Mamba Point (14 page)

“You must like lizards.” Did Mom know about this?

Artie reached down, and the little creature leapt back into his hand. “I’ve always liked these ones,” he said. “Since I was a small boy. They also like me.” He stroked its head. So he hadn’t been talking and singing to himself, he’d been fussing over those things.

“Are you sure the roaches won’t eat the lizards?”

“I say, oh, that’s good.” He laughed. “You hear me now. This fellow will eat those big bugs.” He let the lizard go, and it scurried off to the laundry room.

Happy hunting, I thought.

“I can make soup,” he told me before I even asked. “Do you want an orange Fanta first? I know you like the orange.”

“No thanks.” I thought the bubbles might be too much for my stomach. “How about Tang?” I was feeling kind of dizzy, so I sat down on the bench in the kitchen nook.

“Tang?”

“Orange drink in a jar. It’s by the cereal.”

He found the jar and looked at it. “How is this made?”

“I don’t remember. Are there instructions?”

“Little boss man, I never went to school.”

It took me a moment to figure out why he was telling me that.

“I can read some, but it’s much work,” he explained. “It’s easier if you tell me.”

“Just keep adding it to water until it’s good and orange,” I suggested. While he filled a glass from the filter, I thought about me and Mom labeling all the shelves. Fat lot of good that was doing Artie.

“Don’t forget your medicine,” he told me, spooning the Tang into the glass. “You’re a day late.”

I’d forgotten all about my malaria pill.

“Here,” Artie said, handing me the tablespoon, now half-full of sugar. I put my malaria pill in the spoon, gobbled it all at once, and washed it down with Tang. The sugar didn’t help much. Mary Poppins didn’t know what she was singing about.

“What does malaria do, anyway?” I asked him.

“It makes you weak and tired.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad.” I would have traded whatever I’d just had for a little malaria, any day.

“It’s very bad. Once you get it, you never get better. You take your pills.”

“Fine.” Did Artie take them? Did Charlie? Did Gambeh and Tokie? What was keeping them all safe from malaria?

“I want to tell you, too, be careful if you go outside,” Artie told me. “There’s been a mamba snake around the building. The guard will kill it, but until he does, be very careful.”

A chill went through me.

“He’s trying to kill it?”

“He will get it, oh,” he said with confidence. “He’s very good. I know him. Until he does, watch and be careful.”

For all I knew, the guard was chasing my snake around right now with an axe. I needed to get down there and find it before he did.

“Be right back.”

I ran downstairs, or at least ran about half a flight. I got head spins, grabbed at the railing to steady myself, missed, and stumbled. For a moment I felt like I was slipping along wet rocks toward the sea. I found my footing and sat down. I was okay. Not exactly well, but okay. I just needed to rest a second.

I laid my head on the cool railing and felt once again that I was gliding along wet rocks. No, I realized—I was
snaking
along. I could see the rocks, feel their stony coldness against my scaly belly. I could even slightly hear the crash of the waves on the shore, but what’s more, I could smell and taste the salty spray. I scooted around a boulder and found a patch of grass and sand. I felt pulled along by something in the distance and streaked toward it, slicing through the tall grass. I came to a wall. There was a crack in it, just big enough to slip through. I recognized the wall; it was the one around my own apartment building.

I was in the head of my snake, and it was coming to see me.

No!
I thought hard, trying to steer the snake away from the wall. It was no use. The snake ducked into the hole and streaked around the corner of the building toward the stairwell.

There was a shout, and I realized the Liberian voice
I heard was booming up the stairwell. Maybe it was that guard who wanted to kill my snake.

Not now!
I thought. Could the snake hear me?
Turn back!
I felt a lurching U-turn as the snake slipped back through the hole and into the grass and safety.

I came to with a start, shaking my head to clear it. I stood, wobbled a bit, then eased my way back to the apartment, using the railings and the walls to steady myself, hoping I wouldn’t upchuck slightly used Tang all over the steps. I just made it, and my stomach settled down after I collapsed on the couch, cold sweat trickling down my forehead.

“You are not good?” Artie asked.

“No.”

“You’re weak,” he said. “You need to eat your soup.” He brought me a steaming mug of broth and a package of saltines.

