The Greats

by Deborah Ellis

  Jomon remembers his father shaping ends of lumber into shelves for Jomon’s room. Jomon handing him the nails, the two of them smoothing down the wood with sandpaper. He remembers riding on his father’s shoulders, high, high, high above the Mashramani parade, seeing all the costumes, smelling the food.

  But there are other memories, too. His father’s face near his, angry, drunk and spitting. Oozy, boozy vomit stinking on the floor. Knowing that anything Jomon and his mother did or did not do would be wrong.

  “We had a big fight,” Jomon says, “after Mum died. I didn’t know how sick she was. I mean, she often had pain because my father hit her, but she pretended she didn’t and I pretended to believe her. When she finally went to a doctor, it was too late. The cancer had spread from her pancreas to her liver and everywhere else. She was dead a week later.”

  “How did your dad handle that?”

  “Same as he handled everything else. He drank. Mum’s church lady friends showed up with a collection they’d taken to help with her funeral. He threw them out when they wouldn’t hand over the money to him. He was falling-down drunk, so why would they trust him? As they left, one of them told me that they would see she was buried in her family plot near New Amsterdam. I never even knew she had a family plot.”

  “You never went to look for her grave?”

  “I asked Dad about it after he’d sobered up a bit. He said I always did side with Mum and if I wanted to go, I should go, but then I could keep on going.”

  “And you were afraid to lose the last parent you had,” says Angel.

  “I let her down,” says Jomon. “I’m … nothing. I’m just nothing.”

  He turns away from Angel and curls up on his bunk.

  “Hey, Jomon. Come to the window,” whispers Hi. “You’ve got to see this! Angel — come on!”

  Angel leaves the bed. Jomon hears excited whispering and the quiet pushing of kids. He puts his arms over his head. He wishes he could retreat to Jomonland. He wishes he had killed himself back in the police-station lockup.

  “Jomon,” says Angel. “You really ought to come here and see this.”

  But Jomon is done for the day. He stays on his cot, his eyes closed, and leaves the others to ooh and aah at whatever they are seeing out the window.

  22

  Gather knows she has an audience. She can smell them, boy humans and girl humans. They are keeping their distance, just watching her.

  If they attack, she knows how to disappear into the forest.

  She gives most of her attention to one of her favorite activities — eating!

  The land she once knew as home has changed in many ways, but Guyana is still a garden. Gather has eaten her way from the museum to the detention center, following her nose and the tree line, getting ever closer to the haven of the rainforest.

  She is in no hurry. No one is chasing her. Most humans ignore her. The young ones point at her but are pulled along by the grown-ups, who are always in a hurry. The old ones see her and nod.

  She stretches to the full height of her reach to snag a choice clump of flowers in her claws. She hears a “Whoa!” sound from the young humans, but it is a sound of admiration.

  She pulls down the flowers, dislodging a huge seed pod that crashes to the ground and explodes with a boom.

  The young humans cheer quietly. Gather eats and eats and eats until her generous belly is full, for now.

  She goes to sleep in the thicket just as the sun gets ready to start another day.

  23

  The next morning, Jomon watches others kick a ball around the yard. He’s leaning against a wall, out of the way of the game.

  Cora runs up to him.

  “I made this for you,” she says.

  She holds out a white tissue-paper flower.

  “Put it away,” she says. “I don’t want anyone to laugh at me.”

  He puts it in his trouser pocket — the pocket that once held his geography medal.

  “You’re not my boyfriend!” Cora says quickly. Then she darts away like a rabbit.

  Jomon wants to laugh. Then he wants to cry.

  The world is garbage, he thinks. Nobody wants that kid? The world is garbage. He will be well rid of it.

  After lunch and chores, the teacher declares an art period. The young prisoners draw with bits of crayon while the teacher reads to them from A Christmas Carol.

  Jomon doesn’t feel like drawing. He doesn’t feel like doing anything. Angel gets up from his chair, squeezes past other prisoners to Jomon, picks up a random crayon and places it in Jomon’s hand. When Jomon still doesn’t do anything, Hi comes over and moves Jomon’s crayon hand on the paper.

  “Draw,” says Hi.

  The teacher keeps reading.

  Jomon looks at the line Hi has made him draw, a dark purple crayon mark. He draws another line to add to it, then another, then another.

  Half an hour later, when Jomon’s paper is filled with purple marks, Officer Grant walks back into the schoolroom, carrying a cardboard box.

  “Come and see what we have for you today!”

  The young prisoners gather around.

  Jomon stays put. He sees the name of his old school on the box and he knows what is inside it. His classmates came through.

  The young prisoners lift the donated books out of the box one by one and spread them out all over the table. Books on stars, animals, sports and fish. Books of poetry, history, heroes and stories, books with big pictures and small words and books with no pictures and big words.

  Officer Grant stacks the artwork into a pile to make more room for the books. She glances down at the drawing at the top of the pile, then holds it up to look at it more closely. She looks at the next one, and the one after that. She sifts through the stack of drawings, looking from one to the other. She leans beside Jomon and examines the art more closely.

