The Wild Kid (3 page)

The wind blew, and the pine tree swayed. The forest was green and brown, and the sun was hidden behind a white sky. Sammy didn't know what to do next. Maybe another airplane would fly over and see him on top of the tree. Maybe Carl would be looking for him in the airplane. He waited a long time, but no plane came.

It was harder going down the tree than going up, because he had to feel around for the branches with his feet. “Watch your step, Sammy.” A branch broke. He lost his footing and slid down too fast. “Hey,” he yelled. He grabbed for a branch, but it broke under his weight, and he fell out of the tree and tumbled down an embankment. Down Sammy went. Down, down, down, all the way down.

He was lying next to a pile of brush with a window in it. It looked like a camper window. His friend Billy Pryor's father had a window like that on his camper.

A window in the woods? That was funny.

He saw a face looking through the window. An animal was peering out at him, an animal with long cat eyes.

He backed away, not taking his eyes from the face. He backed and backed, then turned and ran. He dove into a bush and lay still. He heard the animal thing sniffing around. He could smell it.

It reached in, grabbed him by the ankle, and pulled him out. Sammy's face was in the ground. He lay very still. He heard the animal breathing, and he remembered a story of a little boy sitting in the arms of a bear. The boy said, “Don't eat me.” So the bear didn't.

“Don't eat me,” Sammy said.

“Who the hell are you?”

The animal talked.

“Please don't eat my face,” Sammy said.

“Where the hell you come from?”

Sammy opened his eyes a crack. The animal was naked, except for a pair of ragged jeans. But it wasn't an animal. It was a person with a regular face. A tall, skinny kid with long arms and legs.

He turned Sammy over and sat on him. He pinned Sammy's arms with his sharp knees and held his hand over Sammy's mouth. He kept looking all around with his big, dark animal eyes.

Sammy twisted. The wild kid was choking him.

He dragged Sammy through a hole and into a dark place that smelled of dirt and fire and garbage. “Let me go, please,” Sammy said.

“Keep your mouth shut!” He had hair on his face and around his chin, like a goat. “Where are they? Who's with you?”

“There's nobody, just me.”

The wild kid taped Sammy's hands behind him, then taped his feet together, then his mouth.

Then the wild kid went away. Sammy was alone in the dark, except for the light that filtered through the little window.

Sammy threw himself around. He couldn't breathe and his nose was clogged. The gag stuck to his skin.

He was in a little room, not really a room, more like a cave. Not even a cave. More like a hole scooped out under some rocks. A torn piece of plastic hung over the opening. A scrap of dirty green rug was on the ground, and a mattress and some cardboard boxes and plastic pails.

The wild kid came back. He grabbed Sammy by his jacket, and pushed him into the back of the cave. He knelt on his hands and knees, staring at Sammy, his face so close, Sammy could smell his stinky breath.

Sammy stayed still, afraid to move. The kid went through Sammy's pockets and took his dollars and change. “Who are you?” he asked. He tore the tape off Sammy's mouth. “Where'd you come from? What's your name?”

Sammy licked his lips. “Sammy,” he said. “What's your name?”

“How'd you get here?” He had a snake tattoo around his wrist. “Where you from?”

“I got lost. I'm sorry I fell on your house. Let me loose, please. I'll go away, I promise.”

“Who sent you?” He talked funny. He had teeth missing.

“Nobody.” Sammy shook his head as hard as he could. “Somebody took my bike, and then I got lost. Can I go home now?” Sammy glanced at the snake tattoo. He didn't like snakes. His stomach hurt, and he was sore all over.

The kid pulled a knife from his belt and pointed it at Sammy. “You know what I can do with this?” He drove it down into his own hand.

Sammy gasped, and the kid laughed. “Gotcha!” He had driven the knife between his outspread fingers.

“That's a good trick,” Sammy said. He kept licking his lips.

The wild kid stabbed at his spread fingers, again and again, the darting blade coming close, but missing each time. “You ever see anybody do that?”

“No.”

“You bet. Nobody's got the nerve, but me. Who else is with you?” he said suddenly.

“Nobody. I told you.”

“You're a liar.”

“I don't lie. Only bad boys lie.”

The kid stared at him with a look that, even in the dimness, Sammy recognized.

“How old are you, anyway?” the kid said.

“I'm twelve. In twenty-eight days I'll be thirteen.”

“So, what are you, dumb?”

“No. I'm Down's.” Sometimes it was okay to tell, but sometimes people teased. “I'm young for my age. I'm a special person.”

“You're a dumb person,” the kid said. “Only a dumb person like you would find me.”

