“Tuna,” Henry said after a moment, taking the sandwich Mac handed him.
“Glory be, we eat at last,” Mac said.
Henry gobbled the tuna sandwich in nothing flat, then went on to dispose of a ham and cheese, an apple, a piece of raisin cake, and half a thermos bottle of milk.
There was chocolate cake, too, but Henry declined it. Somehow, it didn’t appeal to him.
When they had finished eating, Mac settled back and lighted a cigar.
“Mac,” Henry said, “isn’t there something you want to ask me?”
“Sure, but I figure you’re about to tell me what I want to know.”
“Well,” Henry began, “I have this disease called Chocolate Fever. That’s what these big brown spots are all over me—chocolate. And nobody, especially a doctor named Fargo, knows what to do about it. So I’ll probably have these spots on me for the rest of my life and—”
“And that’s why you’re running away,” Mac said.
“I have to run away,” Henry said. “I look so terrible and ugly.”
“I wouldn’t say ugly,” Mac said. “Unique, maybe.”
“What’s that?”
“Sort of special.”
“But how can I live this way? I’m a freak, a chocolate freak!”
“Easy now,” Mac said, “calm down.”
“People will be looking . . . staring at me. How can I live with people staring at me?”
Mac chuckled softly. He looked away from Henry.
“How would you like it, Mac, if people stared at you?”
“You know, kid, I’ve had some experience in that line myself,” the big man said quietly.
“You mean people stare at you?”
“Uh-huh,” Mac said. “When you’re black, and most of the other people are white, that’s bound to happen.”
“Gee, Mac,” Henry said, “I’m sorry.”
“Oh, it’s nothing personal, kid. Besides, by the time I was your age I’d gotten over it. But you know, getting stared at—and some other things—got me thinking: If there’s so many white people, and so few black people, why that kind of makes me unique.”
“You mean special?”
“Exactly right. So all that staring and stuff, what it did was make me proud. You know, black is beautiful.”
“That’s okay for you,” said Henry, “but white with big brown spots all over is ugly.”
Mac put his hand to his mouth and coughed. For a moment, Henry thought he might be laughing.
“Okay, youngster,” he said, “have it your own way. Just tell me, where are you going? What you figure on doing?”
“I’m just running away, Mac. And I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
Mac thought about that for about a second and a half. “Just flat out running away, huh? Things get too much for you, so you cut out? Brilliant.”
“I won’t go back,” Henry said. “I just won’t.”
“Okay, then, you won’t go back. But let me ask you something: You got a mother?”
“Yes.”
“Father?”
“Yes.”
“They been good to you?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t beat up on you?”
“Of course not.”
“Don’t make your life miserable?”
“No.”
“So they’re pretty good parents, right?”
“Right.”
“And you love ’em cause they’re so kind and good, right?”
“Yes.”
“Well, how do you think they feel right now? Wondering where you could be, are you all right? Are you dead, maybe? Yes, sir, you sure are treating them mean. Why, it wouldn’t surprise me if your mother was crying her heart out right now. Just sick to death with worrying about you.”
“But, Mac—”
“Now you hush till I’m finished with what I got to say. A good child respects his parents, yes, sir! A good child don’t cause his parents heartache or grief or worry. No, sir!”
Henry didn’t try to say anything, but he was listening very carefully.
“Now here’s my plan, kid. First thing we do is drive down this road till we get to a telephone. Then we call your folks so they can stop worrying.”
“I’m not going back to that hospital,” Henry said firmly.
“We’ll tell that to your folks, too. Maybe there’s someplace else you can go . . . some other doctor who can take care of you.”
“I like that idea,” Henry said.
“Who knows?” Mac continued. “Maybe this chocolate fever of yours will go away. Maybe you’ll just wake up tomorrow and it’ll all be cured.”
“I hope so,” said Henry, “but I don’t think so.”
“Anyway, first thing we do is call your folks. Okay?”
Henry smiled. There was something about the way Mac spoke that made him feel better.
