The Wild Things (20 page)

“We need to get the owls,” she whispered.

“Now?” Max asked.

“Yeah, this is the only time,” she said, glancing at Carol to make sure he hadn’t been woken. “Now!”

Max felt duty-bound to get the owls, essential for the protection of the kingdom. So he got up, careful not to wake Carol or anyone, and jogged after Katherine, who was already at the doorway to the fort. The sun was newly risen, and just as Max was realizing that this was the first morning Carol hadn’t felt the need to sit waiting for the sun’s arrival, Katherine lifted Max and threw him on her back.

“Grab my scruff,” she said.

Max did, and Katherine immediately leapt from the fort area, landing first in the many-colored meadow, then atop one of her striped treetop platforms, and then in a forest of pink translucent plants, each time touching the ground with the speed and delicacy of a hummingbird.

They saw parts of the island Max didn’t know existed -- an area of high yellow grass populated by walking snakes, snakes who stood on hind legs of some kind, living in a clearing with a dozen geysers spouting bright orange plumes of sparks and mist. Finally they landed on the far side of the island, on a wide white beach with high dunes and corkscrew rock formations, cerulean blue, jutting everywhere from the sand.

“Do you like it?” Katherine asked.

Max nodded. He loved it.

“I come here when I want to be alone,” Katherine said. “I have to come here to remember who I am and who I’m not. See them?”

Katherine pointed up and Max saw two birds, red dots in the sky, flying in ellipses, then figure eights, crossing in perfect time. Max was hypnotized by the symmetry of their flight.

“Are those the owls?” he asked, hushed.

“Are those the owls?” Katherine repeated, mimicking him. “Of course they are. They’re not seals. Everyone ate the last ones for dinner last night.”

Before Max could think of a witty comeback, and just as the thought of real seals being eaten by his friends had sunk in, he saw one of the owls plummet. It had been hit by a rock, thrown by Katherine, and so a red blur fell, almost straight down, from the sky. Max watched in horror, frozen, not wanting to see the bird crash into the earth but unable to look away.

But just as it approached the ground he saw that Katherine was there, underneath, waiting nonchalantly for its arrival. She caught the owl like an outfielder would a pop fly. Without waiting a beat and while cradling the first owl in her arm, Katherine threw another rock into the air, it connected with a second owl, and this one followed the same course as the first -- it fell precipitously. Katherine monitored its flightpath and caught it with great care.

With an owl under each arm, she jogged over to where Max had stood paralyzed, watching.

“Here they are!” she said. “Aren’t they great?”

Max wasn’t sure what to say. They were magnificent birds, with crimson plumage and great auburn wings, but they seemed disoriented and damaged from being knocked from the sky by Katherine’s rocks. Their pupils were spinning like tiny carousels. As if reading Max’s thoughts, she reassured him.

“They don’t feel it at all. Their bones and wings and everything are built to, uh, you know, make them not feel it when rocks hit them when I throw them,” she said. Now she grabbed them each by their talons and swung them upside-down. “See? There’s no damage at all. They love it, actually.”

Max wasn’t sure how this was being demonstrated by hanging them upside-down, but he was too confused to argue, and besides, what did he know about the health and welfare of sea owls?

“Let’s sit down and rest for a second,” Katherine said, plopping herself on a high dune.

Max wanted to get back to the fort site, to help with its construction and generally oversee things, but Katherine was in no hurry.

“Hey Max, do you like being carried?”

Max had no idea what this meant, but when he thought about it, being carried sounded like fun. It had been fun when he’d ridden on everyone’s shoulders during the parade. “Yeah,” he said.

“Yeah, me too! We’re so similar!” Katherine said, placing her hair behind her ear excitedly. “But this one time, I got a carrying monkey,” she said, making a gesture as if holding a baby. “I got him for Carol, so he wouldn’t have to walk all the way to his studio. It’s so far, and I didn’t want him to be tired before he even gets there. And everyone likes to be carried, right?”

“Yeah,” Max said.