  Jomon sees the drawings are all of the same thing: a giant, hairy creature eating the flowers off cannonball trees.

  “Yours is different,” Officer Grant says to Jomon.

  In dark purple, Jomon has drawn his mother’s face.

  Her chin is a little bit pointy, just like his own. The dimple in her left cheek. Her eyes, kind, amused, concerned.

  How are things in Jomonland?

  “Is that your mother?” Officer Grant picks up the drawing, looks at it for a moment, then puts it back on the table. She gives Jomon’s shoulder a quick squeeze.

  “Officer Grant, where did all these books come from?” one of the young prisoners asks.

  Jomon looks up and catches her eye. He gives his head a little shake.

  “I believe the name of the school is on the box,” Officer Grant says, leaving Jomon’s side. “Why don’t you see if you can find it?”

  “Here it is!” says Cora. “Durban Park Community High School.”

  “Excellent,” says the teacher. “We have a place where we can send our thank-you letters.”

  “Can I write my letter on the back of my drawing?”

  Officer Grant puts the drawings back on the table so the letters can be written. To Jomon, she says, “I’ve thought about getting books for this place for a long time, but other things always get in the way. This is a good thing you did. I won’t forget it.”

  * * *

  Later, Jomon heads back to the dorm with the other boys to wait for supper. He stretches out on his cot and looks at the drawing of his mother’s face. He places it face down against his chest.

  He looks around the dorm. Boys are reading. A few read silently to themselves. Two share a copy of a Black Panther graphic novel. Angel sits with one of the smaller boys and reads out loud from My Side of the Mountain. Hi is sitting on the end of Lucky’s cot, while Lucky reads to him from A Treasury of Animal Stories.

  Jomon gets up and walks to the window. He wishes he c
ould tell his mother about the books. It was the sort of thing she was always doing — cooking for sick neighbors, collecting clothes for a family who’d lost their home in a fire.

  She would be proud of him for the books.

  He is pulled from his thoughts by the sight of Officer Grant walking around the cannonball trees. He watches as she looks around and shades her eyes to see better. She takes a step, then lifts up her foot as if she has stepped in something unpleasant. She takes a plastic evidence bag out of her pocket and collects a sample from the ground.

  Jomon wonders what in the world she is doing.

  24

  “There may have been sightings.”

  Officer Grant is meeting with the museum officials in the chief executive’s office later that night. Mrs. Simson is with them.

  “There may have been sightings?” the security head asks. “What does that mean?”

  “It means there may have been sightings,” says Officer Grant. She keeps a close eye on the officials while she talks.

  Her specialty on the police force is looking for child runaways. Finding the runaway is only half the work. The other part is finding out why the child ran. More than one hitting parent has come under Officer Grant’s critical eye.

  “Where were these sightings?” the chief executive asks. “We’ll get a team over there now and retrieve it.”

  “This is now a police matter,” says Officer Grant. “You’ll do nothing without our say so.”

  “Excuse me,” says the head of security, sounding not at all like he feels he needs to be excused, “but the sloth is our property. If you know where it is, you have to give it back to us.”

  “If it is stolen property, it must be held as evidence,” says Officer Grant. “If it is lost property, then we must do an investigation to see who is responsible for such an expensive loss. And if it is a runaway, then I will need to determine why the sloth ran away and what is the best place for it to live in from now on.”

  “It’s a museum exhibit,” says the chief executive. “Museum exhibits don’t run away.”

  Officer Grant keeps secret from the officials something she has in her pocket — an analysis of the dung sample she collected after stepping in it in the cannonball thicket. The zoologist at the Georgetown zoo says it’s from the sloth family, but not from any sloth she’s ever seen.

  “She is not an ‘it’,” says Mrs. Simson. “Her name is Gather. And she wasn’t stolen or lost. She walked away. I showed you the footprints.”

  “She,” agrees Officer Grant, nodding at Mrs. Simson. “We’ll be looking into all possibilities. Now, what sort of habitat would Gather prefer?”

  The officials look at their shoes.

  Finally, the marketing manager says, “Giant ground sloths have been extinct for twenty thousand years.”

  “Ten thousand,” corrects Mrs. Simson.

  “Extinct or not, what terrain would she head for? Jungle? Shore? Open fields?”

  None of the officials knows.

  “I deal with finances,” says the financial officer.

  “I find ways to bring people into the museum,” says the marketing manager.

  “I have lunch with funders,” says the chief executive.

  “And I protect everyone and everything,” says the head of security.

  Officer Grant shakes her head. “You mean to tell me that you are around these amazing exhibits every day — a privilege not many people in Guyana have — and you haven’t taken the time to learn about them? I should arrest you all for laziness.”

  “Gather will go to the forest,” Mrs. Simson says. “Megatherium can stand on their hind legs, reaching up into the trees to eat leaves and flowers and fruit. She’ll need food and she’ll need places where she can get away from people. If she can get to a forest, that’s where she’ll be the most happy.”

