The Wild Things (16 page)

He ran toward the figure, and when he got close he knew it was Carol, sitting forward, seeming tense.

“Carol!” Max yelled as he approached.

Without turning around, Carol raised his hand, demanding silence. Max stopped about twenty feet away, not knowing what to do next.

Carol remained staring out at the ocean, as if looking for a sign in the ripening sky. As it grew lighter, a crescent-shaped band of orange appeared above the line of the sea. Carol leaned forward, getting dangerously close to the very edge of the cliff.

And then, finally, when the liquid yellow of the sun at last broke through, Carol’s body relaxed, and then shook in waves, as if he were laughing or crying. Max couldn’t tell. But the spell, whatever it had been, was broken.

Carol turned around.

“Hey Max! You were wrong about the sun dying. Look, it’s right here.”

Max didn’t know how to explain.

“Don’t scare me like that again, okay buddy?” Carol said. He spoke cheerfully, as if the distant, rigid Carol of moments before had been illusory, that here was the real Carol, the one who loved Max’s brain and who knew how things were supposed to feel, who wanted only the right things to happen.

“How are you, King Max?” Carol asked, putting his hand on Max’s shoulder. “What happened to your fur? It’s kind of green.”

“Algae maybe? I don’t know,” Max said distractedly. He couldn’t worry about his fur at that moment. He wanted to know where all the others were.

“Well, Douglas is over there,” Carol said, pointing to a lump in the near distance. Max had walked right past him, thinking his body was an outcropping. “But I don’t know where anyone else is. Why do you want to know?”

“I have a plan,” Max said.

Everyone was gathered around Max. Carol had woken up Douglas and Douglas had raised back his head and had made a bizarre and screeching sound of summoning. The beasts had arrived within minutes from all corners of the island. Everyone, that is, but Katherine. Max decided to proceed without her.

“Okay,” he said, “I have the perfect plan. What does everyone here want?” he asked, though the question, for him, was rhetorical.

“We don’t have homes,” Douglas said. “We’ve been sleeping outside because you wrecked them.”

Max was about to quibble with this claim, but he didn’t. He knew his plan would eclipse small concerns like Douglas’s. “Okay, fine,” he said.

“Some of us are hungry,” Alexander said.

“Okay, sure,” Max said. “What else? What do you
want
?”

“We want what we want. We want all the things we want,” Judith said, matter-of-factly. She brushed Ira’s mouth off her shoulder. He’d been chewing again, more than ever, it seemed. There were patches, purple and blue, all over her now, where the fur had been gnawed off.

Ira whispered something in her ear. She nodded. “Oh, and we want no more want.”

Max grinned. He really felt like he had the perfect idea to not only address all these concerns, but also those he had recognized himself -- the need for togetherness, for camaraderie and entertainment and a sense of purpose. He had expected everyone’s first need to be fun, and guessed that they had simply forgotten that this was the first and foremost need of all. When he mentioned it, they would all smack their foreheads in an expression of
Aha
!

“What about fun?” he asked.

They all looked confused.

“Fun, like that lagoon business?” Judith asked. “If that was fun, I’d rather have someone eat my head.”

“No, no,” Max protested. “I mean
real
fun.”

“Oh.
Real
fun,” she said, nodding. “Wait. What’s that?”

“It’s like fun,” Max said, “but much better.”

They all thought about this, wondering if fun would be the solution. No one spoke up. Each was waiting for someone else to ask the obvious questions. There was a long silence, finally broken when Ira cleared his throat and spoke softly to his toes.

“I’m confused about fun,” he said.

Judith exhaled loudly. “Thank god
someone
said it. I was thinking the same thing. What does
want
have to do with
fun
, and what does all of this have to do with the void? Right, Ira?”

Ira shrugged. He was more confused than ever.

Carol shushed them both. “Fun sounds fine. We just need some clarification. Tell us what to do, Max.”

Now Max warmed up. He had come up with the whole plan in the many-colored meadow, and now he got to do something he was good at: explaining the game and outlining the rules. He was so convinced that his idea would bring everyone together and put them all in a near-permanent state of bliss that he was hesitant to just blurt it out. He decided to heighten the drama.

“You ready to hear the plan?”

They all nodded, hushed in silence.

“You sure?”

They nodded again. They were sure.

“We’re gonna have …” he said, his eyebrows rising and falling conspiratorially, “a war.”

