The Wild Kid (2 page)

There were just a few cars in Marsden's parking lot. Sammy leaned his bike against a pole by the window. Inside he looked out to make sure his bike was okay. His bike had an aluminum frame with a pale blue stripe, and it sparkled. It was the most beautiful bike in the whole world. He caught a reflection of himself in the glass. His helmet was on crooked, and he adjusted it. Otherwise, people laughed at you. He knew how to do things.

At the checkout counter he bought a candy bar. The checkout girl's head was covered with little ribbons and beads that made him think
candy,
and he said, “Your hair looks like candy.” She smiled and showed a dimple in each cheek.

“Would you tie my shoelaces?” he asked.

“What?”

“My shoelaces are untied.”

“Can't you tie your own shoelaces?”

“I can, but I make a mess.”

She came around the counter and bent down to tie them for him.

“Can I touch the little beads on your head?” He remembered he wasn't allowed to touch people without asking permission.

She let him. He touched three beads. “You are a very nice person,” he said.

He went over to the magazine rack and looked at all the different muscle magazines. “Boy, oh boy, what muscles.” He tensed his arm. He could feel his muscle wriggling around like a little mouse, not big like in the pictures.

When he went back to the window to check his bike again, it wasn't where he'd left it against the pole. He looked at his watch. It was almost three o'clock. He ran out of the store, thinking he'd left his bike in the wrong place and someone had moved it. Bikes were supposed to be put in the bike rack. “I'm sorry,” he said, “I forgot.”

The bike rack was near the entrance to the store, but his bike wasn't there, either. He went around to the back of the building. There were wooden skids and flattened boxes and two long brown Dumpsters, but no bike. He ran back inside the store. Somebody could have brought it inside so it wouldn't get wet in the rain.

The nice girl with ribbons in her hair wasn't at the counter. Instead, there was a fat man in short pants. His sneakers were unlaced. He pointed a finger at Sammy. “No running in the store, boy.”

“Did you see my bike?” Sammy said. “Did you put it someplace else? Would you please give me my bike?”

“No bikes in the store,” the man said.

“Did someone bring my bike in? Did someone do it?” He knew he was talking too loud and too fast.

“No bikes in the store,” the man said.

Sammy stared out the window at the pole where his bike had been, then he rushed out again and ran all around, sure that someone had put it someplace where he wasn't looking. “Boy, oh boy,” he kept saying. “Oh, my bike, my bike!”

He saw a flash way over by the road at the other end of the parking lot. A bike, his bike! Someone was riding his bike away.

Sammy yelled, “Heyyyy, you!” He had a big voice; he could yell louder than anyone in his class, except for Mrs. Hoffman. He yelled again, “Heyyyyyy you, that's my bike. I didn't give you permission! Bring my bike back.”

The bike and rider disappeared down the highway.

Sammy stood at the edge of the road. There was nothing to see. No bike, no rider. His bike had disappeared. He followed the skinny tire prints the wheels had left in the wet mud. He ran as hard as he could. He was a champion swimmer, but just a regular runner.

There were puddles all along the side of the road. He splashed through them, looking ahead, following the tracks. When he caught the stealer, he'd yell at him. He'd say, “You should be ashamed.” That's what his mother would say. And then the person would be sorry for doing a bad thing.

Sometimes the tracks disappeared when the bike veered onto the road, but then they'd appear in the mud again.

When he couldn't run anymore, he walked. Automatically, he felt for his helmet. It was gone. It must have fallen off. He didn't have time to go back for it now.

If he came home without his bike, his mother would be so upset. She'd say, “Oh, Sammy, your new bike!” And maybe she'd cry. Carl would say, “Man, oh man, didn't you have it chained?”

His mother had given him the money for the bike, but Carl had bought him the extra strong chain. “What do you think the chain was for?” Carl would say. “Something to hang around your neck?”

Where was his bike? He kept looking ahead and following the tracks. He had to get his bike back.

Just past a gas station, a truck with high wooden sides was pulled over on the edge of the road. The engine heaved and coughed, the sides shook, and smoke came out the back. The driver was nearby at a food stand. Sammy waited for him next to the truck. He was going to ask for a ride, but when the man came over he had such a mean look, Sammy turned away.

When the truck started to move, Sammy grabbed on to the side and climbed in the back. Loose pieces of lumber bounced on the floor. Sammy knelt by the tailgate, watching out for the tire tracks. The truck went fast, and he was cheering. Pretty soon he'd catch up to the stealer.

As the truck picked up speed, it was harder for Sammy to see the tracks. Sometimes he saw them, sometimes he just thought he saw them. Then he didn't see them at all. He waited for them to appear again. He waited a long time, and then he banged on the roof of the cab.

The truck stopped with a jolt, and Sammy tumbled forward. The driver saw him through the window and yelled. He had little red eyes. He came running around the side of the truck.

Sammy jumped up on top of the cab. Quick. And then slid down on the hood and off the truck.

