Where I Belong (12 page)

The Green Man coughs, but he doesn't deny what Shea has said.

“At first I thought you just looked like the man in the park,” Shea goes on. “When you stole that bottle of beer, I knew you weren't the Green Man. But Brendan believed it with his whole heart and soul. Why did you let him?”

He shakes his head. “I believed it was a game and my part was to be the Green Man. I didn't think Brendan really and truly believed I was a supernatural hero of some sort.”

“Well, he did,” Shea says. There's an angry edge in her voice. “And so did I—for a while.”

The Green Man lowers his head. “It was a lovely game,” he says sadly. “I don't know what Brendan will think of me if he finds out I'm just an ordinary old man.”

I jump to my feet, a wooden sword in my hand. “I already know the truth!” I shout at him. “Go away from here. I never want to see you again!”

They both look up at me, startled, then shocked.

“Where are your clothes?” Shea stares up at me. “What happened to your hair? And your skin? You've turned green.”

“You're hurt.” The Green Man struggles to his feet. “Come down from that tree and let us help you. You look terrible.”

“I don't need your help!” I shout. “
I'm
the Green Man now. The true Green Man!”

“Brendan, please come down,” Shea begs. “He's right, you're hurt.”

Is Shea on
his
side now? Is she a traitor too? My head hurts, my heart hurts, my whole body hurts. I'm so hungry that I'm dizzy. But I'm not climbing down there. They can't make me. Even if Shea climbs up here, she can't make me come down. Unless she pushes me off the edge, and I don't think she'd do that.

“Brendan,” the Green Man calls. “I know you're angry with me, but I never meant to hurt you. I thought we were playing a game.”

Pretend. That's all it was to him. A game little kids play in the woods. Maybe Shea never believed it either. I have no friends after all. Only enemies.

Shea looks at the drawings ripped to pieces and scattered everywhere. She picks up a crumpled sheet of paper and smoothes it. “Oh, Brendan, you tore up your pictures.”

“So what if I did?” I wave my sword. “You aren't Princess Shea and he's not the Green Man. It's all kid stuff, not worth anything.”

“But I'm still your friend,” Shea says. “I'll always be your friend. Even if you hate me.”

The Green Man runs his fingers through his beard, straightening it, getting rid of a few tangles. He doesn't look at me.

Shea approaches the tree. “I'm coming up there,” she says.

“Don't you dare.” I brandish my sword. “This is my tree now. I shouldn't have let you climb up here. You're a traitor just like him!”

“I'm not a traitor.” Shea disappears into the hollow trunk, and I hear her scrabbling up. Soon she's on a branch, hitching herself higher hand over hand, feet walking up the tree trunk.

“You can't make me come down,” I tell her. “You can't make me do anything.”

She studies me. “Why did you cut off your hair and paint yourself green? Who gave you that black eye? And how did you get those cuts and scratches and bruises? Have you been in a fight?”

I scowl at her, trying hard to hate her, trying hard to stay angry. “It's none of your business.”

“Where are your clothes?” Shea sounds embarrassed. “You can't go around half naked.”

“I don't need them anymore. I don't need you, either. Or him.”

Shea turns away from me and sits on the edge of the platform, swinging her legs. She doesn't say anything for a while. I can't tell if she's mad or worried or what. Maybe she's embarrassed because of my loincloth.

I retreat silently to the opposite side of the platform and sit with my back to her. I'm beginning to feel embarrassed myself.

Finally she says, “Did you sleep here last night?”

I pretend she's not here. I pretend
he's
not here. It's just me and the Green Wood. My kingdom now.

“I bet you're hungry,” Shea says.

I don't answer.

“I'm sorry I gave my sandwich to the Green Man,” she says softly. “If I'd known you were here—”

I can't ignore her any longer. “I wouldn't have eaten it anyway,” I tell her. “I don't want anything from you.”

I glance at her over my shoulder. She's still sitting on the edge of the platform, swinging her skinny legs. Sunlight splashes her shirt with shifting patterns. Without looking at me, she asks, “Does Mrs. Clancy know where you are?”

“I'm never going near her house again.”

Shea looks at me then, a long, hard stare. “What do you plan to do? Live in the woods like some kind of crazy boy?”

