The Caterpillar King

by Noah Pearlstone

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 2014 by Noah Pearlstone

  Cover design by Rebecca Fels

  Originally published by Smashwords.

  The Caterpillar King

  Noah Pearlstone

  April 9, 2007

  By the Window

  1.

  There was a girl down the street. She had legs, and I liked watching them. Every day at 4 PM, the bus left her in front of my house. The bus left a lot of kids in front of my house, but I wasn’t complaining. The girl would trail behind the others, following the line of them just like a little duck. One by one, they’d peel off, head their separate ways, until it was only her. She’d stomp across the street toward a sorry little shed she called home. Then she’d disappear inside. She didn’t know how to use those legs yet, but she’d learn. They always do.

  I began my observation a week ago. The Little Duck lived under the rule of a tyrant she called Mom. Mom spent her days drinking and her evenings screaming. The Little Duck took the abuse without a word. There was courage in her silence. Once Mom passed out, the Little Duck would open her window and crawl through the gap. Then she’d wander off into the darkness, all alone.

  A few nights ago, I was feeling reckless and stupid. I followed the Little Duck to the neighborhood playground. She sat on a swing, head down, body completely still. It looked like she could use a push. I just wanted to help.

  Maybe I pushed her a little too hard. Maybe she fell on her arm. It’s hard to say.

  “Oww oww OWWW,” she said. She clutched at her wrist. “What was that for?”

  “Swings are meant for swinging,” I said.

  “Don’t you have somewhere else to be?” she said. “Like a retirement home?”

  “I like coming out here. It keeps me young.”

  “My Mom told me about people like you,” she said.

  I laughed. “I bet she did.”

  She looked down at her wrist again.

  “You broke it,” she said.

  “Let me see.”

  She pulled away. “Look,” she said, “Are you going to give me some money or what?”

  “I know a guy. He’ll fix you right up,” I said. I reached into my pocket. “Here’s my card.”

  She took the card. She handled it like it was a dead rat.

  “Castor Blue?” she said. “That’s your name?”

  “Depends on who’s asking,” I said.

  “OK…weird,” she said. “Weird.”

  What a vocabulary. She looked over the card again. “It says you’re a ‘private investigator,’” she said. “I’m pretty sure that’s not a real thing anymore.”

  “That’s great,” I said. “You sure know a lot. I wish I knew as much as you.”

  She turned the card over in her hand a few times. It didn’t light up or play music. She seemed disappointed. “I don’t think I really believe you,” she said. “I mean, what do you do? Solve mysteries? Catch criminals?”

  “I investigate things,” I said. “But I don’t talk about it much.” I leaned in and spoke in a whisper. “You see, it’s private.”

  She glared up at me. For the first time, I got a clear look at her amber eyes. I wished I hadn’t. They were hard and unreachable and held the sadness of a thousand lifetimes. They were the kind of eyes you could fall in love with, but they’d never love you back.

  “Weird,” she said.

  “Look. You can sit on the ground all night,” I said. “But I’ve got a better idea. Here, I’ll help you up. Come on.”

  I reached out to her. I shouldn’t have. She scared easy.

  “I’m going home,” she said.

  She ran past me, legs and all. She took my card with her, but I wasn’t expecting a call anytime soon. I’d missed my chance. It was back to square one. I needed to collect more information. I’d be better prepared the next time.

  I spent the next three days observing her. It wasn’t a bad three days. On the fourth morning, she woke up and turned the light on at 5 AM. Early for her, late for me. At 8, she escaped for the school day. Mom hurried her out the door with a solid shove in the back. The Little Duck got on the bus and sat by herself three rows from the front. That didn’t sit right with me. There were rules on buses and those rules never changed. Old in the back, young in the front. She was no spring flower, at least not compared to the other passengers. But there she was, next to kids who were just out of diapers. She was either an outcast or she was avoiding someone. That much was clear.

  After the bus drove away, my observation stalled. Eight hours crawled by, slow and poisonous. I stared out the window and waited. I was real good at that. At 4 PM, the Little Duck came back. She got off the bus, plugs in her ears. She went straight to her room and took a place at her desk. I had a front row seat to the best show in town. With my binoculars in hand, I could see every freckle on her cheeks. She took out a pen and a notebook and started writing. My instincts told me she was writing something private, important. My instincts were usually right.

  At 7 PM, the real entertainment began. Mom came into her room and said a few words. There wasn’t much to it and the Little Duck didn’t react. She kept on writing. Mom didn’t take too kindly to that. She came closer and expanded upon her point. The Little Duck let a few words escape from the corner of her mouth. That’s when Mom lost it. She grabbed the Little Duck’s notebook and flung it across the room. She screamed and shouted for the whole neighborhood’s benefit. The entire time, the Little Duck sat there just like a statue. You’d have thought she was posing for a portrait, the way she looked. In the end, Mom screamed herself tired and let the girl be. It wasn’t a bad strategy by the Little Duck. No one can fight with a brick wall for very long.

