By Chris Mast

War. It's never pretty, seldom thought out, and always ends up in careless destruction.

Welcome to the fourth grade.

Watch a skinny little boy whose quick tongue and loud mouth was only overshadowed by the obvious imagination that darted around behind dark brown eyes. Whose love of being the class clown was only overshadowed by a love of recess. Whose hatred of liver was only outdone by his hatred of girls, and whose obsession with grass that smelled like onions would lead to one of the biggest upheavals the small parochial school he attended would ever know.

Welcome to the Onion Grass Wars.

Chapter 1

The bell on top of the steeple rang and echoed across the yards of neighboring houses as numerous small children bolted out of the front door of the school. The sun was casting shadows to the west, signifying that the morning recess had begun. As the crowds of small children dispersed into their own groups, some to play kickball, some to swing, two boys departed from the crowds to the back of the building.

As they ran away from the crowds, they raced to the big oak that dominated the back yard of the school. One boy, whose skinniness shown even when he was young, took the lead ahead of the other. This kid was slightly larger, a strong boy, whose blonde hair flickered behind him as he tried to catch up to his friend.

They raced to the big oak, going to the side opposite the school, where the sun warmed the bark. They stopped as the skinny kid won the race, and waited, catching his breath as his friend came in a couple of seconds later.

"Beat ya again Tim," taunted the skinny boy. Brown eyes flickering challenge and victory. "That makes the third recess in a row."

"Shut up Josh. Your so light that you almost fly. Now what do you want to do?" Tim retorted.

"Hey, it's good to be skinny. I can fit where no one else can and can beat almost anyone in a race, except the kids from the big room." Josh's featured contorted as his 9 and a half year old brain pondered something fun to do for the next thirty minutes. "I don't know," then his face lit up as he stumbled across the obvious. "I know, let's go exploring."

Tim's blonde hair shown in the sun as he smiled. "Yeah, that sounds cool. C'mon."

Tim got up from his seat against the trunk of the tree, having caught his breath and plenty warm now. He started walking, leading the way. That was the way it usually went during recess. Josh would think up what to do, and Tim would start the whole imagination process. Josh had a better imagination than Tim, but Tim was the larger of the two, by about 20 pounds, and being heavier by 20 pounds in fourth grade meant that Tim got to be the leader. Josh shrugged and got up, content to follow Tim.

"So where are we gonna explore?" Josh asked.

"I don't know, let's go out to the old steps in the front yard."

Now the parochial school where both of them attended had been around for over a hundred years, and still had many of the old time necessities. There were numerous old sheds littering the school grounds, most of them boarded up, and an old set of cement steps where children in the pre-auto stage would tie their horses up. Tim and Josh roamed toward that.

As soon as they got out to their destination, they stopped and sat down on the steps, looking around and sighing.

"We've already been here before," Josh frowned. "Ya know, we've explored all of the land."

"I know. That's why were gonna play King of the Mountain." Tim resolved.

"I hate playing King of the Mountain, you always win." Josh whined.

"That's why were playing it." Tim smugly said.

"No... I don't want to play that. There's got to be something to do..." Josh threw up his arms and gave up, sitting down in the grass. He laid back, enjoying the scent of the grass and the warm ground. A whiff of something else caught his nose. He sat up, ignoring whatever Tim was saying, and sniffed around, determined to find out what made his bed of grass stink. He picked up a handful of the grass he sat on, holding it up to his nose. He winced away, threw the grass down, and discovered what it was that smelled so bad.

"Hey, Tim," Josh interrupted, "come over here and smell this grass! It smells like onions!"

"What? What kind of grass is that?" Tim questioned. He got his answer when he went over, picked up a handful himself, and came to the same conclusion Josh did. "Whew! man, that grass stinks."

Tim sat back, as both he and Josh smelled their hands, wiping away tears and smiling. This exploration had wielded quite the treasure. The first discovery for these little Diaz's.

"We can't tell anyone about this," Tim warned.

"I know, especially the girls." Josh's eyes flashed. He distrusted, no, hated girls, moreso than most boys. "They'll come out here and pick all our onion grass."

"Onion grass..." Tim tried out the name, saying it a couple of times and smiled.

"Yeah, our secret weapon, Onion Grass."



