Where I Belong (11 page)

The boys keep me surrounded while they eat my sandwich and drink my soda. The woods are very still. Water drips from the trees, and the air is heavy with humidity. A crow caws from a branch over my head and flies like a black arrow into the dense foliage. He's gone to fetch the Green Man. He'll rescue me from this band of varlets, these intruders.

The boys throw their trash on the ground. Gene pulls out a bottle of whiskey and they pass it around. They talk in low voices and laugh. A dragon tattoo on Sean's neck moves every time Sean turns his head. T.J. goes off into the woods and comes back zipping his fly. They light cigarettes and mutter to each other.

Just when I think they've forgotten about me, T.J. looks my way. “What should we do with him?” he asks Sean.

All three of them stare at me through the smoke. The bottle is almost empty, and I don't like the look in their eyes. I back away but it's too late. Sean grabs me. “Let's do him a favor and give him a haircut.”

They put their cigarettes out. Gene swallows the last of the whiskey. T.J. yanks me to my feet and pins my arms behind my back. Sean pulls a knife out of his motorcycle boot. It has a long, wicked blade.

I try to get away, but Sean hacks off a long clump of my hair. If I fight, I might get my scalp sliced or my ears cut off, so, with my head down, I stand still and let him chop off all my hair, right down to the scalp. My head stings from the nicks he makes in my skin, and my hair litters the ground at my feet.
C
is for
curl, C
is for
cut, C
is for
cruel
.

“There.” Sean steps back and studies his work “Isn't that better?”

“Now he looks like a bald girl,” Gene says. “Even uglier than before.”

“A punk skinhead,” T.J. says. “Maybe I should give him a few tattoos. An iron cross, maybe.” He sticks his arm in my face. The iron cross is crude, he probably did it himself. There's a skull and crossbones on his upper arm. That's even worse.

I flinch, terrified they might cover me with neo-Nazi tattoos.

Sean shakes his head. “We got stuff to do, T.J. We don't have time to give the punk a tattoo.” He shoves his face close to mine and brandishes the knife under my nose. “You told the cops about us, didn't you?”

“No, no, I didn't.” My voice shakes. I sound like a girl, a child, a baby. “I never said anything. They talked to lots of people. I saw the cops writing stuff down.”

“You freak. You gave them our names.” Sean yanks out a hunk of hair he'd missed. The pain sears my scalp.

T.J. crowds in, closer even than Sean. “I ran past you and you looked right at me. You knew who I was. And you told the cops.”

“No,” I whisper. “No.”

“They don't have anything on us yet, but they're sniffing around,” Sean tells me. “Somebody told.”

“It was you, you freaky long-haired moron.” Gene shoves me so hard I fall down.

T.J. drags me to my feet. “Even if you haven't told nobody yet, you might tell now.”

“Let's teach the lying punk a lesson.”

They jump me, all three of them. They hit me, pound me with their fists. My nose spouts blood. They knock me down and kick me. Three against one.

There's nothing I can do. I lie on the wet ground, curled into a ball, my hands over my head, and hope they won't kill me.

While they pound me into the ground, I cry out silently for the Green Man.
Where are you? Why haven't you come? These are your woods, your kingdom, you're supposed to protect me, to keep me safe from my enemies
.

The woods are silent. He doesn't come. He doesn't care what happens to me.

At last the beating stops.

“Keep your ugly lying mouth shut,” Sean says. He's still holding the knife. The point touches my throat. I feel its sharpness. “It'll be worse next time.”

I shake my head.
No, I won't tell, I won't
. I get to my feet slowly and back away. I trip over a log and fall flat on my back in the wet leaves. “Don't let me see you again,” Sean says.

I hear them walk away, laughing. They're done with me for now. I don't get up. I lie where I've fallen and stare up into the trees.

“Where are you?” I call to the Green Man. There's no answer. Just the sound of my own voice echoing back from the trees.

I don't know how long I lie there in the wet leaves waiting for him to come, making up excuses for him, certain he will come, he must come. But he doesn't come.

As the day turns to evening, I try to get up. It hurts to move. Maybe I'll just lie here, die here. Maybe someone will find my bones someday. Mrs. Clancy will be sorry then, she'll wish she'd treated me better.
That boy
, she'll say,
he wasn't so bad after all. If only I'd been nicer to him
.

