The Story Until Now: A Great Big Book of Stories (6 page)

The Joint Chiefs of Staff arrive, and attempt to survey the problem. Leonard has more or less filled the river at the point where he is sitting. His tears have raised the water level, threatening to inundate portions of the
FDR
Drive. Speaker trucks simultaneously broadcasting recordings of “ChittyChitty Bang Bang” have reduced his bellows to sobs, so the immediate threat of buildings collapsing from the vibrations has been minimized, but there is still the problem of shipping, as he plays boat with tugs and barges but, because of his age, is bored easily, and has thrown several toys into the harbor, causing shipping disasters along the entire Eastern Seaboard. Now he is lifting the top off a building and has begun to examine its contents, picking out the parts that look good to eat and swallowing them whole. After an abbreviated debate, the Joint Chiefs discuss the feasibility of nuclear weaponry of the limited type. They have ruled out tranquilizer cannon because of the size of the problem, and there is some question as to whether massive doses of poison would have any effect.

Overhearing some of the top-level planning, the distraught mother has seized Channel Five’s recording equipment to make a nationwide appeal. Now militant mothers from all the boroughs are marching on the site, threatening massive retaliation if the baby is harmed in any way.

Pollution problems are becoming acute.

The
UN
is meeting around the clock.

The premiers of all the major nations have sent messages of concern with guarded offers of help.

6:30 a.m.:
Leonard has picked the last good bits from his building and now he has tired of playing fire truck and he is bored. Just as the tanks rumble down East 79th Street, leveling their cannon, and the
SAC
bombers take off from their secret base, the baby plops on his hands and starts hitching out to sea.

6:34:
The baby has reached deep water now.
SAC
planes report that Leonard, made buoyant by the enormous quantities of fat he carries, is floating happily; he has made his breakfast on a whale.

Dr. Freibourg arrives. “Substitute ingredients. I’ve found the antidote.”

Dilys Freibourg says, “Too little and too late.”

“But our baby.”

“He’s not our baby any more. He belongs to the ages now.”

The Joint Chiefs are discussing alternatives. “I wonder if we should look for him.”

Mrs. Freibourg says, “I wouldn’t if I were you.”

The Supreme Commander looks from mother to Joint Chiefs. “Oh well, he’s already in international waters.”

The Joint Chiefs exchange looks of relief. “Then it’s not our problem.”

Suffused by guilt, Dr. Freiburg looks out to sea. “I wonder what will become of him.”

His wife says, “Wherever he goes, my heart will go with him, but I wonder if all that salt water will be good for his skin.”

COMING SOON: THE ATTACK OF THE GIANT TODDLER

—
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction
, 1976

What Wolves Know

When you have been raised by wolves people expect better of you, but you have no idea what they mean by
better.

Happy comes out of the crate panting and terrified.

When you have been raised by wolves, you expect better of people.

Injured in the struggle before the dart bit him and his world went away, Happy blinks into the white glare.

A dark shape moves into the blinding light. Sound explodes, a not-quite bark. “Welcome home!”

This is nothing like home
. Then why is the smell of this place so familiar? Troubled, Happy backs away, sucking his torn paw.

He hears a not-quite purr. “Is that him?”

“Back off Susan, you’re scaring him. Handsome bastard, under all the filth.” The dark shape gets bigger. “Hold still so we can look at you.”

Happy scrambles backward.

“Wait, dammit. What’s the matter with your hand?”

The not-quite bark-er is not quite a wolf. Pink, he is, and naked, except for fur on top, with all his pink parts wrapped like a package in tan cloth. It’s a … Hunter is the first thought that comes. Happy has never been this close to one, not that he chooses to remember. He looks down. His body is choking. There is cloth on Happy too! It won’t come off no matter how hard he shakes. He tears at it with his teeth.

The not-wolf yaps, “Stop that! We want you looking good for the press conference.”

Happy does not know what this means. With his back hairs rising, he gives the wolf’s first warning. He
grrrs
at the man. Man. That’s one of Happy’s words. And the other? Woman. The rest, he will not parse. The man grabs for him even though Happy rolls back his lips to show his fangs. The wolf’s second warning. Now, wolves, wolves know when close is too close, and they keep their distance. With wolves, you always know where you are.

Wolves don’t stare like that unless they are about to spring and rip your throat out, but unlike the wolf, man has no code. If Happy bolts, will this one bring him down and close those big square teeth in him?

“Hold still! What happened to your hand?”

Happy does as taught; he snarls. The wolf’s last warning.

“Now, stop. I didn’t bring you all this way to hurt you.”

“Brent, he’s hurt.” The other voice is not at all like barking. “Oh, you poor thing, you’re bleeding.”

The man growls, “Come here. We can’t let the people see blood.”

Happy bunches his shoulders and drops to a crouch, but the man keeps on coming. Happy backs and backs. Oh, that thing he does with his face, too many teeth showing. Just stop! The more Happy scrambles away the more the man crowds him. At his back the walls meet like the jaws of a trap. He tips back his head and howls. “
Ah-whooooooo
…”

“Quiet! What will people think?”

“Ah-whoooooo
.” Happy stops breathing. He is listening. Not one wolf responds. There is an unending din in this bright place but there are no wolves anywhere. Even though he was running away when the humans caught him, Happy’s heart shudders. He is separated from his pack.