  After the assault was over, the girl stayed stoic, focused. She picked up her notebook and scratched out a quick letter. The letter went on her desk, while the notebook went in her backpack. I caught another glimpse of her eyes. Something was different this time. Something within her had been broken. Without any hesitation, she slid open her window and crawled right out, backpack and all.

  The Little Duck strolled down the street, right past my house. Now the way I saw it, I had a choice to make. I could let this girl go gently into the good night, and there’d be no guarantee of her return. Or I could put myself between her and the edge. Truth is, it wasn’t much of a choice at all. I headed for the door. When I got there, I had to pause and collect myself. What if this girl took me with her into the darkness? No matter. Darkness was my old friend. I looked good in the dark. I pulled the door open, and it creaked stupid and loud. Outside, the wind was howling. The sound of sorrow was in the air. I locked up, checking the door once, twice, three times. Bad people are out there, and you can’t be too careful. In the distance, I heard the Little Duck’s footsteps stomping away. I took off after her.

  2.

  I wasn’t the only one following the Little Duck. To my right, footsteps echoed on the asphalt. I dove behind some shrubs for protection. Across the street, a small figure stalked the girl from about ten feet away. It looked like a threat. I don’t take too kindly to threats.

  They both passed under a streetlamp, one after the other. The stalker was a boy. He looked skinny and weak and undeveloped. He had on a hooded sweatshirt, and he carried a stupid-looking backpack. It was anybody’s guess what was inside. Probably not math homework.

  The stalker’s shoe came untied. He stopped to tie it. That was a mistake. I saw my opening and I went for it. I jumped him, co
vering his mouth with one hand. The other hand was for his throat. I decided not to break his neck. At least not yet.

  The boy didn’t let out a sound. Smart kid. Just in case he thought about getting clever, I whispered some advice in his ear. The Little Duck kept on walking, fading into the darkness in front of us. I redirected the stalker to my house.

  He was cooperative at first. He walked nice and steady, and I got a little careless. He made the most of it. The kid bit me. He sunk his teeth into my hand like a rabid, filthy dog.

  “Punk!” I said. I pulled my hand away from his big trap.

  “AAAH!” the kid yelled. “I’m about to get raped and dismembered!”

  I covered up his mouth pretty quick after that, and I gave his neck a nice, solid squeeze, too.

  “You’ll get a lot worse than that if you keep it up,” I said.

  We came near my house. I took him around to the back entrance. We stumbled down the steps like two drunken fools. At the bottom, I opened the heavy steel door. It led right into the basement. My favorite place on this miserable planet.

  The basement was divided into two parts: the workshop and the cave. The workshop was where I planned. The cave was where I worked. For now, I kept the stalker in the workshop. It was a 15x15 cement square with no windows. There were two chairs, some rope, a shovel, a bucket, and a sink. Some people might call it a prison. But for me it’s a sanctuary.

  I dragged the kid to one of the chairs. He knew better than to try to escape. I pulled his hood off and gave him the twice-over. He had hair that stuck out like a frayed broom. His dull brown eyes masked pure evil. He needed a trim and a shower. I needed a bottle of aspirin.

  “You should let me go,” he said. “You’re not a bad person.”

  “Don’t be so sure,” I said. I grabbed the rope. It was the kind of rope you use to tie people up. It worked real well for that.

  After I got him comfortable, I started with my questions. I threw him a softball first.

  “Name?” I said.

  “I forget,” he said.

  “Smart guy, huh?” I said. I closed in on him. “Name.”

  “Guy,” he said.

  “Guy what?” I said.

  “Guy Smart,” he said. “You almost had it.”

  “That’s it,” I said. I picked up his chair by the legs and flipped him upside down. I held him there, his head dangling above the concrete. Lucky for him, I knew how to tie a rope.

  While I had him hanging there, I saw his backpack. He’d left it right behind him. I must’ve been having too much fun to notice it. I put the kid down, rightside up.

  “Let’s see what you’re hiding, guy.”

  I tried to unzip the pack, but it was a piece of trash. Just like its owner. No matter. I tore into it at the seams and ripped it open. When I emptied it, a wallet and a notebook fell out. I checked the wallet first. 18 dollars and a school ID. I pocketed the money. I felt like I’d earned it.

  The ID said, “Ned Kunkle,” and it had a picture of the little stalker right in front of me. It looked like Mom had fixed him up real good that day. He had on a sweater and glasses. It was so precious I wanted to puke.

  I flashed him the card. “That must make you Ned from Dark Hollow Middle School.”

  “That chin must make you Jay Leno,” he said.

  I pounced on him. “See, here’s the thing, Ned,” I whispered. “I’m not joking.”

  I let him think about that. I went to get the notebook. It had the word “SCIENCE” written across the cover in big, bold letters. That turned out to be a lie. But I guess that’s why they call it a cover. On the inside, someone had written the name, “Madeline.” Inside the notebook, there were little sections of writing that had been arranged into stories. I’d save it for my bedtime reading. There was only so long I could keep Ned around before someone came looking.

  “Madeline,” I said. “You writing a diary under the pen name Madeline now?”

  “She’s my feminine side,” he said.