“Hey, you, I'll break your neck!” The man had a stick in his hand.

Sammy ducked under a guardrail and tumbled down a steep incline. He couldn't stop himself. He crashed into a thicket and lay there, breathing hard. Then he got up and ran again. If the man caught him, he'd arrest him and put him in jail. He banged into a tree. His mouth was open, chest heaving. He ran on. He kept going, deeper into the woods.

Sammy ran on. He fell and got up and ran again. His sneakers were dirty, and his pants had mud on them. When he got home, his mother would tell him to take off all his clothes and take a nice hot bath.

A plane flew over. Sammy heard it and then he saw it. He waved as hard as he could, but the trees were in the way. He remembered the time Carl took him for an airplane ride—just him, not Bethan—and how, as they went higher, everything got smaller and smaller. Tiny houses. Tiny cars. He kept looking for his house.

He leaned against a big tree, pressing his body into it. He felt the tree move, breathing the way he was breathing. It sighed, talking to him, telling him not to worry. His mom worried all the time. “Don't worry, Mom. Worrie-eee…” He sang the word under his breath. Worry Mom. Everything was a worry. “What are you going to wear this morning, Sammy? Did you get dressed yet? Hop-a-long, cowboy! Did you brush your teeth, honey? Cheerios for breakfast again, don't you want something different? Don't put so much milk in, you'll have a stomachache. Take that sweater off and put on a clean one. Hurry, you'll be late for the school bus.”

He found a path. Then he found another path. Then he was all mixed up. Every way, there were trees, trees, trees. He was sick of trees. He wanted to see houses and cars and stores. He wanted his mother and his sister. He even wanted Carl. The time was four thirty-one. He'd better go home fast. His mother would be calling, “Sammy, supper time.”

Was he lost? Don't say lost. Lost was bad. He was turned around, was all. Like being spun around in a game and getting all dizzy and mixed up. He just needed to be pointed in the right direction.

Suddenly a bunch of noisy birds flew through the trees. He followed them. They were fast, but then they stopped and yelled at him. Right where he stopped, there were wooden cleats on the tree. He climbed up to a platform and sat there. This was his tree house, where he could stay till someone came for him.

It was raining again. Just a little at first. It was still dry against the trunk. But then it rained harder, and the air was full of wetness. His knees got wet, and his head and the whole platform got wet. Everything was wet; his face was wet all over.

He climbed down and buried into a dark tangle of trees. Rough, stabby branches reached to the ground. They grabbed at him and tore at his jacket, but underneath it was like a room and it was dry.

He sat with his knees drawn up and his collar raised, listening to the soft drip of rain. He broke off little branches and made tiny houses and a street, and he made one branch a car and drove it to his house. Then he made a stick mother and a stick sister. And he jumped out of the car and kissed his stick mother and his stick sister, and they kissed him.

Little beeps, like tiny bike horns, woke him. He thought somebody had brought him his bike and was beeping the horn. “Hey!” he said. “Here I am.” Branches stuck him as he crawled out. The tree kept hooking him, holding him back. Several big birds with long, skinny necks and little gnarly heads that bopped this way and that flew up into the trees. Turkeys!

He'd never seen real living turkeys before. “Hi, you birds.” Sammy waved. He was happy for their company, but they disappeared through the trees.

He stretched and brushed himself off. He'd slept well, not waking once. He'd never slept in the woods before. Wait till he told everybody. Boy, oh boy, I slept in the woods. His mother would be surprised. She never even let him sleep over at Billy's house. She said he'd make too much work for Mrs. Pryor. His watch said five-thirty in the morning. Boy, oh boy. He never got up this early. That was something else to say to his mother.

He started walking. The ground went up and down, and he went up and down. He liked going down, but then he had to go up.

He found black berries hanging in a tree, and he tasted them. They were like little sour grapes with seeds. He didn't like them, but he ate them because he was hungry.

“Keep walking,” he told himself. “That's the way.” When he walked, the worry thoughts slipped away.

When he got high enough, on top of the highest hill, he knew he would see something. It would be like the day his whole class went up on the roof of the school. Mrs. Hoffman had explained how you make a map and how you use a compass to know direction. He wished his watch had a compass on it. That way he would never get lost.

Not that he was lost. Lost wasn't a good word, and he didn't use it. He was just a little mixed up. Sort of turned around. He just had to turn himself straight. It was like the time he was little and wandered away and went in the wrong house. “Mommy,” he called. A man came, and he looked surprised to see Sammy, and then he laughed and showed him which way to go.

But here in the woods, there were no houses, only trees, leaning together, watching him go by. They were whispering about him, he thought, but he couldn't understand their talk.

Near the edge of a steep ravine, there was a big pine tree with lots of dead branches to hold on to, and he climbed it. He was a good climber. When he got to the top, he was disappointed. It was like looking down at the back of a giant green and brown dog. There were no roads, no shopping mall, not even one little house. Just trees, trees, trees.