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Feral Boy Meets Girl

William Jablonsky

    Mum has banished me from the kitchen to prevent me from pilfering raw meat from the cutting board again—I have come far in acclimating to the demands of polite society, but am not immune to temptation. I slink out the doorway and slump into the papa-san chair in the sunroom, the rich cow-blood smell still tickling my nostrils.
    With nothing else to do, my eyes drift toward the sparrows’ nest just under the awning, the little pointed beaks emerging from the bound mass of twigs and grass. It is a perfect spot, the baby birds snug and safe from the sun and wind. It would be so easy to climb up the gutter and pop each soft, juicy thing into my mouth, silence the desperate wiggling with a little crunch, and slide it down my throat. But after last year’s mess Mum made me promise not to do so again, and I mean to keep my word, if I can.
    “Sweetie?” Mum calls from the kitchen, as if anticipating my temptation. “Could you go water the bushes while I’m cooking?”
    My trance breaks. I swear the woman is psychic. “Sure,” I call back, and head for the front door.
    I have reached the point in my reintegration at which I am allowed outside unsupervised. Gone are the days when I would bolt across the street for the elms at the edge of the country club, or urinate on the tricolor beech in full view of the neighbors. I can be trusted. Just a normal thirteen-year-old boy doing normal thirteen-year-old boy things.
    I unwind the hose from its roller, kick off my buckskin slides—a compromise between my contempt for shoes and my occasional need to wear them—and begin misting the newly-planted rosemary and sand cherries along the front walkway. Since I was “civilized,” my feet have become soft, uncalloused, the nails trimmed and pink, and I feel every groove in the walkway beneath them. It feels good.
    Then I look up and see a girl about my age running down the sidewalk past our house—tall for her age, with round, soft features and sandy-blonde hair done up in a long braid. She is wearing a lavender sundress and white sandals that hug her toes, and clutching a long black case to her chest.
    About half a block behind her are two more girls: one plump with straight, greasy black hair, in a ripped black T-shirt and holey jeans, the other a tall freckled redhead in tight black jeans and an equally tight camisole. They are running after her, shouting names omitted from my education, but clearly not complimentary. The blond girl’s lips are scrunched, her eyes wet and shimmery. The big plump girl runs up behind her and tries to snatch the case from her arms. None of them seem to notice me.
    “Why can’t you just leave me alone?” the blonde girl pleads.
    “Because this is too much fun,” the plump one says, and grabs the case.
    “Stop it!” says the blonde girl, pulling back.
    “Make me,” the fat one says, and she and her accomplice try to wrestle it away.
    Mum and Dad have warned me to avoid confrontations with other children, lest the neighbors see me as a threat. So though I recognize the injustice, I pretend not to notice. The blonde girl crumples to the sidewalk in a fetal position trying to protect her parcel. But in moments she will lose, and its contents will be ruined. She looks up, stares me right in the eye. “Please help,” she pleads through tears.
    And that is all I require.
    I turn the hose to its fiercest, sharpest setting and blast the fat girl in the face. Hair and clothes soaked, she screams and falls to the pavement. I blast her again. The freckled redhead opens her mouth to shout at me and receives a mouthful of cold water.
    “You little prick!” the fat one shouts, picking herself up from the sidewalk. “I’ll...”
    I blast her once more. “Go away now,” I say softly, resisting the urge to bare my teeth, “or I’ll shoot you in the eyes. It will hurt.”
    She spits out a mouthful of water. “When I tell my brother, you’re dead.”
    I raise the hose once more, as threateningly as I can. They flee, shrieking epithets as they run. I recognize a few—Dad is an angry driver.
    I approach the blonde girl, but leave plenty of space. I have never been so close to a girl my own age. Even a few feet away I can smell the strawberry shampoo in her hair. “Are you okay?”
    She nods, picks herself up off the sidewalk, wipes her wet eyes. “Thank you.” For a second or two she stares at me as if she recognizes me. “I haven’t seen you at school. Do you go to St. Joseph’s?”
    “No,” I say. “Homeschooled.” I have never had a proper conversation with a girl before.
    She dusts herself off, picks up her case. “Oh. Well, thanks for helping me. Those girls are such bitches. I’m Katie, by the way.”
    “Jeremy.” It still feels strange bending my mouth to say my own name.
    I watch her smooth calves tense and relax as she runs home.
    I slip my clogs on, go back inside, wipe my feet on the rug in the breezeway. Mum has lost her tolerance for dirty footprints on the linoleum.
    “Hi sweetie,” Mum calls from the kitchen. I can still hear her chopping, smell the cooked bacon. “What took you so long?”
    “I just saved a girl from a couple of bitches.”
    The chopping stops, and Mum comes charging out of the kitchen, seizes my arm, drags me to the sink. I dutifully swish with soapy water, and once I’ve spit it down the drain she stands behind me, arms folded, face scrunched as if she’s just eaten a lemon.
    “Young man, where did you ever hear that word?”
    I tell her about everything but the hose—she might not understand. Her hand goes to her mouth and in a moment she is hugging me so tight I can barely breathe, her black Kiss-The-Chef apron pressed over my nose and mouth. She stops smothering me but holds me out at arm’s length. “Never say that word again. Understand?”
    I nod.
    Mum switches gears in an instant. “Set the table, will you? Your father will be home in a few minutes.”
    I gather up the silverware and plates, and as I am laying them out on the table I catch a glimpse of Katie out the dining room window, pedaling her bicycle along the sidewalk. She has changed from her sundress into a pink camisole with spaghetti straps and white shorts. She looks toward our house and smiles.
    Though she can’t possibly see me, I smile back.