“How about it?” Mac asked. “Should we go find that telephone?”
“What are we waiting for?” Henry said.
Chapter 9
Hijacked
MAC DOUSED THE CAB LIGHTS and reached for the switch that would start the diesel. But at that very moment, a loud voice from the darkness outside the truck called “Reach for the sky! Don’t make a move! Hands up! We got you covered!”
Mac froze at the wheel. Henry’s heart leaped up in his throat, ricocheted around, and settled back down in his chest again.
Two men jumped up onto the truck, one on each side. Each man carried a small blue revolver. The guns were pointed straight at Mac.
After a moment, Mac found his voice. “What is this?” he asked.
The man on Mac’s side of the truck, the one with the mustache, replied. “This, sir, is a robbery. A stickup. A hijacking, in fact. Section Three, Part Four of the Criminal Code. Seizure of a cargo of goods from a vehicle or vessel on the roads or waterways.”
“Oh,” said Mac.
“Right, Louie,” said the man on Henry’s side of the truck. He was the smaller of the two thieves, and instead of a mustache, he wore hornrimmed glasses and a lopsided smile. “I’m Lefty, he’s Louie,” the man went on. “People get us mixed up sometimes, but I don’t know why.”
“My name is Henry Green,” said Henry, “and he’s Mac.”
“Pleased to make your acquaintance, I’m sure,” said Louie, “even under these unfortunate circumstances.” Polite as they seemed to be, Louie and Lefty were still pointing their guns at Mac and Henry.
“You sure you want to do this?” Mac asked slowly. He seemed to be puzzled by the hijackers. “I think you’re going to be in a whole lot of trouble.”
“Trouble?” said Louie. “You will be in trouble if you don’t do exactly what I say. Now climb up to that bunk up there, both of you, so we can get on with the job.”
Henry did as he was told, with Mac following slowly behind him. Mac was getting angry, Henry could see, but when he spoke, his voice was calm. “I don’t suppose it would do much good to tell you that you are definitely breaking the law,” he said.
Louie laughed. “Breaking the law? Mister, we are fracturing it.” And with that, Lefty jumped into the driver’s seat, Louie took his place beside him, and the truck began to roll.
Mac still had something on his mind, and above the roar of the motor he called down to the pair of thieves: “You better stop now . . . I think you’re making an awful mistake.”
“There’s no mistake about it,” Louie called back over his shoulder. “We know exactly what we’re doing. We’re hijacking a cargo of expensive furs.”
Mac looked dumbfounded at this last piece of news. “Furs?” he cried out. “Furs?” And with that he started to laugh. Great gusts of laughter poured out of Mac, he doubled over one or two times, and, finally, tears came to his eyes and rolled down his cheeks. “Oh, Lord,” he cried when he could finally speak, “they think they’re stealing furs!”
The more Mac laughed, the more concerned Louie became. He signaled Lefty to s
top the truck and, when he had, turned to look up at Mac.
In a low voice he said, “No furs?”
Mac, taking care to keep a straight face, simply answered, “No furs.”
“Then what?—” Louie began as Mac interrupted.
“Candy bars!” Mac shouted, the laughter beginning again. “Haw-haw . . . candy bars . . .”
“Oh, no!” Louie said.
“Chocolate bars . . . haw-haw . . . with almonds.”
“Nuts!” exclaimed Lefty.
“And some without almonds.”
“What are we gonna do with a load of chocolate bars, genius?” Lefty demanded of Louie.
“Haw . . . and some with crunch . . . haw . . . and some without crunch.”
“Chocolate bars! I can’t believe it,” Louie mumbled.
“You said this job would be like taking candy from a baby,” Lefty said in an angry way, “but . . . chocolate bars?”
“And some with caramel . . . haw-haw . . .”
As Mac continued his roll call of the various kinds of candy the truck carried, the two thieves sat silently in the front seat, staring at each other. It was plain that they were amazed.
After a while, Lefty spoke. “What do we do now?” he asked Louie.
