Sugarbomb
by Sam Ruleman
part 1
The sound of a blaring siren fills the dark, empty streets, waking the citizens from their fearful slumber. In a panic, Maggie throws back her quilted blanket and rolls off the side of her bed, hitting the wooden floor with a thud. If the sirens didn’t wake her younger brother, she definitely just did. Maggie scrambles to her knees and turns to her brother’s bed. Their room is compact, with hardly enough room to squeeze two small beds in. Maggie pulls at the lump that is her brother. “Tom, wake up!”
The young boy had already buried himself beneath his sheets, hiding from the siren’s haunting wail. “Tom! Come out!”
“No! I’m scared!” the young boy cries.
“Why? You know what time it is! It’s time to go to Candyland!”
Short black hair pokes out from under the blue cloud-print blanket. “Really?”
“Of course, dummy! Now come on.”
The door to their tiny room suddenly bursts open and their mother rushes in. “Maggie, grab Tom. Hurry!”
“Alright, come on, Tommy.” Maggie pulls Tom from his bed and holds him close before joining their mother. Together, they rush down the hallway that leads to a set of stairs to the ground floor. The old, warped floorboards of the drab beige hall creak beneath their feet with every step.
When they reach the ground floor, their mother runs to the opposite side of a small, cluttered living room. “Maggie, go on. I’ll be right out,” she says. Their mother kneels to the floor and shoves aside a cracked leather armchair sitting in the corner. She peels back a small section of the faded floral wallpaper, revealing a hidden pocket in the wall behind, filled with small boxes.
“What are you doing, Mother?” Maggie stammers.
“Don’t worry, sweetie. I’ll be right on out. Go on,” she says, shuffling through the boxes.
Maggie leaves her mother and runs through the kitchen, holding Tom with one hand while she opens the door to their quaint backyard with the other. Outside, the sirens have only grown louder. Tom tries to block out the noise, shielding his ears with his little hands. “It’s okay, Tom, we’re almost there,” Maggie says.
When she steps foot into the yard, she can’t help but look at the old oak tree against the far corner. Columns of light erupt from the cityscape behind it, trailing across the dark May sky. A beam passes above them, casting a long shadow on a broken swing tied to a thick branch. All that is left is a single rope attached to a wooden board slumped against the ground. Maggie tears her eyes away. Father promised he’d fix it.
She runs to the opposite side and skips down a few steps to a small shed half-buried in the ground. When the sirens first began, Mother spent days digging out this shelter with help from their neighbor. It’s a cramped little room, but when their neighbor’s house crumbled overnight, their shed was the only thing that remained.
Maggie steps inside and shuts the metallic door behind them, leaving the two siblings in pitch darkness.
“Maggie, it’s dark,” Tom says.
“I know, I know. Where is that light? There it is.” Maggie pulls a small chain on the wall, replacing the darkness with bright light that glistens against a brilliant display of rainbow dots scattered across the dark brown, beveled walls.
Tom’s face instantly lights up. “Candyland!”
Maggie lets her brother down before walking across the room, where she opens another door on the other side. “Now remember the rules, Tom.”
“Right, don’t eat the gingerbread neighbors!”
Maggie shakes her head. “No going to Gummy Bear Mountain, alright? That’s what mother said.”
With a pout, Tom trudges out of the room with Maggie in his wake. They enter a long hallway with countless fist-sized gumdrops speckled across the dark chocolate walls.
Don’t worry, Tom, tonight will be another grand adventure, just what you like. Maggie plucks a gumdrop candy from the wall and sinks her teeth deep into it. The candy leaves a phantom sweetness in her mouth; a reminiscence.
“Let me taste it!” Tom looks up at her, stretching out his short arms.
Maggie pulls the glistening gumdrop away. “Not yet, Tom, you know it’ll pull out all of your little baby teeth.”
“Baby teeth? I don’t have baby teeth, I’m a big boy.”
“Sure you are.” Maggie laughs. If you really were a big boy, we wouldn’t be here. “So what are we doing today, Tommy? Do you want to have an ice cream fight? Oh! What about skipping mints across Soda Lake?”