    The next morning, after helping Mum plant petunias along the walkway, I am stuck going over my endless math and reading homework while the stereo plays muffled Mendelssohn in the living room. Surely a real school must be more stimulating than this. Soon, with Dr. Zbryski’s blessing, I might find out. I wonder if Katie and I will be in the same class.
    I glance outside while Mum is dusting; the baby sparrows are getting too big for the nest. A strong gust could blow them right onto the patio, alone and vulnerable. Out of habit, I lick my lips.
    “Back to your homework,” Mum says, and I snap out of it. Psychic, I tell you.
    After “school” I pull weeds from the cocoa-scented mulch along the front walk and driveway—idle hands and baby birds are not a good mix. I let the beetles and ants pass over my gloved hands and bare feet without popping a single one into my mouth, nutritious though they may be. I am sometimes appalled at the restraint this new life requires; when I was small and still in the woods, one ate what one could, when one could. Fuzzy-mum was adamant about this.
    They say she might have been a lynx, maybe a cougar, though neither has been seen in this area for years. I will never know for sure, since she disappeared when I was very young, barely able to climb a tree. From my perspective, near the ground, she was a pair of bright yellow eyes and warm gray fur hugging my whole body on cold mornings. Mum encourages therapeutic snuggle-time with Clarence, our big black Persian, who spends most of his time catatonic on the back porch. But it’s not the same.
    Just after 3:00, when my chores are done and it’s time for a little quiet reading, the doorbell rings. Mum answers.
    “Sweetie,” Mum says in her most precious voice. “You have a visitor.”
    I look up from my birdwatchers’ guide: Katie is in the foyer in a periwinkle tank-top and white capris, hair loose and lustrous over her shoulders, round wire-rimmed glasses dangling over the edge of her nose. In her hands is a foil-covered plate.
    I stand up.
    “Hi,” she says, smiling. “I brought these to thank you for helping me yesterday.”
    “Jeremy,” Mum says coyly, “Aren’t you going to invite her in?”
    “Come in,” I say, my voice weak and strangely high.
    She enters; I am determined to be civilized, so I pull out a chair for her. “Sit down. Please.”
    “Thanks,” she says.
    “I’ll leave you two alone,” Mum says. I hear her creaky footfalls on the stairs.
    Katie pulls the foil away from the plate, revealing a dozen or so monstrous cookies with chocolate chips, nuts, and M&Ms. “I baked them last night. I call them my ‘everything’ cookies. Try one.”
    I do, and it’s good. I munch slowly; too much sugar and I’ll be climbing the curtains and hanging off Mum’s decorative rods. I smile and nod.
    “I’m glad you like them,” she says. “And really, thank you.”
    I finish chewing before I speak, like a civilized person. “It’s okay.”
    Then she says something I wish she hadn’t. “My mom says you lived out in the woods until you were five.”
    “Six,” I correct her, still chewing. “Hard to say.”
    She laughs. “My mom used to put her hand over my eyes when we drove past your house, in case you were running around the yard naked.”
    I feel my skin go hot and red—the first time I have ever been truly embarrassed at my past behavior. “I don’t do that anymore.”
    She giggles again, high and sweet. “I know that. She said you were still...what did she call it? Feral. Like, dangerous. But you’re not.”
    I shake my head as I chew another bite of cookie. “Not anymore,” I say. “I might even get to go to school in the fall.”
    “That’d be great,” she says. “Then I can introduce you to everybody.”
    We talk for about an hour more, polishing off half the cookies between us while she tells me all about school and its endless possibilities: math and reading and civics and basketball and soccer and dances, so many things one could never be bored or lonely.
    Finally, close to five, she gets up. “I have to go home now,” she says. “My mom will snap if I’m late for dinner. But thank you again. See you tomorrow after school?”
    “Yes,” I say, my mouth full of cookie.
    I watch her get on her bicycle and ride away, her laughter ringing like a bell in my brain.