Chapter 2

Tim and Josh looked around as the bell sounded the end of recess. Josh scanned the area around the onion grass patch and nodded, smiling.

"No intruders saw us, Tim. We still are safe. We'll have to come up with a plan to keep our Onion Grass safe." Josh resolved.

"Yeah. You think about that in class after we get all our work done." Tim replied.

Tim and Josh went back inside. Robin, a cute little girl in the same grade as Tim and Josh, looked at Josh with bright blue eyes. She was Tim's cousin, so usually anything he found out he told her.

"What were you all doing out there at the cement steps, Josh?" Robin asked.

Josh scowled. "None of your business, Robin. We just went exploring."

Josh walked on past Tim and Robin, going and taking his seat in the Little Room. Robin looked at Tim with a look of surprise on her face, motioning him close. Josh didn't need to here to know that she asked Tim what they had been doing.

"Nothing, Robin. We just went exploring. Why do you think that we were doing something?" Tim wondered. Josh smiled to himself. If Tim didn't tell Robin, then he knew that he was serious about keeping it secret.

Class went by just as usual, and Tim and Josh got done with their work early. In the small school, getting work done early meant an extra recess. Tim and Josh raced out the front door, excited that they had the entire school yard to themselves. No girls would be interfering with their plans today. Josh stopped Tim, after they reached the old steps.

"Maybe there's some other Onion Grass patches around the school yard. Wanna go look?"

Tim thought a minute, then agreed. They went racing around the school yard, excited at the prospect of more treasure being found and no one else knowing. They found two more patches, one in the back yard and another near the old dirt road that went by the school house. Neither were as big as the one out by the steps, but they were satisfied that they could have other bases should the big one (the old steps) be taken over by intruders.

Josh and Tim were walking back to the front of the school, when Becky, the only other girl in the two boys' grade. She came over to them, her dark brown hair and freckled face smiling as usual.

"Teacher says it's time to come in." She stopped for a moment as Josh and Tim sighed. Her face looked puzzled. "What were you all doing running around the school so much?"

Now Becky was neither like by Tim or Josh, and neither of them felt obligated to give her much of an answer. They said a couple of "none of your businesses" and walked past her. Becky's face darkened and she started fretting.

"That's no fair! Why didn't you tell me what you were doing? I wanna know..." Tim and Josh just kept on walking, talking amongst themselves. Becky pulled out her greatest weapon, and one she used quite often.

"I'm gonna tell!"

Uh-oh. Danger to the fort. Interrupt intruders, stop danger.

Josh turned around, fear obvious in his eyes. He could keep secrets from the girls, but the teacher was another thing. He started walking toward Becky, no longer ignoring her. He got angry, as he did often at Becky. Of all the girls in the school, Becky was the one he hated most. She was a pest, and Josh got sick of her, all the time. But if she told on them, then the secret would be out, for everyone to know about. It would be best, Josh decided, if only Becky knew. Then she would be happy and safety would be resumed.

"Whaddya mean your gonna tell, Becky? You don't have anything to tell on us with!" Josh retorted.

Becky's eyes darkened. "I do to! You were doing something secret, and if I tell, then the teacher will want to know too." She spun on her heel, freckled nose up in the air as she prepared to carry out her threat.

Tim's eyes widened and he darted toward Becky. Tim had a temper, and he had to keep it in check as he ran in front of her, blocking her route back to the school.

"Listen Becky, if we tell you what we were doing, will you not tell on us?" Tim offered.

Becky's face lit up. Josh knew that she was used to getting what she wanted by being a tattle-tale, but he had to think of the safety of the treasure.

"Well....okay. But you gotta tell me it all." Becky said.

Tim blinked agreement and walked on, motioning for Becky to come along. She giggled and started skipping along behind him. Josh rolled his eyes. Girls.

Josh saw that Tim was leading Becky to one of the small Onion Grass patches. That was pretty smart, Josh had to admit, for Tim. Usually he wasn't one to surprise Josh, but he did this time. Josh realized that if she was satisfied with a small Onion Grass patch, then the others would be safe.

Tim stopped at the small patch in the back yard. He tried to make what they had found uninteresting so Becky would think they were stupid and walk off.

"Here. Here's what we were looking at," said Tim, motioning at the spot of different colored grass. That was the one thing Josh hadn't noticed. Onion grass was green, but a slightly different shade of green.