Before Tom can answer, the two stop in front of a large painting on the wall. “Daddy!” Tom yells, pointing a little finger at the man depicted. He wears a navy blue uniform with golden buttons down the middle and a small pin just above his heart shaped like a pair of wings. With a leather helmet under one arm, he salutes with the other. Carved onto a swirling red and white mint beneath the portrait is: “George Yates — Royal Air Force — 238th Squadron.”
Tom tugs on his big sister’s nightgown. “Maggie, when is Daddy coming home?”
“I don’t know Tom. Mother said he’s away, being a brave knight, protecting us.”
“He protects us?”
“That’s right, from the gummy bears.”
Her brother looks back at the painting. “Can we go there? To see Daddy?”
“To Gummy Bear Mountain? You know we can’t, Tom.”
Tears begin to flow from Tom’s eyes, speckling the sugar-coated floor with tiny dark spots. “But if we can beat up the gummy bears, Daddy can come home.” Tom sniffles, sucking a dangling string of green snot back into his nose.
Maggie kneels and faces her brother. “Tom, I need you to be brave, like Father. Can you do that? Can you be a brave knight for me?”
Tom looks up and shuts his eyes tight to hold back the tears. He nods.
“Good.” Don’t worry, Dad, I’ll watch over Tom and Mom until you come home. Maggie squeezes her little brother with a hug, picking him up off the floor. She carries him down the hall until they come to a small courtyard with rows of massive swirling lollipops that fill the garden beds.
Maggie sets her brother down and plucks one of the four-foot tall lollies from the ground. “Come on Tom! This is one of your favorites.” She runs to the top of a tall mound nearby and plants the flat end of the lollipop against the ground. “Look, Tom!” she exclaims, turning back to see her brother’s reaction.
However, her eyes fall on the ice cream cone fence that surrounds the inner garden. Her brother has vanished. Alright buddy, here we go. “Tom?” Maggie yells. Picking up her lollipop, Maggie runs back into the Chocolate Castle and looks down the hall “Tom? Where are you?”
When Maggie turns to run down the corridor, a door bursts open, throwing a massive marshmallow in her way. It all happens so fast that she can’t react in time, she can’t stop. Maggie topples over the marshmallow, planting her face into the sugary floor with a thunk.
“Ow.” Maggie groans.
“Ow!” the marshmallow yells.
Maggie scrambles to her feet and picks up her lollipop. She grabs hold of the marshmallow man’s dark, twiggy arm and pulls him up. “Sorry about that, Kilroy.”
Although he has no face, the marshmallow chuckles. “Yeah, don’t worry about it. You know I’m squishy!” The marshmallow man slaps his belly with both hands; his puffy white body gives a slight jiggle.
Maggie giggles and turns to continue down the hall but stops herself. “Oh, have you seen Tom? He disappeared on me.”
“Oh yeah, I saw him running by; said he was going to play outside.”
“Alright, thanks Kilroy! Hmm, I wonder where he went.” Kilroy is one of Tom’s favorites, so he always has to show up. Maggie turns and runs down the corridor to the main entry hall. The tall chocolate walls of the room are supported by red-white candy canes that hold up the vaulted caramel-brittle ceiling.
Before she can reach for the elaborate double front door, one of the two candy canes that trim its side partially detaches itself from the wall and leans in close to her face. “Where ya goin’. Maggie?” it asks.
“To find Tom. He came this way, didn’t he?”
“Mayyyybe,” the faceless candy cane says in a cheeky voice.
“Oh shut up, you,” the other candy cane says. “Yes, sweetie, he went through a bit ago. Said he was going to fight some bad guys. How exciting!” it giggles like a gossiping grandmother.
“Thanks,” Maggie says, pushing through the doors.
“I’m sorry for going along with it, Mother,” Maggie thinks, “and not stopping it like you always do. I don’t know what’s taking you so long, but don’t worry, I’ll pick up your parts, too. I’m not a good storyteller like you are, but I’ll do my best; all by myself, for Tom. I just don’t want him to cry anymore.”
Copyright © 2023 by Sam Ruleman
