Mamba Point (21 page)

She never flew around on her bike after that. She still rode her bike to get places but pedaled mechanically, looking straight ahead, never smiling or standing on the pedals. It was like everything had drained out of her.

Now I wondered, What if Kevin’s death was Ronnie’s fault somehow? What if he saw the truck coming and wanted to wait, but she pushed him? Or maybe she dared him to scoot down with his eyes closed, and if he hadn’t, he could have seen the truck and jumped out of the way? Or maybe the whole tobogganing thing was her idea?

I knew these were all crazy thoughts, but that’s what was bouncing around in my brain. Because if Law died, it would be my fault. I knew that sometimes kids who have a death in their family blame themselves, but this was different. It really
would
be my fault. Everyone would hate me. I would have to disappear, wander out of Monrovia and into the jungle and live with the monkeys like Tarzan. I noticed Moogoo looking at me with his unflinching eyes.
We wouldn’t want you, either
, he seemed to be saying. I shoved him back in the drawer. I was upset enough without being looked at by a judgmental monkey.

Dad came home around noon and slept for a few hours. When he got up, he stuck a frozen pizza in the microwave
and went to shower. “I’m going back to the hospital,” he said when he was out of the shower and dressed. His shirt collar was folded into the shirt on one side, and he was toweling shaving cream off of his face, but he hadn’t actually shaved.

“Can I come, too?” I asked.

He was silent for a while. “Will it exacerbate your condition?”

“Maybe, but I want to see him.”

“Let me talk to your mother. You can always see him tomorrow. Go stay with Matt and Darryl tonight. Darryl said you’re welcome to stay as long as you need to.”

“What about Mom? Is she coming home? She probably needs sleep and a shower, too.”

“I couldn’t get her to leave.” He took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “Pack a bag and go stay with Darryl and Matt. We’ll keep you posted.”

“He’s going to live, right? The doctors don’t think he’ll die?”

“He’s getting really good care,” Dad said. “He’ll be home soon.” He gave me a quick hug, mashing my nose into his shoulder.

“Check your collar,” I whispered.

He fixed his shirt as he left, leaving the door open behind him and his pizza still in the microwave oven.

I didn’t go to Matt’s right away. I lay on the couch for a while, staring at the ceiling, feeling doomed. If Law was going to be okay, then what about me? What would happen when people realized I’d been keeping a mamba in my room?

I felt a twinge of guilt over worrying about myself but couldn’t help it.

How much did anyone really know? If anything, they thought I was terrified of snakes. I was the last one who’d bring a snake home. I just had to get rid of the evidence. I’d dump the laundry-hamper terrarium and … what else? I’d have to burn my notebook. It was filled with snake drawings. That was all I had to do. Sekou was the only one who even knew I had a snake, and he wouldn’t tell anyone. I’d burn the drawings, and forget all about this
kaseng
business. I felt a rush of relief: Law would recover, and eventually everything would go back to normal. I might be the same old snakeless ’fraidy-cat Linus, but right now that didn’t seem so bad.

I went back to my room and found the notebook right where I’d left it. Even the guys who sacked my room hadn’t found it, it looked like. I hoped not.
Little freak is obsessed with snakes
, I imagined Jonas saying, flipping through the pages. He wouldn’t have put it back, though. I was safe.

We had matches in the dining room to light the candles we used when the power was out. But a notebook on fire would make a lot of smoke, and might set off the fire alarm. I’d have to torch it on the back balcony, where nobody could see me. I grabbed the notebook and ran to get the matches.

Matt was thumping on the front door and shouting, “Linus? It’s me!”

I sighed and went to get the door.

“My dad says you’re supposed to come spend the night. He says you shouldn’t be all alone.”

I was kind of lonely, now that he mentioned it. I also didn’t want to seem suspicious, and a kid with nothing to hide would go hang out with his friend.

“Just let me pack.” I ran back to my room and stuffed the notebook in my Mork bag, throwing clothes on top before zipping it up and hurrying back. Matt was standing in the foyer, craning his head to look at the living room—the scene of the crime.

“We can hang out here first, if you want,” he said. “If you want to … I don’t know. Talk about it?”