Becky looked at Tim like he was weird. "What's so special about this grass?" She reached down and picked up a blade or two, careful not to get any on her clothes.

Tim cocked his head. "Nothing really. It kinda looks different..."

Becky looked at the grass, then sighed and set it down. She was about to walk away, disinterested, when she smelled her hand. She wrinkled her nose.

"What smells like onions?"

Tim's face showed what he thought of Becky, but he kept his voice level, with obvious effort. "The grass does, me and Josh thought it was cool."

Becky tilted her head to the side, trying to sound uninterested, saying that if that was all they were excited over they were stupid, but she came off sounding very suspicious. Tim didn't catch it, but Josh did. He decided not to say anything, as long as she didn't say anything. If the Onion Grass was safe, it was okay...

Chapter 3

The first recess the next day, Josh and Tim met at their predetermined spot: the old oak in the back yard. They had decided that they were going to pick some of the Onion Grass and hide it, just in case Becky decided to steal some of it. They did and hid it in the safest place they knew, one of the old sheds. They were just going to do something neat like play kickball, when, as they were walking to the front of the school yard, a commotion caught their eye.

A whole group of girls was gathered in the middle of the kickball field, a strange occurrence because usually the girls were inside or swinging. Tim and Josh walked a little closer and hid behind a tree, spying.

Girls were walking in between the huge oaks that ran to the side of the kickball field, gathering sticks. Josh saw that Robin was the leader, and she had all the smaller girls gathering the things to. Becky stood off to the side, smiling and talking to Robin. Then Robin looked the boys' way and squinted, Josh and Tim ducked behind the tree, but not before Robin saw them.

"Hey! I see you both, Tim and Josh! Come on out and quit spying!"

Tim cursed something a little obscene for his young age and walked out, Josh following. Now that the gig was up, they were able to walk closer and see what it was the girls were doing. Sticks stuck in the ground formed squares, and Josh looked at Robin with a look of utter disgust on his face.

"What are you doing? Why are there sticks in the ground?" Josh said sarcastically.

"Because, we're building a fort to guard against you guys stealing our bark." Robin challenged back.

Tim looked at Josh and then looked at the girls. "Bark?! What do you want with bark?"

"Because, it's our treasure, and we're protecting it. Like your stupid Onion Grass!" Robin said.

The gig was up. Becky had told. The secret was revealed. Josh's eyes widened as Tim groaned, and took a step toward Becky.

"Becky! You said you weren't gonna tell!" Tim angrily said. He was about to reach Becky when Robin yelled for him to stop. Tim obeyed, but only because he didn't know why.

"You can't step inside our fort! It's our home base!" Robin yelled, pointing at the sticks.

Oh no. They've established a home base! That meant that they had to form an army of boys to block the girls and start a home base too. Josh's eyes darkened as he said quietly:

"It's war then. And we're gonna win."

Onion Grass against stick forts and bark. This wasn't gonna be easy. Walking away from the fort, Josh whispered to Tim the beginnings of war.

The next recess at noon marked the beginning of recruitment for the Cougars. That was Josh and Tim's club, to combat the Girls. But they had a secret weapon up their sleeve. The Big Room.

The Big Room was where all the kids fifth grade and up were at, and most of the Big Roomers didn't have anything to do with the Little Roomers. But Josh had a brother named Chad in seventh grade, and they were as close as Tim and he were and he would get him to help him. Chad was a popular guy in the Big Room, and could get all the boys from there to help. With the Big Roomers' help, they would crush the stick forts and rule both the bark and Onion Grass.

Chad was popular in the Big Room, and Josh didn't know if he would help just Josh. But Tim was popular in the Little Room, and Chad liked Tim so there wouldn't be a problem.

Tim walked into the big room, which luckily was empty because it was recess. He looked around the room, and spotted Chad by the teacher's desk. Chad's long black hair swung over his shoulder as he glanced up and got a puzzled look on his face when Tim called his name.

Tim outlined the gist of what had happened, making sure to exaggerate what the girls had done, and by sounding very angry and wanting revenge. Then he summed up what he and Josh had thought up what to do, and Chad slowly smiled as he heard the creativeness of the plan.

