THE REAL ADVENTURES OF JONNY QUEST
"Battlefield"
by
Debbie Kluge
We are young,
Heartache to heartache, we stand.
No promises, no demands,
Love is a battlefield . . .
**** M. Chapman/H. Knight ****
Chapter 1 -- War Zone
You're makin' me go, you're makin' me
stay.
Why do you hurt me so bad?
The sound of breaking glass echoed from the upstairs of the
house at Quest Compound like an omen.
It was followed almost immediately by an exclamation of disgust and some
very colorful language. Language Benton
Quest didn't usually tolerate from his 17-year-old son. As he rose to go in search of the cause of
the disturbance, he heard a loud thump and a sharp "Oh, shit . . . !"
Benton reached the top of the staircase and looked into his
son's room. Jonny was jumping up and
down on one leg, clutching the other with both hands. A chair lay overturned in the middle of the floor and nearby was
the shattered remains of a plate and glass that had obviously been knocked off
the desk. Jonny stopped jumping around,
cautiously lowered the injured leg back to the floor, and tried putting weight
on it. "Son of a . . . "
"Jonathan!" his father reprimanded him sharply.
The young man looked up as he moved carefully around, limping
slightly. "Sorry, Dad. Oh, man, that hurt . . .!"
Benton gazed at his son.
In the last several months he had hit another growth spurt and had
gained seven inches in height very quickly. As a result, he was exceedingly
clumsy . . . he seemed to be having difficulty adjusting to the added height
and reach and he was always running into things or knocking things off. He was also highly prone to doing damage to
himself. It seemed as though he was
black and blue most of the time recently.
Benton fervently hoped he would stop growing soon. Aside from his tendency to hurt himself, it
was costing a small fortune to keep him in clothes.
He stepped into Jonny's room and looked around. It was never the neatest room in the house,
but today it appeared worse than usual.
The broken remains of his lunch didn't help the general appearance
any. "What did you do?"
"Oh, I reached for the glass and missed. I knocked it off the table and when I tried
to grab for it, the plate went sailing.
Then I got tangled up in the chair and cracked my shin on the desk. I guess it's just not my day."
"Well, try to be more careful. And you really need to do something about this room. It's a mess!"
Jonny looked around vaguely. "It's not bad."
"Not bad! There
isn't a flat surface visible anywhere and some of them are a foot deep. Clean it up, Jonny."
"Awwww, Dad . . ."
"Now!"
"Okay. Okay. I'll work on it in a little while. Just let me finish this note to Jess . . .
" Quickly he turned back toward the
computer without looking where he was going.
The chair was still lying in the middle of the floor. It caught him squarely in the shins. He hit the floor hard enough to knock the
picture across the room off the wall.
The sound of breaking glass was like deja vu.
Benton leaped forward in alarm, going down on his knees next
to his son. "Are you all right?"
Jonny lay quietly on the floor for an instant and his father
could hear his soft voice saying " . . . 5 . . . 6 . . . 7. . . 8 . . . 9 . . .
" He heaved a deep sigh and sat up
carefully. "Yeah, Dad, I'm fine. I guess I'm just being a klutz today." He rose carefully, picked up the chair, and
put it where it belonged. "I'll finish
this note to Jess and then clean up in here."
Benton watched him sit down and turn back to the
computer. "When is she coming home?"
"I don't know."
There was a wealth of frustration in that answer. "The last note I got from her said that
Estella was working on excavating a brand new tomb and she was wanting Jess to
stay at least another six weeks. Jessie
didn't seem too upset about the prospect.
I've sent her two or three notes since she sent her last one, but she
hasn't answered any of them yet." There
was a long pause. "Maybe she doesn't
want to come back . . ."
Benton leaned against the desk and looked down at his son,
who studiously stared at the computer screen and refused to look up. Benton sighed to himself. And that was another thing. With his awkwardness had come a new
uncertainty. He seemed to have lost a
lot of his self-confidence. True, he
was a lot less cocky, but Benton was beginning to wish his cocky attitude would
return. He didn't like to see him this
unsure of himself. "Jonny . . . Jonny, look at me." Reluctantly, the young man looked up. "You have to give them some space. Race and Estella are feeling their way along
very cautiously right now. And you know
how much Jessie wants her parents reunited.
If she feels that being there with them will help, then that's where she
needs to be. You don't honestly believe
she's there because she doesn't want
to be with you, do you?"
"I don't know. I
guess not. It's just that I miss her so
much and she's so far away . . . And I don't even know when she's coming back."
Benton laid a consoling hand on his shoulder. "Just be patient. Let her know she's missed, but be sure she knows you'll support
any decision she makes. That's all you
can do right now . . . " He stood up
and looked around again. ". . . other than clean up this room!"
"Yeah . . . yeah . . . I got it."
