The Wild Kid (9 page)

He'd been in the tree for hours, the little tree with its one branch. He sat on Kevin's sweater, but his butt hurt, and his neck hurt from looking up, and his voice was sore from yelling so much. He checked his watch. It had been twelve thirty-four when he'd reached the tree. Now it was four-fourteen. Cars went by. Cars, cars, cars! Like a million bees saying the same thing.

“Somebody, look,” he cried out. “Sammy's here! Somebody, come! Now!” He ordered the cars to stop. “Stop!” He put his hands out to block them, as if he could.

When he looked down, straight down past his bare feet, his belly shivered. Climbing, he'd been a little bit afraid of falling, but now he was a lot afraid. He looked down once. Then he didn't look down anymore.

He reviewed the plan. The plan was reassuring. The plan said, “keep going.” The plan said, “Never give up, you can do it.” It said,
“Keep going till you come to a road.”
He had come to a road—almost. He just had to reach a little bit higher.

Again, for the ten millionth time, he stood carefully on the branch, balancing with both hands on the cliff, reaching for something to grab on to and pull himself higher. The cliff here was round and smooth and bulged out like a forehead, and there was nothing to grip. Nothing that would hold.

He stood as tall as he dared and called, “Hello, this is Sammy Ritchie talking. Hello. Help. This is Sammy. Help me.”

Above him, cars swept by. He counted. He'd spent hours counting cars. He got to a hundred this time and stopped, then started again.

Only one car had to stop. Only one person had to look over the cliff. Only one person had to see him.

“Somebody, do you hear me? Somebody, stop this minute.” He pointed his finger up. “Stop!” he commanded. Nobody stopped. Nobody looked over the edge. Nobody came.

He yelled and yelled until he couldn't yell anymore.

“Sammy…” The voice came from far away. “Sam…mee…”

He was sitting with his eyes closed, rocking in place and singsonging stories about his mother and Carl looking over the cliff and seeing him. “What are you doing there, Sammy?” They'd put down a ladder, and he'd climb to the top, and his mother would hug him and cry. Or maybe K-man would come leaping over the trees. Zooom! He'd land on the cliff, Sammy would climb on his back, and they'd zoom to the top and zoom to his house.

“Sam…meee…”

He came alert suddenly. He looked around and saw someone coming out of the woods. Kevin walked that way; so quick, you thought you saw him and then you didn't.

“Kevin…” his voice echoed. “Kevin, my friend!”

Kevin stood at the foot of the cliff, shielding his eyes.

“Look here where I am,” Sammy yelled.

“What are you doing up there?” Kevin said. “I've been looking for you all day.”

“I'm going home, Kevin.” They yelled back and forth, and their voices echoed. Sammy pointed to the top of the cliff. “That way.”

“I thought we were sticking together. I thought you were my buddy.”

“I am, Kevin, but I have to go home first. I have to follow the plan. Kevin, I have a good plan. First, I go home. Then comes the best part, that's the secret part. First I go home, then—”

“Forget it,” Kevin said. “You and your plans. I'm sick of hearing about it. Come on down now.”

“I can't,” Sammy said. “I can't come down.”

“You got up there. You can come down.”

“I'm afraid, Kevin. I'll fall. I'll break myself.”

Below him, Kevin walked around and around. He stood under the cliff, then scrambled up the cliff.

“Come on, Kevin!” Sammy yelled.

Kevin didn't come fast. He came slower and slower, and he stopped a lot. Come on,” Sammy urged. “You can help me get to the top.”

Kevin stopped under him. He was pressed against the rock. His head was turned funny. “I can't come any higher,” he said. He reached out a hand and so did Sammy, but they couldn't touch. “You have to come down, Sammy. Can you come down just a little?”

Sammy let himself down, with his arms hooked over the branch, till his feet touched nothing but air.

“Okay, get back up,” Kevin said. “Go on! Be careful!”

He backed down the cliff, talking and talking. “Man, you did it this time! You're trouble, nothing but trouble. I spend all day looking for you. I find your sneakers up a tree and then I find you on the side of a cliff.” He leaped down the last few feet. “You know what, Sammy, you're crazy! You're just a crazy kid!”

“I'm sorry, Kevin.” Sammy sat very quietly. He made a sad I'm-sorry face.

Kevin kicked at a stone. “What do I care if you're sorry? Stupid, crazy kid! We had a good thing. You've ruined everything.”

Sammy watched Kevin being mad. He went round and round in circles. He kicked and threw stones. “Kevin, are you mad at me?”

“No, I'm not mad at you.”

“What are we going to do now, Kevin?”

“You're not going to do anything. You got something to tie yourself with? You got a belt?”

Sammy shook his head. “Just your sweater that you gave me.”

“Okay, put the sweater around yourself and tie the sleeves around the tree. Do it now.”

Sammy did it. “Are you going away?” he asked. Kevin was walking toward the trees. “Kevin! Where are you going?”

“You just stay there and don't move,” Kevin shouted. “Don't try anything.”

