by C. P. Boyko
A boy sat in the shade of the motel, sniffling and feigning absorption in toy soldiers, but in fact mesmerized by the three girls, especially the smaller two. He had many older siblings, some of whom pampered and some of whom tormented him, but he had encountered few children smaller than himself, and never without adults around. These two babies constituted an exciting new field in which to exercise and expand the operations of his will. He looked at the windows of Number 5 and Number 9, and found neither his mother nor his sister Nance watching him. He increased the violence and the noise of his soldiers’ maneuvers until they had all died in agony twice over, but the girls did not even glance his way. Finally, he stomped over to them peevishly, like an ill doctor called to the bedside of a hypochondriac in the middle of the night.
“Well, this is my parking lot—but you can play in it. For now.”
He awaited some recognition of his largesse, having been taught by his mother and certain of his siblings that sharing was a virtue, and being accustomed to receive praise and rewards for virtuous behavior. The girls, however, contemplated him in puzzled silence.
“Are you in school or something?” he asked the girl with the book. —“Yeah. When the summer’s over. Then I start.” —“Me too. I don’t want to go.”
Hillary, who could not understand this reluctance, said nothing. She was looking forward to school as an escape from the baffling arguments and volatile silences of home. At the same time, she did not know who would take care of her sisters while she was away. Anticipating missed lessons, she already felt herself to be behind her classmates, and was studying hard to catch up.
She and the boy exchanged names, ages, and other vital data, such as their stance on dogs (Hillary was for them, Andrew against) and whether or not they had ever seen a dead squirrel with a stick sticking out of it (Andrew had, Hillary had not).
“Where did you get those babies?” —“They’re my sisters.” —“I’m not a baby,” said Prudence, and Gillian, the baby, blinked defiantly and crinkled her chin. —“Sh,” said Hillary. “Be polite.” —“Do they do everything you tell them?” —“I don’t know. I guess.” In fact, the girls had learned that the best way to avoid being smacked or yelled at was to obey their sister, who was usually able to translate their parents’ incomprehensible demands into concrete tasks.
Andrew said, “Tell them to . . . hit themself.” —“I don’t know,” said Hillary. “I don’t think they’ll do that.” —“Hit yourself,” Andrew instructed them.
The girls looked at Hillary with large, liquid eyes, but their protector did not meet their gaze. They burst into tears of abandonment.
This was nearly as satisfying to Andrew as if they had struck themselves, and he looked about, arms akimbo, in search of anyone who dared challenge his newfound omnipotence.
But the babies would not stop crying long enough for him to issue a new command, and he was overcome with awe and envy at their surrender to hopelessness. He grew nostalgic for his own infancy, which seemed to him, compared to his present austere maturity, an era of voluptuous egoism.
“I wish I was a baby who could cry like that,” he said—meaning that he wished he could cry like that without his father or certain of his siblings making him feel he was too old for such behavior.
Hillary again could not comprehend this sentiment: she wanted more than anything to grow up—to be tall, and smart, and beautiful, and competent, and powerful, and old. But she was too polite to disagree, and anyway suspected that, as with the book, her failure to understand was due to some shortcoming of her own.
“Come with me,” said Andrew. “I want to show you something.” He did not know what he wanted to show them, but felt a strong desire to impart some wisdom. He walked a few feet, the girls following at different speeds, and stopped before a large rock. He explained that large rocks could be turned over—but a demonstration had to be abandoned. He showed them how poles could be swung around, sticks broken in half, ants stepped on, and trees kicked. Then he was tired and hungry, and, without another word, he went inside Number 5 in search of food.
When he had eaten all the sandwiches his sister had put before him, Andrew’s interest in the girls revived, and he stood watching them through the window, sniffling and muttering plausible dialogue for them as if they were toy soldiers. He realized with amazement that they played without toys of any kind. He thought of his own toys; his consciousness expanded into the rooms around him, reached into the closets and crannies where his and his siblings’ old toys lay, until the trucks and robots and guns and dolls seemed part of him, like so many limbs and appendages to his own body.
“Why don’t you invite your new friends inside to play?” said Nance.
“No!” he screamed; and his body swallowed his sister and continued to grow, crushing the life and light out of everything it encompassed, until he was as large as the universe, the owner of all the sandwiches, and in control of all the televisions.
Andrew’s disappearance left Hillary and her sisters diminished, as if a hole had been rent in the fabric of the day. He had not taught them anything extraordinary, but he had bestowed his information with a condescending benevolence that was irresistible. Hillary tried to fill his absence by telling her sisters about the sun and the niqti foziqs, but the story was too abstract for their weak and literal minds. She felt that her authority had been undermined, and she looked for an opportunity to reassert herself. When their father arrived home from work and called them inside to wash for supper, she scowled at her sisters and told them that they were dirty, filthy babies. They did not object to this slander, which made her even angrier, for in failing to recognize injustice they showed themselves ignorant of the usual justice and gentleness of her rule.
The girls went inside Number 37, where no supper was in evidence, and where their parents spoke in semaphore, cut the curtains with scissors, wore plants on their heads like hats, repeatedly dismantled and reconstructed the telephone, and took turns weeping in the empty bathtub. Hillary understood nothing, but gave her sisters admonitory and reassuring glances as though she understood everything.
