QUINTEN

CHAPTER 1

“Get-out-of-my-room!” I yelled. Sammy was my six year old brother with dirty brown hair and blue eyes, same as me. He loved to wear sweat pants and t-shirts. The cute little devil was playing with my air-soft guns again. This time, it was different because I finally had enough. I was usually patient, but Sammy had been doing this pretty often in the last week.

“I said get out!” I yelled again. Sammy set down the toys and looked at him with those beaten puppy-dog eyes, but I was merciless.

“Out.”

With that single word, Sammy burst into tears and ran out yelling for his mommy. With Sammy out, I looked at the time and saw it was about 11:00, Jake was pulling up in the driveway now. I ran down the stairs and out the door, momentarily forgetting my shoes. Jake got out of the back of the car and tossed me his newest air-soft gun.

“Hey Quinten!” Jake said “What’s up? Do you like the new gun? I got it from this guy who, well, knows a guy who knows a guy and so on.

“Seriously?” Quinten asked.

“No not seriously, I got it for $150 off of EBay; it’s the CougarM49! 400 FPS- it really packs a punch! Try it out!” Jake said.

“Ok,” I replied. I aimed it between his legs and he flipped out! He sprang towards me and grabbed his gun back and aimed it at me. Luckily, I was prepared, so I pulled my pistol out of my pocket and shot him three times in the chest. This obviously signaled the start of the war. He ran back behind a few trees and jumped into my mini-ditch. Then he opened fire with about fifty of his shots, which was half his clip. I put the pistol back in the holster and ran inside and got my sniper and some shoes. I then went out of the back door and ran up my hill.

“One shot out!” I heard Jake yell off in the distance. I was walking around when I saw Sammy following me. “Get out of here!” I thought

“Sammy! Get out of here!” I whispered. “You’re gonna blow my cover!

“But I want to play too!” Sammy complained. “Please!”

“Ok” I said “Go down the hill and find Jake”

Sammy agreed and ran down the hill, which was just my plan. As Sammy ran down the hill, I raised my sniper and shot him in the back. 300 FPS of sheer power was enough to maybe give him a welt but not enough to knock him over, so I knew he was being dramatic. After he got up, he ran inside screaming, so I knew he was out of our game for a while.

Unfortunately, my gas powered sniper was really loud, so Jake probably knew right where I was. I needed to move. I ran up the hill and as I did so, I saw Jake about 40 feet away. I raised my sniper and had him in my scope, but before I did, I thought “Do I really want to do this? Oh yeah!” I just about pulled the trigger when I thought that if I missed, he would find me and light me up like a Christmas tree. Instead, I put the sniper away and pulled out my pistol and shot my whole 12 round clip at him. I didn’t hear Jake yell so I knew I hadn’t hit him. I pressed the release with my thumb and the clip fell out. I slid in a new magazine and went prone. “Great,” I whispered “Now he knows where I am.”

Suddenly, a spray of pellets shot above me. I pulled out my scoped gun and aimed it at him. He was reloading so I took a quick breath and shot. I heard Jake shout and fall over.

“Gosh dang it!” Jake said “I have a red dot in the middle of my forehead; I look like one of those Indian people!”

“Ha! You sort of do.” I said “Do you want to play another game or go inside?” Jakes head hurt so we decided to go inside. When we were inside, I saw Sammy eating Mac & Cheese at the table with a band-aid on his butt. I told Jake what happened, which Sammy overheard. This brought on a whole new round of waterworks.

“Why did you shoot me, brother?” Sammy asked, tears streaming down his face. “That really h-h-hurt!”

Then my dad came in.

“Quinten, what have I told you about shooting Sammy?” Dad demanded.

“Sorry, dad,” I lied “I was trying to hit Jake.”

“Ok, well, don’t let it happen again.” he turned to Sammy and said, “Come here and let me give you your insulin shot.

“No!” Sammy protested “I hate shots!”

“I’m sorry, I hate it as much as you, but you were born with type 1 diabetes, which means you need shots.” Dad poked Sammy, and afterword, Sammy started to cry so Jake and I left.

After we got outside, Jake picked up a box he brought and gave it to me.

“What is it?” I asked, “Oh wait, this is the zip line kit! You finally brought it!” Jake proceeded to open the box for me and take out all of its contents.

“Here,” Jake said “You take this end and tie it to that tree down there and I will tie it to the one up there.” We both tied our ends and tried it out, Jake, went down with his CougarM49, shooting it like some sort of terrorist. I went down with my pistol and didn’t shoot it at all, except one which hit Jake in the head, again. It was getting dark, so we decided to ding-dong-ditch people around the neighborhood.