Shelby: Translucent Savior

by Lisa Glenn

  “Hey you... little girl, wake up.”

  I opened my gritty eyes and stared up at the small brown boy. “Who are you?” I asked groggily; startled.

  The little boy grinned and puffed out his chest proudly. “My name is José.”

  I sat up and scooted back against the barn wall. A quick glance in Oreo’s direction told me he was still alive. I looked at José’ closely. He had on a gray cotton shirt and short jeans. On his arm, was a tattoo of thorns. “Nice to meet you, José,” I stammered, not taking my eyes off him.

  “Why are you sleeping here? Where's your Momma and Papa?”

  My eyelids felt heavy. “I don’t have any...not anymore.” I lifted my chin. “Where are yours? Do you live around here?”

  “I don’t have any, either. This is my home. I live here,”

  “Here? In this barn?” My eyes did a quick scan. The bright sunlight was streaming through the open barn doors now, telling me I must have slept later than I thought. All I saw were more piles of smelly hay.

  “I sleep here sometimes, but mostly I stay close by. The hunting is good for rabbits and squirrel. Sometimes I get lucky and catch me a bird.” I followed his eyes as they latched onto Oreo.

  I jumped to my feet, standing defensively between me and my new friend. “You can’t eat Oreo, he’s my pet!” I bent down and picked my chicken up and held him protectively to my chest. I raised my brow when I noticed the boy lick his lips.

  Squinting at him, I asked, “How old are you, José?”

  “I’m fifteen... almost sixteen.” He puffed out his chest again.

  I blinked looking at the boy carefully. He was so short! He looked more like around seven.

  “Are you a midget?” I asked, completely confused but still barely able to contain my laughter.

  “No! I'm a dwarf! There is a difference, you know!”

  I knew I had made him either angry or embarrassed by the way his face was turning a deep shade of red.

  I smiled wide, attempting to patch up the hole I had just created. “I've never met a dwarf before,” I said apologetically as I held out my hand. “Hi José, my name is Shelby. It’s nice to meet you.”

  He put his small fists against his hips. “How old are you?”

  “I’m thirteen, almost fourteen,” I smirked. He laughed, then held out his hand and shook mine.

  “Nice to meet you, Shelby. Are you hungry? I have an extra apple. Later if you want, I can catch us a fish. There’s a river down below here that has some pretty big fish in it.”

  “Really? That would be wonderful!” I hadn’t eaten much in the past four days, so the culinary talents of José mattered little to me at that point. The Ensure bar had barely sustained me.

  He turned, and I followed him outside and I noticed we were on a hilltop overlooking a small meadow. I barely could make out the river down below us, though I could hear it now as it gurgled its watery path to whatever main river it dumped into. To the left of the barn was a large cement slab which must have been where a house once stood. The land was full of trees and wild flowers and really was a beautiful place, all things considered. Most of the trees were covered in apples. I spun around delighted, an apple orchard! If only I had noticed this last night! I could understand now why the boy stayed here.

  I held onto Oreo and quickly caught up with him. We walked down to the river together, neither of us engaging in small talk just yet. I kept noticing him stealing furtive glances at me and knew he was sizing me up looks-wise. I smiled a little to myself at his attempts to be coy about it.

  José had a pile of rocks set up in a circle. In the center, he had built a fire pit and over that, he laid a long branch across two others like a sawhorse. Some logs were put into place he had fashioned into chairs surrounded the pit. My eyes widened at the ingenuity. He had made his very own kitchen!

  “José, how long have you lived here?”

  He handed me an apple. He grabbed a long stick he had leaned up against a tree and said without looking at me, “Since the beginning of summer. I ran away from my last foster family as soon as the snow melted.”

  That had only been a couple of weeks ago by my figuring. “Why did you run away?” I asked, feeling he was a lot like me.

  “Well... let’s just say I wasn’t happy there.” He put his stick into the water. He glanced over at me. “Why are you here?”