“Okay, right,” Katherine continued, “so I gave him a monkey and then when he carried Carol I laughed and said I was surprised the monkey was strong enough. But then Carol got offended because he thought I meant that he was
fat
or something. But I was
joking!
So he said, ‘Well, if I’m so fat I guess I should eat this monkey.’ And then you know what he did? He
ate
the carrying monkey! Can you believe that?”

Max couldn’t believe it.

“I don’t know,” she added, shaking her head. “He makes me think I can’t do anything right.”

They sat for a while, as Max tried to piece together what he’d just heard.

“Sorry to burden you with my issues,” she said, then brightened. “Hey, let’s make a wish.”

In one deft motion with her claw, she peeled a layer of dune away. Max knelt down next to her and watched. Just a few inches under the surface, she revealed lava flowing just as it did atop the hill, glowing red and oozing downhill, underground, very slowly. A few flames jumped out and onto the sand. Max backed up. Katherine laughed.

She grabbed a cerulean pebble and gave one to Max. “Think of something you want.”

Max closed his eyes tight, then nodded.

“Okay, now throw it in,” she said.

Max threw his pebble in, watching as it was quickly subsumed with a little spark.

Katherine closed her eyes, making a wish before throwing her own rock in. She covered the trench up again, replacing the sand and stamping it down with her foot.

“You know what I wished for?” she asked. “I wished that you’ll always be king. Is that what you wished for?”

Max nodded, but something was on his mind and he couldn’t force it away.

“But wait,” he asked. “He ate the carrying monkey?”

“Oh yeah,” Katherine said, nodding vigorously. “He’s eaten almost every gift I’ve given him.”

“How big of a monkey was it?”

“You know, like a normal carrying monkey,” she said, holding her arm up at the exact height of Max. “And it was really sudden.”

Registering Max’s shock, Katherine brightened. “Wow, I sound like a downer, don’t I! Don’t worry. That’s not what I wanted
at all
. Let’s head back.”

That night, as the fort neared completion, the beasts ate together again, this time feasting on the huge flat feet of some animal Max hadn’t even seen intact and now wanted no part of devouring. Afterward they all collapsed in exhaustion and gluttony, arranged in an interlocking chain of limbs and torsos, circling the dimming fire.

They all fell quickly to sleep, but Max was awake, thinking of monkeys being eaten in one quick bite. Since his morning with Katherine he had thought of little else. Though the afternoon had been full of triumph -- the walls were all assembled, the staircases had been built, the basement finished and covered, the tunnels dug in every direction for escape from any and all calamity -- Max was stricken with the idea that he could be just as easily eaten as a carrying monkey, and at any time.

Would Carol do such a thing? He had seen flashes of his anger, had been surprised when he was willing to actually kill his enemies on the field of fake-battle. It was one thing to fear the devouring of the rest of the beasts, for Max always had Carol to protect him. But if Carol himself decided to eat him, his head and arms and legs, what would stop him?

Max had been among creatures so much bigger than him for so long that he had to fear, in some small way, for his life more or less at all times. It was just a matter of proportion, really. It wasn’t that they were always meaning to harm him -- though they had threatened to eat him many times -- but they had also, mistakenly or carelessly, almost maimed or murdered him a half-dozen other times. He had nearly been knocked off a cliff, had been pelted with hairless buffalo, and had almost been crushed by rolling beast-boulders.

He could spend a lot of time, now or in the future, trying to figure out what motivated them all -- why they did certain things he wished they didn’t do, and didn’t do other things he wished they would. The creatures were often doing confusing things when he stumbled upon them: he would be running through the forest, looking for something to do, when he would see Judith’s back, and perhaps the side of Ira. And then he would see Ira’s hand inside Judith’s ear, and Judith’s left foot tapping quickly, and the both of them humming intensely. “Oh, hi King,” they would say, and Ira would immediately remove his hand from Judith’s ear and the humming and tapping would cease. He found Douglas more than once sitting alone near the chalky cliffs, moaning and rocking and once even punching himself in the head.