***

    Dad gets home at five-thirty, and once he’s changed out of his charcoal suit and into his pink polo and khaki shorts, it’s time for dinner—chicken-noodle-broccoli casserole with American cheese melted on top. Mum says she makes it for sentimental reasons—she and Dad lived on this when they were young. It tastes like salted mucous. I eat it anyway.
    We eat in silence for the first few minutes, our forks making little ringing sounds on the plate, followed by Dad slurping beer from his mug. Mum finally breaks the silence.
    “Guess what, Dan,” she says. “Jeremy made a friend today. A girl.”
    “Really?” he says, raising a sharp silver eyebrow. “Is she cute?”
    I do not know how to respond—the question seems strangely invasive. So I shrug.
    Mum answers for me. “She’s very pretty. Jeremy saved her from some bullies yesterday.”
    “Is that so?” Dad’s face loses its bemused expression and turns serious. “You didn’t get in a fight...”
    “No,” I insist.
    He sighs, long and loud. “Thank God,” he says. “That’s the last thing we need. So what’s this girl’s name? Have I seen her before?”
    “Katie,” I answer. “She lives a few blocks down.”
    His face is blank, devoid of its usual sloppy grin. “You like this girl?”
    I don’t wish to answer, but I dutifully say, “Yes.”
    Dad leans over with his thick, hairy arm and pats me hard on the back, an aggression born from his career as a Buick dealer. “That’s good to hear, son,” he says in his low cigar-and-whiskey voice. “A boy your age needs friends. Just...you know. Be careful.”
    “What are you saying?”
    He rests his huge hairy hand on my forearm. “I’m not saying anything. I’m glad you made a friend.”
    “Okay.” I grab my plate and slink away, unable to ignore Mum and Dad’s eyes on me. As I go upstairs to my room I hear them whispering, softly enough they think I can’t hear. But fuzzy-mum taught me to listen hard and hear everything.
    “I thought we wanted this for him,” Mum says. “It’s important.”
    “I know, Miriam,” comes Dad’s reply. “I just worry something will go wrong. Even a little misunderstanding...”
    Mum is louder this time. “And just what do you think he’s going to do?”
    “Nothing, probably. I just worry.”
    It is hard to listen. Mum and Dad keep telling me I can be normal if I want to, that I’m very nearly there. I wonder if they have been lying.
    I splay out flat on my Star Wars bedspread—I am not a fan of Star Wars—and lay silent for a while; somewhere along the line I fall asleep, and in the morning my shoes are off and someone has draped the spare comforter over me.