That night, lying in bed, she thought sadly of Misha, whom they had left behind at the old place. Then she thought of Andrew, with his easy familiarity and his glorious bossiness, and she wondered if she had found a new friend.
Hillary was weeding the flowerbed, and questioning the weediness of weeds, some of which were just as beautiful as any flower, when an urgent message reached her from the Candy Ninja.
Her brother Ben handed her a piece of paper. “Andrew told me to give you this.”
She looked at the paper, which Andrew had not even taken the trouble to fold, for the message was in code.
Gregarious, Matinee Principal.
Theater Cane Ninny island real toad movie.
Youth hem island needeled.
She slipped the paper into the front pocket of her dress, put her sister Prudence in charge of the younger siblings, and went inside the house. She could decipher most of the message by sight, and in any case could guess its gist, but half the fun of having a secret code was going through the process of decoding it, and then destroying both the translation and the original. She entered the bedroom she shared with her sisters, withdrew from its hiding place beneath her and Judith’s mattress a pocket dictionary, identical to one that Andrew owned, and silently locked herself in the bathroom. On a fresh piece of paper she wrote down the word that alphabetically preceded each of those in the message.
Greetings, Math Princess.
The Candy Ninja is ready to move.
Your helter-skelter is needed.
The code, while simple, was not infallible. As usual, Andrew had skipped a word when encoding: presumably it was her help that was needed. She was also amazed that he could misspell a word (“needled”) even in the act of copying it out of the dictionary. Nevertheless, the Candy Ninja had other assets that made him
an excellent secret agent. She thought almost affectionately (agents could little afford such luxuries as affection) of his speed, his ingenuity, and his strength. His capacity to endure the cold and rain was as legendary as his capacity to withstand torture. And there was, of course, his ninjutsu.
She began to compose a reply, then realized that he would have to return home to decode it. She tore all the papers to tiny shreds and flushed them, and returned the dictionary to its hiding place. She found Andrew in the back alley throwing stones at a plastic bottle, an activity from which she was able to distract him only with difficulty. He had a tendency to drift into trances, which irritated his teachers and most of his family, but which Hillary respected, for she knew that he was dreaming about candy.
“Do you have any money?” he asked her, according to formula.
“No,” she replied, according to formula, “but I wish I did.”
Having thus established her identity and her abiding commitment to the cause, he went on, “The people in Number 147 just moved out.”
Sometimes guests at his family’s motel left behind a dollar or two, in seeming absentmindedness (neither Andrew nor Hillary was yet familiar with the concept of tipping).
“How will we get the key?” —“Grandpa is at the desk. If he’s not sleeping, you’ll talk to him while I sneak around back.” —“He’ll hear you.” —Andrew reminded her that he was a ninja. —“I don’t know. I’m supposed to weed the flowerbed.” —“Okay. I’ll help.” —“I don’t know.” She remembered the time he had helped her roll coins for her parents. He had stuck the rollers on his fingers like claws and run around the room growling, he had built towers of coins and brought them crashing down, he had devised embezzlements that involved buying coin-sized washers from the hardware store, but he had not actually rolled any coins. “It can be hard to tell the weeds from the flowers if you’ve never done it before.”
“Pay your brothers and sisters to do it.” —“Pay them! With what?” —“With some of the candy we’ll buy with the money we find.” —“What if we don’t find any money?”
—He shrugged. “Then you’ll be in debt.”
The word froze her soul. From the way her parents used it in their arguments, she had come to think of debt as synonymous with muddle, illness, and disgrace. Suddenly she saw how easy it was to fall into dishonor, criminality, even death, and how thin was the crust of civilization beneath her feet.
But she feared that she had already raised enough objections to make Andrew doubt her allegiance. She made an offer to her sisters and brothers, who accepted as happily and gratefully as if the payment were already in hand—for they were not accustomed in that family to being compensated for their chores. Hillary reflected, with fright and excitement, that she and Andrew simply must find money in Number 147; if they did not, her siblings would never trust her again. They might never trust anyone again.
Andrew and Hillary walked their bikes the seven blocks to the motel by back alleys, where life was messier and richer. They saw mysterious animal tracks preserved in concrete, a car bumper like a disembodied smile, a herd of ants carrying a leaf, and a paint can half full of gelatinous paint.
“Wrong color,” said Andrew. —“Wrong color for what?” —He grinned. “Camouflage.”
When they reached Andrew’s room, Number 15, he closed the curtains, handed her two black markers, and took off his clothes. “Start with my feet,” he said.
She understood immediately. Andrew often undressed before performing physical feats like climbing trees or jumping ditches; he claimed nakedness gave him greater agility, and Hillary could well believe it. As a ninja, however, he had to be dressed in black in order to blend with the shadows. Here was an elegant solution. She began blackening his toes.
“That tickles.” —“This is gonna take forever.” —He took one of the markers and colored the other foot with rapid back-and-forth strokes, as if he were shading a foot in a coloring book. —“I’m not doing your doink,” she said. —He took his penis in hand and colored it with rather more care. They both paused to admire his handiwork.