“Shut up. Shut up and I’ll get you a present.”

There are words Happy knows and words he doesn’t know, but he remembers only one of them well enough to speak. “Oh,” he barks bravely, even though he is cornered. “Oh, oh!”

“That’s better. Now, hold still.” When a human shows its teeth at you it means something completely different from what you are taught to watch out for, but you had better watch out for it.

The woman purrs, “Brent, you’re scaring him!”

Woman. Another of Happy’s words. The sound she makes is nothing like a howl, but he thinks they are kindred.

“Are you going to help me or what?” The man lunges. Should Happy attack? Other words rush in. Clothes. Arms. Clothes cover the man’s stiff arms and he is waving them madly. How can Happy tear out the throat with all that in the way? Can he bring the man down before he pulls out his …

Another of Happy’s words comes back. Gun. It makes him shudder.

“Brent, he’s shaking.”

“I’m only trying to help him!”

“Oh, you poor thing.” Sweet, that voice. She sounds like his … Another word he used to know.
Mother
. Parts of Happy change in ways he does not understand. She says, “Look at him Brent, he’s shaking!”

“Oh,” Happy barks hysterically. “Oh, oh!”

“Come on, now. Calm down or I’ll give you another shot.”

The man makes a grab for him. In another minute those hands will close in
his fur. Grief touches Happy like a feather, for like the man with his grasping fingers and not-quite barking, Happy is more pink than fur. It is confusing.

“Don’t be afraid,” the woman says. “Come on, sweetie, come to Mother.”

Happy will not know exactly who he means when he thinks,
This is nothing like Mother
. It does not explain, but measures the extent of his confusion. In this and every other circumstance, Happy’s position is ambiguous.

This is not one of Happy’s words: ambiguous. He has been pulled out of a place he can’t explain into a world he doesn’t understand and it makes him sick with grief.

He doesn’t belong anywhere.

“Oh,” Happy yelps. Then more words come. “Oh, don’t!” Although he has outlived his mother Sonia and half his littermates, in wolf years, Happy is still a puppy.

He does what any puppy does when cornered and outnumbered. He rolls over and shows his throat.

“For God’s sake, kid, get up. What will people think? Get him up, Susan, they’re staring.”

Others come. Men. Women. People with—how does he know this—cameras! People are pointing their cameras. Kept out by the rope that protects the live baggage claim area, strangers jostle, straining to see.

There are words Happy knows and words he does not choose to understand. She growls, “You should have thought about that before you snatched him.”

“Not snatched,” the man says firmly. He says in a loud voice because they are not alone here, “
Rescued
. This is not what you think,” he shouts to the onlookers. “This is my long-lost brother, I went through hell to save him.”

“Stuff it, Brent. They don’t care who he is or what you did.”

“I rescued him from a wolf pack in the wild!”

She says, “They aren’t interested, they’re embarrassed.”

He shouts, “They stole him from our family!” He is trying to get Happy on his feet but Happy flops every whichway, like any puppy. Brent tells the crowd, “When they found him, the police called me.”

Happy gnashes at his hand.

“Ow!” Brent shouts over Happy’s head, “Olmstead. My name is on the dogtag!”

Dogtag
. It is confusing. Is he less wolf than dog?

“Hush, Brent,” the woman says. “Let me do this.”

Flat on his back with his paws raised, Happy lifts his head.

Unlike the pink man, the woman is gentle and she smells good. Hair. Not fur. Nice hair. Clothes like flowers. “Sweetie, are you all right?

Oh, that soft purr. Happy wriggles, hoping to be stroked, but there will be no stroking. What was that word he used to have?

Ma’am
. It doesn’t come out of his throat the way it’s supposed to. At least this part comes back: if you can’t speak when they make a question, you nod. Happy nods. She shows all her teeth (“See, Brent?”) and he shows all his teeth right back to her in … Oh! This is a smile. You do it because they expect it. You always did. From nowhere Happy can name, there comes a string of words:
Songs my mother taught me
. Now, why does this make his heart break? He doesn’t know what it means and he doesn’t want to know where it’s coming from.
Songs my mother
…

She touches his hair. Parts of Happy go soft and—oh! Another gets hard. Smile for her, she is soft in interesting places. At eighteen Happy feels like a puppy, but he isn’t, not really.

Then she prods him with her toe. Her voice drops so he will know she is serious. “
OK
then, get up.”

Slowly Happy rolls over and rises on his hind legs, although he is not all that accustomed. Susan shows her teeth at him, but in a nice way, and her voice lightens. “That’s better. Let’s get him in the car.”

With wolves, you are always certain. Your wolf mother loves you. Get out of line and she will swat you. Gray Sonia did it as needed. Get too far out of line and your father will kill you. Happy bears the marks of Timbo’s fangs in his tender hide—this torn ear, that spot on his flank where the gash is healing.

If you are male and live long enough, you will have to kill your father. It is the way of the pack.

The wolves aren’t Happy’s real parents. In a way this is news to him, but from the beginning he had suspicions. Happy’s captor—er, rescuer—doesn’t know what Happy knows, and what the boy knows is buried so deep in early childhood that it is only now coming to the surface. All his life Happy has run after the hope that the next thing will be better.