"Ooh... that's cool...and mean. So you need my help, huh? Well, I'll try and get all my friends to help you, but I don't know how many of them will agree." Chad said.

Tim looked up at Chad, then reassured him. "Just tell them that we are going to have war on the girls for challenging the Cougars. Just ask them if they want in the Club."

Chad nodded. "Where's your base?"

"In the first old shed, the one near the back yard. We're gonna have a meeting next recess, get your friends and join us if you can." Josh said.

Chapter 4

The old shed was musty as Tim and Josh creaked aside the old door. The old shed was normally used for storing old things like broken desks, but it had been emptied the year before and now stood vacant. The teachers' had outlawed going in there, but this was war, and in war, normal rules didn't count.

Tim moved some old furniture around to sit on, and waited for people to show up. It only took a couple of seconds, and the other boys in the Little Room came in and sat on the old furniture. They asked what the meeting was for and various other questions, but Tim and Josh told them to wait until the other members got there.

Luke, a small brown haired kid in the two grades below Josh, asked the obvious question.

"What other members? Everyone from the Little Room is here."

The door creaked open, and Chad walked in, with three other Big Room boys. Luke's and everyone else's eyes widened as he saw them walk in. They looked at each other as they realized the possibilities of this club. Tim and Josh just looked at each other and smiled.

Chad was the first one to break the silence. "Okay, this first meeting of the Cougars is now under session. Tim and Josh created the club, so they get to talk." Chad knew that Tim and Josh together were as creative as anyone in the school, so he let them lead. But when things got out of hand, Chad was the biggest person there, and no one had problems with his authority.

Josh got up, and took up a handful of green Onion Grass he had picked and showed it to everyone. "A recess a little while ago, me and Tim found some grass that smelled like onions," murmurs of excited mumbling sounded in the old shed, "and we found a few spots in the school yard where it grew. Becky found us looking for it and we had to tell her about it, but we didn't think she was gonna tell anyone."

"But like the little brat that she is," Tim started, "she did. And now every girl in the Little Room is building stick forts. Forts made of sticks stuck in the ground. They're stupid. Well, Becky told Robin, and now all the girls have bark and wanna get our Onion Grass. We made the Cougars to stop them."

Chad took over, because everyone was talking now, wondering what they were going to do. He repeated what Tim and Josh had told him, adding a few observations and plans of his own that made the conquest sound even better. Nobody was going to challenge Tim and Josh once Chad was set in the plan. So by silent consent the plan was agreed upon, and the bell rang, signifying the end of the recess and the meeting. Tim and Josh went back to the Little Room talking excitedly; the meeting had gone better than even they had thought. This was going to be the war of the century.



Chapter 5

War was declared and planned out, now it was only a matter of putting it into action. But that required time, and that was something that required patience, something a pair of small parochial students didn't have much of. Tim and Josh were ancy, looking at each other frequently in the little room to see how long they had before the first recess bell.

Josh was artistic, and had drawn up a very detailed map of the school playground during school. Robin sat behind him, and he wanted to look harmless as he tried to hide it from her as he drew the map. The map was drawn quite well for a fourth grader, and Tim was impressed as he looked at it the next recess.

"Okay, so we hide in various spots around the playground, like behind the big tree by the basketball court," he pointed to it on the map, "and behind the gas tank beside the gate." He located it with his finger.

Josh finished the rest of the plan for him. "And then we, a few guys at a time, storm the girls' stick fort and raid it." He motioned to the rectangle with a big G in the middle, the girls' base. The rectangle was quite large, because the girls had fortified it with a lot more sticks and had made it more than twice the size it was before. The boys of the Little Room, not including Josh and Tim, had taunted and raved them for building something so stupid so large, but the two leaders of the Cougars had realized that the bigger the fort was, the harder it was gonna be to destroy it.

"We have to do this during the noon recess, because that's the only recess that's long enough." Josh explained.

"And then the girls will know not to mess with our Onion Grass." Tim finished.

Josh smiled, but it disappeared as he thought of what would happen after the war. "But you know the girls will tell, and how will we get out of that?"

Tim was the bigger of the two, and was a smooth talker for a fourth grader, and was always overconfident when it came to trouble. "We'll just say that the girls started it, because they did. If Becky hadn't told and they hadn't built the stick fort, none of this would have happened."

