Odds Are Good

by Bruce Coville

  “I took it down.”

  I must have looked pretty funny. At least, the look on my face made him snort.

  “How could you?” I asked in a whisper.

  “It was easy,” he said. “I just pulled out the tabs at the corners, and then—”

  “Gran-Da!”

  “Donald!” he replied. “When the government passed S.O.S., they took away the last thing that flag stood for. I don’t want to look at it anymore.”

  He paused and stared at the floor for a while. I looked at the door, wondering if he would say anything if I just left.

  Suddenly he looked up again. “Listen, Donald. I’m ninety years old. That’s not that old, these days—I could probably last another thirty.”

  That was no news. It was one of the reasons my mother was so upset when he moved in. I felt sorry for her. Thirty years of Gran-Da was my idea of a real nightmare.

  “The thing is,” he continued, “I’m just a normal guy, not a hero. But sometimes there’s something you have to do, no matter what it costs you.”

  I looked at him in horror. “You’re not going to do anything crazy, are you?” I felt sick in my stomach. Didn’t he understand he could get us all in trouble? If he wasn’t careful, the Uncles might come and take us away. I glanced at the ceiling, half expecting it to open up so that a giant hand could reach down and snatch my great-grandfather then and there.

  “Why are you telling me this?” I asked at last.

  “Maybe I’m hoping that if I scare you enough, it will make you start to think.” He shrugged. “Or maybe I just want to see what you’ll do.”

  “Can I go now?”

  “Yeah,” he said bitterly. “Go on. Get out of here.”

  I slipped out of his room and ran down the hall to my own room. I flopped onto my bed and lay there, staring up at my beautiful flag and trembling.

  I thought about Gran-Da all that night. I thought about him in school the next morning, while we were saying the pledge, and the Lord’s Prayer, and reciting the names of the presidents. I remembered what Gran-Da had said the first time he heard me recite the list—that there had been more presidents than we were naming, that some of them were being left out.

  I wanted to talk to my teacher, but I was afraid.

  The next morning was Saturday. When Gran-Da came to breakfast he had a red band tied around his head. He was wearing a vest with fringe on it, a blue shirt, and faded blue pants; he was carrying a lumpy plastic bag. He had a button on his vest that looked like an upside-down Y with an extra stick coming out of it.

  “What’s that?” I asked, pointing to the button.

  “A peace symbol,” he said. He dropped the bag to the floor and settled into his chair.

  “Really, Arthur,” said my mother. “Don’t you think this is carrying things a little too far?”

  “S.O.S. was carrying things too far,” said Gran-Da.

  My father sighed. “Look, Grampa, it’s not really a problem. If you don’t break the rules, S.O.S. won’t have any effect on you.”

  I was amazed to hear him say that. Then I decided he must be trying to get Gran-Da to calm down. It didn’t work. Gran-Da shook his head stubbornly, and suddenly I knew what he had in the bag.

  My throat got thick with fear. I couldn’t finish my breakfast.

  After breakfast I followed Gran-Da out of the house. He was heading for the town square. I was pretty sure I knew what he was planning. My stomach was churning. What if the Uncles thought he had polluted our whole family?

  I could only think of one way to save us. I slipped into a televid booth to call my Uncle. When I told him what was happening he looked stern and shocked.

  “You won’t hold this against the rest of us, will you?” I asked nervously.

  He shook his head. “Of course not,” he said. “You’ve done the right thing. We’ll have to come and talk to all of you when this is over, of course. But I wouldn’t worry about it much.”

  The screen went blank. I hurried back out to the street.

  I felt embarrassed, and frightened. But I was also a little excited. Would the S.O.S. men really show up? My friends would think I was a real hero. I hurried toward the town square.

  Gran-Da was already there. He had climbed onto the bandstand, of all places, and he was shouting about S.O.S.

  People looked at him nervously. To my surprise, a few actually stopped to listen. I stood beneath a large tree, about a hundred feet away. I didn’t want to get too close.

