as Commander Jay was out of site Will started to set a small bed using his backpack. After he had prepared his makeshift bed Will start to snoop around. Eventually will found himself behind a bush listening to two Officers talking.

“We followed the footprints all the way to the water,” “said one of the men. “

Yes said the other man, they must have taken Officer Baker away by boat.” Will smiled and crept away. He knew that following his dad by water would be too dangerous but if he left now maybe he could take a plane and save his father before the army caused too many fights. Now Will just needed a plane ticket.

Will had power drink and a granola bar for breakfast and then he headed back to his home. When he got home Will climbed easily through a window and into his father’s old study. As usual there was a small box filled with the paper copies of his frequent flyer points.(as a military officer he had traveled a lot) Will counted up the points, there were just enough to get him to Langavia  . At the airport the cashiers were surprised to see a boy handing them his passport and buying a ticket to Langavia

Will sat in his seat on the plane. He had loaded up on airplane snacks to step in for his wimpy breakfast. Will counted the money that he had brought. It was the only money he had so he had to be  careful with it. Will planed to get a cab to take him to the langavian library and then he could walk to the army base. He had an army cadet suit from his father, so it would be easy to blend in but he knew cadets were not allowed to access important info. Will had never seen a Langavian base before so he had no plan  for once he got into the base, he just needed to get there.

Will stepped out of the plane and into the hot air. He had traveled a lot so he wasn’t to surprised. Will took a taxi to the library and then he slipped on the cadet suit. Will carefully covered up the canadian symbol on the suit, and then he marched af towards the army base. When Will arrived at a tall stone wall he knew that he had reached his destination. Quickly Will scrambled up a palm tree and when the guard wasn’t looking he leapt onto the top of the wall and climbed down the other side. Will marched into the marching field and walked up to the officer who was watching the marching.Will remembered from his father that the Commander of the Langavian army was named Ronald and suddenly he had an idea. Will looked up at the other officer.

“Commander Ronald requires an immediate written report of the whereabouts of Anderson Baker.” Will knew that if the officer believed that he was part of the Langavian army he would give him the exact location of his father. The officer quickly scribbled down some coordinates and handed them to Will.

“do not lose these” he said and turned back to the marching. Will smiled and walked of. He  scaled the wall and lept to the palm tree, which he slid down. Will ran to the nearest hotel and slipped inside. He walked up to the counter and payed for a room for one night. Will had only fifty dollars left and he knew he would run out soon. In his hotel room Will contemplated how to get more money without stealing, which was a last resort, but finally he gave up and looked at the coordinates the officer had given him. He had learned how to read coordinate numbers a few years ago but he still found it hard to read the numbers he had been given. When he finally understood the numbers Wil was confused. The boat must have been going real slow if the coordinates were correct. Will shrugged and checked if he had enough frequent flyer points to get him to Guadeloupe.(Guadeloupe was where the boat would be in three days) He did, but he would need to have someway of finding the boat if he was going to board it. Will realized that it was one o’clock in the morning and he quickly went to sleep.

In the morning Will headed straight to the airport but this time things didn’t go as smoothly as planned. When the woman at the counter scanned his passport she realized that he was a runaway. Will ran like his life depended on it until he finally managed to hide in a large group of tourists. When the security guards were gone Will snuck onto a plane to guadeloupe. It wasn’t that hard because the other guards were busy joking around. Once he was on the plane Will hid in the bathroom for a while but then people started to knock on the door so he had to leave. Next Will hid under an empty seat and stayed there until the end of the flight. Will climbed out of the plane before anyone noticed him and then ran as fast as he could out of the airport.

Will spent the night on a public beach in guadeloupe and The next day Will spent his time searching for any army related business. His calculations had told him that whichever boat his father was on would have to stop in Guadeloupe or else they would run out of food. Will had also come to the conclusion that the Langavians would arrive the next day. Will was well prepared for when the boat docked. He still had his cadet suit and he had the officer from the army base’s signature, on the sheet with the coordinates. That must count for something. Will stayed up that night waiting on the beach for a boat to arrive and finally one did. (Technically it was a submarine, and it surfaced, not docked but that made no difference to Will) he  marched up and down the beach with some older soldiers who were guarding the boat. He blended right in. finally the resources (food and weapons) were loaded and Will stepped onto the submarine. It was huge but with so many people it didn’t feel all that big. Will acted natural as he wandered around the ship, searching for any sort of prison. Eventually Will discovered a door marked “prison” but it was locked. Will used his canadian flag badge to pick the lock and then he stepped inside and shut the door behind him. The room was dark and smelled terrible. Shackled to the wall was Will’s father!

Will moved towards his father who looked up at him with hopeless eyes and a sad expression, Will had never seen anybody look so terrible. Will carefully untied his father’s gag so that he could talk but the reaction that Will got was less then he had hoped.

“Will”, said his father, “you have to get out of here, they will find you.”

