The Wild Kid

by Harry Mazer

  Sammy stopped to read the numbers. “One oh four. That’s my bus,” he said. “That one!”

  Three boys sitting on a bench looked at him. “One oh four,” one of them repeated. Sammy got a sick, scared feeling in his stomach. “Hey, baby!” they mocked. “Hey, one oh four. Here’s your baby bottle.”

  “Hey!” Kevin glared at them. “Shut up!”

  He made them stop. Sammy looked up at Kevin admiringly. “They were bad boys, weren’t they, Kevin?”

  “Jerks,” Kevin said. He let Sammy hold his hand.

  The inside of the mall was like a barrel of light and noise and big, echoey voices. Sammy hadn’t been inside a real building in—how long was it? He started counting, then stopped to look and sniff. The smell of food made him dizzy.

  In a bathroom they used the toilets and washed up. Sammy stood in the stall, flushing bits of toilet paper. A man was waiting to go in. “How about it, sonny?”

  Sammy held the door open and smiled. “I’m done. Your turn.” He washed his hands and face. He waved his hands under the faucets to make the water come.

  “Okay,” Kevin said. “Let’s go. And keep that big voice down.”

  21

  When they walked into the food court, Sammy wanted to start eating right away. Kevin bought egg rolls and fried rice from one counter, spaghetti and meatballs at another, and pizza and drinks.

  Sammy kept sniffing the food. “Boy, oh boy, this looks good.”

  “Remember what I told you about your voice,” Kevin said. He found a table in the middle of the room, and for a while, they just ate.

  Sammy was too hungry to talk. He ate everything: spaghetti, meatballs, pizza slices, even Kevin’s crusts.

  Kevin leaned back in his chair. “What do you want next?”

  “Pancakes and ice cream.” Two women at a nearby table were throwing him smiles. He didn’t think he knew them, but he smiled back. “I eat six pancakes every Sunday with maple syrup and butter. But this is the best meal I ever had in a long time.”

  “Hey, in your whole life, man!”

  Sammy patted his belly. “Right, man!” He liked saying things the way Kevin did. It gave him the same good, full feeling that he had now in his belly from eating.

  Kevin kicked his foot. “See that fat lady.” He pointed to a woman at the bagel counter. “She could be my mother.”

  Sammy’s head swiveled around. “Your mother?” What if his mother was here? One of the friendly ladies nearby looked sort of like his mother, except she had really short orangy hair. The other one had a big excited face. She was popping gum.

  “What’re you smiling at?” Kevin turned to look.

  The two ladies were looking at them and whispering to each other.

  “I think those ladies like me,” Sammy said. His mother’s friends always liked him.

  “The whole world likes you.” Kevin got to his feet. “Let’s go, man.” He took Sammy’s arm and pulled him along.

  “Where’re we going now?” Sammy asked. He stopped at the ice-cream counter. “I think I want an ice-cream cone.”

  “Okay.” Kevin glanced back. “But hurry it up.”

  Sammy ordered a cone with sprinkles. Just as the girl handed it to him, the woman with the orange hair tapped him on the shoulder. “Aren’t you the boy whose picture I saw in the paper?”

  Sammy smiled politely. Kevin was at the counter, paying. Sammy examined his cone for drips and licked them up.

  “What’s your name, honey?”

  Before Sammy could answer, Kevin took his arm. “Let’s go, Mike.”

  “Mike?” The orange-haired lady turned to the other woman. “Mike? Was that his name? I know I saw his picture. Let me get a look at you, honey. You look like that boy, the one who disappeared. Doesn’t he, Connie?”

  Kevin took the cone away from Sammy and tossed it away. “Move, Mike. Mom’s waiting.”

  “Mike…Mike!” The orange-haired woman hurried after them. “Mike, is this your brother?”

  Sammy nodded.

  “It is?”

  Sammy looked at Kevin and nodded again.

  “Connie, see if there’s a security man around.” The woman held on to Sammy. “Is this boy your brother? Let me hear you say it.”

  “He just said it,” Kevin said. “Let go of him.” He pulled Sammy away. “Mom’s waiting.”