“I'm not a crazy boy! I just want to live here all by myself.”
Crazy
—why did she use that word? Does she think I'm crazy? Now I'm really angry.

“I just meant—” Shea begins, but I cut her off.

“I don't care what you meant! Leave me alone and don't tell anyone where I am.”

“Brendan,” the Green Man calls, “stop behaving like a jackass and come down here.”

“Go away,” I tell them. “Go away.” I sit down and hide my head in my arms. I'm scared, I'm tired, I'm hungry, and I hurt all over.

Shea gets to her feet and comes over to kneel beside me. “Let's go to Mr. Hailey's house. He'll know what to do. His wife's a nurse.”

I hesitate. “How do you know so much about Mr. Hailey and his wife? What makes you think they'd want me to show up at their door?”

“I was out with Tessa once,” Shea says, “and we walked down his street, only I didn't know it was his street, and there he was, cutting the grass. It was hot, so he invited us in for a cold drink and I met his wife and she was wearing a nurse's uniform to go to work.”

Shea takes my hand and tries to pull me to my feet. “Please, Brendan,” she says. “You look like Tessa when she's coming down with something.”

I resist, still not sure. Part of me longs to stay here in the woods, but another part longs to go with Shea. I'm tired and achy, and my brain feels muddled, as if my head is full of sand or something. I don't want to spend another night in the woods with no food. Like Shea says, I must be getting sick. That's what's wrong with me.

Finally I stop fighting and let her pull me to my feet. My legs have turned to spaghetti. I'm so dizzy I can't tell if it's the tree house or the woods that's spinning. I'm not sure I can climb down from the tree without falling.

With Shea ahead of me, I inch my way toward the ground, slowly, carefully.

The Green Man is waiting for me. He looks at my loincloth and says, “You can't go anywhere looking like that.”

He retrieves my underwear and jeans, but he can find only one shoe. And no socks.

“Eeee-yu.” Shea hands me my T-shirt. “It's got blood all over it and it stinks.”

My underwear's not very fresh either. My jeans are so filthy, I hate to think what Mrs. Clancy will say when she sees them.

“You are a sad sight, Brendan.” The Green Man comes closer and lays his big hand on my forehead. “You're burning up with fever, boy.”

Without another word, he hoists me on his back and carries me piggyback.

I hold on tight and bury my face in the nape of his neck. I breathe in his familiar woodsy smell, I feel the texture of his curly hair against my cheek.

“Where were you? Why didn't you rescue me?” I whisper in his ear. “I called and I called but you didn't come. You didn't hear me and I was so scared. I thought they'd kill me and you wouldn't save me, you didn't care.”

“Oh, Brendan, Brendan, I'm so sorry.” The Green Man slows to a stop and stands still. His shoulders sag. “I'm a foolish old man. I never meant to trick you into thinking I was more than I am.”

“I wanted you to be him so badly.”

“I know that now.” He sighs and his chest rattles. “I don't blame you for being angry, but I hope you'll forgive me.”

I close my eyes and hug him. I'm too tired to talk anymore.

Shea turns and looks back. “Come on,” she calls. “We have to get Brendan to Mr. Hailey's house.”

The Green Man huffs and puffs behind her, but he won't let me walk. I'm too weak, he says, and I know he's right.

As we leave the grove, I look back at my tree. Will I ever see it again? The Green Man might be a phony, magic might be a fantasy, but I love my tree anyway.

I close my eyes, and the Green Man coughs and lurches through the woods with me on his back.

By the time we get to Mr. Hailey's, I'm in a sort of waking nap or dream. The supposed real world is soft and fuzzy and out of focus. Houses tilt this way and that. The sky seems very close. I actually reach out to touch a cloud, but as soon as I do, it moves out of reach. The birds are too big and their songs are so loud, they hurt my ears. I'm freezing cold and then I'm boiling hot.

Mr. Hailey opens the door, but he wavers as if he's made of smoke and then disappears, along with his house and yard.
Poof
. Everything disappears and I'm falling down down down into nowhere.

The next thing I know, I'm lying on a sofa in his house, and Mrs. Hailey is washing my face.

