Chaos Walking Childhood One Shots

Todd - Ben Is Arrested

"What about this one?" Ben says as he passes me a word written on paper. He ain't looking at it so that I can't see what it says in his Noise.
"E... A?" I try. "How is E and A together?"
"Just keep trying, Todd. You'll get it."
I breathe out heavy thru my nose and look back at the word. I can see it in Ben's Noise now, but he's gotten better at not thinking about what it actually says. I try again.
E-A...R?
E makes a sound and A makes a sound, but I ain't never seen them together-
"What about with the R?" Ben asks. "What might the three of 'em say together?"
There's other letters in the word too, but I look at the first three and try to make sense of it.
E-A-R.
Ee... Ee-ah? Eearuh?
This is stupid.
I try the other letters. L-Y. L... yuh. And that don't make any sense at all.
"If I show you what it says," Ben starts, trying hard not to think about it yet, "will you look at it and try to see what the letters sound like?"
I nod, cuz I sure ain't making any progress on my own.
Early, Ben shows me. I look back at the word.
E-A-R-L-Y. So the E and the A together just make the E sound.
(Then what the heck is the A there for?)
(And the Y sounds like an E too?)
Ben's Noise ain't nearly as frustrated as mine, so I try to calm down and actually read it.
E-A-R just sounds like er. L-Y sounds like lee. Erlee. Ear-ly. Early.
I can kinda see it.
"There you go," Ben says happily, moving it to the side to try again later. "What about this-"
A pounding at the door stops him short, cuz we ain't expecting no one.
"That's odd," Ben says, standing up to see who's there. I try not to notice the worry in his Noise cuz it makes me worry too, but I get up to follow him.
"You stay back Todd," he says, ushering me away with his hand, cuz now we can hear the Noise of the newest man in Prentisstown.
He opens the door, and of course it's Mr. ruddy Prentiss Jr.
Ain't even that much older than me.
"Morning, Davy," Ben greets calmly.
"My pa caught wind of a little something strange in Todd's Noise today," Mr. Prentiss Jr. says, not caring to give his own greeting. "Care to explain what that's about?"
"Well, I could hardly explain it if you don't tell me what he's heard," Ben says, trying to keep light in the situation. I can hear Cillian's Noise coming down from the wheat fields, confused.
"Yer boy here ain't supposed to be doing no booklearning," Mr. Prentiss Jr. continues, getting ticked off. "And you ain't supposed to be teaching him."
"Surely there ain't no harm in looking at a few-"
"I know what I said, and you know the law. Like it or not, Benison, I'm yer sheriff and that means you gotta do what I say."
Mr. Prentiss Jr. sure ain't all that threatening, he's smaller than Ben and he just became a man a few weeks ago. But new angry Noise is coming from both sides of the house now, Cillian on one end, and a another one of Mr. Prentiss's men on the other. Ben catches my eye, and I just look back up at him like a fool cuz I sure don't know what's going on.
"What's going on, boy," Mr. Prentiss Jr. says to me, "is that yer Ben here's gonna spend some time in jail for breaking the law."
"What in the blazes do you think yer doing here, Davy?" Cillian asks, storming through the back door.
"That's Sheriff Prentiss to you, Cillian-"
"I don't care what I call you, you ain't got no business showing up at my house like this."
"But I do, don't I?" Mr. Prentiss Jr. smiles all rude-like. The other angry man shows up behind him now, looking hard at Ben.
"Yer coming with us."
"No he ain't!" I finally speak up.
"Todd," Ben warns, but I step forward as the man takes a grab at him. Ben ain't even trying to fight back-
"Just hold on a minute there," Cillian says, angry as I am, but holding me back. "Y'all have already let yerselves in, so you might as well sit down and we can talk about this-"
"Oh, there won't be no talking," Mr. Prentiss Jr. says, already turning away to let the bigger man do his dirty work for him.
"Let him go!" I call out. "He wasn't doing nothing!"
"You shut up," the man spits at me, cuz Mr. Prentiss Jr. ain't listening no more. Ben gives me a look of apology as he gets pulled outside.
He's just walking with them.
Why's he just walking with them?
I see in his Noise that he just don't wanna make things worse, but why's he gotta be locked up for it? How's that fair?
Cillian ain't holding me so tight now and his Noise rears up as he realizes I'm thinking this, but before he can do something about it, I've already torn outta his grip and I'm racing outside after Ben.
"Todd, get back here!" Cillian yells after me, but there ain't no stopping me now.
"You let him go!" I call to the bigger man, and he barely turns around as he hits me in the face, hard. I fall back onto the dirt as Mr. Prentiss Jr. just laughs at me.
