Every Living Thing

by Cynthia Rylant

  “Louie! Louis! Where are you?”

  Dunh. Duuunnh. Another horn at her back. Magda wondered about her decision to walk Route 6 rather than drive it. She had thought that on foot she might find Louis more easily—in a ditch, under some bushes, up a tree. They were even, she and Louis, if she were on foot, too. But the trucks were making her misery worse.

  Magda saw a dairy bar up ahead. She thought she would stop and rest. She would have some coffee and a slice of quiet away from the road.

  She walked across the wide gravel lot to the tiny walk-up window. Pictures of strawberry sundaes, spongy shakes, cones with curly peaks were plastered all over the building, drawing business from the road with big red words like CHILLY.

  Magda barely glanced at the young girl working inside. All teenage girls looked alike to her.

  “Coffee,” she ordered.

  “Black?”

  “Yes.”

  Magda moved to one side and leaned against the building. The trucks were rolling out on the highway, but far enough away to give her time to regain her strength. No horns, no smoke, no dirt. A little peace.

  She drank her coffee and thought about Louis when he was a kitten. Once, he had leaped from her attic window and she had found him, stunned and shivering, on the hard gravel below. The veterinarian said Louis had broken a leg and was lucky to be alive. The kitten had stomped around in a cast for a few weeks. Magda drew funny faces on it to cheer him up.

  Louis loved white cheese, tall grass and the skeins of wool Magda left lying around her loom.

  That’s what she would miss most, she thought, if Louis never came back: an orange and white cat making the yarn fly under her loom.

  Magda finished her coffee, then turned to throw the empty cup in the trash can. As she did, a little sign in the bottom corner of the window caught her eye. The words were surrounded by dirty smudges:

  4 Sal. CAT

  Magda caught her breath. She moved up to the window and this time looked squarely into the face of the girl.

  “Are you selling a cat?” she said quietly, but hard on cat.

  “Not me. This boy,” the girl answered, brushing her stringy hair back from her face.

  “Where is he?” Magda asked.

  “That yellow house right off the road up there.”

  Magda headed across the lot.

  She had to knock only once. The door opened and standing there was a boy about fifteen.

  “I saw your sign,” Magda said. “I am interested in your cat.”

  The boy did not answer. He looked at Magda’s face with his wide blue eyes, and he grinned, showing a mouth of rotten and missing teeth.

  Magda felt a chill move over her.

  “The cat,” she repeated. “You have one to sell? Is it orange and white?”

  The boy stopped grinning. Without a word, he slammed the door in Magda’s face.

  She was stunned. A strong woman like her, to be so stunned by a boy. It shamed her. But again she knocked on the door—and very hard this time.

  No answer.

  What kind of hoy is this? Magda asked herself. A strange one. And she feared he had Louis.

  She had just raised her hand to knock a third time when the door opened. There the boy stood with Louis in his arms.

  Again, Magda was stunned. Her cat was covered with oil and dirt. He was thin, and his head hung weakly. When he saw Magda, he seemed to use his last bit of strength to let go a pleading cry.

  The boy no longer was grinning. He held Louis close against him, forcefully stroking the cat’s ears again and again and again. The boy’s eyes were full of tears, his mouth twisted into sad protest.

  Magda wanted to leap for Louis, steal him and run for home. But she knew better. This was an unusual boy. She must be careful.

  Magda put her hand into her pocket and pulled out a dollar bill. “Enough?” she asked, holding it up. The boy clutched the cat harder, his mouth puckering fiercely.

  Magda pulled out two more dollar bills. She held the money up, the question in her eyes.

  The boy relaxed his hold on Louis. He tilted his head to one side, as if considering Magda’s offer.

  Then, in desperation, Magda pulled out a twenty-dollar bill.

  “Enough?” she almost screamed.

  The boy’s head jerked upright, then he grabbed all the bills with one hand and shoved Louis at Magda with the other.