  “That’s real funny,” I said. I circled around him, nice and slow. “Because I’ve got a working theory. That girl you were following tonight, the Little Duck? Her name’s Madeline, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

  The kid was slimier than an eel.

  “Oh, you will,” I said.

  I grabbed the metal bucket and hauled it to the sink. The water rained down, spastic and unsteady. Once the bucket was full, I carried it back to my new friend. I put it down, and some water slopped over the sides.

  “What?” said Ned. “Are you going to waterboard me?”

  I laughed. “Do I look like the CIA?” I said. I flashed my pocketknife, and pointed it at the bucket. “That’s for cleaning up the blood.”

  Finally, I saw a little terror in his eyes.

  “Wait, it’s coming back to me now,” he said.

  “I’ll bet it is,” I said. “Talk fast, or you won’t have a tongue to talk with.”

  That got him going. “We used to be really good friends. Madeline and me. Umm…and so there was a dance. Like a middle school dance. And I don’t know, I thought since we were always together all the time, it only made sense…”

  “You asked her out and she rejected you. Got it,” I said.

  “Well, not exactly. Or at least it’s not what you think. When I asked her to the dance, she said there was someone else she wanted to go with.”

  “Sounds exactly like what I was thinking,” I said.

  “Would you stop interrupting me?” he said.

  “I’ve got the knife, punk.”

  He sighed. “Fine. So anyway, Madeline confessed to me. The person she really wanted to go with was Amanti Jordan.”

  “A black?” I said.

  “A black girl,” he said. “Which meant that Madeline was a total lesbian. She told me she’d always been attracted to girls, blah blah blah, and so she couldn’t go with me.”

  He took a deep breath, and continued. “I pretended not to care, but really, it was stupid and unfair. Everybody knows that you can’t go to the dance with a girl if you’re a girl, and boys can’t go with boys. Those are rules. We could’ve gone as friends, but she didn’t want that.

  “But…we were still kinda friends, even after that. I went to her house for this history project we were working on together, and that’s when I saw her diary. I took it, and I threatened to tell the whole school her secret if she didn’t go to the dance with me. But today I changed my mind. I was going to give her journal back to her tonight, honest.”

  The boy finally shut up and sucked in air. I admit, I felt some sympathy for the boy. We’d all been there before. But something about his story was fishy.

  “Why didn’t you call out to her? Why were you chasing her like that?” I asked.

  “She was too far away,” he said.

  “Liar. You thought you would have a little fun with her.”

  “No,” he said. “I was just hoping I’d…I’d…run into an insane old dude who would kidnap and torture me. And you know what? Dreams really do come true.” He had that devilish gleam in his eyes again.

  “After all this time, you’re still a smart guy, Ned?”

  He nodded happily.

  “Good.” I got up real close and held the knife to his neck. “You’ll need to be, if you want to survive.” I brought the knife down hard and fast, toward his hand. He closed his eyes. The knife missed his fingers by an inch. It stuck out of the chair like a silver birthday candle.

  “Now sit still,” I said. I picked the handle out of the chair. Then I sawed off the ropes. They fell around the kid at his feet. He opened his eyes again and looked at me in dumb amazement.

  “You’re letting me go?” he said.

  “Sure,” I said. “Try the door.”

  He looked at me once more to confirm. I nodded. He stood up and walked to the door. His legs wobbled like fettucine. He held himself up by the handle, twisted it, and pushed. It did
n’t open. He turned back to me.

  “It’s a pull,” I said. “You have to pull.”

  He pulled the door, but still nothing happened.

  “I think it’s locked,” he said.

  “Let me see,” I said. I went over to the door, right by Ned. I twisted the handle. I pushed and I pulled, too. It didn’t budge.

  “Huh,” I said. Then I leaned my ear up to the door, like I was listening for something on the other side. The kid followed suit, turning his head the other way. I took his head in the palm of my hand and slammed it into the steel. He collapsed to the floor, unconscious.

  “I told you,” I said. “I’m not a good guy.”

  September 12, 2038

  In a Ditch

  3.

  I spent the last twenty-one days at the bottom of a ditch. The hole was too deep to climb out of, but I didn’t mind. It was by far the nicest ditch I’d ever been in, and I decided to enjoy it. There was the smooth brown wall all around me. There were four sticks and six pebbles, which could be pretty entertaining. One of the pebbles was even shaped like a heart. I also had two great friends to keep me company. Their names were Tika the caterpillar and Old Guy. Tika the caterpillar talked. Old Guy didn’t.

  Tika was about two inches long and had pure white skin. I think she was self-conscious about her skin, because she’d never seen a caterpillar that looked quite like her before. It seemed to bother her a lot.

  “What if I spent more time in the sun?” she asked me.

  “You’d probably burn,” I said. “And then you’d turn pink. But aren’t pink caterpillars just as rare as white ones?”

  “You really want me to be unhappy, don’t you?” she said. Then she slid over to the other side of the ditch, by the two holes. One of the holes was large, and the other one was just her size. Once in a while, when she got really angry, she’d crawl back underground. But that didn’t happen very often. For the most part Tika was sweet and friendly, and we got along well.