“Don’t worry” said Will but his father was still worried. You have to leave said Will’s dad, and then he fainted. As Will’s father fainted his head banged against the wall, making a loud echoing noise. In a few seconds a guard came running and in less then five minutes Will was shackled to the wall as well.

About three hours later the submarine came up to the surface, where a small boat was waiting. Will and his father were moved to the boat and then the submarine left.

The boat rocked back and forth through the current. None of the sailors looked worried but they were all talking about the spring currents. As it exited a bay the boat entered some rapids, but by the time anyone realized what was going on it was too late to turn back. Will felt the boat give a violent jerk as a rock split through the water and the boat started to fill up and sink.

Will watched helplessly a the water lapped gently at his feet, and then rose to his hands. Will hadn’t eaten in days so he managed to, using the slippery water, slip one of his hands out of it’s bindings. Will desperately searched his pockets for anything useful. Finally he found an old rusty paperclip which he used to pick the lock on his handcuffs and ankle cuffs. Will ran across the floor to his unconcious father. After undoing the locks Will used his jacket as a sling and dragged his father through the water.  When Will got to the top of the boat he realized that the motor was still on and the boat had reached the ocean. Aiming for a table floating nearby Will leapt off the boat dragging his dad behind him. After he got his father onto the table Will started to kick. He didn’t stop when his legs hurt and he didn’t stop when he started to dehydrate and he didn’t stop when there was a danger of passing out. Will kicked until he found land and then he fell asleep on the beach.

Will groaned and reluctantly opened his eyes. Standing over him was his father, fully recovered and  strong.

“Dad” said Will and he smiled.

Will, said his father gratefully, “you’re alive!” Will sat up slowly, his head hurt and his legs were so tired he almost couldn’t stand. Will looked at the beach confusedly. Instead of the messy jumble of bushes he had seen before he fell asleep, the beach was clean and right in the middle was a shelter made from the table Will had found. In the corner was a pile of wood and the beginning of a fire pit.

“How did you make all of this while I was asleep?”

“Will, you were asleep for two days.”

“what?”

After the initial shock of waking up on an island, Will’s father had quickly realized that, wherever he was he was definitely lost, so he had made a shelter in hopes that Will would wake up and explain everything. As Will explained everything his father started to remember bits and pieces. Finally the two castaways decided to call it a night and work on their troublesome situation in the morning.

In the morning Will and his father found some pieces of the boat washed up on the shore. Mr.Baker showed his son the pile of random things on the beach that he had collected. Most of it was just junk that it was impossible to tell what it used to be, but after digging through the pile a couple times Will discovered the remains of a long distance walkie talkie. Even though it was almost impossible to connect a military walkie talkie to a channel without a computer, fixing the walky talky was Will and his father’s new top priority.

10 days later.

Life on a deserted island was tough. Water had to be drunk from a bubbling stream, which was very difficult to drink from. Most of the time was wasted scavenging for food which was limited to berries, oranges and the occasional rabbit. Any time that wasn’t spent searching for food was used up trying to fix the walkie talkie. After a few more days Will found seven loose wires scattered on the beach. Finally one morning Will’s father twisted a dial and the screen came on. The next three hours were frustrating, because both father and son knew that inside the shelter was their way off the island, but they needed to find food before they had time to fix it.

“This is officer Baker sending coordinates for last known area………. Coordinates complete. scout area for deserted island class two danger. This is Anderson Baker and Wilson Baker calling. come soon, power out, over.”

Will’s dad finished the short message and the radio blacked out.they had finally figured out how to work the walkie talkie but they only had enough power for thirty seconds of communication.  This was their last hope, and now all they could do was wait. The message had seemed like a bunch of nonsense to Will but according to Will’s father it meant that they were on a mildly dangerous island and in need of help. Will shrugged, and asked

“why you didn’t just say that.” Will’s father didn’t have an answer for that.

Will and his father stood cheering on the beach as they watched a plane land. As the plane landed Will’s father stopped cheering.

“It’s going to fast he said gravely.” Will didn’t see anything peculiar until the plane hit the ground and the landing gear snapped off. The plane lost a wing as a pilot leapt out of the cockpit and started to run, turning back to look at the plane from a safe distance. Behind the pilot there was a small explosion as the smaller engine blew up. The pilot fell over and Will ran to help him. Once the pilot was back on his feet he started to run, this time towards the plane. Lying unconscious on the ground was a girl who looked only a few years older than Will. this must be the co-pilot thought Will’s father as he ran to help the girl.It turned out that both the pilot and the co-pilot where fine. They both had walkie talkies so they contacted the air force immediately. Twelve hours later the unlucky island dwellers watched a jet make a successful landing.

On the jet it was too loud too talk and to quiet to be interesting. Will was painstakingly board until he saw some langavian fightersin he distance. The recent victory had boosted his spirit, and Will knew that whatever happened he was 99% sure he would make it out in one piece.