“We can go,” I said. “It’s cool.” I pulled the door shut and made sure it was locked, then realized I didn’t have my key. I wasn’t even wearing shoes.

Darryl made spaghetti, and we watched a tape of TV shows from America—more episodes of
Fantasy Island
than anyone should watch in a row, but it was something to do. I had a hard time following the stories. I was thinking about Law, and when he would wake up, and how I would get rid of the notebook without getting caught. Maybe I could take it outside, tear out the sheets, and throw them in the ocean?

“I might go for a walk,” I said after the latest round of victims got their fantasies granted.

“It’s pretty late,” Darryl said, glancing at the window. It was dark out. “Maybe you should just get some sleep?”

It felt like an order more than a suggestion.

I took the extra bed in Matt’s bedroom, hiding the notebook under the pillow when Matt was off brushing his teeth. I would just have to wait until everyone else was asleep. I pretended to be snoozing when Matt came back and turned out the lights.

“Linus?” Matt whispered. “Are you asleep?”

“Yes.”

“I was thinking about those kids,” he said. “Gambie and Tokeh?”

“Gambeh and Tokie.”

“I haven’t forgotten about them,” he said.

I lay awake as late as I could, but Darryl wouldn’t go to bed. I could hear him moving around in the living room. I finally drifted off but woke up a few hours later. By Matt’s clock it was after five a.m. The apartment was completely quiet. I got up, took the notebook out from under the pillow, and went to Matt’s other room. I quietly closed the door and wondered what to do next. It wasn’t like I could set a fire in Matt’s apartment. Maybe I could tear out each page and rip it up, then hide the shreds until later? Matt had a lot of board games he almost never played.

I flipped through the notebook, looking at the pictures. I didn’t need to destroy the pictures I’d copied from comic books, of course. Just the snake pictures. Maybe not even all of those. Would a single drawing of a snake make anyone think I was harboring one? No, they would just think it was
something else from the Tarzan comic. Maybe I could even save two or three.

How many were there? I counted once, then started over because I’d gotten busy looking at the drawings and lost track. On the third count I knew I was stalling. I didn’t want to do this, was why. The drawings meant something to me. I was proud of them. It wasn’t that they were that good, but I’d worked really hard on them, and they were mine.

Also, I didn’t want to sneak and lie my way out of this. I’d always been a ’fraidy-cat, but I was no coward. I would have to tell Law and Mom and Dad about the snake. It would probably get out and everyone would think I was a freak. I wouldn’t have a single friend the entire time I lived in Africa. I had to do it, though.

If I knew anything about facing fears, it was that waiting made it harder. I had to tell them right away, before I changed my mind. I looked out the window and saw the faintest red glow behind the city. It was nearly morning. I could take a taxi to the hospital. No, I didn’t have any money, and even if I did, I didn’t have any shoes. But I didn’t need money or shoes, I realized, when I glanced in the corner of the room and saw Matt’s disco skates.

What Law told me later was that he was on an old, beat-up bus heading deep into the jungle. He was the only American on the bus. The rest of the passengers were African. Men and women returning to their childhood homes, or
visiting long-lost relatives, he guessed. He realized only after they rumbled to a stop that he himself had no friends deep in the jungle, and no place to stay. It would be dark soon. He looked around for his luggage, and couldn’t find any.

“You’ve got to get off,” one woman told him. She touched his arm gently and led him off.

“Where should I go?” he asked her, but she shook her head sadly and disappeared into the crowd.

He wandered through dirt streets, past buildings that all seemed to be shutting down for the night.

“You’d better get off the streets before dark,” one man told him, pulling the metal gate down over his own store, locking it tight, and then running down the street.

As he wound through a maze of streets and alleys, it got so dark Law didn’t even realize he was walking out of town until he ran into a knot of trees. He turned every which way, but couldn’t see the lights of the town. He must have wandered pretty deep into the jungle.

The evening gradually gave way to absolute darkness, but he moved on. He stumbled over roots and stones, brushed vines and cobwebs from his eyes. He was surrounded by strange and terrible noises as things moved in the night all around him. Sometimes he found enough of a clearing to see the faint crescent of the moon surrounded by a trillion stars. He felt almost like he could leap into the air and soar into the infinite night sky, but wasn’t sure he’d be able to come back down.