“Because I lost my bike.” Sammy explained how he'd left his bike for five minutes and ten seconds, and how he'd run after the stealer, and about getting in the truck, and being chased into the woods and getting lost and climbing the tree and falling down.

“And then I fell on your house.” He wanted to demonstrate the way he'd tripped and tumbled down, but it was hard to do without using his hands and feet. All he could do was yell, “Uh! Oh! Oh!” the way he had yelled falling down the hill.

“You're stupid,” the kid said. “You don't leave your bike where somebody can take it. If I saw it, I would have taken it in a minute. You're really dumb.”

“I'm not dumb. You can be retarded and not dumb.”

“Dumb.”

“That's not nice,” Sammy said.

“You got it right that time, dummy. I'm a bad guy, so look out, Mr. Goody Boy. I suppose you never did anything bad?”

Sammy said nothing.

“Well, did you?”

Sammy nodded. “Sometimes.”

“Right! I got you, you little hypocrite. Don't look at me with those big baby eyes and lie to me. I can tell, just by looking at you, that you lie all the time. Now, you'd better tell me the truth. You going to run away if I untie you?”

“No. I promise.”

The kid freed Sammy's hands and then his feet. Sammy rubbed his wrists and his ankles.

“Just remember, you try anything, and I can tie you up again in a second,” the kid said. He wadded up the tape and threw it away, then crouched by the entrance, looking out. “What am I going to do with this dumb kid? What's he want?”

Who was he talking to? Sammy crept closer.

“I let him go, and what? He goes back and tells everybody he found this guy in the woods. He starts blabbing about Kevin in the woods, and they say, ‘So that's where he is!' And then the whole army and air force and helicopters and search dogs come looking for me. They'll get me and lock me up, and that'll be the end of Kevin. I've got to kill him.”

He turned and shoved Sammy into the back again. “You got me in a fix now, dummy!”

“I can go home,” Sammy said. “I will. I'll go right straight home.”

“You'll be home, and I'll be back at Fieldstone, that rat hole. They're going to say, ‘Where'd you get this kid from?' They're going to say I kidnapped you. Anything I tell them, they'll say it's a lie.

“Fieldstone?” Sammy said. “Is that where you live?”

“Fieldstone is where they send me if they catch me. It's a school you can't leave. No way, man. Nobody's grabbing K-Man and locking him up.”

“Don't even think about going out.” Kevin's mattress was right in front of the doorway. He was lying down, hooked up to a tape player. “You want to be tied up again? Get back there.”

Sammy had to stay in back. There was a plank he could sit on, but there wasn't enough room to stand up. He was hungry and he had to pee, but he was afraid to say anything.

Kevin lay on his back, and sometimes one foot went up and bounced around and then the other.

“Is that good music?” Sammy asked.

Kevin didn't answer.

Sammy held his watch up to the light. Yesterday, right now, he was home. He was talking to Bethan, trying to climb into her room.

Kevin was eating a Pop-Tart and drinking from a plastic water bottle.

Sammy lay down on the plank. He turned from one side to the other. He couldn't get comfortable. Sammy wished he could go to sleep and wake up in his own bed. He lay on his back like Kevin with his knees bent. He reached up to the ceiling with his feet. He could almost touch it. When he sat up and put his hands over his head, he could touch it.

Kevin was looking at him. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing.” Sammy put his hands down and examined them, finger by finger. They were all scratched up and dirty. Kevin had no sink in his house, no faucet; no water, even. When she saw him, his mother would wash his hands and face for him. “People see your dirty face and they say you're a dirty boy. Are you a dirty boy, Sammy?” She liked to wash him, and he only minded when his friends were over.

“I've got to pee,” he said.

“Hold it,” Kevin said.

“I can't. I've been holding it too long.”

Kevin gave him a hateful look. He got up and pushed Sammy out through the narrow opening. “Don't do it around here. And don't get any ideas. I'm watching you.”

Sammy found a tree a few steps from the cave. It was a relief to be outside and on his feet.

“Hurry up!” Kevin said.

“I'm really thirsty,” Sammy said when they went back in. He sat down on the bench again.

Kevin pointed to a row of plastic water bottles. “Take one. That's yours,” he said. “It gets empty, you fill it up.”

“Where?”

“Don't worry about it. You'll find out.” Kevin opened a metal trunk and took out a box of Pop-Tarts. Sammy smelled them and moved closer. Kevin pushed him away. “Stay on your side!” He ate a Pop-Tart and threw away the box.

It was empty except for some crumbs that Sammy licked up. He drank from his water bottle, then sat there, holding it in his arms.