And the Green Man. He'll blame himself for ignoring my pleas.
Ah, the poor lad
, he'll think,
gone from this world before his time, and it's all my fault. Why didn't I go to him? Why didn't I protect him?

And Sean and T.J. and Gene—they will go to prison for the rest of their lives.

The ground under me grows colder and damper. Maybe I don't want to die here after all. I struggle to stand and stumble away through the woods. I fall and trip and stagger. I've never been so weak. I've never hurt so bad.

By the time I get to my tree, I've given up hope of seeing the Green Man. I fall to the ground, exhausted. I ache all over. My ribs, my belly, my scalp. My heart, my soul. The Green Man has abandoned me. I'm all alone. Like always. Why did I think the Green Man would be different?

I don't have the strength to climb up to my platform, so I curl up on the damp ground and shut my eyes. I try to sleep, but Sean's face keeps flashing on and off like a strobe light. He hits me again and again, he kicks me, I feel the pain of my hair being hacked off. I hear Sean and his friends cursing me, jeering. It's like it's happening over and over and over.

I must fall asleep, because the next thing I know it's almost dark. I get to my feet like an old man, stiff and aching with pain. The Green Man hasn't come. I'm still alone.

I look at the blood on my shirt. I feel the itchy stubble on my head. How am I going to explain this to Mrs. Clancy? I've lost her best umbrella. My shirt is ruined. She'll be furious.
You stupid boy, I told you not to lose that umbrella. Look at your shirt, what happened to your hair? You look like a freak, you are a freak. I can't keep you here any longer, I'm calling Social Services first thing in the morning
.

With Mrs. Clancy's voice ringing in my head, I climb slowly and painfully up the tree. I won't go to her house. I'll stay here in the woods, where I belong.

I drink from a bottle of water stashed in a milk crate and find a box of stale crackers. I eat them all, but they don't fill my belly.

The moon sails in and out of clouds. The wind blows and rocks my platform like a cradle and I hope the bough doesn't break. The rain begins again. Cold and miserable, I crawl under the tarp, cover myself with my smelly old blanket, and lie down to sleep. The boards under me are uneven. They press against the sore parts of me. My belly rumbles, my cuts and bruises throb, my head feels too small for my body. I'm the Ancient Mariner, cursed and alone.

Deep in the woods, an owl screeches, not a gentle
too-whit-too-woo
but a scream, a shriek, loud and harsh and scary, like someone being murdered. I pull the blanket over my head, but the owl keeps screaming. A coyote yips and howls in the distance, and a dog barks back. Branches crack and limbs creak. Wind rustles the leaves. Rain drips through the tarp.

I wake up every hour or so, hungry and sore. I drink more water. I pee off the edge of the platform. The rain stops and the sky slowly lightens. Birds sing. A fresh breeze blows through the treetops. The woods are a familiar place again.

But something's missing. The woods are just woods after all. There's nothing special or magical about them. Trees, just trees, that's all I see now. Ordinary, real-life trees.

In the gray morning light, I look at all the dumb things I've made. One by one, I tear up my drawings and scatter them like flakes of snow. I keep my swords and shields and lances in case I need to defend myself, but I hurl my carvings of the Green Man as far away as I can. I never want to see them or him again. I was foolish to believe in myths and legends, to think he was anything but an old man pretending to be what I wanted him to be. I should have listened to Shea instead of getting angry.

I sit on the edge of the platform and peer down. Torn drawings are scattered on the ground or caught in branches. A bit of the Green Man here, a piece of Lady Shea there, shreds of knights and dragons, elves and fairies, castles and ogres—nothing now but scraps of paper.

My heart's a heavy lump in my chest. My arms and legs hurt, my head aches, even my belly is sore from the beating.

I search my tree house for food. While I'm rummaging in my art box, thinking I might find a stale Twinkie hidden there, I come across a jar of green tempera paint. Suddenly I know what to do. I dump the paint in a bucket and add water until it's about the consistency of cream. I yank off my clothes and throw them away. Like my drawings, they flutter down into the trees. Only my shoes make it all the way to the ground. Taking a deep breath, I smear the watery paint all over myself. Even though it stings, I rub it into my bald head with particular care.