  I bent my head down. “My mom died. Um...my fake mom died. I’m looking for my real one.” I looked at him, daring him to respond.

  José met my eyes, “Oh.”

  I watched as he pulled the stick up and back towards him and threw it out again.

  “Can I try?” I asked.

  “Sure! Have you ever fished before?”

  “Nope,” I shook my head. “It looks like fun, though.”

  José handed me the pole and showed me how to throw a line out. He explained to me how to jig and when to pull up. He said I should feel the fish bite. We sat down on the muddy bank and watched his homemade pole. After what felt like hours, but was only about ten minutes or so, my pole bobbed. I felt a light tug. With excitement boiling in my stomach, I hollered, “What do I do? I think I have a bite!”

  “You sure do!” José clapped his hands. “Now easy, jerk the pole just a tad.”

  I jerked the pole up in a quick motion causing José to wince painfully.

  “Not so hard, you'll lose 'em!” José stood right beside me now. “Now back up and lift up...gently!” His eyes stayed on the end of the pole as it wobbled back and forth. “That’s it!”

  I did as he instructed and to my utter amazement, a fish dangled from the line at the end of the big stick. It wiggled around with its mouth wide open, gasping at the alien world it was now thrust into. I jumped up and down. “I did it! I caught one!”

  “You sure did! That’s good for your first try,” José beamed.

  He then showed me how to take the fish off the line but took care of the preparations, assuring me he would teach me later. I watched as he cleaned and cut it. He built a fire in the fire pit and strung the fish onto the pole and waited until it was cooked on both sides. He handed me my half, and we sat down on the brittle leaves to eat the spoils of my first victory. It was the best meal I had ever eaten. I tried to get Oreo to eat some, but he was having none of it, instead content to peck around at the seeds he was finding in the tall grass.

  After I had finished my meal, I washed my hands in the river. I was splashing water onto my face when without warning, José pushed me in head-first into the cold river.

  I came up sputtering and squalling. I swallowed a mouth full of fowl tasting water. I screamed, “I... can’t... swim, help!” right before my head went under a second time. The cold water went up my nose as panic took hold of my senses.

  With wide eyes, José dove into the river forgetting I was twice his size. My head bobbed back up, and I coughed, spitting up water. José was trying to hold me up by my back. He wrapped his skinny, little arms around my neck all the while bellowing in my ear, “Hold on, Shelby! I’ll save you!”

  I went under a third time, the fear so intense now it was causing me to lose focus. I have never been swimming before, but I did know that fear caused worse things to happen. I instinctively knew that if I could just relax and not struggle, I would probably float. I let my body go limp and right before my lungs burst; I floated to the surface, dragging in great gulps of air with José still clinging to me. I tried to un-claw his hands from around my neck.

  “José, stop! You’re choking me,” I squalled.

  “I’m sorry, Shelby. I’m trying to save you!”

  “I’m fine now! You can stop trying to save me.” I unclenched his hands and pushed his middle, pulling him off. He fell and slipped under the water for a moment with a small splash. When his head came up to the surface, he started to laugh.

  “Look, Shelby, you’re standing!”

  “Huh?” It was then that I noticed my feet touching the bottom of the riverbed. I felt
my face instantly heat up with embarrassment. I could stand up the whole time. It was too deep for José, but not for me. I grabbed a hold of his arm and drug him back to the bank. I sunk down onto the muddy floor just off the tiny shore, noticing I was now a complete mess! I looked like I had been in some un-scheduled mud-wrestling match or something.

  Oreo came over, gave a cocked eye to make sure it was his human then went back to pecking. I looked over at José, who was now grinning from ear to ear. I smiled and shrugged; resigned as we both busted out laughing.

  “At least now your face is clean!” he said between fits of laughter, pointing at me and ignoring the rest of my body and clothes which looked like I had been dipped in chocolate sauce from my crawl ashore. He fell to his knees in a fit of laughter.

