The Children and the Wolves (3 page)

Why are you in detention? I asked him.
’Cause I missed the bus, Wiggins replied.

I asked him how he got to school and he told me he walked.

How far? I asked.
I don’t know, he said. Far.
Where do you live?
He said, In a apartment.
I said,
An
apartment. Why’d you miss the bus?
He replied, ’Cause my mom forgot to wake me up.
Don’t you have an alarm clock?
No, he said.
Here, I said, come here.

He walked over to me and I gave him my Timex Ironman Global Trainer GPS watch.

He took it and looked at it like it was the heart of a lion cub beating in his hand.

Don’t be late anymore, I said.

He didn’t even say thanks because he was too amazed.

Wiggins still wears the watch. He hates to get it dirty. I don’t think he’s ever taken it off.

Then I asked Orange why he was in detention and he said how he punched Sarah Margin after she narked on him for trying to copy her multiple-choice pop quiz about the French Revolution.

Let them eat cake, I said.
He had no idea what I was referring to and made a face like he’d swallowed a fork.
Eighteenth-century bullshit, I added. Where’d you punch her? I asked.
In the stomach, he replied.
In class?
At the water fountain.
You like punching girls? I asked.
He said, I don’t give a four-legged fuck. Girls. Little kids. Old people.
I said, What about animals?
I’d punch a cat, he answered.
He scratched his orange hair and dandruff floated onto his shoulders.

Why’d
you
get detention? Orange asked me.
Because I challenged Mr. Kantu to an arm-wrestling match.
No shit? he said.
Mr. Kantu? Wiggins chimed in. The football coach?
We were discussing derivatives in Advanced Calc, I explained. I raised my hand and challenged him.
Did he do it? Orange asked.
Nope, I said.
He’s got big arms, Wiggins said.
I would’ve whipped him, I said.
How do you know? Orange asked.
I said, Because I know the secret.
What secret? Wiggins asked.
The secret to winning in arm wrestling.
What is it? Orange asked, the dummy.
Forearm strength, I answered.

Then to Orange I said, You wanna punch me?
No, he answered.
Come on, I said, punch me. It’ll feel good. You can punch me right in the face.

Then Mrs. Slakeberry returned from the bathroom.

Thank you, Carla, she said.

She had brushed her hair and put it up in a bun.

Was everything okay? she asked.
Everything was great, I replied.

After detention I invited them to go to the mall with me.

My mom’s picking me up in the Lexus, I told them.

Both their faces changed when they heard the word Lexus. Put a poor kid in a one-hundred-and-eleven-thousand-dollar car and watch him suddenly act polite. They were polite as pussy willows.

It’s a six-hundred-h, I told them. Five-liter V-eight engine, continuously variable transmission, satellite radio, iPod input, DVD player. She’ll drop us off, pick us up, drive us home, door-to-door service.

So that day after detention they came to the mall with me. We ate Cinnabons and played video games and went to a Mel Gibson movie.

That was back in January and we’ve been inseparable since.

They like me because I’m rich and maternal.

And I like them because they’re lost and stupid.

One of them is also pretty but the other one is just lost and stupid.

they come out of the trees
they walk slow and their eyes glow yellow
I can see them from far away
I am the best at seeing them
my arms are dirty from the mud and the bugs
last night they got dingdong and becky
dingdong was pushing becky up a tree but they got him from behind and then becky fell and they got her too
becky was my friend
she talked about dolls and sparkles
they ate her head, the hair and everything
dingdong was dumb but he had a nice face and he told me about his pet duck and his train set
when the wolves come I make myself skinny so they cant smell me
they cant smell me and if I make myself skinny enough they wont eat me cause they dont like it when its just bones
they like it if youre chubby or if you got big feet or a fat butt
theres another boy who can run fast
his name is shane and hes got a face like a catfish
shane caught a bird and we ate it with some sticks
shane ate a stick too which made him slow and stupider than dingdong but he got smart again after the moon came
I am smaller than the others and I like my tree
raheem is chubby and he lets me curl up near his belly
he told me I would soon eat a wolf
soon he said
soon you will eat one and then more birds will come

toofairy feeds me and lets me tinkle and I know he is good

The Frog was on the news again.

Dirty Diana was watching it when I walked in. She was bleaching her feet and eating a big bag of Tostitos.

You see this? she said. Poor little girl.

According to the news, the Frog’s real name is Laurel May Gillett. This anchorwoman said she’s three-and-a-half and that she’s allergic to nuts. The anchorwoman’s hair looked like it would taste like a birthday cake. Her name is Ronette Stone and she said the Frog’s nut allergy is potentially fatal and they showed her preschool picture and talked about how the police had formed a special task force to find her, how they were going to use all these German shepherds.