He heard something behind him—something breathing
hard and moving heavily through the jungle. He tried to walk faster but got tangled in ropey vines and snagged on bushes. The thing closed in until he could almost feel its breath on the back of his neck. He turned, ready to fight, although he knew it was futile.

There was a sudden, blinding light. Law shut his eyes tight against it, feeling the beast, or whatever it was, clutching at his wrist. But that was all—no teeth or claws ripped into him. He opened his eyes and saw a hospital room.

He saw Mom and Dad, and a surprised nurse who had come to check on him. Then he saw me: breathless, sweating, with skinned elbows and knees, carrying gaudy roller skates in one hand and shaking his wrist with the other.

“Law,” I said, still trying to catch my breath.

He looked at me a long time, trying to find the strength to speak. “Oh, Linus,” he said at last. “It’s only you.”

He sat up and blinked at everything for a while, then lay back down. “This place smells funny,” he said.

“You’re at the hospital,” Dad explained. “Do you remember what happened?”

Law concentrated. “I had a party.”

Mom and Dad looked at each other.

“There was a snake,” Law continued. “In the living room. It bit me. That’s what happened.”

“It was a mamba,” Dad said. “You’re lucky to be alive.”

“What’s this about a party?” Mom asked. “And how did a sn—”

“It was my snake,” I blurted out. “I was keeping it in my laundry hamper but it got out.”

“What?” Mom stared at me with wide eyes. It was worse than her being mad. She just looked confused and sad.

“Since when did you play with snakes?” Dad asked. “I thought you were smarter than that.”

“I guess I just do dumb stuff sometimes,” I said.

“Well, this might be beyond dumb,” Dad said. “It was
thoughtless
. You didn’t think for one second about your brother, or me or your mother, or even yourself.” He shook his head. “You might as well bring home a live hand grenade.”

“It’s all right,” said Law.

“No it’s not,” Dad shouted. “You nearly died.”

“I didn’t, though,” Law said. “It’s all right, Linus.”

That was what I was hoping he’d say, but I still didn’t feel better.

“I’ve done lots of dumb stuff in my life,” he said. “You guys don’t know half the stuff I’ve done.”

Mom reached out and touched Dad’s arm, and he calmed down a little but he wouldn’t look at me.

“If it makes you feel better, I killed the snake,” I told Law.

He looked at the ceiling a moment, then closed his eyes. “Nah, it doesn’t,” he said.

The drive home felt long, and Dad wouldn’t say anything. I wished he would just talk about boring stuff, like Buckeye
football or how he needed to fix a wobbly knob on the closet door—the things he used to talk about when we drove around in Dayton. I thought about it for a few minutes, and something occurred to me.

“It was the iron,” I said.

“What?”

“Mom was going to that gabfest and she ironed her skirt, so it was still hot.”

“So you finally figured that out, huh?”

“You gave me an ironed cheese sandwich,” I said, grinning at the thought.

“It was more an old bachelor trick than an old army trick,” he admitted. “I lived in this apartment for a while with no stove. No microwaves back then, either. All I had was an iron and a toaster, and then the toaster broke.”

“What other food can you iron?”

“Oh, pizza. Spaghetti. Soup.”

I snickered.

“You can make anything with an iron,” he said as we pulled up to our building. “You’re still in a world of trouble, you know.”

“I know.” What would they do to me? Ground me for a hundred years? It didn’t seem like enough for almost killing somebody.

As soon as we got upstairs, I staggered back to my room to sleep. I had a brief vision through the snake’s eyes like I had before. It was a muddle of shadows and cold gray stone, and only lasted a moment.

*   *   *

Matt woke me up, banging on the front door and hollering my name. I looked at the clock and saw it was one o’clock. I wondered for a second why Matt was waking me up in the middle of the night, until I realized there was sunlight pouring into the room. I got up and went to answer the door.

“I brought you your stuff,” he said, giving it to me. “I heard about Law waking up, too. Your dad called my dad.”

“Did you hear about me and the snake?”

“Yeah, I heard.” He glanced at the stuff in my hand. “I looked at your notebook.”