“K-Man, are you coming back?”

Kevin kept going, disappearing into the trees.

Sammy was alone. He was all alone. He pressed against the tree. All his life, people had helped him. He was Sammy E. Ritchie, a special person. But now, no matter how loud he yelled, even if he yelled the loudest he'd yelled in his whole life, it wouldn't matter. It was all up to Kevin. Maybe he would come back, and maybe he wouldn't.

Sammy watched the night creep across the face of the cliff. It was like a big dark hand coming closer and closer. The cars sounded closer, too, louder and faster.

The sun went away, and the air got cold. He'd tied himself to the tree with Kevin's sweater. Above him, car lights splashed against the dark sky.

When he was little, Sammy had said the sun belonged to him. It rose for him, it was his sun, and when it set he wanted to know where it had gone. But in school, Mrs. Hoffman had taught them how the earth went around the sun, and how sometimes it faced the sun and sometimes it turned its back to the sun. He learned it, but in his heart, he still felt the sun was his. Now, it had left him. It was lost in the dark, the way he was lost, afraid the way he was afraid.

*  *  *

He dreamed they were all in the kitchen now. Mom and Bethan and maybe Carl. He put himself in the picture, next to Bethan. Kevin, too. But they only had four chairs. They'd have to get one more from Bethan's room. Carl and Mom would sit on one side, and Kevin would sit next to Sammy. They'd all hold hands and say grace before they ate. Then Kevin would tell them about the adventures of K-man and Sammy, and make everyone laugh.

*  *  *

A light woke Sammy. It was shining down from above, swinging back and forth along the cliff. “Sammy?” Kevin's voice was close. “Sammy, are you there?” The light went this way and that.

Sammy couldn't see Kevin, only the circle of light, but that was Kevin behind it. He had come back. His friend Kevin had come back.

“Sammy, somebody's coming, you just hang on. I've got to go now.”

“Don't go away, Kevin. You're going to live in my house.”

“You take care, buddy.” The light went off.

“Kevin? Shine the light, Kevin.” Sammy kept staring at the spot where Kevin had been, waiting for the light to shine again.

*  *  *

When the light came, it exploded across the whole cliff. And then a strange voice said, “Sammy, this is Officer Rosenberg. Sammy, can you hear me? Say hello, and I'll tell your mother you're okay. I've got her on the phone. Say hello, Sammy.”

“Hello,” Sammy said.

People in yellow helmets were lined up along the top of the cliff. A crane appeared, popping out suddenly like a long-necked bird, and then a bucket descended slowly toward Sammy. He waved, and two men in yellow helmets in the bucket waved back. “I'm Richard,” the one holding a walkie-talkie said.

“I'm Chris,” the other one said. “Sammy, just relax, we're going to get you out of there. You sit still and let us do everything. Okay, Sammy?”

Richard spoke over the walkie-talkie. A second line came down with straps attached to the end. Richard caught it and swung it over toward Sammy. “Catch it, Sammy, but don't reach.”

Sammy nodded. He was so tired.

He missed the line the first time, and Richard swung it toward him again, and he caught it. Richard told him how to put on the harness and where to snap it across his chest.

Sammy was lifted free and swung out from the cliff. There was nothing under him, nothing to hold on to but the rope. He flew up over the cliff, over a clump of cars and people.

Then he was down, and hands reached out and held him. A policewoman hugged him, and he hugged back. “How are you feeling, Sammy? I'm Officer Rosenberg. Do you hurt anywhere?”

“I feel hungry.”

“Anybody have something for the kid to eat? Crackers? Candy bar?”

Lights were flashing, and cars were backed up along the highway. Two men and a woman appeared with a stretcher. “No food till he's checked,” one of the medics said.

They put Sammy on the stretcher, blanket over him, and loaded him into the ambulance. The policewoman and one of the medics got in back with him. “Where's Kevin?” Sammy asked.

“Who's Kevin?” the medic asked.

“He must mean the kid who called us,” Officer Rosenberg said. “He's around someplace.”

Sammy tried to sit up. “Where're we going? I have to wait for Kevin.”

Twelve-year-old Sammy Ritchie was back in his own bed last night, after being lost for thirteen days. Friends and neighbors were jubilant, and an impromptu party was held on Pine Boulevard in the Green Hills section of the city. The smile on Sammy's face never faltered. “Am I glad to be home?” the boy who characterizes himself as “a special person,” said. “Boy, oh boy, I am glad.”

His mother and his two sisters, Bethan, a fifth grader at Green Hills Elementary School, and Emily, a student at the University of Vermont, never left his side. “I never, ever gave up hope,” Mrs. Ritchie said. “I knew I'd get my boy back.”

Sammy was rescued from the side of a cliff at the edge of Middleburg State Forest Preserve at six-thirty
A.M.
after an anonymous caller reported seeing him there. Sammy was barefoot and hungry, and when asked how he'd gotten as high as he had on the challenging cliffs below Highway 104, he said, “I climbed and climbed. I climbed really good.”