***

    Katie walks past the house just after three, in denim shorts, white sneakers and a purple tank top. I take my time pulling weeds out of the mulch so I can be outside when she passes.
    “Hello,” she says sweetly. “More gardening, I see?”
    “Just about done,” I say, pulling up the last plantain leaves I have been saving until her arrival. I cannot think of anything interesting to say, so I point at the black case in her hand. “What is that? I see you carrying it around all the time.”
    She sets down her backpack and opens it. It is a long black tube, pointed at one end with a slight bell at the other, covered in an intricate network of chrome keys. “It’s an oboe. I’m in band.”
    I have never seen such a thing in person; my musical education is limited to what Mum plays on the radio while I do my homework. She has a ragged upright piano in the living room, but she only plays it on New Year’s Eve, when I am in bed and my parents and their friends sing drunken songs downstairs.
    “Are you any good?”
    “I’m first chair,” she says, though I don’t know what that means. “Miss Klepsh thinks I should be a music major when I go to college.”
    “Play something,” I demand. We sit on the front porch; Katie straightens her back, takes a deep breath, and plays. The tone is low and mellow, and while I am no critic, the melody is simple, elegant and lilting. I resist the urge to sway.
    “I like that,” I say. “What is that song?”
    She stops playing and looks at me with one eyebrow raised high. “You’re kidding. That’s ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.’”
    I shrug.
    “You mean your mom never sang that to you when you were little?”
    I shake my head. I was six when Mum and Dad found me, naked and shivering in the rotting husk of a tree trunk, too old for such things.
    “What else don’t you know about?”
    I shrug again. “Play something else,” I plead.
    She begins, but after a few seconds her eyes dart to the street and she stops. “Oh boy,” she mutters.
    I look up; two blocks down I see Janice, the fat girl from a few days ago, and a boy of about seventeen in a torn black sleeveless tee shirt, a backward black baseball cap, and gray plaid shorts. He is scowling.
    I lean over to Katie. “Who is that?”
    “That’s Max. Janice’s brother. You should go in now.”
    But it’s too late. I see Janice point at me; the boy throws his cap on the ground and begins to march toward us. I feel the tiny hairs on my forearms and neck rise.
    “You the little fucker that sprayed my sister with a hose?” he spits, pointing at me. He is a head taller than me and twice as thick.
    I stand up. “Yes.”
    “Leave him alone, Max,” Katie pleads. “He didn’t do anything to you.”
    “Shut up, twat,” he says, glowering just a few feet from us. I don’t know what that word means, but the sound of it is ugly.
    I am determined to be civilized. “That wasn’t very nice,” I say.
    Max repeats it back mockingly. Then he stares at me for a second. “Hey, aren’t you that kid they found fucking gophers out in the woods? Or was it squirrels?”
    “Go away,” I say.
    He smirks, lets out a mirthless laugh. “Or what? You’ll hump my leg?” He gives me a shove and I fall back on the porch.
    I feel something swell up in my chest and throat, Katie’s and Janice’s screams muffled and distant. There is only this boy standing over me, his blank stupid face in mine. My lips retract over my teeth, my fingers curl into claws, and then I am on him. We tumble together to the concrete walkway; I land on top of him, my right arm pinning his head to the ground, my canines poking into the flesh at the side of his neck. A little bite and the blood will spurt, and that will be the end of this. He moans, loud and desperate.
    Then Max goes limp, lays his head back against the grass, arms flat at his side. Without a thought I release him. He sucks in a breath, rears his fist back; I feel a dull impact against my left eye, and find myself on the ground. He runs away, pressing his hand against the teeth marks in his neck.
    From inside I hear Mum shout. I turn to Katie, but she is standing still on the porch, her oboe hanging from her trembling hands, her eyes wide and unblinking.
    “I should go home,” she murmurs.
    Before I can say anything Mum is outside, helping me up and leading me back to the house. Behind me I hear Katie pedaling away, fast as she can.