“I don’t know,” Louie replied, “but I’ll think of something. Meanwhile, let’s get this truck to the hideout.”
“And some of it with peanut butter . . . haw-haw . . . but none of it with furs! Haw-haw!”
With Mac’s laughter ringing in their ears, the unhappy thieves looked glumly ahead as the truck rumbled through the night.
Chapter 10
Taking a Licking
THEY TRAVELED for a long time.
Lefty was driving very carefully, making sure he kept the big truck within the speed limit. From his perch up in the bunk, Mac was keeping a watchful eye on their route.
Henry tried to keep watch, too, but as the hours flew by, he found himself nodding. He was soon asleep, his head cradled on Mac’s chest. As the first streaks of dawn appeared in the eastern sky, the big man was still holding his arms about the boy, cushioning his body from the shocks and jolts of the road.
As the truck shifted gears and slowed, Henry’s eyes opened. “Shhh,” Mac whispered, a finger held to his lips.
“Where are we?” Henry whispered in turn.
Mac put his mouth almost against Henry’s ear before he answered. “Far out in the country,” he said, “a long way from nowhere.
“Now when we get where we’re going,” he continued, “I want you to keep a sharp eye on me. Don’t do anything sudden, and don’t run. Let’s just be very careful, hear?”
Henry nodded.
He would follow Mac’s lead and do as he was told. The big man was a person you could trust, especially in a tight spot.
They were traveling along a two-lane road now, with just a few houses set wide apart. Lefty was driving the big truck very slowly, looking right and left at every crossroad.
“Any time, now, we’re going to turn off,” Mac whispered.
Henry agreed. They must be very close to the thieves’ hideout, he thought.
Lefty slowed the truck almost to a crawl and turned down a small dirt road. The truck bounced along the narrow track, turning right and left through the trees, and in a few minutes came to a stop in a grove of pines, near a small wooden cabin.
When Lefty had turned off the motor, Louie called up to them. “Gentlemen, we have arrived. Last stop—everybody off.”
Lefty and Louie opened the cab doors and stepped down out of the truck. “Easy now, you two,” Louie said, as Mac and Henry joined them. “No sudden moves. No funny business. No tricks, right?”
“No tricks,” Mac said quietly.
Louie had his gun in his hand again, Henry could see. With the gun pointed squarely at Mac, the thieves led them into the cabin. It had one room, dirty and desolate-looking. A wooden table and chairs stood in one corner, and Louie prodded Mac and Henry in that direction. There were no windows in the cabin and no light, either, until Louie lit a small lantern that hung from the rafters. Lefty pulled a chair over near the door and sat there, gun in hand, watching carefully.
“Well, now,” Mac said, “what comes next?”
“What comes next is up to you,” Louie said. “Play it smart, and we leave you here when the job’s over. Give us trouble and. . . . Just don’t give us any trouble.”
With that, Louie drew a chair over near Lefty, and the two of them fell into a quiet conversation. Lefty was angry, that much was clear. “What do we do with a load of candy?” they heard him say. Louie spent most of his energy trying to keep Lefty calm.
“Looks like our friends over there bought a pack of trouble,” Mac said to Henry. “Instead of furs, they got something they don’t want.”
“Haw-haw,” said Henry and they both had a quiet chuckle, followed by several minutes of quiet giggles. When their mirth had subsided, Henry asked Mac what was really going to happen.
“I don’t know,” Mac said, “except for this. If either one of them tries to put a hand on you, I will personally lay them out flat—gun or no gun. So don’t you worry, hear?”
There was a kind of iron in Mac’s voice now, and Henry was sure that when the moment came, the big man would be ready for it. Just then, out of the corner of his ear, Henry heard a faint and faraway sound. It could have been a dog barking.
Mac heard it, too, and the two of them sat quietly listening. It was barking, all right, but now there seemed to be two dogs barking. Mac put his hand on Henry’s arm. “No noise now,” he said, “listen.”
The barking got louder, and closer, as the seconds ticked by. Louie and Lefty had heard it too. They stood near the closed door, listening for all they were worth.