***
Sometime in the middle of the afternoon it began to
rain. It was one of those late autumn
rains . . . cold, heavy and long term.
The wind blew in off the Atlantic in rising fury, bringing the first
signs of winter. Weather reports even
said there was a possibility of snow.
As Jonny sat in front of the fireplace trying to read Hamlet for his English Lit class, he
listened to the rain drumming on the windows and thought it suited both his
mood and his reading material perfectly.
It was strange, the house seemed so empty somehow. It was just he and his dad . . . Jessie and
Race were in Colombia and Hadji was in Bangalore. That didn't happen very often.
He hadn't exactly been eavesdropping, but he did overhear
the conversation when Race had come to tell his father he was thinking of going
to Colombia with Estella and Jessie.
Race had been uncharacteristically unsure of himself and what he wanted
to do. It had surprised Jonny because
he had expected Race to jump at the opportunity. When they had returned from Paris, Estella had stayed at the
compound for several weeks. Jonny had
no idea what had been said between those two in Paris, but whatever it was had
changed their relationship dramatically.
They spent a great deal of time together and Jonny had even caught them
on the sofa in the family room late one night doing things that he and Jessie
had been chided for trying. Shortly
after that, Estella had abandoned the room Benton had given her at the Compound
and moved in with Race. Jessie had been
positively gleeful, and Race had seemed ecstatically happy. It was Benton Quest that convinced Race he
should go. His father had told the
younger man that if he refused, he would spend the rest of his life playing
"what if'" games in his head . . . this was one of those things he had to do
for his own peace of mind. His father
had also pointed out that his work was going to keep him in the Compound for
several months and there was no place safer.
If Race was to go, now would be the perfect time.
And so Race, Estella and Jessie had packed up and headed for
the jungles of Colombia. Jessie had
been overjoyed. They were going to be a
family again. She had been excited and
hopeful and could hardly wait to take off.
Jonny was happy for her . . . but privately he admitted to himself that
he was upset. He was afraid that if
Race and Estella ended up remarried, Race would leave for good. He was a part of the Quest family . . . like
an uncle or something . . . and he and Jonny had been very close. There were things he had been able to talk
to Race about that he never could have discussed with his father. Like his mother's death. Race had been instrumental in helping Jonny
work through Rachel's loss. Even to
this day it was a difficult subject for his father to talk about. But Race had been a sympathetic ear for a
young boy who needed to release a very large load of grief and rage. It had been a bond between them. The idea of losing that scared him. Once or twice he had found himself being
angry at Estella for just being there . . . coming between them. His emotions were so tangled he didn't
really understand how he was feeling.
And then there was Jessie.
If Race and Estella got back together again and Race left Quest
Enterprises, Jessie was sure to go with them.
She wanted to go with
them. That was obvious from her
excitement about this trip. And that
left Jonny very unsure about their relationship. The reason Jessie came to the Compound in
the first place was because Race was here.
Later, she started to work regularly with his father. But if Race left, that would take away one
reason for her staying here. And Estella
could train her as well as his father could so that took away another reason
for her to come back. And that meant
that her only remaining tie to the Quests was him. Once away from the Compound, he was afraid other things would
catch her interest. No, be honest with yourself for once, he
thought. You're afraid another guy
will catch her interest. To a
certain degree, he never had been able to believe that Jessie really liked him
. . . at least as a boyfriend. She was
so smart and so beautiful . . . she could have any guy she wanted. He just couldn't see what she saw in
him. And maybe she wouldn't be able to
see it either, if she was away from him.
All in all, he was having a very difficult time rooting for
Race's success in this one. And that
made him feel very selfish. Maybe he
should talk to his dad about this. . .
"THERE IS AN UNIDENTIFIED STRANGER APPROACHING THE FRONT
ENTRANCE," IRIS's soft voice
announced. An instant later the
doorbell rang. As Jonny rose to answer
it, he knew that his father would have received the same warning from IRIS out
in the computer lab. He noted that the
outside floodlights had come on as the stranger approached. It was almost dark. Through the glass of the front door, Jonny
could see a single individual standing on the doorstep, head lowered, huddled
against the driving rain. He wasn't
particularly tall, didn't appear to have a hat and was wearing only a
lightweight jacket. As Jonny opened the
door, the person looked up, and Jonny stared in shocked amazement.
"Brandon!" The boy
smiled hesitantly. Jonny reached out
and grabbed him, hauling him in the house and shutting the door. "What are you doing here? You're soaked!"
"I came to see you."
As Jonny drew him into the family room, he could feel the boy
shaking. He was soaked to the skin and
in the light, Jonny could see the boy's lips had a decidedly blue tinge to them. He was cold as ice. Jonny dragged him over in front of the
fireplace.
"Stay there. I'm
going to go get some towels and dry clothes.