    Mum is pressing a plastic bag full of ice to my eye when Dad comes home. “What’s going on?” he asks.
    Mum sighs. “Our little angel got into a fight with the Henkel boy.”
    “What?” Dad says, his voice flat and humorless. “What have I told you about getting into fights?”
    Mum raises a hand to silence him. “Just wait, Dan. We need to talk.”
    He follows her into the kitchen, turning once to point at me. “Don’t you move a muscle, mister.”
    I nod.
    I hear them bickering for a half-hour or more, Mum trying to explain what happened, Dad interjecting the risk in any physical confrontation.
    “They didn’t call the cops, did they?”
    “I don’t think so,” Mum says. “That boy would have to explain what he was doing here.”
    “At least there’s that,” Dad says.
    He comes out a few seconds later. I dutifully remain on Mum’s blue floral couch, remove the icepack from my eye.
    “Leave it,” he says. He looks me over carefully. “That’ll be quite the shiner in the morning.”
    I wait for his explosive baritone, but he just looks at me all sad and weary, as if he’s dreaded this day for a long time.
    “I didn’t do anything wrong,” I try to explain. “He pushed me and...”
    “Your mother told me. You could’ve killed that boy.”
    “I wouldn’t,” I say. “I didn’t even hurt him.”
    He sits down next to me on the couch. “Fighting doesn’t solve anything. It just gets you into trouble. Especially you. It was years before Social Services left us alone. One more incident like that and they might come for you.”
    I have never heard such worry in Dad’s voice; I feel a little moisture well up at the corners of my eyes. “I’m sorry,” I insist. “But what was I supposed to do?”
    Dad sighs, sinks into the cushions. “I don’t know. Just not...that.”
    My eye is so cold I can’t feel it. “Then what?”
    He thinks for a second, staring down at the floor. Then he looks up at me like he’s just had the greatest idea in the world. “I’ll teach you how to box,” he says. “Just...no more trying to rip people’s throats out. It doesn’t sit well with the neighbors.”
    I nod. “So it’s not okay to do what I did, but it is okay to punch him in the face.”
    He thinks about it for a second, then shrugs and says, “Yeah.” He pulls his creaky body up off the couch and heads into the kitchen for his beer. “We’ll start Saturday.”

***

    The next morning I go outside and wait in the yard for Katie, hoping to catch her as she rides her bicycle to school. There’s no sign of her.
    I feel an aching need to explain myself.
    I wait until the junior high lets out and go looking for her. While I have never seen her house, I assume it cannot be far; this street dead-ends in a cul-de-sac four blocks down. So for the first time in years, I leave the yard alone, scanning every yard, looking into windows for a flash of her blonde hair.
    I don’t have to go far before I see her bicycle in the garage of a bright yellow bungalow. I step onto the porch, and for the first time in my life, I ring a doorbell. A few seconds later, a bearded, bearlike man opens the door.
    “Yes?” is all he says.
    Fuzzy-mum taught me to retreat when one is severely overmatched. But I ignore my quivering legs and stand my ground.
    “Is Katie in?” I mutter.
    He glares sternly. “And you are?”
    “Jeremy,” I answer. He tilts his head as if he recognizes me, then shrugs and calls for Katie. Half a minute later she appears at the door, hair falling long and straight over her shoulders, glasses off. I cannot speak.
    “Hi,” she says meekly.
    I can barely push the words out. “I’m sorry I scared you yesterday,” I stammer. “I’m not really like that. Not anymore.”
    She sits down on the front step, pats the wood for me to follow suit. Her bare toes are just visible under the smooth skin of her leg. “It’s okay. I was just upset.”
    “So you’re not mad?”
    She smiles, and all the weight drops from my shoulders. “Is that what you thought?” She reaches out; her fingertips land lightly on my leg. “Max is a colossal dick. I wish you’d bitten his head off.” She laughs, and instantly I feel better.
    I run home giddy, propelled by a force I do not recognize.

