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  “So, I found a way in.” He gestures farther along the wall. “The west sally port is unlocked.”

  “What?” I ask again.

  Arman grins, his teeth pale purple in the dim light that comes from a security light on the other side of the battlefield. “The back door is open.”

  Chapter Four

  The four of us huddle in the dark shadow of the sally port, looking into the middle of the fort. In front of us, the parade ground is empty. The fort’s two-story stone buildings are on the other side of the parade ground. On the left is the building that holds the officers’ kitchen, surgery and upstairs museum. On the right, an identical building houses the soldiers’ barracks, officers’ quarters and officers’ mess. The campers’ modern stuff is locked in an office on the main floor of the second building. There are no lights in any of the windows and no sign of any guards. The main gate, which is in the center of a tall stone wall between the buildings, is closed.

  “Look!” Arman whispers, pointing to a raised corner of the fort to the left of the buildings. “Something moved up on the bastion!”

  I squint, trying to make out shapes in the darkness. Above us, a cloud moves free from the half moon, and the fort lightens a notch.

  “There’s nothing there,” I say. But just as I get the words out, a dark lump moves above the edge of the wall. A head?

  We jerk back into the sally port.

  “Ouch! Watch it!” Carter whispers as Arman steps on his feet.

  “Shhh!” Sean hisses. The sound echoes against the stone walls of the sally port like someone we can’t see is shushing back at us. Sean grabs my arm and whispers low in my ear. “We shouldn’t be in here. This was a stupid idea.”

  Cautiously, I poke my head out from the door and look up to the corner again.

  “Is it the ghost of the headless soldier?” Arman asks. He’s joking, but his voice has gone up a pitch.

  I pull back into the doorway. “No,” I say. “Whoever it is definitely has a head. I didn’t see any hands though.”

  Arman laughs, but it sounds forced. The laugh echoes against the walls.

  “Shhh!” Sean hisses again. And again, the sound echoes. This time it sounds like a snake is hiding between the stones. I feel the hairs prickle at the back of my neck.

  “So,” says a hushed voice just outside the doorway. “What are you brave soldiers up to tonight?”

  I almost jump out of my skin before I recognize the voice. It’s the girl from the mess tent. She steps out of the shadows, and I see that she is still wearing her old-fashioned dress. Her eyes are bright in the moonlight, and the dimple is a tiny shadow on her cheek. She twitches the skirt of the dress as if trying to shift it over her feet. Is she wearing flip-flops?

  “Just getting a breath of fresh air,” Sean says. He steps forward as if he is our leader and wasn’t being a wuss a minute ago. I fight the urge to shove him into the wall.

  “I’m Nicola, by the way,” the girl says. We introduce ourselves, still talking in whispers.

  “We’re looking for ghosts,” Arman volunteers. I groan. Can’t this guy keep his mouth shut?

  “Oh yeah?” Nicola asks. The dimple is still in her cheek, and I’m pretty sure she’s silently laughing at us.

  “You realize you’re standing in the middle of the ghost hot spot?” she says.

  We all do a quick three-sixty.

  “Are you serious?” asks Arman.

  “Of course,” says Nicola. “I’m always serious.”

  “Oh yeah?” I say skeptically.

  She flashes me a quick grin, and then her face goes deadpan. “Yeah. At least fourteen people working in the fort quit after they saw something in this sally port.”

  “Like what?” I ask.

  She shrugs. “Something that scared them.”

  “The headless ghost?” Carter asks.

  She shrugs again. “Maybe.”

  Arman swears.

  “Shut up,” Sean says. “She’s playing you.”

  “Quiet!” I gesture for everyone to step back into the sally port. There’s definitely something moving up on that bastion.

  Nicola steps closer to me, and we peer around the corner. There’s a dim light up by the top of the wall, and it’s moving. A ghost lantern?

  “I wonder who that is,” Nicola whispers. “It looks like they’re talking on a cell phone.”