“A war? Like a fight?” Ira asked.

Max nodded. “Yeah, we’ll pick sides and then battle.”

Douglas tilted his head and squinted. “And then everyone will feel better?” he asked, as if just confirming the obvious logic at work.

“Yeah,” Max said. “Pretty much.”

“And we won’t be hungry?” Alexander asked.

Max didn’t know, exactly, if a war would make Alexander less hungry. But then again, he thought, if Alexander was having great fun in the middle of a war, how could he possibly be thinking of food? “You won’t be hungry at all,” Max said confidently.

“And the void?” Ira asked.

“This is the opposite of a void,” Max said, though he still didn’t know what Ira meant by void. But if a void was an absence of something -- or everything -- then Max could assure him that the battle was anything but that. A void was small, and a war was big. A void was silence, and a war was loud, all-encompassing, full of astounding things to see and think about. If they were at war, how could they think about the void? Impossible.

Now Judith and Ira and Douglas and Alexander were all very interested. They thought a war sounded like a very good idea. Behind them, the Bull was glaring at Max in the most intense way. If Max could read his expression, he would have to think that of all the beasts, the Bull was least in favor of the plan. But because he didn’t talk -- he hadn’t said anything since Max had gotten to the island -- the Bull didn’t really have a vote in the matter.

“Okay,” Max said. “Who wants to be the Bad Guys?”

No one raised their hand.

Max pointed to Judith. “You can be a Bad Guy.” Now he pointed to Alexander. “And you. You’re a Bad Guy.” Alexander’s shoulders slumped. Max almost laughed. How could Alexander have expected to be a Good Guy? Ridiculous. “And now …” Max said, thinking he was being very gracious, “you guys can pick another.”

“Okay,” Judith said. “We pick you.”

Max was taken aback, but only momentarily. It was so loony that he laughed.

“No, I’m a
Good
Guy. I’m the king. I can’t be a Bad Guy. I’ll pick.” He pointed to Ira. “You’re a Bad Guy too. And you … um … And you should have one more …”

Max looked up at the Bull, who looked down menacingly at Max. Max looked to the Bad Guys and indicated the Bull with his thumb. “And he’s on … he’s with you.”

Just then, Katherine emerged from the forest.

Judith scoffed. “Look who’s arrived with her aura of mystery and aloofity! She’s come to honor us with her presence.”

“Don’t worry, Judith,” Katherine said, not breaking stride. “No one’s honoring you.”

“Katherine, you’re on our team,” Max said.

Katherine smiled. She walked over to Max as if she would never have guessed at any other arrangement.

“I got you this,” Katherine said, presenting Max with a tangled mess of seaweed. “A gift from me and the sea.”

“Uh, okay, thanks …” he said.

“What are we having teams for?” she asked.

“A war,” Max said, grinning. “It’s gonna be amazing. We’re the Good Guys.”

“Who else is on our team?” she asked.

Max explained that it was the two of them, and Carol and Douglas. With this, Katherine’s smile evaporated.

“Oh,” she mumbled.

By now, Carol, Katherine, Douglas, and Max were standing on one side, Judith, Alexander, Ira, and the Bull on the other. Max got ready to explain the rules. He was in his element, inspired by the upcoming battle. “Okay. Now here’s the ammunition,” he said, picking up a dirt clod. “We’re trying to kill the Bad Guys, and what you have to do is find the biggest pieces, the ones that’ll stay toge—”

And with a loud thwack, his vision went grey. He’d been hit in the head with a dirt clod as big as a pumpkin. He turned to see that Alexander -- he who threw it -- was getting another clod ready.

“Was that too soon?” Alexander asked. “Not the kind of war you had in mind?”

Max was briefly stunned by the blindside, but steadied himself. “Run!” he yelled, darting across the clearing and toward the woods, his team in tow. They were chased by a relentless volley of dirt and rocks thrown by the Bad Guys. The element of surprise, which Max thought he knew something about, had given his opponents a great advantage.

Max dove behind a giant tree, which stood in front of a dry and narrow riverbed. It was a perfect bunker from which to plan and execute a counterattack.