  “Boys,” the woman called. “Mike! Boys, just a minute, I’m not through talking to you—”

  The boys went around a corner. “Run,” Kevin ordered. They ran through the double doors and out into the parking lot.

  22

  It was dark in the woods, except for the circle of light made by Kevin’s flashlight. Kevin was mumbling and talking to himself. “Stupid. Moron. Didn’t you know what was going to happen? You didn’t think. Stupid stupid stupid.…”

  “You’re not stupid, Kevin.” Sammy kept a hand on Kevin’s shoulder. Every time Kevin said something, the flashlight went shooting all around, and Sammy couldn’t see where his feet were supposed to go. “You’re really smart, Kevin. You have a good brain.”

  “Did I have to go to the mall? Make the kid happy. Play the big shot. Couldn’t I figure out his picture would be in the papers? How come I never thought of that? Dumb moron.”

  Sammy had never heard Kevin say so many bad things about himself. It happened when those ladies came. They kept saying, “Who are you? Who are you?” And Kevin said Sammy was his brother. Sammy didn’t have a brother. He had two sisters, but if he had a brother, it would be Kevin. And his name wasn’t Mike. That was funny. Would his mother be mad if she knew he said he was Kevin’s brother Mike? He had to say it or Kevin would get in trouble.

  If he saw those ladies again, he’d tell them Kevin wasn’t really his brother. I’m Sammy, he’d say, and then the orange-haired lady would take him home. But where would Kevin go? They’d blame him because he didn’t bring Sammy home, and they’d put Kevin in jail. And then Sammy would never see his friend again. So that was why he couldn’t say his true name to those ladies.

  He used to think only bad people lied. He used to think only bad people said bad words and stole things. He didn’t want to think about it, but the thinking kept coming back. The same thing all the time. He didn’t want to get Kevin in trouble, so he told a lie. It was bad to lie. He never lied. Only he did.

  Then he had a new thought. If Kevin came home with him and lived in his house and slept in his room, and they ate together and went to school together—except, not to the same class—they would be really like brothers. Nobody would know they weren’t, because if they lived together and did everything together, they were brothers, the way they were here, and then it wouldn’t be a lie anymore.

  23

  “No,” Kevin said. “It’s a crazy idea.”

  Outside, it was raining. Inside, Sammy and Kevin were playing Go Fish, Sammy’s favorite card game. It had been raining all day. Sammy kept thinking about being home. It was always dry in their house, even when it rained. But here, even when they were inside, it was sort of like being outside. The rain came in, not a lot, but sort of wet feeling.

  Kevin had a can under a drip. Then another drip started. One drip went ping! ping! ping! and the other went ping-pong! ping-pong!

  “Go Fish,” Kevin said. “This is a stupid game.”

  “If you come home with me, Kevin, you can stay in my room,” Sammy said again. “Friends are allowed to stay in my room.”

  Kevin got up and fixed the tarp. Then he went outside. Sammy checked the fire. “Needs wood,” he said, and went out for it.

  When they came back in, Kevin flopped down on the mattress, and Sammy fed the fire. Then they continued playing. “If you come home with me, Kevin, we haven’t got any leaks in our house, and we have a furnace. It’s warm everyplace, except the garage. We can play in my room or the living room or the kitchen or anywhere, except the bathroom.”

  Kevin picked up a card. “That’s beautiful.”

  Sammy had been t
hinking about his plan, but he hadn’t said anything to Kevin until now. That was a mature thing to do. His mother would say so. Think before you talk. That was just what he had done. “My plan is this, Kevin—”

  “Yeah, I heard your plan.”

  “This is my plan for you, Kevin. My plan is, we don’t stay in the woods anymore. You come home with me. I’m home, and you’re home.”

  “Go Fish,” Kevin said. “I’m tired of this game.” He got up and poked up the fire.

  “Did you hear me, Kevin? You’ll sleep in my room and everything. Did you hear my plan?”

  “I heard it, Sammy, and it’s not going to work.”

  “Kevin, it will. My plan is—”

  “Sammy, listen to me.” Kevin squatted next to Sammy so his nose was an inch from Sammy’s nose. “One. Your mother would never let me live in her house. Two—”

  “She will!”