  Of course. That’s what the light is. I can’t believe I was starting to think like Arman. Either someone else from the camp broke into the office and liberated a cell phone, or our commanding officer is not following his own rules.

  “It could be Major Hell Storm,” I whisper close to Nicola’s ear. Her hair smells like peaches.

  She pauses, and despite the darkness, I see her mouth quirk to one side.

  “It’s not him,” she says. “He’s in the office.”

  I turn back to Sean. “I’m going to check it out,” I whisper.

  “Are you crazy?” he says. “You’re going to get caught.”

  I ignore him and step out of the sally port, keeping to the shadows by the wall. Nicola follows close behind me. Sean steps forward as if he wants to come with us. But then he changes his mind and pulls back into the sally port. This is turning out to not be a bad night after all.

  We creep along the inside of the wall. Whoever is up on the bastion has his back to us as he talks into the phone. I can’t make out any details, but I assume it’s a guy by the height of his head above the top of the wall.

  We inch forward again, and then pause.

  “What were you doing out here, anyway?” I whisper in Nicola’s ear. She puts a finger to her lips and points ahead. We are now close enough to the bastion that we can hear a hushed voice. I can see the ramp that goes up to the bastion, but I can’t see what’s at the top. If the person up there decides to leave, he will come down the ramp and walk right past us. What happens if we get caught? Would Helston kick me out of camp? Fire Nicola from her job? Earlier today I wouldn’t have minded getting kicked out of camp. But now I’m starting to think I might want to stick around and see how it goes.

  Nicola slips past me. “Come on,” she whispers, her breath warm on my ear.

  We creep up the ramp and crouch in the shadows. I look back across the fort yard to the sally port entrance. I can’t tell if Sean and the others are still there.

  We can hear the voice clearly now, but it’s low and slightly distorted. I can’t make out who it is. I glance at Nicola, and she shrugs.

  “Right,” says the voice. “Saturday it is.”

  There is a tiny beep as the phone conversation ends, and then the crunch of feet moving toward us.

  Nicola gives me a frantic shove, and we scramble back down the ramp. The building with the officers’ kitchen and the surgery is on our left. The door to the kitchen is only a few steps away. Do we have time to get to it? Will it be unlocked?

  The footsteps stop as the guy pauses at the top of the ramp. Nicola reaches her hand out to the kitchen doorknob. The door opens, but instead of stepping inside, she closes the door again with a bang and turns to me.

  “Pretty spooky, hey?” she says, no longer whispering. My heart thumps. What is she doing?

  “Half the kitchen was destroyed when the gunpowder magazine blew up,” she continues, as if she’s giving a tour and we’ve just come out of the kitchen. “A lot of soldiers died there.”

  I look over my shoulder toward the bastion. A dark figure closes in on us.

  Chapter Five

  “What are you two doing here?” It’s Lieutenant Gunner. As he approaches, I see that he’s taken off his uniform jacket and hat but is still wearing the shirt and breeches.

  “I’m giving Jason the ghost tour,” Nicola tells him.

  “Oh yeah?” he looks from Nicola to me and grins. I let out a relieved breath. I notice the shape of the cell phone still in his hand (no pockets in these breeches). Gunner seems to notice where I’m looking.

  “I had to ch
eck in with the girlfriend,” he says, holding up the cell phone in a you-caught-me gesture. He smiles. “You know how it is.”

  I grin back at him. Figures. He must have been making plans to meet with her Saturday night.

  The three of us walk toward the main gate. My eyes flick across the courtyard to the sally port. I think I see a shadow move and maybe a hand wave. Is it Sean? I’m thinking I better say goodbye to Nicola and head back to camp, when a voice booms across the courtyard.

  “What’s going on here?”

  We all freeze as Major Helston steps out of the shadows.

  “The inside of the fort is off-limits for campers after dark,” Helston says. I notice he used the word campers instead of soldiers. A slip? “Who gave you permission to be here?” he demands, glaring directly at me.

  Before I can think of what to say, Lieutenant Gunner steps forward.

  “I did, sir.” He turns to me. “Jason, isn’t it?”