  Suddenly Gran-Da reached into the bag and pulled out the flag he had taken off his wall the night before. Holding the upper edge, he rolled it over the side of the bandstand. A slight breeze made the stripes slide and shift.

  I covered my face with my hands and wished the terrible scene would end.

  Where were the S.O.S. men?

  “Friends!” cried Gran-Da. “When I was a boy this piece of cloth used to stand for something. Yes, it did. In fact, it stood for a whole lot of things. Ideas. Like that a man should be free to say what he thinks, and worship where he wants, and get together with other folks if it pleases him.”

  More people were stopping to listen now. Someone started to boo.

  “But that’s all over!” shouted Gran-Da. “Bit by bit, piece by piece, we’ve given away all the things this used to stand for. S.O.S. was the end of it. Now this poor old flag doesn’t stand for anything at all.

  “That being so, I think it’s time I put it out of its misery.”

  I looked around. Where were the S.O.S. men? Why didn’t they get here?

  Now that people realized what Gran-Da was going to do, they started to back away. Some of them left. I could tell that others wanted to, wanted to get as far away from the terrible thing he was about to do as they possibly could. But they couldn’t bring themselves to go. They wanted to see if he would really do it.

  Gran-Da raised the flag and lit a match.

  “Good-bye, Old Glory,” he said sadly. “It was a good idea while it lasted.”

  He touched the corner of the flag with the match. Nothing happened, of course, since like all flags it was made of flameproof material. You can’t burn a flag even if you try.

  Gran-Da knew that. He wasn’t stupid—just crazy. A crazy, dangerous person—the kind who could ruin the wonderful country we’ve built.

  Suddenly I saw the S.O.S. men. They looked beautiful in their blue pants, white shirts, and red vests.

  Gran-Da saw them, too. I know he did.

  So it’s not like it’s my fault, really. He had a chance. Everyone knows that even though the new law allows for instant executions, the Shoot-On-Sight men are supposed to give a guy a chance.

  But Gran-Da didn’t care. When his first match went out he lit another one. He held it to the corner of the fireproof flag and just stood there, smiling at the three men.

  So everyone could see that he was crazy.

  The men lifted their laser rifles. The leader counted to three, and they fired in unison.

  The light sliced right through the old man. He toppled over the edge of the bandstand. The flag curled around him as he fell. He was still holding it when he hit the ground.

  My throat got thick. I could feel tears at the corners of my eyes. Crazy, I know. But he was my great-grandfather, after all. So I don’t think it was too bad to feel a little sad about what had happened.

  That doesn’t mean I don’t know I did the right thing by calling the S.O.S. guys. I mean, think about it. What would happen if other people started to believe like Gran-Da—crazy things, like that everybody should be allowed to say whatever they wanted to?

  What kind of a world would that be?

  The Passing of the Pack

  The cave was dark. Even so, I could see well enough to know when the wolf lurched to his feet and began walking toward me. I pushed myself backward, until the cave wall stopped me. The wolf continued to advance. His eyes, locked on mine, were like the kind of coals you find late at night: nearly spent, yet still hol
ding the power to burn—or to kindle a new flame.

  I thought of red-haired Wandis, safe in some distant village, and wondered if I could somehow change my mind. But of course it was far too late for that.

  The wolf lowered his head, then curled his black lips in a snarl, revealing yellow fangs that glistened with saliva. I held my breath to keep from crying out in fear.

  Dying-ember eyes still locked with mine, the beast moved closer. My self-control was weakening. But before I could disgrace myself with a scream, his teeth sank into my flesh, and I fainted.

  How long I lay on the floor of the cave I have no idea. It could have been an hour; it might have been days.

  When I finally woke I felt drained of strength. Even opening my eyes seemed more than I could manage. Wondering if I had been a fool or—perhaps more accurately—just how much of a fool I had been, I began to review the strange events that had led me to this moment, starting with my first encounter with the great wolf.