  Magda cradled Louis in her arms, rubbing her cheek across his head. Before walking away, she looked once more at the boy. He stood stiffly with the money clenched in his hand, tears running from his eyes and dripping off his face like rainwater.

  Magda took Louis home. She washed him and healed him. And for many days she was in a rage at the strange boy who had sold her her own cat, nearly dead.

  When Louis was healthy, though, and his old fat self, playing games among the yarn beneath her loom, her rage grew smaller and smaller until finally she could forgive the strange boy.

  She came to feel sympathy for him, remembering his tears. And she wove some orange and white wool into a pattern, stuffed it with cotton, sewed two green button eyes and a small pink mouth onto it, then attached a matching stub of a tail.

  She put the gift in a paper bag, and, on her way to the grocery one day, she dropped the bag in front of the boy’s yellow house.

  Safe

  When Denny visited his uncle in Maine, he came upon the cows one night and that changed him.

  Denny lived in Canton, Ohio, with his mother, who was a playwright. She also worked every day at the newspaper company, but if asked what her work was, she would say play writing. Denny waited with her for the day one of her plays would sell to a big theater.

  In the meantime, she kept her newspaper job, Denny went to school and they lived in an apartment building.

  The year Denny was in sixth grade, his uncle, a doctor, bought a farm in Maine, and Denny and his mother drove up there when school ended, to stay a few weeks. Denny watched the map as they drove north, and at times he felt they were driving straight to the edge of the world, risking a drop into Nothing. But when they finally crossed the Maine state line, strangely enough, he felt safer than he ever had before. The rest of the country might blow up, but in Maine he would be safe. He thought it might be all the spruce trees or the sky seeming so much closer to him, but he really did feel he was at the very edge of something and that it was safe.

  Denny’s Uncle Jim, who had never married, lived alone in a long, white frame house that attached itself to a barn. His job as a doctor prevented him from doing any real farming, but he kept a few chickens, a few pigs and a few cows. He hired a man to help care for the animals each morning and evening.

  Uncle Jim was quiet, like Denny’s mother, and, like her, he talked frankly with Denny about things they both might be interested in. In the evenings after dinner, the three of them would sit in Jim’s living room and watch the news, then talk a while. Denny was not surprised when at the end of their first week, his mother and Uncle Jim started in about bombs and the end of the world.

  Denny’s mother had joined the Nuclear Freeze campaign a few months before they left for Maine. She had told Denny she was afraid for his future, that the earth might be destroyed if there were a nuclear war. “And what kind of war could there be but nuclear?” she would ask. “There’s bound to be another big war,” she’d add. “There have been two already.”

  Denny had listened seriously to all she had to say, but he hadn’t talked about it with her.

  In Canton, Ohio, nuclear war was possible. He knew it and he had already made a plan in case of an attack. He knew exactly where he would run if he were at school (to the old post office five blocks away—it used to be a fallout shelter) or at home (to his neighbor’s house, which was made of stone and had a huge basement). He would cover his mouth with wet towels. He knew he could easily carry four hundred granola bars in a laundry bag. He worried about water to drink, though.

  In Maine, Denny felt he had escap
ed, and for a few weeks could forget about the bomb. But with their evening talks, his mother and his uncle were not giving him a chance.

  When he first arrived at the farm, Denny had visited the barn, interested to see the chickens, pigs and cows. But as soon as he discovered the lake up the road and was given a fishing pole by Uncle Jim, he forget the farm and spent most of every day on the water. His mother stayed in the cool, dark kitchen and worked on a play.

  While he fished, Denny tried to forget things. But sometimes he would suddenly imagine himself running in the path of a fireball, or his mother screaming as the newspaper building shattered all around her. He wondered if anyone would hear the bomb as it fell.

  Denny wanted to talk to someone about these things, but there was no one he could trust. He knew his mother would make him feel more afraid. His Uncle Jim might think him a coward. And anyone else might lie and tell him he had nothing to worry about.

  One evening after dinner and the news, when his mother and Uncle Jim started in on a doctor’s responsibility and the Nuclear Freeze, Denny decided that being by himself would be better. He left them and went walking across the farmyard.