  After I got out of my wet clothes and changed into dry ones, I rinsed them in the river and wrung them out then hung them on a tree branch to dry. José handed me another apple almost apologetically, which I ate greedily. I lay on my back in the grass and looked up at the sun. It felt good to get the grime off. This was the life I thought as my eyes drifted shut.

  I was six or seven, standing in the front yard wearing my new Sunday dress. It was cold, and I shivered.

  “Shelby! You stay out here until I say! This is what you get for not minding me!” Jack was looking down at me, and terror filled my lungs, squeezing them painfully. It was so cold! My small feet were turning blue now.

  “Do you hear me, Shelby?” He roared, shaking in anger and something else...something dark; forbidden. The monster inside winning the battle of wills day by day by day by...

  “Shelby?”

  I opened my eyes and quickly closed them again as the sun beat down on my face. I must have fallen asleep.

  “Shelby?”

  José was looking at me with worry lines etched on his face.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “You were screaming,” he said quietly.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. It was a dream.” I could feel my face heat up. I turned my head away, not wanting to explain it to him.

  I sat up quickly, scanning the area. “Where's Oreo?” I was afraid my new, small friend might have eaten him while I slept.

  José watched me wearily and pointed to the right. I followed his hand and spotted Oreo. He was safe, pecking at the ground.

  "Geez, I ain't gonna eat 'em, if that's what you're worried about," José said while rolling his eyes.

  I smiled sheepishly at his apparent mind-reading skills, and he smiled back, chuckling a little.

  Chapter Six

  Traveling Companion

  It was time for me to get moving. I felt guilty for wasting half a day as it was. I looked up at the young man before me.

  “Thanks, José, that was fun. I mean, the fishing and all... but I have to get going.” I stood and looked around for my bag. “I have a long way to go before I get to Florida.”

  I bent down and grabbed my pack from beside me, snatching my now dry clothes off the tree limb and stuffed them in my bag. I walked over to Oreo and picked him up, cradling him in my arms. I turned and started walking back up the hill when José called after me.

  “Shelby, wait!” He was scrambling up after me. “I’ll come with you! You need someone to watch out for the bad men, right? I'm good at that! Also, I can protect you and know how to cook. I’m good at finding food!”

  I stopped and swung back around, eyeing him a bit suspiciously. “You want to go with me? You heard me when I said I’m going all the way to Florida, right? That’s a long way. What about your home here?”

  “I don’t have a home here," he said, expanding his small arms around in a sweeping motion to make his point. “Please, Shelby!”

  “José," I said softer now as I noticed his eyes were watering up, "what will you do once I find my parents?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m sure I can find something to do.” he responded with as much dignity as he could muster. His chest that he had at first thrown out at me with such confidence now had a sunken look, adding to his overall smallness.

  I thought on it a bit. If he tagged along, I would have someone to talk to besides Oreo. I didn’t think he could be much of a protector, though. I looked at him hard. I could see the hope and loneliness in his face shining through clearer than cellophane. I knew that look, because that’s exactly what I saw every time I looked in the mirror. It didn’t take me too long to decide. Even though I didn’t quite trust him, I felt something deep down when I looked in his eyes.

  “Okay!” I said. “But you have to help with Oreo!”

  José clapped his hands. “Awesome! Just give me a minute while I get my things together.” He pointed to the apple tree. “You could grab some of those apples for us in case we get hungry later... sound like a plan?"

  I smiled at his enthusiasm. “That’s a great idea!” I stuffed some of the apples into my pack as he hurried to the barn and grabbed what clothes and pathetic trinkets he had picked up along the way; things only a teenage boy would find worth keeping and stuffed them in the old pillowcase he had stolen from a clothes-line a few weeks ago.

  José, Oreo, and I made quite a threesome as we walked for mile upon mile, chattering with each other as we began the slow process of becoming good friends. We received a few strange looks from passerby's, which we of course, ignored. We slept where we could find some sort of shelter, sometimes even in the trees. José’ showed me how to tie a rope around my middle with a knot so I wouldn’t fall out when I slept. Most nights, I woke myself up from the nightmares or sometimes José would. He never asked about them, and I never offered.