  “Someone here knows a thing or two,” says Officer Grant. “I’ve never had to look for a runaway prehistoric ground sloth before. I’m going to need expert help.” She turns to Mrs. Simson. “How would you like to be my deputy on this?”

  Mrs. Simson does not need to be asked twice. She takes the supply cupboard key out of her uniform pocket and hands it to the chief executive.

  “But you’re the cleaner!” he says.

  “The broom is in the closet,” Mrs. Simson says. And, just like Gather, she walks out of the museum.

  25

  “Jomon. Jomon, wake up.”

  Jomon is pulled from the sleep he finally fell into. Hi is shaking his leg and Angel is standing beside the bed.

  “Get up,” whispers Angel. “You’re coming with us.”

  “Where?”

  “You’re going to say goodbye to your mother,” says Hi.

  “It’s the one thing you want to do, and we’re going to help you do it,” says Angel.

  “Leave me alone.” Jomon realizes that he is gripping the white paper flower Cora gave him. He drops it to the floor. Angel picks it up and puts it back in Jomon’s hand.

  “Guard Boyton has a sick child at home,” Angel says. “She left the dorm door unlocked.”

  “They’ll catch us in the yard and I’ll be back in solitary,” Jomon says.

  “Maybe,” says Hi. “Maybe not. Maybe you’ll think of something once we get into the yard.”

  “Leave me alone,” Jomon says again.

  “Look,” says Hi, sitting down on the bed. “You’re planning on killing yourself anyway. Why not come with us? What, really, have you got to lose?”

  Jomon looks from Hi to Angel. Then he swings his feet to the floor.

  The three boys grab their sandals and head to the door. They open it and step out. They move soundlessly down the steps and into the yard.

  The main gate is closed and locked. The boys are faced with a high fence topped with strands of barbed wire.

  Not knowing how he knows to do this, Jomon picks up the Welcome mat and tosses it up to the top of the fence. It straddles the barbed wire. In seconds, he is up and over and on the other side.

  “Go ahead, son,” Hi says to Angel. “I’ll watch out for you.”

  Jomon sees Angel smile. Then Angel climbs and jumps and joins Jomon on the other side.

  Hi is last. After he climbs over the barbed wire, he pulls the Welcome mat off the pointed barbs and tosses it back down to the office door. It lands on the stoop, silently and perfectly straight, not a speck of dirt on it.

  The air smells sweeter on the free side of the fence.

  Jomon and the great-grandfathers head to the cover of the cannonball trees. At the very last second, Jomon swerves, narrowly escaping stepping in the largest single pile of dung he has ever seen.

  The young humans walk within feet of Gather, but they don’t notice her. She is very good at blending in with her surroundings.

  She has eaten every cannonball flower she can reach in the grove. She has had a little nap, and she’s thinking of moving on. This is a nice spot that she’s in, but there’s a bit too much human noise and too few trees.

  She watches the young humans head down the road. As humans go, they seem harmless.

  She strolls off in the same direction, keeping a good distance, staying sheltered by the trees. She lets out a giant burp from all the cannonball flowers. It goes out into the night as just another forest sound.

  When there are no trees to shelter her, she hurries across the open area, doing the rolling walk on the outside of her feet, protecting her long claws on the ends of her toes.

  Gather’s belly is full, she is protected by the darkness and she is free to be curious.

  Really, she is just free.

  26

  Jomon feels free. He feels like a baby goat, ready to kick and jump in a field.

  He starts running and the others run with him. They move their legs and swing their arm
s, push air in and out of their lungs and crank their hearts up as fast as they’ll pump.

  Jomon, Angel and Hi run until they can’t run another step, and then they walk — not talking, just enjoying the rhythm of one foot in front of the other.

  Jomon has never been out in this type of darkness, away from streetlights, with the stars looking so bright and so close he can almost jump and bump them with his head. He has never been on a long walk like this before. He is surprised to realize that he is actually enjoying himself, moving through his country with his two feet and his heartbeat.

  Days can get hot in Guyana, even with the lovely winds coming in from the sea. The boys walk on the open road as long as they can, but as morning brightens the sky, they shift to pathways through the bush that run parallel to the road. From here they can more easily duck and cover if they see the police.

  This path is safer, but it also traps the air and super heats it with humidity from the plants.

  In the middle of the day, Hi makes them stop.

  “We need to rest,” he tells Jomon. “We need food and water.”

  Jomon knows Hi is right but he doesn’t know what to do about it. Where are they going to sleep? What are they going to eat? He has no money.

  “The land will feed us,” Hi says. He leads them off the path to a secluded spot by a pond. There is shade and a large mossy boulder nearby to give them privacy.

  The boys sweep the ground with their feet to scare away any snakes. Then they stretch out. The boulder is covered with a strange, bristly moss, and it feels warm and soft. Everyone dozes off.

  Some time later, Jomon wakes with a start. The highest heat of the day has passed. The afternoon is thinking about slowly meandering into evening.

  Hi has a small fire burning. He’s caught three little fish and has them roasting on sticks over coals. Also in the coals are coconut half-shells full of boiled water.