Douglas arrived first, jumping into the bunker headfirst and coming up smiling. He had been hit repeatedly on the way, but he was okay. Next was Katherine, panting and wiping dirt from her hair and face. Finally Carol slid into the bunker, grinning and sweating. Now all four of them were in the ditch together, breathing heavily and feeling very alive, with a very clear sense of purpose to their lives -- live and throw dirt clods or get hit by dirt clods and die. Explosions continued everywhere above them but Max’s head was spinning with the incomparable thrill of battle. There really was nothing, he thought, as good as a war.

Max was trying to decide what their next course of action should be when a huge projectile hit the tree trunk behind them and fell to the ground. When it landed, it uncoiled itself and sat up. It wasn’t dirt. It was a raccoon. Or a toothy pink animal, striped like a raccoon.

“Hey Larry,” Carol said to the animal, stroking its fur. “Sorry about that.”

The animal shook its head, dazed. Apparently someone on the Bad Guys’ side had balled up this animal, named Larry, and had thrown him at Max’s team. Max couldn’t decide whether he should ban the use of animal-projectiles or not. But before he could make a decision, and as Larry began to scurry off dizzily, Carol grabbed him, balled him up again, and hurled him back.

There was a shriek from the Bad Guys’ camp.

“Larry, you traitor!” Judith yelled.

Max knew that now, while the enemy was distracted, was the time to move out for a counterattack.

“Let’s go!” he ordered, and his team followed him out of the bunker. But the second they exposed themselves, they were hit by a barrage of rocks, dirt, and, most disturbingly, a few dozen other animals -- tiny cats, snakes, and a sheep-like animal with a head on either end of its body.

“Retreat!” Max yelled, and they slipped back into their bunker. Above and around them, more animals flew. Hundreds of tiny cats, flightless birds, and, with an enormous thump in the trees behind their bunker, something the size and shape of a buffalo, though hairless and yellow. All of the projectile-animals survived the trip, and, after some time recovering, wandered off.

Still, Max decided that something had to be said about this practice of throwing animals. He knew he would have to signal a temporary truce, and for that he would need a white flag. But the only white material he had would be his undershirt or underwear, and could he really take off either to use as a flag? Just then, a volley of tiny cats, a hundred or more this time, all wailing as one, sailed over their bunker, landing in the trees above. They all slipped down the trunks and dropped to the ground, disoriented and not seeming to be having much fun.

Max didn’t really see why the animals had to be involved in a war between consenting parties, so he knew he had to do something. He just needed to establish some parameters with the enemy. So without taking off his wolf-suit -- he knew not to do that -- he manuevered himself from within his fur until he had removed his T-shirt. He pushed it out from his collar.

Carol and Katherine were very surprised to see such a thing happening. But before they could ask about the thing emerging -- some kind of dispensable organ? -- Max had tied it to a stick and began to wave it above the bunker. And the barrage ended soon after.

Sensing it was safe, Max climbed from the bunker and was faced with the Bad Guys, all four of them, standing in the clearing, unhidden, surrounded by what seemed to be a thousand animals of all sizes, lined up like ammunition, waiting to be used in the battle. The Bad Guys were looking at Max with deeply confused expressions. They couldn’t seem to figure out what Max was doing with the stick and the undershirt. Meanwhile, Max was trying to figure out how the enemy had gotten all those cats and dual-sided sheep to stand, still and docile, awaiting their inclusion in the war. It was impressive and Max intended to ask them about it later.

But for now he wanted to set forth a new set of rules. He put the flag down momentarily and stepped toward the Bad Guys. “Okay,” he said. “There—”

The sentence went unfinished, as Alexander’s arm swung and Max was hit in the mouth by a gelatinous ball of something. It knocked him flat on the ground. While he recovered, he got a look at and taste of the projectile -- some kind of land-dwelling jellyfish, many-tentacled and many-limbed, that tasted bitter and medicinal. It got up and scurried off and then down an unseen hole.

Max got up. “Wait!” he said. “You can’t—”

He was hit again, this time by a rock. Just a simple rock, thrown by Judith, which hit him in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him. He gasped, blurry eyed, doubled over, looking at his crown, which had fallen to the dirt. While he was struggling to find his next breath, the Bad Guys unleashed an incredible barrage of gelatinous balls, tiny cats, eight-legged mushrooms, and buffalo-seeming creatures. They fell all around him, and at least five more Larrys hit him, three of them in the nether region. He grabbed his crown and turned and ran, barely managing to make it to the bunker, where he collapsed on the ground, holding his lower self.