After I ate, I drifted into dreams where I snaked along the ground, exploring the subtle breaks and ravines in the rocks where small creatures took shelter. I snapped at a mouse, sank my fangs into its flank, and waited for it to be still before seizing it in my mouth. Just before I found out what mouse tasted like, I was shaken awake.

“Waka waka waka.”

“Huh?” I opened my eyes and saw Law.

“You’re better,” he said.

“Sort of.” I sat up and saw he was holding some magazines.

“I stopped by the embassy library,” he said. “I was going to see if they had any comics, but all they had were old
Peanuts
books and
Mad
magazines. I know how you feel about
Peanuts
, so …” He plopped about ten
Mad
magazines on the table.

“Thanks.” I grabbed one.

“Sorry about stuff,” he said.

“Yeah, me too.”

“James and Marty were just goofing around, you know. It wasn’t like they were actually going to drown you.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“At first I thought you kind of overreacted, but I guess it was probably scary from your point of view, right? I mean, especially, you know, for you.”

I remembered how I kicked water and cussed my head off. “People must think I’m a freak.”

“Don’t worry about it, man. It’s not that big a deal. Besides, people forget stuff quick.”

“Yeah, right.” I knew better than that. Back in Dayton there was this kid Marcus who wore a unicorn T-shirt to school once. It wasn’t pink or anything, and as far as unicorn T-shirts go, it was probably pretty cool, but the problem is that the coolest unicorn shirt in the world is still not cool, at least if you’re a boy. You’d be better off wearing a T-shirt with a bunch of old-lady hedgehogs having a tea party. Marcus never wore the shirt again, at least not to school, but kids were still calling him Unicorn Boy three years later. Even kids who never saw the shirt called him that. Kids are like elephants when it comes to remembering embarrassing stuff about other kids.

“You’ll be okay,” said Law. “Everybody already forgot about it. I told them you were usually a pretty nice guy.”

“Thanks.” I was glad he stood up for me, even if he should have done it when I was getting half-drowned by his buddies. I wondered specifically if Eileen had forgotten about it, but I didn’t want to ask Law. He’d give me a hard time if he knew I liked her.

“Well, I gotta go meet up with James and Marty,” he said. “Tell Mom and Dad I’ll miss dinner. We’re going to Wimpy’s with some girls.”

“Wimpy’s?”

“It’s a burger place on Broadway.”

“With some girls, huh?” I was jealous, but even the thought of a burger made me queasy.

He grinned. “Yeah, you know, Michelle and Ann and, um …” He stopped, his face blank. “Well, I don’t know exactly who’s going.”

“Have fun.”

He headed for the door but turned back.

“Oh, yeah. I ran into Darryl out in the hall. He was wondering why you weren’t hanging out with Matt anymore, and I told him you were sick, and he said come on down when you’re feeling better.”

“Okay. Thanks again for the mags.” As Law left, I thought about calling Matt and asking him if he wanted to play Pellucidar the next day. I would probably be up for a game by then. Then I remembered he was supposed to be
grounded. Why would Darryl wonder why I wasn’t hanging out with Matt if Matt was grounded? Had Matt lied to me about that? Maybe he was still mad about the cannibal thing and decided to not hang out with me anymore. It stung a bit, but I didn’t blame him.

Matt called me on Friday and asked if we could play Pellucidar. “Dad says I’m not grounded anymore,” he explained.

“He did, huh?” I responded. “That’s lucky.”

“He usually gets really mad, then cools off and realizes he overreacted.”

I grunted noncommittally.

“So, do you want to play?”

“Yeah, I guess.” At least Matt wasn’t mad at me anymore. “I need to do some other stuff first, though. How about later, like this afternoon?”

“All right.” He clicked off, and I went to get my snake.

It seemed like a good time because I had the apartment to myself. Mom and Dad were at work, and Law was at the pool. I went out to the field with my Mork bag and waited. The snake slithered along and scooted right in. I walked home, waving hello to the reggae guy as he bobbed his head in time to a song about good friends we’ve had and lost along the way.

“Hey!” I made sure the bag was zipped tight before I got too close. He turned down the radio.

“Yes sir?”

“I was wondering, are you Gambeh’s dad?”