"Aw, just look at yerself, boy," he teases, really enjoying that word. "Can't pick a fight to save yer life."
And his Noise says Or his, about Ben.
My Noise roils.
"I'll show you how I can pick a fight-"
Cillian's caught up to me now, and he grabs me before I can jump at Mr. Prentiss Jr. 
He just laughs at me again, and my brow bone stings where it was hit.
"I'm gonna be fine, Todd," Ben calls back, but the bigger man don't stop walking away. "Don't worry about me. Just stick to yer chores and I'll be back before you know it."
"Get inside, Todd," Cillian says quiet to me. "Get yerself fixed and don't make this worse."
"Ben?" I call out one more time, trying to blink away the wet in my eyes.
(Shut up-)
Ben just looks back at me with a sad smile as he's dragged toward town.
All I can do for a while is stare before Cillian pushes me back to the house.
"You don't look at those words again, you hear?" He says. "I ain't letting this happen twice."
He lets go of me, and I step inside after him cuz there ain't nowhere else to go.
My heart's racing a mile a minute, and my Noise saddens just a little bit when Cillian picks up all the words I was starting to read and throws them in the bin.
Today was just a regular day before now...
I look up toward Cillian where he's started to make lunch to distract himself, and I try not to think about how awful its gonna be to spend a week with no one but him.
Men are usually in jail for a week, anyway. Who knows what'll happen to Ben?
"You got something to say?" Cillian glares, and I realize I'm still looking at him. My eyes dart instinctively to where he threw the words away, and suddenly I'm getting all kinds of pissed off.
"I'm gonna be an idiot for the rest of my life cuz no one in this town thinks I'm worth nothing," I say.
"Quit talking like that," Cillian says, turning away again to clear the counter top. "It ain't right."
"It's true though," I say, not going nowhere. "Why's there a law about reading? How's that important to anyone? What difference is it gonna make to Mr. Prentiss Jr. or the ruddy Mayor himself if I can read or not?"
"It matters cuz it matters," is all Cillian has to say about that. "Just make yerself useful and go make sure the gates to yer fields are in good condition. I don't wanna see you."
(I don't wanna see you-)
(He might've just punched me-)
"So now it's my fault he's arrested?"
"I said get outta my sight!" His voice rises.
I look at him hard for a second, shocked and trying to think of something rude to say. But I realize I don't wanna see him neither, so I turn around and storm outside.
(Stupid effing Cillian-)
(Can't even look at me when something happens to Ben-)
I hear him get mad from inside about effing, but he can't do nothing about it cuz I didn't say it out loud, did I?
Nope.
And for a second I really want to, and I almost scream it back at him just to force him to get out here and look at me only cuz I know he doesn't want to-
But I don't.
I let go of my fists that I didn't realize were clenched, and I climb up the fence to the sheep pasture.
Sheep, they call as they watch me sit on the fence, expecting me to come down and feed them even though they just had breakfast a few hours ago.
"Shut up," I say.
Sheep and Cillian. My whole effing week.
I hum a song to myself that Ben always sings to try to calm down, but it don't work so well.
It just makes me more mad to think about Ben.
Suddenly all I wanna do is lay on the ground and cry, cuz Ben ain't gonna be here and I'll never read right and I'm gonna be raising sheep for the rest of my stupid life cuz one day everyone in this town is gonna die and there ain't no one around that can help us stay alive.
Help is all I want, and Ben just got arrested for being the only man who wants to help me.
I'll be a man myself in two years time, and men ain't supposed to cry, but I still ain't a man yet so I just put my head in my hands and I cry.
I cry for a good long while, trying not to be loud so Cillian don't have an excuse to come out here and get mad at me again.
I look out twixt my fingers to make sure I ain't leaning so far that I'm gonna fall off the fence, and when my eyes get used to the sun, I see that there's a sheep staring at me.
Sheep? It bleats at me, like an asking.
If I were an idiot I'd punch the asking right off it's stupid face, but sometimes I'm not, so instead I just hold my hand out and put it on the sheep's head.
(Maybe a little rougher than I should have, but still-)
The sheep just keeps staring at me.
The softness is annoying after a second, so I take my hand back and lift myself off the fence.
I can deal with stupid Cillian for a week.
I made Ben a little proud when I would read a word, and if I can't do that anymore, I'll at least do this.
He'd be happy to come home and hear that we didn't fight so much.
(Fat chance of that actually happening-)
But Cillian told me to look at a gate, and this sheep is just gonna keep staring at me if I don't do something.
So I get my stupid self up and I do something.