  It had happened eleven years earlier, when our little village was being battered by the worst winter in memory. I was only five at the time, but I knew it was the worst because my grandmother told me so. She seemed to take most of her pleasure from telling me how much better or worse or bigger or smaller everything had been when she was young, so if she said the howling winds and driving snow that lasted for weeks on end were the most ferocious she had ever experienced, I felt it must be true.

  It must have been bad for the wolves, too, for they had never troubled us before then. But one night, when thick snow was dropping like wet feathers onto our already snow-choked village, they came, slipping through the dark as silently as whispers between friends. Their killing was quiet, too, until the warm blood emboldened them, and the village animals took fright. Then the silence was broken by a growing commotion.

  I was among the first to hear it, possibly because my sleep had already been disturbed by strange dreams that night. I didn’t understand what was going on, of course. I only knew something had roused our small flock of chickens.

  Even at five I was trying to fill in for the lack of a man in our house. So when I climbed down the ladder from the little loft where I had my bed, I moved as soundlessly as possible, hoping not to rouse my mother from her sleep. I slipped into my coat and pulled on the fur-lined boots my grandmother had made for me. Then I pulled open the bottom half of our door. But the way out was blocked by drifted snow. I closed the bottom of the door and opened the top. Then I fetched my stool and clambered through the opening.

  I almost disappeared in the snow. Sputtering and cold, I dug my way out of the drift. Fortunately, the snow was not that deep everywhere. The same winds that had blown it against our door had cleared other places almost down to the hard-packed paths we had made over the last two months. Wading over to one of the paths, I headed for the henhouse.

  After a few moments I sensed a dark form on my left. A moment later I realized there were two more on my right. A sudden fear clutched my heart. I would have turned back, but the house seemed suddenly very far away. Moreover, I had a favorite hen, a biddy with golden feathers, that I loved too dearly to lose. In my childish mind, I somehow thought I could protect her.

  Or perhaps I thought that she would protect me.

  Anyway, as I struggled my way to the small henhouse the surrounding commotion grew louder. I knew it would not be long before other folk came out to tend their livestock, too.

  Once inside I gathered my hen in my arms. As I was trying to soothe her a dark form surged through the doorway. The light was too dim for me to see it clearly, but I had no doubt that it was a wolf. The hen squawked and struggled in my arms. It was hard to say which was beating more frantically, the hen’s wings or my heart.

  The wolf growled—a low, throaty sound that moved me to a new level of fear. It stalked forward. Clutching the hen as if she could protect me from the beast, I watched the wolf draw nearer, until I could smell its hot breath.

  Suddenly another, larger wolf leaped into the henhouse. It hurtled forward and slammed against the first wolf. After a moment of growling and scuffing one wolf slunk away. The second wolf stepped forward. I knew it was the second because its outline, which was all I could see, was so much larger than that of the first wolf. It took my hen from my arms and closed its jaws. The bird was dead.

  The wolf nudged me with its head, then turned and trotted from the coop. Overwhelmed by its presence, I started to follow it, completely forgetting the first wolf. But it had not forgotten me; it moved in front of the door, refusing to let me pass.

  The wolf kept me prisoner for only a few moments. But it was time enough for the village to finish rousing. Soon the streets were filled with shouts and screams. Then, above it all, I heard a howl that seemed to pierce my skull and shiver down my spine. I believe it was a signal of some sort, for the wolf that had been guarding me turned and ran from the coop, leaving me alone with a flock of hysterical chickens.

  My mother found me soon after that. Torn between rejoicing that I was safe and wanting to beat me for my foolishness, she bundled me in her arms and carried me back inside. Then she began to cry. I felt very bad. I thought: If I had a father, he could have taken care of this trouble.