  That night, the cows were there. It was nearly dark outside, but just enough light was left to walk without a flashlight and to see the shapes of things. Denny saw the five cows standing up against the fence surrounding the barn, and he went to them.

  It was quiet, growing dark, and the farm was so thick with life. … Denny walked very softly toward the cows. He was a little afraid of them and did not stand right up next to the fence.

  They stood and they watched, those five cows—big heads and strong breath and curiosity.

  Denny stood with them and felt very serious. He regarded them solemnly.

  The cows’ eyes were all large and shining and very, very peaceful. Denny stared at the eyes and he felt reassured. He felt stronger. He felt safe.

  Denny moved up against the fence, and the cows wobbled among themselves a minute, then were still again. He put his hand through the fence and gently touched the muzzle of the cow nearest him. It watched him with soft eyes and did not move away.

  Denny breathed deep and smiled and stood resting with the cows a long time. Then he went inside.

  Afterward, every night when the talk in the house turned to nuclear war, Denny went to the cows. And they always made him feel safe.

  It wasn’t too many nights, though, until his mother and Uncle Jim noticed his leaving them alone. And when. They knew, finally, what subject could chase Denny out of the room.

  One night, then, they came after him and found him with the cows.

  “We have made you sad,” they said. “Or maybe afraid. And we are sorry.”

  Denny didn’t want to talk of it near the cows, so the three of them went back inside the house.

  Denny didn’t have to run to the cows any more nights after that. Sometimes, though, he went to see them while the news was on, or just before bed. He liked them so.

  When the vacation ended and Denny returned to Canton with his mother, he noticed she was careful not to discuss the Nuclear Freeze around him. It helped some, but not completely. He had learned enough to still be afraid.

  And when he did feel afraid, he shut his eyes tight and walked across the yard in Maine to the cows.

  Shells

  “You hate living here.”

  Michael looked at the woman speaking to him.

  “No, Aunt Esther. I don’t.” He said it dully, sliding his milk glass back and forth on the table. “I don’t hate it here.”

  Esther removed the last pan from the dishwasher and hung it above the oven.

  “You hate it here,” she said, “and you hate me.”

  “I don’t!” Michael yelled. “It’s not you!”

  The woman turned to face him in the kitchen.

  “Don’t yell at me!” she yelled. “I’ll not have it in my home. I can’t make you happy, Michael. You just refuse to be happy here. And you punish me every day for it.”

  “Punish you?” Michael gawked at her. “I don’t punish you! I don’t care about you! I don’t care what you eat or how you dress or where you go or what you think. Can’t you just leave me alone?”

  He slammed down the glass, scraped his chair back from the table and ran out the door.

  “Michael!” yelled Esther.

  They had been living together, the two of them, for six months. Michael’s parents had died and only Esther could take him in—or, only she had offered to. Michael’s other relatives could not imagine dealing with a fourteen-year-old boy. They wanted peaceful lives.

  Esther lived in a condominium in a wealthy section of Detroit. Most of the area’s residents were older (like her) and afraid of the world they lived in (like her). They stayed indoors much of the time. They trusted few people.

  Esther liked living alone. She had never married or had children. She had never lived anywhere but Detroit. She liked her condominium.

  But she was fiercely loyal to her family, and when her only sister had died, Esther insisted she be allowed to care for Michael. And Michael, afraid of going anywhere else, had accepted.

  Oh, he was lonely. Even six months after their deaths, he still expected to see his parents—sitting on the couch as he walked into Esther’s living room, waiting for the bathroom as he came out of the shower, coming in the door late at night. He still smelled his father’s Old Spice somewhere, his mother’s talc.

  Sometimes he was so sure one of them was somewhere around him that he thought maybe he was going crazy. His heart hurt him. He wondered if he would ever get better.

  And though he denied it, he did hate Esther. She was so different from his mother and father. Prejudiced—she admired only those who were white and Presbyterian. Selfish—she wouldn’t allow him to use her phone. Complaining—she always had a headache or a backache or a stomachache.