Shea is sitting near me, biting her thumbnail. Mr. Hailey is talking to the Green Man. Once in a while Shea says something, but all I hear are bits and pieces of conversation. I can't make much sense of anything they say.
Badly beaten . . . Night in the woods . . . Painted himself . . . Green Man . . . foster mother . . . hysterical . . . Missing child report . . . Police looking for him . . . Doesn't want to go home . . 
.

“That's right,” I say. “I'm going to live in the woods. All by myself.” I try to sit up but fall back on my pillow. What's wrong with me? Why am I so weak? I must be really sick.

“Take it easy, Brendan,” Mr. Hailey says. “We've called your foster mother, and she's on her way.”

“No, no,” I whisper. “She'll be mad. They broke her umbrella, my clothes are ruined, I lost one of my shoes. . . . She'll send me back to Social Services, maybe even the detention center.”

But it's too late. A car pulls into the driveway, and a minute later Mrs. Clancy is standing over me. “Oh, my lord,” she says, “I've been so worried. What happened to you? Where have you been? Just look at your poor head.”

Without giving me a chance to answer, she pulls me up from the sofa. To my amazement, she hugs me. A quick, hard hug and then, “What were you thinking? Do you know how mortifying it is to tell the police your child is missing? How many questions they ask? I even got calls from Social Services.”

She keeps on talking as she leads me outside. My head feels like it's going to float away, and I can barely stand up. Mr. Hailey helps get me into the car. He and Mrs. Hailey, Shea, and the Green Man stand in the driveway and wave until I can't see them anymore.

“Who was that scruffy girl?” Mrs. Clancy asks. “And that man—I've seen him in the park. He's a bum. A wino. What was he doing at Mr. Hailey's house?”

I slide down in the seat and rest my head against the window. The town glides by. Mrs. Clancy's voice is the soundtrack, and the streets and houses are a movie without a plot. A documentary, maybe. It should be in black-and-white.

“Don't you have anything to say?”

I shake my head and mumble something about not feeling good.

“I guess not,” she says. “Have you had anything to eat?”

“Not hungry.”

“Chicken soup with rice, that's what you need. Some applesauce, crackers, ginger ale. Hot tea with honey.”

I don't say anything. She knows I don't eat meat. Why can't she remember? I'm too tired to explain. I just want to go to bed. And sleep for a week.

A
S SOON AS WE GET
to her house, Mrs. Clancy fixes a hot bath for me and tells me to wash all the paint off before my cuts get infected.

“I'd do it myself,” she says, “but you're too old for me to be bathing you.”

After she shuts the door, I sink down into the tub. The water slowly turns muddy green. I wash languidly. Too weak to scrub. Too weak to drown myself.

“Your pajamas are on the chair in the hall,” she shouts through the door. “Don't stay in there too long. You'll get a chill.”

I get out of the tub and look at myself. I'm scratched and bruised all over. My head is covered with cuts and little tufts of hair that Sean missed. I look like what I am—an orphan no one loves or cares about. A lost boy from a Dickens novel. I wonder if my mother would have left me in the hospital if she'd known what my life would be like without her.

My mother. Why did I think of her? Has she ever thought of me? Probably she's forgotten me completely.
No, I never had a baby
, I can hear her say. Maybe to a doctor. Maybe to a friend. Maybe to her husband if she has one. Or to me, if I ever found her.
Don't you think I'd remember something like that?

I shove my mother back into the box where I keep her, way down in a dark corner of my mind, and put on my pajamas.

Mrs. Clancy calls from the kitchen, “Your soup's ready,” but I don't answer. I go into my room, shut the door, and crawl into bed. It's only five o'clock. The sun is shining. But all I want to do is sleep.

Mrs. Clancy has other ideas. Without even knocking, she barges into my room with a tray and sets it down on the bureau beside my bed. “Soup,” she says. “Applesauce. Toast. Ginger ale.”

I turn my head away and refuse to answer.

She sits down on the bed. The mattress sags under her weight. “Do I have to feed this to you?”

I don't say a word.

“Oh, Brendan,” she sighs. “I'm too damned old for this nonsense. I don't have the energy to deal with you. I'm leaving the soup here. Eat it or not. It's vegetable noodle. No meat.”