  “Two, three, and four and five, your mother will take one look at me and say, ‘Out. I don’t want you stinking up my house.’ ”

  Sammy shook his head. His mother would never say stinking. She wasn’t like that, anyway. When he’d found a sick kitty cat and brought it home, she fed it and took it to the veterinarian doctor. But it died, anyway.

  He told Kevin this story, but Kevin got it all mixed up. “I’m not coming to your house to die,” he said.

  Sammy told him another story about the time his mother did something else good. She had a girl living with them who had no place to go. “She was alone, and her name was Irene, and she came from another country. See? My mother wants you to live with us.”

  Kevin emptied one of the cans outside. “Where do I sleep, in the cellar?”

  “No, Kevin! In my room.”

  “How big is it?”

  Sammy looked around. “Lots bigger than this. It has two windows. Two big windows and a bed and—”

  “One bed? I’m not sleeping on the floor.”

  “You can sleep in my bed. I’ll sleep on the floor.”

  “Your mother’s going to love that. What’s she going to say?”

  “She’s going to say, ‘Sammy, you’ll catch cold if you sleep on the floor.’ ”

  “You’ve got it right. That’s what I’m telling you. I can’t go home with you.”

  “I’ll bring in the pillows from the couch.” His friend Billy Pryor had slept on the pillows one time when they had a sleep over and popcorn and a special video. “Do you like popcorn, Kevin? We can have popcorn every night.”

  “Is that what you eat in your house, popcorn?”

  “No! Spaghetti and meatballs, and macaroni and cheese. And all the ice cream you want every night, after you eat all your vegetables. And pancakes on Sunday.”

  “I’ll go for the pancakes. I don’t want to eat with your sister, though, or that guy. What’s his name? Carl.”

  “He doesn’t eat with us, just sometimes.”

  “That’s when I’m absent, man. I don’t like old Carl. He’s not going to like me, either. He sounds like a case. Anyway, who says I want to live in your house? Or anybody’s house.”

  The more they talked, the better Sammy liked his plan. It was a good plan. Kevin was being very stubborn. He kept shaking his head and saying, “No way, man. I’m living the way I want to live. Nobody tells me what to do. Nobody gives me orders. Once you get out, you never want to go back in.”

  24

  It was barely light when Sammy slipped out of the shelter. He carried his sneakers. He didn’t want to wake Kevin and be called back. Outside, he put on the sneakers and a sweater Kevin had given him and tied his laces. He went up on the rocks, all the way up, zigzag, the way Kevin went. Without Kevin, the rocks were bigger and meaner, as if they wanted to stop Sammy. As if they were Kevin’s rocks and not his.

  He was sweating when he got to the top, but that was the end of Part One of his new plan. He wrapped the sweater around his waist. “Keep going, Sammy,” he said. Part Two was find the power lines and follow them to a road. Maybe the road by the cemetery. Then he could go to the mall and get the number 104 bus. He would tell the driver that he lived on Pine Boulevard in Green Hills.

  He could do things. Kevin said do it, and he did it. Kevin let him use matches. He could make a fire and tie his shoes and wash his own clothes. And go home.

  For a long time, it was trees and trees. Sometimes there were clear places, and he looked around hopefully for power lines. Mosquitoes attacked him, and he pulled his sweater over his head. It was hot like that, and he couldn’t see so good. That was why he stumbled into a deep, sucky mud hole. It swallowed his sneaker and almost swallowed his foot.

  “Wow! Boy, oh boy.” He got his foot out okay, but he lost his sneaker and had to walk with one sneaker on and one bare foot. That was too hard, and he pulled the sneaker off and left it hanging on a branch. Barefoot was nice, especially stepping in all the wet, squishy places.

  He kept looking ahead, expecting any moment to see the power lines. He ate some berries. His fingers turned purple. Every trail he came across looked like the right way, and then it didn’t. “Not lost,” he told himself.

  A solitary tree stood like a giant among the other trees. It was like a crossing guard saying, “Sammy, come this way.” He went to it, touched it. On the other side of the tree, he heard a humming like bees near their hives, or maybe ten million mosquitoes. He pulled the sweater over his head again and peered out through the holes. Ahead, the trees were thinner, and everything was brighter. He ran toward the light and came out of the woods.