The Dumas toddler has been missing for nearly ten weeks, Ronette Stone told all the viewers.

She talked about her parents Paul and Gina Gillett and her older brother Davey and her baby sister Birdy. Then they appeared all huddled on their living room sofa. There was a fireplace and a giant gray cat lying across the sofa with a face like a fat president.

Please bring our little girl back to us, Gina Gillett pleaded, crying to all the viewers. Please.

I miss my sister, Davey said. He wore big glasses and a White Sox hat and looked like one of those kids with a lot of birthmarks. Like he might have a big purple one on his stomach.

For some reason I imagined the Gilletts going sledding in the snow. Going sledding and then maybe drinking hot cocoa under a Christmas tree, one of those big white fake ones with a toy donkey and some upside-down angels under it. A paper star on top. I don’t know why I imagined that cause it was hot as hell in the living room. It was like a hundred degrees and Dirty Diana was sweating and scratching her feet.

On TV Ronette Stone went, If you have any information or anonymous tips, please call the following number.

They showed the number on the screen.

Somebody better call that number! Dirty Diana yelled. What the fuck is wrong with everybody!

She turnt to me and went, You see this shit?!

She’d been drinking Bartles and Jaymes Melon Splashes. She’d had like three bottles and the living room stunk.

You’re drunk, I told her.
No I’m not, she said.

Her mouth got all small and her chin started quivering and I thought she was going to cry.

I said, Take your drunk ass to bed, and then I went to my room and did so many push-ups I got cramps in my arms.

Before I fell asleep I couldn’t stop thinking about the Frog’s nut allergy.

*  *  *

The next day I told Bounce and Orange how the Frog was on the news. We were in Bounce’s parents’ Lexus, going to buy more cereal and milk for the Frog at Econofoods. Bounce was driving and Orange was in the passenger’s seat. I was in the back like always.

I told them about the Frog and her parents and her brother and sister. And how she’s allergic to nuts.

She’s got some condition, I said. If she eats a nut she’ll die.
She can eat
these
nuts, Orange said, grabbing his junk.
Her parents are really pale, I added. Their names are Paul and Gina.
I saw them on the news, Bounce said. Little Birdy looks like she got left in the broiler too long.
I was like, The police are starting a task force with German shepherds.
She said, It’s about time, the geniuses.

Two days later Bounce got this human scent eliminator called the Oxy Elim-A-Scent. It kills human smells in areas up to fifty feet.

Hunters use this, she said. It basically makes them undetectable.

Bounce bought it off the Internet with her parents’ credit card and had it FedExed overnight. It looks like a stereo speaker and takes four triple-A batteries.

We put it in Orange’s basement, right over the washer-dryer unit.

Now we don’t got to worry about no German shepherds.

I had this dream that my mom was trapped inside a vacuum cleaner. The vacuum cleaner was in the middle of this dirty field full of broken beer bottles and rusted-out cars and half-burnt picnic tables. I was walking through the field when I heard my mom’s voice.

Timothy! she cried. In here, Timothy!

I tried to open the back of the vacuum cleaner, but it wouldn’t budge. I found a rock and hit it like a thousand times. I even used a car part. Then I realized the vacuum cleaner was plugged into this huge telephone pole so I turnt it on cause I thought that would somehow make it open, but the vacuum cleaner started sucking up all the broken glass and car parts from the field.

It was vibrating like crazy and blood was suddenly spilling out of it.

I could hear my mom screaming, so I turnt it off.

I was like, Mom? . . . Mom?

But all you could hear was her screaming.

Now whenever I see a vacuum cleaner I feel like my head might pop off.

Even a DustBuster fucks me up.

I threw our vacuum cleaner out two days ago. It was in the broom closet next to this life-size cardboard cutout of Paula Abdul from American Idol. My dad was sitting in the living room, watching The Ghost Whisperer and he barely noticed. I think he used to sleep with it. I heard him talking to it once.

Oh, Paula, he said. Come on now, Paula.

I didn’t just leave the vaccuum in front of the house. I walked it all the way down the street and put it in the dumpster.

I hate dreams.

Dreams and tunafish.

The whole thing with the Frog started with the Poet, Wilbur Logg. He came and spoke to Honors English. We’d been reading
Animal Farm
and Mr. Moyer said he had a surprise for us, that some famous poet who lived nearby was kind enough to take time out of his busy schedule to visit class and that we would resume our George Orwell discussion next time.