And as Max was contemplating all this, a scraping sound came from Carol’s direction. Max looked over to find him in the middle of his own restless dream. He clawed the ground with his talons, creating deep grooves in the dirt. Max watched as Carol whimpered, growled, and bared his teeth menacingly, all while asleep. Suddenly, Carol, in the middle of some nightmare, lunged toward Max, his claws coming within inches of Max’s face. Max gasped and recoiled. He backed up, crab-style, until he was nestled into Katherine, who murmured something welcoming. As Max burrowed deeper into Katherine, Carol continued to grab and groan and Max continued to watch, wide-eyed, from the shadows.

The morning sky was paper-white and low. Max was inside the fort, pacing out dimensions, drawing an outline on the floor. Carol approached and immediately took notice of Max’s markings. “What’s that?”

Max hadn’t expected to have to tell Carol about this idea so soon. He knew it might upset Carol, but there was no going back, and he didn’t want to lie.

“Well …” Max said, “I was thinking that we need to put a … a place inside where the king is secret. Like a secret chamber for the king.”

Carol looked at the fort, tilting his head.

“A secret what? I don’t understand.”

“Well,” Max said, adopting the air of an experienced architect of castles and kingdoms, “all kingdoms have a special place for the king, where there’s a door and a key … Like a small place.” Max indicated a space just big enough for himself.

“So just big enough for you?” Carol said, as if the notion was beyond preposterous.

“Exactly,” Max said, “the king needs some time to be alone, in a little place … All kings have something like that. It’s … It’s where they come up with their best plans to make everything good for everyone.”

Carol thought about this for a second. “A small place … Okay, okay. Interesting. But how would
we
get in?”

“Well, I’d let you in.”

“But the door you drew is too small.”

“Yeah, that’s the best part. The door will be secret. And very small. Just big enough for me.”

As Carol began to understand the implications of the secret door, his expression clouded over. “I don’t know,” he said, studying the fort, “I didn’t picture it with secret doors. Secret doors don’t belong in this fort.”

“But it’s my fort, isn’t it?” Max said. “I mean, I’m the king, right?”

“Yeah, of course,” Carol said, deflated. “I just need a second to wrap my head around the idea.” He turned from the doors, then turned back again. “And you’ll let us in …” He thought more about it, staring at the wall as if his eyes might bore straight through. “But what if it’s a
big
place with a secret door?”

“No, no. That’s not how it would be done,” Max insisted. “It should be—”

Carol punched a hole in the wall, leaving a fist-sized gap.

“About
that
big?” Carol seethed.

“Yeah.”

“Fine.”

His shoulders tense with rage, Carol walked outside and found Douglas.

“Hey Douglas, we’re gonna need a new room in the middle here, a small one with a secret door. The main doors are the same but the doors here are gonna be secret.”

Douglas studied the structure for a moment. He was not pleased with having to redo his work, and he knew that Max’s directive was not pleasing to Carol.

With a sigh, Douglas made his announcement to everyone. “Okay everyone -- there’s a little room in the middle and the door’s gonna be secret!”

There were murmurs of confusion throughout the site. Douglas repeated the directive, now louder: “The door’s gonna be secret! The door’s gonna be secret!”

“Psst. Come here,” came a voice. Max turned around to see Judith.

Max stepped over to Judith, who had just emerged from a hole in the ground -- the fake tree tunnel. Ira was next to her, chewing quietly on her arm.

“Secret doors, huh?” she said, her head tilted, her eyes squinted. “You know, I’ve been watching you. And just yesterday I thought you had really saved us, but now I see what’s happening. And it’s really interesting to see you work.”

Judith stared at Max, not paying the least bit of attention to Ira, who was gnawing with increasing intensity on her arm. Max didn’t know what she was talking about.

“You’re really manipulative, you know that?” she said. “Do you know what that word means?”

“Yeah,” Max said, though he didn’t.

“No you don’t,” she said. “It means the ability to find the exact opportune moment, and the exact way, to get someone to do what you want them to do.”

“I didn’t do that,” Max snapped.

“But look how you made Carol feel. Just because you’re scared he might eat you, you need some kind of secret chamber? That’s nuts. You know, if you care about him and he wants to eat you, he should be able to eat you. Get your priorities straight, King.” There was a sound of teeth on ligament, like the snapping of chewing gum. She turned to Ira. “Ow. Stop.”