We have to get you warm!" Jonny
left at a run. He had no idea what he
would be able to find for him to wear, but he had to find something. The boy was going to catch pneumonia. As he rummaged around in his room looking
for clothes, he remembered the first time he had met Brandon Simmons. Brandon was ten years old and one of the
summer camp kids he and Jessie had been in charge of several months ago. When they first met, the two of them had
detested each other on sight. Brandon
was a brat with a tendency to resolve his problems by hitting them with
anything handy. It was only while they
were stranded in the mountains after the earthquake that he really got to know
the boy, and came to realize that his attitude problems were the result of
anger, frustration and hurt from a bad home environment. His parents had been divorced three years
before and his father, whom he had been particularly close to, had simply
disappeared. They lived in North
Waldoboro, and his mother was an accountant in Rockport. Alicia Simmons treated her son like excess
baggage . . . as though he was little more than a nuisance.
Jonny remembered very clearly how angry she had been when
she had come to pick up the boy upon their arrival back in Rockport. She hadn't been upset that the boy had been
in danger. In fact, she hadn't even put
two and two together and realized the earthquake she had seen on the news had
happened where her son was camping. No,
she was angry because he was back early and it was an inconvenience. Jonny had watched the boy, who had been happy
and laughing that morning, shrink in on himself and withdraw back into that sullen,
sulky shell they had worked so hard to draw him out of. The pain in the boy's face was
indescribable. Jonny had been
furious. He had been fully prepared to
take the boy home to Quest Compound with him.
He knew he could have convinced his father to let the boy stay. But Doug Sanderson, the senior camp
counselor, had drawn him aside and, in a sad voice, had explained that there
was nothing they could do. She was the boy's
mother and she had the right to do as she pleased. Jonny had controlled his temper with difficulty and had politely
offered to allow Brandon to finish out the camp time at his home, so as not to
inconvenience her. But in a short,
sharp voice she informed him she had already been inconvenienced so she might
as well take the boy with her now, so she didn't have to come back for him
later. The image of Brandon's
expression, as he looked at Jonny while she dragged him out the door by one
arm, was indelibly etched on his memory.
The thought of it still made his stomach hurt.
He finally gave up looking for clothes. Everything was too big. He grabbed a blanket from the closet and ran
back to the family room. Brandon was
exactly where he had left him . . . standing in a puddle of water.
"Come on, let's get you out of these wet clothes. We'll get you warm and dry and then the two
of us can talk." Jonny heard the back
door slam.
His father's voice echoed from the kitchen. "Jonny, IRIS said there was someone at the
door . . ." Benton walked in and
stopped dead. Jonny had the boy
stripped to the skin and was rubbing him vigorously with a towel. Brandon was simply standing there soaking up
the attention.
Jonny looked up at his father and asked urgently, "Dad, do
we have any of my old clothes anywhere?
I can't find anything that will fit him and he's so cold . . . "
Benton moved quickly, asking no questions. "I'm sure we do. Let me go put on some hot water and then I'll find
something. Brandon, you do like hot
chocolate, don't you?"
The boy nodded slightly and in a high, hesitant voice,
replied, "Yes, sir."
Fifteen minutes later, Brandon and Jonny sat on the floor in
front of the fireplace with large mugs of hot chocolate. Brandon was dressed in an old pair of blue
jeans, which were a little too large, and a large bulky sweater. Jonny sat close, with one arm around him,
still trying to convey warmth into the boy's body. Brandon had finally stopped shivering and the blue color had
faded from his lips, but his hands were still icy. Benton watched them for a while and then stood and said that he
was going to heat up some soup for dinner.
After his father had left the room, Jonny looked down at
Brandon. "Okay, Brandon. Now.
Tell me about this. What's going
on? And why did you end up on my
doorstep soaking wet and alone on a night like this?"
The boy hung his head.
"I'm sorry."
Jonny reached down and, catching his chin, tilted his head
up so he had to look at him. "Brandon,
I'm delighted you're here. You're
welcome here anytime you want to come.
But it's five o'clock on a particularly nasty Saturday night and you
turn up all alone and in a condition to jeopardize your health. You have to expect me to ask questions. Did your mother drop you off and just
leave?"
The boy looked up at him, pain in his eyes. "She's gone."
"Gone?" he replied blankly.
"Gone where?"
Brandon shrugged.
"To some conference. She's
supposed to be back a week from Wednesday."
"Well, okay. So
who's staying with you?"
"No one."
"What do you mean, 'no one'? She couldn't just leave you alone two weeks."
"Old lady Parker next door is supposed to come in and check
on me every day or so. Mom says it costs too much to hire a sitter and she
doesn't want to take me along. Says I
would just get bored and under her feet.
And furthermore, she says I'm old enough to look after myself. I do most of the cooking at home anyway, so
she figures I can take care of feeding myself.
And I get myself to school so she says I can handle that too."
Jonny was horrified.