When the paint's gone, I'm green all over, or at least as much of me as I can reach. I wrap a rag around myself like a loincloth. I make a crown of leaves. Since I have no hair, my ears hold it up. With the aid of Shea's mirror, I paint designs on my face. I don't recognize the warrior I see in the mirror. I'm a savage now, a wild boy, strong and brave and fearless.

“The Green Man is dead!” I shout. “Long live the Green Man!”

My voice echoes back from trees and rocks. I, Brendan Doyle, have proclaimed myself the Spirit of the Forest, the true Green Man. I shall dwell here the rest of my life. I shall protect the birds and the beasts and the fish that swim in the streams. I shall protect the trees.

I'll live on berries and roots. My hair will grow back, long and matted. I'll wear rags and tatters of clothing. I'll roam through the forest all the way down to Georgia, protecting birds and beasts. I'll become a legend. There will be sightings. People will search the forest, hoping to get a photograph of me.

But nobody will find me. I'll be safe.

Down below, I hear the bushes rustle softly. Someone is coming. I drop flat on my belly. If it's the Green Man, I won't answer when he calls. If it's Shea, she'll climb up here whether I answer or not.

B
EFORE HE SPEAKS
, his cough gives him away. “Brendan, my lad, are you up there?”

I lie still. Silent. Motionless. Invisible to anyone below.

He calls again. Then again. At last he says to himself, “Ah, he's in summer school, that's right. Bless me, I forgot.”

From the noises I hear, I know he's settling down to stay awhile. Soon he's snoring.

I lean over the edge of my platform and look down. I see an old man in dirty clothes lying on his back in the weeds. His hair is tangled and long and uncombed, his beard shaggy and stained. The soles of his shoes are worn through in places.

With new eyes, I recognize him for what he is. A bum. And, even worse, a liar for letting me believe he was the Green Man.

Hours pass. No matter how I lie, on my right side or my left side, on my back or my belly, I hurt. The sun shines down through the leaves, stabbing my eyes with shifting brightness. Mosquitoes buzz around my itchy head. Gnats go after my ears and eyes.

At last I hear Shea trying to sneak through the bushes and not succeeding. She's as clumsy as an elephant's child.

“Well, little lady,” the Green Man says. “What are you doing without your partner in crime?”

“He wasn't in school this morning.” I imagine Shea biting her thumbnail the way she does when she's puzzled or worried. “We were supposed to hand in our history reports today. He was doing his on the Battle of Gettysburg. Mine was on Antietam.” I hear Shea sit down. “Where do you think he is?”

“Maybe he was sick today.”

“He never gets sick.”

“Everybody gets sick.” As if to prove it, he coughs a horrible loose cough.

“I guess.”

Very cautiously, I peer over the edge of my platform. Shea's sitting in the grass, her dark hair pulled back in a curly ponytail. Just as I thought, she's chewing her thumbnail and frowning.

The Green Man sits beside her. “Did you happen to bring any refreshments?” he asks Shea.

She opens her backpack and pulls out half a sandwich and an apple. “I brought extra for Brendan. He's always hungry.”

“You're a good friend.”

Shea picks up a stone and throws it at a tree.
Thunk
. It hits the target. “I told him a pack of lies about my family and the great stuff we do on weekends,” she says in a low voice. “Saturday, he came to my house and found out the truth about me and my family and the dumpy house we live in. He said it was okay, he lied to me too, but maybe he's mad now. Maybe he hates me.”

Shea sounds so sad that I'm tempted to call down and tell her I'm not mad at her, but I just lie there and say nothing. I don't want to have anything to do with the Green Man. Not now, not ever. He's a liar and a fake and a dirty old bum.

“Sometimes a lie starts by accident,” the Green Man says, “and before long it's too late to admit it's not true.”

“You know all about lying, don't you?” Shea asks. “You aren't the Green Man. I saw you once in the park with those homeless men. You were drinking whiskey out of a paper bag.”

I draw in my breath so hard, I almost choke. So it's true, I'm right. He's a liar and a bum.