Josh wasn't so sure of that, but he kept his reservations to himself. Nothing was going to stop the war from happening, so it was probably best that he didn't worry about it.

Tim gathered together all the boys' that were in on SFI-day, something Chad had thought up, Stick Fort Invasion-Day, near the end of the recess. They met in the backyard, thinking that if anyone came to get them near the end of the recess and found them in the old shed they were through. So they met in the open, intrigued and not looking around as Tim showed them all Josh's map and explained to them how the noon recess was going to proceed. Tim was excited and talking loudly, and didn't realized they might have been spied on. Surely the girls didn't realize anything!

Robin motioned for the three girls to come forward a little bit, as they all peeked around the edge of the school. Robin had noticed what Josh had been drawing, even though he tried to hide. But it's not hard to see what a stickboy is drawing when his arms aren't even big enough to block the paper. She had told Becky and a few of her other friends that something was probably going to happen. Of all the girls, Robin was the unannounced leader, and they took what she said seriously.

They listened to what Tim was practically blurting out, and anger showed on Robin's face when she quickly motioned for the girls to back away and run inside the school.

"They think we don't know what they are going to do. But we do, so we can surprise them." Robin craftily said, a hint of anger and resentment in her voice. If there was one thing she hated, it was being thought of as a pushover.

"But they have Big Roomers. Josh's brother Chad and some of his friends are with them." Becky worried.

"So what?" Robin declared. "I have friends in the Big Room too, and we'll just ask them for help tomorrow."

Robin looked through the window at Josh and Tim, and shook her head as they laughed and gave each other fives walking back to the school. So her cousin took the boys side, huh? She'd just have to show Tim and Josh what it meant to go against the girls and think you were going to win.

She smiled to herself as the perfect counter-plan was already forming in her head.

"Get ready, Tim and Josh. Get ready."

Chapter 6

Tensions were subtle and couldn't have been noticed unless someone looked for the slight nods of reaffirming that came from both Josh and Robin to their respective friends. The morning recess was a time of preparation, and the two boys gathered all their friends and went over for a last time what the plan was for SFI-noon recess.

The boys were so busy and so gathered into the plan that they didn't notice that there were a lot of girls missing during recess. If they had noticed it, they might have gone inside and noticed all the girls meeting in the back of the Little Room, smiling and laughing as they made defenses against what they thought the boys would do. They didn't know exactly, but they thought they knew the basic outline of the attack, so Robin made plans and the other girls helped her. She was so sure that they were going to win this; they couldn't lose if they knew what the enemy was going to do.

And so each side dug in their trenches, and prepared to make war. So entranced with their respective sides, they didn't notice the teacher, sitting behind the desk, eyebrows raised, wondering. They didn't notice as she left the Little Room, down the hall toward the Big Room, to meet with the teacher there.

Recess ended, and all the students came back into the small parochial school. The teacher watched as first the smaller boys came in, smiling and laughing. Then Tim and Josh came in, and walked close together and away from the crowd. Robin and Becky entered, eyeing Tim and Josh suspiciously, but not saying a word. All the students took their seats peacefully, without much post-recess hijinks. That in itself was strange, the teacher thought, but watching the students wasn't the only sign that something was going to happen. Without listening for it, a person could tell something was going to happen soon by the sound that was made as the students came back in from the morning recess. Normally restless and rambunctious students were unusually soft spoken and silent, as boys talked only to boys, and girls whispered to girls. Much like, the teacher suspected, the calm before the storm.

Chapter 7

The bell sounded at noon, and students ran to their lunch boxes to eat their lunch and then hurry out for an entire hour of uninterrupted fun. Tim and Josh felt a rush of energy as the bell rang, running right past their lunch boxes and into the back yard. The old shed was hot and musty as they pulled open the rusted door and slipped inside, careful that no one would see them. They waited as little bit by little bit, the members of the Cougars filtered in, each one hurrying in, trying not to be seen.

After all of the boys entered and closed the door, and through what little light was filtered through the windows Josh and Tim started the final debriefing. They explained the final plan, where each member was supposed to go, and what they were supposed to do. Tim told them of the battle cries that would signify when to do what, and everybody laughed as they heard them. Finally, after a lot of explaining over and over to the younger members of the Little Room, the meeting was over.