This boy was ten years old . . . ten years old! And this woman was treating him like he was
eighteen or nineteen, just to save herself some time and money. Jonny could feel his temper rising.
Brandon stirred a little in Jonny's grasp. "It's just that . . . " His voice trailed off.
"What?"
Suddenly, the boy began to cry. "I just get so scared . . . there all by myself. The house is so big and I hear all of these
funny noises . . . "
Jonny wrapped both arms around the boy and hugged him
tightly. "It's all right," he comforted
him gently. "You don't have to go back
there now. You can stay here with me
until she comes back. We'll figure
something out about school." He
loosened his hold slightly and looked down at him. "But you haven't said how you got here."
The boy sniffled, trying to stop crying, and said, "I
hitchhiked."
"From North Waldoboro?!"
Brandon nodded. "I
was picked up by a really nice truck driver.
I told him I lived in Rockport and had gone to a choral concert in North
Waldoboro and had missed my bus back.
He gave me a ride to the grade school and once he was gone I walked from
there."
"Brandon, that's over five miles! In the rain!"
"It wasn't raining the whole time," he responded
defensively.
Jonny sighed in exasperation. "Don't ever do that again.
No wonder you were half frozen.
Next time, if you get caught like that, you call me and I'll come get
you. Okay?" Brandon nodded, looking happier than Jonny had seen him since
they returned from California.
At that moment, Benton stuck his head into the family room
and called, "Dinner!"
***
Jonny dropped wearily into the big chair opposite his father
in the family room. Benton sat in a
pool of warm light with a book in his lap.
The rest of the house was in darkness.
His father looked at him quietly for a minute and then
asked, "Is he asleep?"
Jonny nodded. "I put
him on the rollaway in my room rather than putting him in Jess or Hadji's
room. He seems to need the proximity of
people right now. Want to take a bet on
whether he has nightmares?"
"Why is he here, Jonny?
Where's his mother?"
Benton was surprised at the bitterness of his son's
expression as he replied, "Miami. She's
at a convention of some sort. She left
him by himself for two weeks because it was going to cost her too much to hire
a sitter. And she told him he couldn't
come with her because he would be under foot."
Jonny jumped to his feet and began to pace, too agitated to sit still. "How can she do this? He cried for
twenty minutes. He couldn't even
explain why he was crying. He just
started and couldn't stop. Dad, he's a
good kid! All he wants is a little
attention . . . to know that someone cares about him. How hard can that be?"
Benton shook his head.
"I don't know, son. Some people
just aren't made that way. But what
she's done this time . . . I don't know.
I have a feeling the State will frown on this if they find out. That's child abandonment. How old is he? Ten?"
Jonny nodded. He had
stopped pacing and was staring at his father intently. "If the State takes him away from her, what
will happen to him?"
"Initially, Juvenile Hall I would imagine. Then foster care. If she was willing to give him up without a fight, they could try
to place him for adoption, but he's too old for him to be easily
adoptable. Older children are very
difficult to place in permanent homes."
"Why can't he come to live with us?" Benton stared at his son in
astonishment. Jonny hurried on before
his father could think of a response.
"We can afford to take care of him.
And he likes it here!"
"Yes, I know, but . . ."
"I know he's behind on his school work but we could fix
that. And Rockport's got a good school
system. You've always said so."
"I know, Jonny, but . . . "
"And it's not like it would be crowded or anything. We've got plenty of room here. Especially if Jessie and Race don't come
back."
"Jonny, it's not that easy . . . "
"But you could make it happen, Dad. I know you could. You took Hadji in that way.
Why can't we give Brandon a home, too?"
"Jonny, slow down! It
is extremely hard to permanently take a child away from his or her rightful
parents . . . as it should be. And
Brandon's mother will probably not want to give him up."
"But she's abusing him!
That's not right. It's not even
legal! We can't just stand by and let
this continue to happen. We have to do
something . . . " A sudden sound from
behind him caused Jonny to turn abruptly toward the doors. Brandon stood in the doorway. His face was pinched and white, and silent
tears coursed down his cheeks. With an
angry sound, Jonny crossed the room and took the boy in his arms, holding him
tightly.
Benton heard the boy's ragged voice saying, "I don't know
what I've done to make her hate me, Jonny.
I try so hard . . . But I can't
do anything right." Jonny shushed him
and let him cry. The look he shot his
father over the boy's head was venomous and screamed the unspoken question, How can you condone this? And Benton knew, in that instant, that he
couldn't be a part of inflicting more grief on this boy. Silently, he set his book aside and reached
for the mobile phone sitting on the table nearby. He dialed a number and after three rings a voice answered on the
other end.
"Aaron? This is
Benton Quest. I have a rather urgent
legal matter I need to discuss with you.
Do you have some time right now if I came to the house? Yes, I know it's late, but this is important
. . ."