  Oreo’s tiny little leg was healing nicely. He was walking a lot better now, but I still carried him. He was just too slow or being distracted by some shiny object or another, would start to wonder off. José’ helped gather wood for a fire at night, and he was, as promised, good at finding our food. It was nice having help and my respect for him despite his disability, if it could even be called such grew day by day. I knew other boys’ half his size with less than half his determination and guts. José was the very definition of, 'Don't tell me what I can't do...just stand back and watch me do it.'

  The days ran into each other. I wasn’t even sure where we were by this point. José was never quiet, though. He was always talking and sometimes I just wanted to slap him in the face to just shut him up for five seconds, but most of the time I was simply glad he was with me.

  It didn't matter how many miles I separated from my home town; I would still catch myself looking behind my shoulder looking for Jack. I would kill myself if he caught me.

  “Shelby, we need a map,” José said matter-of-factly. "We don’t even know where we are or even which direction we’re going. I think we’ve been moving west, but I never finished school, so I don’t know my east from my west by looking at the stupid sun or moon...do you?” He looked at me, hopefully, while I scanned my memory to see if by some chance Mrs. Rivers from science had ever covered that. I came up blank.

  I shook my head, “No, not really. I vote to stop in the next town and get a map. I have some money,” I said.

  “You do?” His eyes lit up, making me look at him hard again.

  “Yes, I have some, but not much," I answered warily. "How much do you think it’ll cost?”

  I didn’t tell José earlier that I had money mostly because I just didn’t trust him enough yet. We must have been close to a town because the traffic on the road had picked up some. I was a little worried about the gray clouds that had formed and were now hovering above us. We were out in the open, and it looked about to rain, and not a little summer rain, either, but a 'boomer' as my momma,

  Not my momma, my brain insisted like a bug trapped in a jar,

  used to say often when it looked like the buckets would need to come out for the various leaks in the roof.

  We needed to find shelter, and soon. Somehow, we had reached a major highway. I wasn’t liking that, either. I didn’t think Jack wou
ld follow me this far out, but I didn’t want to take a chance. Just in case, I had stayed hidden from the roads but now there wasn’t anything to hide behind. The trees that had offered shelter had left us behind about a mile ago, and all that stretched before us was the highway, valleys, and the mountains far off.

  “We need to find shelter, Shelby. Look! It’s going to rain," José said pointing to the sky as if I suddenly had gone blind. "Let’s look for cover someplace, okay?”

  We decided to scope out the valley in hopes of finding a farm someplace.

  By the time we found some sort of shelter, it had already begun to rain. Oreo’s head disappeared into his feathers as I carried him. Drops of water ran off my nose, and my clothes were stuck to my skin. I looked down at José and was afraid he was going to drown. We eventually came upon an old drain ditch. It had a big pipe running through it, so we ducked inside and sat down to wait it out.

  The rain pelted the ditch, and it quickly filled with water, making this decision a bad one. Lightning and thunder filled the sky, and the water began to flow through the pipe in a heavier stream. We needed to get out before it flooded completely, washing us both to God only knew where this thing led to. José carried Oreo as we made it out and climbed the bank. That was a chore in itself as the constant rain had made the bank nothing more than a mud-slide, and we kept sliding back down, only to try again. I finally made it and helped to pull up José and Oreo. The lightening scared me as it crashed around us in a steady light show, and I was certain I was about to get electrocuted.

  “Shelby, look!” José yelled above the thunder. I squinted through the rain at the headlights coming toward us. “Let’s try and get a ride!”

  What if it was Jack? I would rather weather the storm than face that monster again. I relaxed my shoulders when I noticed it was a truck and not the maroon Chrysler. José hopped up and down and waved his arms back and forth, trying to get attention. The truck slowed and came to a stop in front of us. The door opened, and an old man yelled, “Get in!”