Everybody was laughing or doing something to vent their excitement, but Tim and Josh were the most excited of all. They knew that they had thought up this entire thing, and it looked like it was going to go flawlessly. They took their places behind the gas tank about a hundred feet away from the forts, so intent on not being seen they hurried right past the fort and didn't even bother to look.

As they settled behind the old gas tank, the warm grass soothing raw nerves bustling with excitement, Josh looked at Tim, and was surprised to see him frowning.

"What's the matter, Tim? The girls fort is gonna be destroyed after this recess." Josh reassured.

Tim still frowned. "It's just something I heard Robin say last night. She was talking to Becky on the phone at my house trying to be really quiet and she said something about 'them being really surprised.' That's all I heard. I wonder if they were talking about us."

Josh wasn't convinced. "There's no way." he said. Disbelief evident in his voice. " The girls had no idea what we were doing, and everything we did they missed."

Tim shook his head, still not sure of success but not willing to argue with Josh. He turned and ventured a look out from the old gas tank, then turned around at Josh, eyes wide. Josh looked at him and was going to ask, but all Tim did was motion for Josh to come forward to look at the girls fort right beside him. Josh snuck up beside him, and cursed something he had heard his brother say once.

Something strange was going on at the girls' fort, but they were doing it behind the huge oak trees so that they were hidden. All but a few of the girls were there, and Josh noticed that the few that weren't were watching very suspiciously. That's when Josh noticed the humongous tufts of grass that wadded up from the base of the stick fort walls. Tim motioned Josh back to the safety behind the old gas tank, and looked at his skinny little friend.

"I told you they knew something! They didn't have that grass at their fort before, and all the other girls are having some kind of meeting behind the trees!" Tim exclaimed.

Josh shook his head. "No way, Tim. If they had known something they would have made fun of us. They would have done something to tell us they knew. Let's just start the invasion!"

Tim's eyes slowly turned from worry to excited anxiousness, and he slowly smiled. "Yeah...let's do it."

Josh got up next to the side of the tank closest to the fort. He crouched, ready to yell to Luke, who would start the invasion with his friends by running from the back of the school and surprise the girls.

"Stick forts stiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnkkkkkkkkkkkk!!!!!!" Josh screamed, ducking down behind the tank.

Tim and Josh crawled quickly over to the end closest to the stick fort, laughing in excitement as SFI-day started.

Luke and three of his friends started running, as fast as their little legs would carry them, toward the girls' base. It hadn't been hard to get them to join, as long as they had fun, they didn't care whose side they were on. As they crossed the gravel road into girls territory, the kickball field, a whole bunch of girls screamed and stepped out from behind the tree.

That wasn't what surprised Tim and Josh. It was the weapons the girls brandished.

Chapter 8

"Oh crap! What are they doing?" Josh wasn't afraid to cuss now. The situation warranted it.

Luke and his friends had grown huge smiles as they heard the girls scream. Then turned around screaming and crying, as second graders would do, after they were pelted with the girls' lunches. Two peanut butter sandwiches and an apple later, the first invasion of SFI-day collapsed. That's when the fourth grade leaders of the Cougars realized that the girls had know all along what they were going to do.

And were as ready as the Cougars were. Welcome to World War III.

Tim and Josh bolted out of their safe haven, running to the places where all the other members were hiding, waiting for their respective yells that would tell them to invade. Tim and Josh bursted behind the old oak where a couple of third graders waited.

"Invade! Go, invade! The girls' found out!" Josh yelled.

They ran to the old shed where the main force of their army waited, Chad and his friends, and yelled at them much the same way they had done with the third graders. Josh missed the look Chad gave him of disappointment, going to the tell the other hiding place where the fifth graders and first graders waited.

Josh was getting tired and panting, resting for a second after the final warning to catch his breath. He looked at Tim, whose jaw was firm, determined to win this war, regardless of the casualties.

"This is gonna be one bad day," Josh sighed.

They started running to the kickball field, following the trail of boys that were yelling and invading the girls' home base.

They stopped at the corner of the school, regrouping with Chad and his friends, to watch what was happening at the war zone.

The third graders, who had seen the second graders repulsed, were running quickly and spreading out, trying to make harder targets for the lunch food that flew through the air. They, through their superior numbers, were able to get to the first wall of sticks, doing as they had been ordered and pulling them out in bunches. By fourth grade etiquette, they could only invade if there was a hole in the wall to go through and now there was.