***

    Later, as Mum grills pork chops in the backyard, Dad shepherds me into the garage. We are both bare-chested in gym shorts and sneakers, our hands stuffed into oversized padded gloves, my head wrapped in padded vinyl. The rubber mouthguard is loose over my teeth.
    “If you’re going to defend a girl’s honor,” Dad says, “best learn to defend yourself.” He begins to shuffle on the concrete floor. “Keep moving,” he huffs. “Don’t stand still. Jab with your left...” He pauses to demonstrate, “...and come at ‘em with your right.” He throws a variety of combinations in the air until, two minutes later, he seems winded, sweat beading in his iron-gray chest hair. “Okay,” he says, beckoning me with a gloved hand. “Let’s see what you got.”
    I put my fists up and start moving. He jabs; I dodge, effortlessly.
    “Come on,” he says through the mouthguard. “Don’t just dodge. Hit back.”
    The idea of punching him is alien to me, but I rear back and punch his hairy belly. The blow hits like a soft slap.
    “Come on, little man,” he taunts. I feel a gentle tap on my forehead as he hits me with a light jab. “Hit me! Hard as you can.”
    So I do—a left to the gut, a hard right to the side of his head, and he flops face-first on the concrete.
    I bend to help him up, expecting his wrath any second. “I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to.”
    “S’okay,” he grumbles, slowly hoisting himself up. “You’ve got this covered.”

***

    Mum and Dad are under the impression that Katie and I have ridden our bikes to the Dairy Dreem for ice cream; but instead we are at the state park where I was found seven years ago. They have forbidden me to come here alone, for fear I might vanish into the forest and never come out. Once they’d have been right. The woods are deep, twenty square miles of forest to hide in, a little creek to drink from, rabbits and grubs and birds to eat—all I could ever need.
    We abandon our bicycles at the first picnic area and start walking. The woods are a warm hug to my senses: the smell of decayed leaves; hot dogs cooking at a campsite; the sound of cicadas, frogs, red-winged blackbirds. I am home.
    “This is where they found you?”
    “Yes.’ I point to the hollow log, now collapsed, where I slept. “Right over there.” I stare for a moment, remembering the feel of moss and warm fur against my bare skin.
    “Are you okay?” Katie says, startling me. “You’re crying.”
    Only then do I notice the tear streaming from my right eye. I turn from her.
    “We can go back to my house if you want,” she says softly.
    I wipe my eyes. “I’m fine.”
    Once I’ve pulled myself together we go deeper in. I show her every nook where I used to hide. We kick off our sandals and go wading in the creek; I snatch crayfish and little shad off the bottom to show off, then—against my better judgment—let them slip back into the brownish water. Finally we reach the massive beech tree where I used to hide and watch the campers and hikers, its leaves a thick cone that could conceal anything.
    She stares at the top. “You climbed all the way up there?”
    I nod. “It’s easy. Just don’t think about it.” I run for the tree, beckon to her. “Come on—I’ll show you how.”
    “It looks really high,” she says, stepping into my cupped hands to grab the lowest limb.
    I climb right beside her, pointing out each safe handhold. In a few minutes she catches on and her fear is gone. Before too long we’re near the top, perched on the last two safe branches, our arms hugging the trunk. “My dad would kill me if he knew I was doing this,” she says.
    “So would mine.”
    We stay up there for a while, staring down at the canopy, the cars and RVs pulling into the park.
    She smiles. “This is nice. I could stay up here forever.”
    Her hand touches mine; I feel its warmth. She smells like sweat and strawberries. I lean toward her, and she toward me. Her lips meet mine, quick and soft. Then she looks away, blushing. “We should probably go back,” she says with a guilty smile.
    We slink down the tree, me a foot or two beneath her in case she slips, then track down our bicycles. On our way home we do not speak.