You had to be deaf not to hear the chorus of yelps and yowls. It was getting louder and louder with every moment.
“Keep them covered,” Louie shouted against the din. “I’m going out to see what’s happening.”
Lefty shuffled over to the corner where Mac and Henry sat, his drawn pistol looking them straight in the eyes. Louie, gun in hand, opened the door and froze on the spot. But only for a split second.
For at that exact moment a big German shepherd came sailing through the doorway and landed on Louie’s chest. Louie was knocked flat on his back, his pistol clattered across the floor. Behind the German shepherd came a whole army of yelping, barking dogs, all heading straight for Henry. Airedales, Dobermans, a brown and white collie, several spaniels and setters, and a small French poodle. They were yelping and jumping and barking enough to fill the little cabin with noise and confusion. Lefty was stunned, speechless, absolutely confused by the dog riot that was taking place before him. But Mac knew what he was about. In a flash he pounced on Lefty and took the pistol right out of his hand.
Then he leaped to where Louie’s gun had fallen and scooped that one up, too. One gun in each hand, Mac whirled to face the pair of confused crooks. Louie was still on the floor. Lefty was surrounded by a pack of yipping-yapping dogs. Even if he wanted to run, he couldn’t.
Henry, of course, was the star attraction for the animal army. They were licking him as if he were some sort of new dog yummy. His arms and legs and face were covered with happy, licking dogs. And all of it made him laugh so hard he could scarcely protest.
While this was going on, still more dogs were racing into the tiny cabin. And behind them came people—most of them with leashes in their hands —and all with the same puzzling story. They had been out walking with their dogs when, one after the other, the animals had put their noses in the air, sniffed wildly, and then began racing madly along the dirt road as if following an irresistible scent. Now what could have made those animals behave so strangely? And what about those pistols? What was going on in this cabin, anyway? Why did the place smell like a chocolate shop?
It took about an hour, and the arrival of the local police, to sort it all out. Mac had a lot of explaining to do,
but when it was over, Louie and Lefty were handcuffed. As they were being led away, Henry heard Lefty mutter, “We go after furs, and we get candy bars. We get to our hideout, and we’re invaded by dogs. It’s getting so a guy can’t make a dishonest living anymore.”
“Haw! Haw!” said Mac and Henry together.
As the police car turned out of sight at the end of the treelined dirt road, they were still laughing.
“Come on, kid,” said Mac, between chuckles, “we’ve still got some candy to deliver!”
Chapter 11
At “Sugar” Cane’s
His NAME WAS ALFRED CANE, but his friends called him Sugar. Sugar Cane was the owner of one of the largest candy distributing companies in the East. Chances are, if you’ve ever bought a candy bar east of the Ohio River, it came from Alfred Cane’s warehouse.
It was a very large business.
But Sugar Cane was still interested in every one who worked for him. So when he saw Mac’s big rig pull up in the warehouse yard, Mr. Cane was very much relieved.
So was Mac. And Henry. They had made that telephone call to Mrs. Green, you see, and a happy, tearful conversation it was. As soon as Mac dropped off his load of candy, he was going to take Henry home.
Henry liked Mr. Cane the minute he saw him. There was something about the twinkle in his eyes that even his spectacles didn’t hide, that made him seem friendly. And with his gray hair and mustache, Mr. Cane looked not a little like Santa Claus.
Henry liked Mr. Cane’s office, too. It was warm and cozy. And the walls were lined with shelves containing every single product the big warehouse handled. Imagine seeing every kind of candy bar, cookie, and cake all in one spot. It made you hungry just to be there.
When they had seated themselves and recounted their adventures—laughing quite a bit in the bargain—Mr. Cane leaned forward in his chair and took a long, close look at Henry. “Henry Green,” he said, “if it won’t offend you, I would like to ask you something about those big brown spots you seem to have all over.”
It seemed to Henry that he had explained a million times already, but he went through the story again from beginning to end. Mr. Cane was listening closely, paying keen attention to Henry’s every word.
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