By the time they made a good sized hole in the wall, however, all of them had been hit by a sandwich or peanut butter cracker and had retreated, some crying, others just yelling, back inside the school. On that semi-successful venture, the first and fifth graders, who by far made up the majority of the numbers, invaded.

By that time all the lunch food ammunition had been used, and the boys were laughing and smiling, hurriedly picking up lunch food and sticks and, in some cases, throwing it back. Where they hit the girls, who had equal numbers but were unified, the younger ones would run inside, screaming and crying for the teacher. That hit home on Josh's ears, and for the first time he realized how serious this would be.

Tim and Josh realized, that as far as the war had gone, now would be the time to send in Chad and the Big Roomers. Josh was pushing them forward, telling them to go.

But that's when the Robin's smarts really showed.

She had gotten the prettiest of the Big Room girls, who had flocked to her side through Angie, Robin's cousin. When the boys saw that the Big Room girls were on the other side, they turned around and went inside. Josh watched in utter disbelief as their plan disintegrated.

"Where are you going, Chad? Help us invade!!!" Josh screamed at his older brother.

Chad turned around, a look of maturity that hadn't been on his face since this started distorting his features. He looked like a grown-up.

"Do you think that we are going to fight Carrie?" Carrie was the prettiest girl in the small school, Chad had a crush on her. "Forget it, we quit."

The boom was lowered on the plan, and Josh and Tim looked at each other. Josh was stunned, he couldn't believe his brother would do this to him. Tim was a little taken aback, but he turned his sights to the battle, still raging between the fifth graders and the girls.

The fifth and first graders had done their part well, and the girls' fort was nothing but a pile of sticks. The fort was in shambles, and the fifth graders were getting tired of battling and walking back to the school. Some of the girls in third and fifth grade passed them, making sure to get to the school to tell the teacher what had happened before the boys did.

Josh closed his eyes, knowing now that someone was going to get in trouble. Now the only thing that mattered, and it was shown in Tim's face, was who won the war of the Bark and the Onion Grass.

Onion Grass! Josh realized that they had left the patches unguarded. The girls' bark had been strewn around in the the second invasion, so there treasure had been usurped. Josh opened his eyes just in time to see Becky, Robin, and a few other girls race away from the battle to the back yard. They carried bright colored water guns. That's what had been underneath the dead grass. They quickly rounded the corner and disappeared.

To the patches of Onion Grass!

"Oh crap! Tim come on!" Josh bolted toward the back yard.

Realization dawned on Tim, and they both ran as fast as they could, toward the Onion Grass.

Josh rounded the corner of the back school, just in time, as Robin and Becky reached the back yard at the same time. They were closer to the first patch of Onion Grass, and had managed to rip off all of it and were running toward the second, about 20 feet away!

Anger blurred Josh's vision, and he ran, possessed, toward Robin, who was in the lead.

"Get away from our Onion Grass!!!" He screamed as he pushed Robin, hard, away from the treasure. She landed hard, the water gun falling out of her hand,but she wasn't a sissy like Becky, and got up and ran toward Josh. He was protecting his Onion Grass with his whole body, trying to block the shots of cold water that hit him and darkened his shirt. Tim, as his temper made him when things got tense, ran over and pushed over Angie, and then Becky, making sure to rip the water guns out of their hands. War was terrible, casualties were mounting. Becky started screaming, running toward the back door, when a loud shout halted everything, even time.

"Boys! Girls! Come inside, now!" The teacher's voice boomed down. The war was over, now the cleanup would begin.

Chapter 9

Josh ran upstairs, shuddering, and started crying when his mother slammed the phone down. He had been punished, after his mother had recieved the phone call, thoroughly for started the biggest war the small parochial school had ever seen.

Worse yet, he couldn't even sit down. His butt was so sore that he had to cry standing up, which made it even worse. Chad came upstairs, smiling softly.

"Butt still hurt little brother?" Chad softly said.

"Yeah," tears streamed down Josh's face, "and I can't even sit down. I got grounded for a week."

"Did you learn anything out of this?" Chad wondered.

"Yeah." Josh said. "Onion Grass sucks."