  I nod, and Gunner continues. “Jason was helping me after the battle, and I told him Nicola and I would give him a night tour.”

  I give an inward sigh of relief. Lieutenant Gunner is all right.

  “I see,” Helston says, his glare taking in Nicola and Gunner. “I’d appreciate it if you’d check with me next time. I need to know that people are where they’re supposed to be,” he adds, with a pointed look at Gunner. “We don’t want anyone wandering around in the dark and falling into the dry ditch.”

  “Sorry, Dad,” Nicola says. “I’ll give him the rest of the tour tomorrow.”

  Did she just say Dad?

  “Well, I’m off to bed,” she says. “Good night!” She smiles and waves as if getting caught by her dad in a dark fort with two guys in the middle of the night is no big deal.

  Helston huffs, like he wants to say more. I figure this is a good time for me to get out of there. I start toward the sally port.

  “Where do you think you’re going?!” Helston bellows.

  “Um…back to camp,” I mumble.

  “Lieutenant Gunner,” Helston orders. “See that this soldier gets back to his tent safely.” He jerks his head toward the main gate. “That way.”

  When I arrive at the tent, Sean is already inside. Arman and Carter must already be back at their tent as well.

  “That was a close one,” Sean whispers. He sounds slightly out of breath. He and the other guys must have made pretty good time getting back to camp the back way.

  It’s not until I’m inside my sleeping bag again that I remember my phone still sitting in the office.

  Chapter Six

  The next morning, I stand on the field next to Sean, musket raised to my shoulder. Major Helston strides in front of us, wearing his red jacket and tall black officer’s hat. He looks imposing as he surveys the line of phony soldiers. His gaze falls on me, and he pauses. His bushy orange eyebrows knit together and his cheek whiskers bristle. I pull my shoulders back and straighten up. The day is hot already, and I feel sweat start to drip under my arms. Helston moves on, and I relax slightly. Weird. Why am I letting him get under my skin when this is all playacting? Did the real soldiers squirm like this when their commanding officer looked at them? Of course, if they’d done anything wrong, they could be whipped. Or forced to listen to bagpipe music, or something. All I have to worry about is getting kicked out of camp.

  “On June 19, 1812, the United States declared war on Britain. This meant the United States was at war with Canada, which was a British colony,” Helston says, his voice booming out over the field. “Can anyone tell me why?”

  Of course Sean speaks up. “Britain was disrupting shipping off the US coast. They wanted to stop the United States from trading with France,” he calls out. “And they were forcing US sailors to join the British navy.”

  “That’s right,” Helston says, with a nod at Sean. “The British Empire was the superpower back then. Britain was at war with France, and they didn’t like the US sending supplies to their enemy. The British navy needed more sailors, and they figured some of those American sailors were still British enough to join…Anything else?”

  Beside me, Sean shifts slightly. I nudge him in the ribs before he can open his mouth.

  “What?” he whispers.

  “Stop sucking up to Hell Storm,” I whisper back. “Give someone else a chance to answer.”

  Sean scowls.

  “Indians,” someone else calls out. Helston stops pacing and stops in front of Arman.

  “Who?” He pins Arman with his stare.

  “Um,” Arman mumbles. I’m sure he regrets attracting Helston’s attention.

  “Speak up,” Helston orders.

  “The First Nations,” Arman says. Helston frowns, but Arman goes on. “The United States wanted more of their land, and the British were giving the First Nations dudes guns to help them stop the US.”

  Helston nods and begins pacing again. If he’s not careful, he’s going to wear a path in the grass.

  “That’s right,” he says. “The Iroquois, Shawnee and other tribes wanted to keep their lands, and the British wanted to keep control of the northern fur trade. They were willing to work together to stop the United States from expanding.”

  He stops and glares like he’ll turn the firing squad on us if we don’t pay attention. I try to look interested, but I’m dying to get off this hot field and into someplace with air-conditioning. My musket feels like it’s getting heavier.