    When I get home Mum and Dad are waiting for me at the dining room table. Their faces are grim.
    “You were supposed to be home half an hour ago,” Mum says.
    “Sorry.” I pass them and grab half a watermelon from the kitchen, plunge my canines in. “Got distracted,” I mumble, mouth full.
    Dad stands up, pulls out a chair. “I think we’d better have a talk.”
    Mum gets up and quietly leaves. This does not look promising.
    I sit. We stare awkwardly for a minute. “Jeremy,” he finally says, “When a boy and a girl really like each other...”
    I suddenly feel about to gag. “Dad,” I interrupt, “I know what sex is.” I saw a lot from that beech tree: birds, animals, men and women, men and men. And then there’s late-night cable after Mum and Dad are asleep.
    “Well,” he says, “it’s a little more complicated than on TV.”
    “What are you saying?” I demand.
    He rolls his eyes. “Jesus, you’re going to make me say it. Your mother and I need to know you’re not gonna force yourself on her.”
    I feel my eyes go wide. “You mean rape her? How could you even think that?”
    “I’m sorry.” His palms smack the table. “I just want to know you can handle this.”
    “And not rape her. I get it.” I get up, shove the chair back under the table despite Dad’s warning, run upstairs to my room and slam the door. I hear arguing downstairs, muffled. I don’t even try to listen.
    I climb out the window and quietly slink down the gutter. Halfway down I stop; the sparrows’ nest is at eye level, the baby birds fully-feathered, mouths reaching up to me. So easy. Mum wouldn’t notice just one missing. But I have given my word.
    I run to Katie’s, see her silhouetted in her bedroom window. No one is around to see, so I climb up.
    She’s a bit startled when I knock on her window, but lets me in.
    “My Dad’ll kill you if he finds you in here,” she says. “You know how to use a doorbell, right?”
    “Yes. Sorry.”
    “What’s the matter? You’re shaking.”
    I look down at my hands; I can’t keep them from quivering. I tell her what Dad said. I don’t know why, but I feel like I should.
    “That’s silly,” she says. “You’d never do that.”
    And all at once the weight falls from my chest.
    “Your dad really hurt you,” she says, cooing as if over an infant.
    I nod.
    “I’m sorry.” She wraps her arms around my neck and squeezes hard. “If it helps, my mom and dad don’t have a clue either.”
    We stay like that for a minute, until she finally releases me. “You should probably go before you get caught.”
    I drape a leg out the window.
    “And call next time?”
    I nod again. We laugh for a minute, before I plunge back into the evening sun. I sneak back unnoticed, and for some reason I can’t stop smiling.
    “Everything all right now?” Mum asks when she summons me to dinner.
    “Yeah,” I say, with an impregnable grin. “Everything’s fine.”