“Gambeh? He play football here?” He pointed at the courtyard that was now empty, probably because of the snake warnings.

“Yeah.”

“His papa doesn’t work here anymore.”

“Really?”

“He be sleeping too much, oh? Somebody complain to the boss man, and now he gone.”

That explained which of the guards was Gambeh and Tokie’s dad. “I hope the kids are okay,” I said, more to myself.

“We all have to pluck our own hen,” he said. “We must be awake to work. That’s why I have my music! It keeps me up!” He turned the music back up and started bobbing his head. The singer was no longer talking about his old friends, he was just saying that everything was going to be all right.

I put on the chain lock to the front door, then let the snake go. It slithered up and down the hallway. That snake book said black mambas could move up to eleven kilometers per hour, but that was some metric thing that Australians understood and I didn’t. In any case, it was
fast
. It slithered off into the laundry room, so I followed it. It was nowhere to be seen.

I got a flashlight, peering first under the washer, then under the dryer.

“Aha! Got you!” I could see it scrunched up in the shadows.

It streaked out, speeding back through the kitchen and around the doorjamb into the hallway, then disappeared. I spent another half hour searching various rooms until I finally gave up and plopped down on my bed. A moment later the snake wound its way up the bedpost, then wrapped once around my foot and gave it a little tug.

“You won,” I told it. “You’re a better hider
and
a better seeker.”

The mamba slithered all the way up onto the bed, coiled around my arm, and rested its head on my chest. My notebook was on the bedside table, and I was just able to grab it with my other hand without bothering the snake.

I could only draw by lying on my back like Michelangelo, holding the notebook with my left hand and drawing with my right. I couldn’t put much pressure on the pencil, so my lines were light and timid-looking. I outlined the shape of the mamba’s head, then sketched in the lines of its scales. I drew the round, glassy eyes, the ridges of its nostrils, and the
V
where its mouth hung open.

“Hey, buddy,” I said, touching its lip. “Let me see those fangs.” I nudged its mouth open and saw the forward-thrusting teeth of an attacker, as Roger Farrell put it. It was like they couldn’t wait to sink into some helpless prey.

I studied them for a while, then let go and tried to draw them. I couldn’t get the mouth black enough by shading, just charcoal gray, and I accidentally blotted both fangs. I’d have to try again later. The snake dropped its head and rested it on my elbow, its mouth slightly open, its fangs nuzzling my skin.
A pearl of venom dripped onto my arm, making it feel tingly and then numb.

I released the snake far away from the building. “It’s not safe there. Don’t come to me. Wait for me to come get you.” The snake looped behind me, rubbing against the backs of my legs before it disappeared into the grass. I hoped it understood. Sure, it could kill people, but it wasn’t a monster. It’s not like it went out of its way to terrorize humans. It just happened to have fangs and it happened to have venom. People had the wrong idea about mambas.

My grandmother in New Mexico said folks there were that way about coyotes. They’d kill one just for walking on their property. It really made her mad. She said coyotes were scavengers, not hunters, and that they wouldn’t hurt people. She also pointed out that coyotes were there first. I barely left her condo when I found out there were little wolves running around, but now I saw her point of view about wild animals having the right to exist. Of course, my grandmother hated snakes, so it really wasn’t her point of view about all wild animals. Anyway, I had to be careful. Not just because of the mamba being a mamba, but because of people being people.

“I heard you were really sick,” Matt said after he let me in.

“Yeah, it was pretty bad. Stomach thing.”

“You can’t drink the tap water here, you know.”

“Yeah, I know. I don’t even remember doing it.”

“Stay away from street vendors, too. You never know what you’re getting.” At first I thought he was saying I’d gotten some kind of bug from Charlie, but he explained. “The guys who sell food, I mean. For example, you can get something that looks like beef jerky but it’s really monkey.”

“I didn’t eat any monkey.”

“I also wouldn’t drink the bottled soda. I hear there’s mouse turds in it.”

“Come on. You lie.”

“Just drink the clear ones, anyway. Orange or ginger ale. No Coke or grape. You can’t see what’s in them.”

“Boy, you find a lot of stuff to worry about,” I said with a laugh. “You’re worse than me.”