  “When the American army marched into Upper Canada,” Helston continues, “they thought it would be a cake walk. They thought the settlers up here would be happy to join them in throwing out the British. Lots of people had family and friends on both sides of the border and didn’t want to fight. But when US soldiers attacked their homes and farms and burned the towns of Newark and York, do you think the settlers felt like siding with the Americans?”

  “York is Toronto,” Sean whispers to me. “Newark is Niagara-on-the-Lake.”

  “I know,” I snap back. Although I didn’t.

  “No!” Helston finishes his own question, pounding his right fist into his left hand. “They got mad.”

  His gaze roves over us. “What did they do to retaliate?”

  “March on Washington and burn the White House!” Sean calls out.

  Really? There is a murmur along the line of pseudo soldiers. I guess I’m not the only one that didn’t know the White House got attacked.

  “That’s right,” Helston says with a chilling smile. “Before the war, Americans sat down to supper in Canadian houses. Canadians crossed the Niagara River to visit their American cousins. During the war, they were burning each other’s capitals. The Americans thought the British Canadians would be pushovers. They got a surprise. The British thought their navy ruled the world. They also got a surprise when they faced the new US navy.”

  “Now,” Helston says, turning to survey us again. “Today we’re going to do a little reenactment inside the fort.”

  I groan, picturing more time spent lying on the ground. Beside me, Sean looks ready to burst with eagerness.

  Helston divides us into British and US troops. This time Sean is on the British side, and I’m on the American. The British guys march into the fort with Helston. The rest of us hike down to the river with Lieutenant Gunner. He’s wearing a blue uniform jacket now instead of a red one.

  We stand in the shade by some trees. The river is wide and flat. It’s hard to tell there is a current until a stick floats by. Across the river is the city of Buffalo, New York. Modern buildings, cars, video games, air-conditioning, people who live in the twenty-first century. If I walked out of this camp, it wouldn’t take that long to get to the Peace Bridge and cross over to Buffalo. I could probably even swim across from here.

  “If any of you are thinking of going for a swim,” Gunner says, as if he’s read my mind, “you’d better be good swimmers. That current is stronger than it looks, and twenty-seven kilometers east, it drops over Niagara Falls.”

  So much fo
r my escape plan. I’ve seen Niagara Falls, and I’m not taking any chances.

  “The Americans first attacked this fort in May 1813,” Gunner tells us. “The British surrendered, and the Americans occupied the fort for a while. Then, in December 1813, the American troops in this whole area got pushed back across the river. They burned a few places before they left, leaving a lot of people homeless right at the start of winter.” He pauses to let this sink in.

  “Then, of course, the British army and the Canadian militia retaliated by burning places on US soil—including Washington and Buffalo.” He waves back across the river. There is an edge of boredom in his voice. Like he’s told this story too many times.

  “The Americans attacked again on July 3, 1814,” Gunner continues. He grins, the enthusiasm back in his voice. “And that’s the battle we’re doing today, boys,” he says, holding up his musket.

  I look across the field at the low stone walls of the fort. I see some heads peering over the top of the bastions at the corners of the fort. But mostly the soldiers are hidden, their musket barrels pointing out through slits along the top of the stone walls. One cannon faces us on a grass-covered mound that partly blocks our view of the fort. More cannons aim out from the side walls.

  Down by the river, we spread out in a line and load our muskets. The guy next to me nudges me with his elbow.

  “Don’t forget your earplugs,” he whispers, just before Lieutenant Gunner’s voice rings out.

  “Forward march!”

  Chapter Seven

  We march toward the fort and then stop.

  “Make ready!” Gunner commands. We raise our guns.

  “Present!” We point them at the fort.

  “Fire!”

  I squeeze the trigger, half expecting the musket to blow up in my face. Instead, flame and smoke burst from the barrel.

  Muskets blast on either side of me, and I’m glad of the earplugs.

  “In the heat of a real battle you’d be listening for whistle signals through the noise,” Gunner tells us. His voice is barely audible above all the noise. “The Americans used whistles, the British used drums,” he adds.