Andrew quickly lost interest in the task, and the markers ran out of ink before Hillary had finished his legs. Nevertheless, he was pleased with the result, and moved around the room liberally and in demonstrative silence.
“Now we’re ready.”
His grandfather was asleep in the office and the keys to Number 147 lay on the counter, but Andrew managed to invest his acquisition of them with a great deal of ninjutsu. On their way back to his room, however, he and Hillary were spotted by Andrew’s brother Roger, who was smoking in the doorway of Number 12.
“Hey, Andrew, why the hell aren’t you wearing a shirt?” He did a double take. “Why the hell aren’t you wearing any pants?”
“I was just going to put some on,” said Andrew graciously.
They ducked inside Number 15 and Andrew got dressed. Then, moving with conspicuous stealth, they let themselves into Number 147.
The room smelled moist and tangy, like the underside of a rock, and was in a state of magnificent disarray. There were bedclothes in the bathroom, towels on the bed, lamps lying on their sides; the telephone was out of its cradle and the television was turned to the wall; newspapers and the residue of meals were strewn across the floor.
“Boy,” said Andrew, “it’s worse than my room.”
They found much treasure, which they divided equitably, including a cardboard box with a flip-top lid, part of a watch strap, a marble, a battery, and several elastic bands—but no money. Hillary dropped into a chair and succumbed to gloom, while Andrew rummaged through the fridge in search of sweets.
“Hey, have you ever had this?” He held up a jar of instant coffee. —“I don’t know.” —He said that it must be good, because his parents and most of his brothers and sisters drank it all the time. —“What’s it taste like?” —“You know,” he shrugged. “Like coffee.”
She found and washed a cup, into which he poured coffee crystals and hot water from the bathroom tap, stirring the concoction with a corner of the shower curtain.
“You first,” he said.
“Ugh. It smells like burnt toast.”
“Ugh. It tastes like burnt toast.”
But they drank it all, while standing around in efficient and preoccupied poses like adults.
“Do you feel any different?” he asked. —“No,” she lied.
They couldn’t stop giggling. They ran outside, as if expecting to see snow or a parade passing through town. The sky was purple and the horizon piled with kingdoms of cloud. The trees in blossom smelled as sweetly perfumed as uncooked hotdogs. A soft breeze carried intimations of elsewhere. Andrew remembered the time he had thrown a frog on top of the school. Hillary imagined herself a girl in high school, carrying a purse and with her hair in a braid. The world was brimming with adventures. Every solid object concealed spaces where candy might be found.
“Come on!”
“Let’s go!”
They hopped on their bikes and pedaled away.
“Andrew,” a voice called after them, “have you delivered your paper route?”
“Shut up, Nance!” he screamed. “I said I’ll do it later!”
They raced up Hawk Hill, but Hillary was laughing too hard to catch her breath. They coasted down the other side all the way to Main Street, flying over potholes and past stop signs, car horns blaring a salute to their fearless independence. Andrew turned in to the bank parking lot and slammed on his brakes, pivoting on one foot and spraying gravel. Hillary came to a more sedate stop, which she embellished by remaining upright for several seconds before having to put a foot down.
“Hey, would you look at this!”
The poster had been on the telephone pole for weeks, and they had both seen it many times—but now it seemed to glow with significance.
MISSING: Our be
loved cat
Answers to “Mr. Whiskers” or “Charles”
Last seen down by the lake
Needs meds
There was a picture of the cat looking surprised, and the offer of an exorbitant reward.
“Do you know how many Tongue Lashers we could buy for that much money?” said Andrew.
The question was not rhetorical, and Hillary did some calculations, the results of which left her flushed and dazed. “Enough to fill your fort.”
Andrew’s fort (which was also, unbeknownst to one another, the fort of several other kids) was an abandoned garden shed in a vacant lot. It was not large, but it could hold a lot of candy. Andrew went into a brief trance.
“I’ve seen that cat,” he said finally. “I know I have. Come on!”
They rode out to the lake at top speed, standing on the pedals and pulling hard on the handlebars for leverage. When they reached the picnic area, they jumped off their bikes without braking, and the bikes rolled several feet before they wobbled and collapsed in the grass.
Catherine and Caroline, two girls from their class, were there with their families, and Hillary waved. Andrew batted her hand out of the air.
“Don’t. They’re—dorks.” He had been about to say “girls.” “Plus they’ll want to join us and share the reward.”
Hillary saw that he was right.
They moved down to the beach and began searching for clues, while striving not to appear to be searching for clues. There were, if anything, too many clues; the area was teeming with them. A bottle cap, a broken sand shovel, a half-buried plastic bag—all these suggested to their imaginations conflicting scenes of abduction, escape, scuffle, chase, injury, fugue, and drowning.
Andrew asked Hillary whether, if she had to drown, she would take a breath or let out a breath first. —“Take a breath,” she said, after consideration. “Although I guess you’d probably let it out in the end.” —“Yeah. It’d probably be over faster if you let out your breath. But I’m the same as you,” he said. “I’d take a breath.”