  He didn’t want to, but he hated her. And he didn’t know what to do except lie about it.

  Michael hadn’t made any friends at his new school, and his teachers barely noticed him. He came home alone every day and usually found Esther on the phone. She kept in close touch with several other women in nearby condominiums.

  Esther told her friends she didn’t understand Michael. She said she knew he must grieve for his parents, but why punish her? She said she thought she might send him away if he couldn’t be nicer. She said she didn’t deserve this.

  But when Michael came in the door, she always quickly changed the subject.

  One day after school Michael came home with a hermit crab. He had gone into a pet store, looking for some small living thing, and hermit crabs were selling for just a few dollars. He’d bought one, and a bowl.

  Esther, for a change, was not on the phone when he arrived home. She was having tea and a crescent roll and seemed cheerful. Michael wanted badly to show someone what he had bought. So he showed her.

  Esther surprised him. She picked up the shell and poked the long, shiny nail of her little finger at the crab’s claws.

  “Where is he?” she asked.

  Michael showed her the crab’s eyes peering through the small opening of the shell.

  “Well, for heaven’s sake, come out of there!” she said to the crab, and she turned the shell upside down and shook it.

  “Aunt Esther!” Michael grabbed for the shell.

  “All right, all right.” She turned it right side up. “Well,” she said, “what does he do?”

  Michael grinned and shrugged his shoulders.

  “I don’t know,” he answered. “Just grows, I guess.”

  His aunt looked at him.

  “An attraction to a crab is something I cannot identify with. However, it’s fine with me if you keep him, as long as I can be assured he won’t grow out of that bowl.” She gave him a hard stare.

  “He won’t,” Michael answered. “I promise.”

  The hermit crab moved into the condominium. Michael named him Sluggo and kept the bowl beside
his bed. Michael had to watch the bowl for very long periods of time to catch Sluggo with his head poking out of his shell, moving around. Bedtime seemed to be Sluggo’s liveliest part of the day, and Michael found it easy to lie and watch the busy crab as sleep slowly came on.

  One day Michael arrived home to find Esther sitting on the edge of his bed, looking at the bowl. Esther usually did not intrude in Michael’s room, and seeing her there disturbed him. But he stood at the doorway and said nothing.

  Esther seemed perfectly comfortable, although she looked over at him with a frown on her face.

  “I think he needs a companion,” she said.

  “What?” Michael’s eyebrows went up as his jaw dropped down.

  Esther sniffed.

  “I think Sluggo needs a girl friend.” She stood up. “Where is that pet store?”

  Michael took her. In the store was a huge tank full of hermit crabs.

  “Oh my!” Esther grabbed the rim of the tank and craned her neck over the side. “Look at them!”

  Michael was looking more at his Aunt Esther than at the crabs. He couldn’t believe it.

  “Oh, look at those shells. You say they grow out of them? We must stock up with several sizes. See the pink in that one? Michael, look! He’s got his little head out!”

  Esther was so dramatic—leaning into the tank, her bangle bracelets clanking, earrings swinging, red pumps clicking on the linoleum—that she attracted the attention of everyone in the store. Michael pretended not to know her well.

  He and Esther returned to the condominium with a thirty-gallon tank and twenty hermit crabs.

  Michael figured he’d have a heart attack before he got the heavy tank into their living room. He figured he’d die and Aunt Esther would inherit twenty-one crabs and funeral expenses.

  But he made it. Esther carried the box of crabs.

  “Won’t Sluggo be surprised?” she asked happily. “Oh, I do hope we’ll be able to tell him apart from the rest. He’s their founding father!”

  Michael, in a stupor over his Aunt Esther and the phenomenon of twenty-one hermit crabs, wiped out the tank, arranged it with gravel and sticks (as well as the plastic scuba diver Aunt Esther insisted on buying) and assisted her in loading it up, one by one, with the new residents. The crabs were as overwhelmed as Michael. Not one showed its face.