***

    Katie and I are heading home from the Dairy Dreem on our bicycles, steering one-handed, the remains of our chocolate malts in the other. My sugar rush is in full swing; head abuzz, I watch Katie’s ankles as she pedals ahead of me.
    I hear a car with a bad muffler behind us.
    It pulls even, hugging the curb, and slows to keep pace. I turn to see Max in the driver’s seat of an old hatchback, his face contorted into a stupid mocking smirk. Another boy, scruffy and greasy-haired in a “Megadeth” T-shirt is in the passenger seat; in the back seat is a girl in a tube top, a crude butterfly tattoo on her left shoulder. She is the only one grinning.
    “Leave us alone!” Katie cries out.
    “Look at me, squirrel-fucker!” Max shouts out the passenger-side window, nearly smothering the other boy, a cigarette clenched in his teeth. I don’t. Then I feel a quick, hot sensation on the back of my neck, hear the cigarette butt fall to the pavement.
    “Hey, man, don’t do that,” the other boy protests, but Max isn’t listening.
    I could be civilized, ride home, let Dad call the police. I could also leap through the car window and maul him. Neither response seems appropriate.
    I rear back, estimate the trajectory, and hurl my malt cup. It misses his passenger entirely and hits Max square in the face, spattering him with chocolate-espresso ice cream. The brakes screech. The other two are laughing at him. He flops out of the car and starts to chase us, but we’re long gone.
    It does not seem safe to go home, so we make for the park while Katie calls her parents to come retrieve us. “My dad’s calling the cops,” she says, breathless, flipping her phone shut. “He’ll be here in a few minutes.” We find the nearest picnic table and sit, our backs straight and tense. The park is mostly empty, not even a ranger in sight.
    I hear Max’s car before I see it.
    “Run,” I tell her. “Into the woods.”
    The hatchback skids into the gravel lot. Max gets out first, teeth bared, face taut and scowling, the remnants of my malt still splattered on his shirt. I once saw this look on a badger who invaded our hollow log. No amount of growling could dissuade it, so fuzzy-mum had to fight until it left. I spent that night licking her wounds clean.
    The other boy and the girl get out as well, slowly. Both look frightened.
    “Come on, Max!” the boy shouts. “Leave him alone.”
    But Max isn’t listening.
    I stop, plant my feet and put up my fists the way Dad taught me—we will have at it like civilized men.
    Then he pulls a knife out of his pocket.
    I turn and run.
    Katie is twenty yards ahead of me; I catch up to her in seconds, Max’s footfalls crunching the dead leaves behind me. “I’ll go easier if you don’t run,” he calls to me.
    We run until we reach the beech tree. “Keep running,” I tell her, and start to climb. Halfway up the tree, I don’t see her anymore. But Max is upon me, standing at the base of the trunk. Ten seconds later I’m all the way up, beyond his reach.
    “Come on down,” he says.
    “No,” I call back.
    He hacks at the bark with his knife. “I can wait here all day.”
    So can I. He stares up into the branches, calculating whether he’ll make it. He won’t. He slips the knife into his pocket and climbs. He is slow, clumsy. Branches crack under his weight.
    Deeper into the woods I hear Katie’s voice, high and desperate as she talks to the 911 operator.
    I inch higher, Max a few feet beneath me. A branch breaks in his hand, and he tries to grab another. I am close enough to reach down and guide him to the nearest sturdy limb. It would be the civilized thing to do.
    He reaches for another handhold, but the green wood snaps in his hand and he falls.
    His body bounces off the lower limbs like he’s made of soft rubber, flipping end-over-end until he lands face-first on an exposed root. He doesn’t move after that, and his head is turned too far to the left. His eyes are open but there’s nothing behind them.

    It takes about ten minutes for the police to find us, five more for the paramedics. From the treetop I watch as they load Max onto a gurney and slide him into the waiting ambulance. Katie looks away. I do not come down, even though the policemen say they know what happened, that it isn’t my fault, that I’m not in any trouble. Then Mum and Dad arrive, saying the same thing.
    “It’s okay,” Katie calls to me. “It’s over now. Please come down.”
    I try to explain why I can’t, but language fails me. She starts to climb up the tree—I would be fine with that, just her and me up here, away from the world. But her father pulls her away. “Come down,” she says again.
    I don’t. I won’t.
    Slowly, the crowd peels off—first the ambulance, then the campers. After a while Katie’s father drags her away. She looks up at me once and gives me a sad little wave. And then it’s only Mum and Dad and a few policemen.
    Mum and Dad take turns telling me to come down, because it’s safe now and they love me. I barely listen. Somewhere, right about now, Janice and her parents are finding out about Max and are grieving for him; one of them, no doubt, will swear revenge, maybe with fists, or a baseball bat, or a gun. Maybe they’ll get it; maybe I really will rip someone’s throat out. There seems no point in coming down.
    I can wait them all out up here if I have to, until morning and the next day and the next, until even Mum and Dad give up and go home. It will break their hearts, but it’s all for the best—sooner or later it was bound to come to this. And then, when I’m finally alone, I’ll creep down, climb up to Katie’s window in the dark. I’ll take her hand and lead her out into the night, and we’ll set out together into the woods, deeper than we’ve ever been, where everything is simple and wild and clear.

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