  It was three summers before I saw another wolf. I had lost my way in the forest and was just beginning to panic when one of the creatures stepped from behind a tree. I jumped in alarm, but it simply sat and gazed at me. When it was clear that my panic had passed, the wolf came and took my sleeve between its teeth. Its grip firm but gentle, it began tugging at my arm. As it seemed to have no inclination to harm me, I followed it—though the truth is I probably didn’t have much choice anyway. Before long it had led me to a familiar clearing, where I saw a village girl named Wandis gathering flowers.

  I paused before stepping into the clearing. When I looked down the wolf had vanished. Pretending that I had intended to come this way all along, I stepped into the clearing. Wandis and I walked home together.

  Though she was a year or so younger than I, Wandis and I became friends. Her companionship was a comfort to me, for it was not easy to be fatherless in our village, where I was often taunted as “No man’s son.” I blamed my mother for this, though later I began to see that it was as hard for her to raise me without benefit of a man as it was for me to grow up that way. Yet whenever I asked her about my father, she became vague and avoided answering my questions directly. This was hard, for I longed to know who had sired me.

  A few times during these years I would wake in the night at some noise below me, and peering through the cracks in my floor I would see a tall, dark-haired man sitting at our table. Once he was holding my mother’s hand. Another time he was kissing her.

  I wanted to kill him. I wanted him to come live with us. I was angry at him for only coming at night, when I was in bed and could not get to know him.

  I wanted him to love me.

  My mother died when I was ten, and I did not see the man again. I went to stay with my grandparents.

  About the time of my fifteenth birthday I began to see the wolves more often. Sometimes when I woke in the night I would draw open my window and spot one of them sitting beside the house, staring up at me. Or if I was walking home from a late visit with one of my few friends, I might hear a sound and turn to see a wolf behind me. Once spotted, it would sit and stare until I turned and went on. They never chased me, never made a move against me. But neither would they let me approach them. Whenever I tried they would bare their fangs and raise their hackles.

  I did not mention them to anyone, for our village was a superstitious place. But in the end my silence was of little value; the villagers turned against me anyway.

  Of all the people in the village Wandis was my closest friend. I thought her very beautiful, with her red hair and strangely blue eyes. Yet she was as much an outcast as I, somehow unable to fit properly into the life of the community. Naturally, this gave us something in common.

  Sometimes when I went to
the forest to gather wood, or simply to be alone, I would find Wandis on her hands and knees, examining some plant. She knew wonderful things about them. Once she showed me a small, low-growing vine called Sal-o-My-Heart; it was adorned with clusters of miniature red berries, and she claimed it could be used to make a man or woman fall in love. I asked her to give me some, teasing that I might use it on her. But she only blushed and turned my attention elsewhere.

  I remember that day well, because a few weeks later one of the village women accused Wandis of witchcraft. She said Wandis had used her powers to steal her husband’s love. I thought it more likely the woman’s own nagging had turned her husband away, and his eyes had strayed to Wandis because she was young and very lovely. Even so, I asked Wandis if what the woman said was true. She patted my cheek, and told me not to be silly.

  It was not so easy to turn aside the village elders. She could not pat their cheeks and tell them to go away when they came to take her. When I spoke out on her behalf, I was accused, too. (“Only a witch would defend a witch,” they said.)

  We were given a trial, which was a mockery, and sentenced to be burned at the stake. And this they would have done, had not the wolves come to our rescue.

  It was late October. I was bound with stout ropes and thrown into a woodshed built against the side of one of the elders’ homes. The space was cold and cramped, and though a little light filtered in during the daytime, after sunset it became completely black. Yet my thoughts were less of my current discomfort than of the morning, and the flame. I wondered how long it would hurt. I wondered, too, how my fellow villagers could be so cruel.

  Shortly after midnight I heard something scratching outside the wall of my prison. I felt a shiver run down my spine, for I had no idea what it was, and there were many tales in our village of the strange things that wander after dark.

  The noise went on for some time. It seemed to be getting closer. Then it stopped. Suddenly a great, furry shape was pressing against me. Had I not become so used to the wolves I might have died of fright right then.