  In front of him, stretching as far as he could see, were rock cliffs. The humming was coming from the cliffs. It sounded like water, or a band playing one steady note, or . . . cars on a road. He looked up. He could almost see cars moving on top of the cliff.

  He ran along the base of the cliffs, looking for a way up. In places, enormous sections of rock had broken loose and tumbled down. Sammy climbed to the top of one of these rockfalls, and then he couldn’t go any higher. He sat down to think. The cliff went up and up, all the way to the top, where the road was. How was he going to get there? “You think hard, Sammy,” he told himself. “Don’t be a lazy mind.”

  25

  Sammy watched a line of ants move up the cliff, following a long, jagged crack. Black ants, like tiny bulldozers with pincers in front. His hand, wedged in the crack, was like a bridge for them. He blew the ants off, but they found their way back. Ants were smart. If he was an ant, he would climb straight up to the top of the cliff.

  With his fingers and toes jammed into cracks, he inched his way along the cliff. His face, flat against the rock, felt like a pancake on a hot pan.

  He kept moving sideways from one handhold to another. Here and there, trees grew straight out of the rocks, skinny but strong. They were good to grab on to.

  From above a bird shrieked and dropped off a ledge, talons out, straight for him. Sammy ducked. Wings brushed by; he felt a rush of air. The bird flew out on rounded wings, shrieking again and again.

  Sammy retreated, down and away from the ledge, then up another way. Stones and dirt spilled as he climbed higher on the cliff. Just above him, there was a little tree. When he reached it, he’d almost be on the top of the cliff. The tree had one branch that went straight out. He dug his bare toes into the cliff, stretched, and almost touched the branch. Reach a little higher. That was what Mrs. Hoffman had said. “Reach a little higher, children!”

  Sammy took a breath and stretched as tall as he could, and caught the branch. It bent under his weight, and he hung there, feet bouncing against the cliff. He never looked down. Another breath. And he walked his feet up the rock, up and over the branch, and pulled himself into the skinny arms of the tree.

  26

  “Hello,” Sammy called, and, “Hello” came back. “Hello, hello.” And two hellos came back. The words in his mouth were like bubbles blowing out and coming back. Hello… hello…hello…hello…

  “Help,” he cried, and “Help” echoed bac
k. His voice flew out and bounced off the cliff. Help, help. “Help, I’m stuck up here. Help me. Sammy’s here.” And the echo came back. Here…here…here…A lonely sound, which faded away to nothing. He felt more alone than ever. Nobody could hear his voice. Nobody would hear his voice.

  He’d been in the tree for hours, the little tree with its one branch. He sat on Kevin’s sweater, but his butt hurt, and his neck hurt from looking up, and his voice was sore from yelling so much. He checked his watch. It had been twelve thirty-four when he’d reached the tree. Now it was four-fourteen. Cars went by. Cars, cars, cars! Like a million bees saying the same thing.

  “Somebody, look,” he cried out. “Sammy’s here! Somebody, come! Now!” He ordered the cars to stop. “Stop!” He put his hands out to block them, as if he could.

  When he looked down, straight down past his bare feet, his belly shivered. Climbing, he’d been a little bit afraid of falling, but now he was a lot afraid. He looked down once. Then he didn’t look down anymore.

  He reviewed the plan. The plan was reassuring. The plan said, “keep going.” The plan said, “Never give up, you can do it.” It said, “Keep going till you come to a road.” He had come to a road—almost. He just had to reach a little bit higher.

  Again, for the ten millionth time, he stood carefully on the branch, balancing with both hands on the cliff, reaching for something to grab on to and pull himself higher. The cliff here was round and smooth and bulged out like a forehead, and there was nothing to grip. Nothing that would hold.

  He stood as tall as he dared and called, “Hello, this is Sammy Ritchie talking. Hello. Help. This is Sammy. Help me.”

  Above him, cars swept by. He counted. He’d spent hours counting cars. He got to a hundred this time and stopped, then started again.

  Only one car had to stop. Only one person had to look over the cliff. Only one person had to see him.