Wish Girl (10 page)

T
hat night, my thoughts got darker. Laura had told on Dad and me as soon as Mom got back from work. I guess Laura had been bored; it wasn't like I'd done anything to her all day. I hadn't even been there to do . . . oh. The dishes. I guess Laura had had to pick up my chores. Oops.

Mom was as mad as I'd ever heard her. And considering how mad she'd been getting since Dad lost his job, that was saying something. I wished Dad
would
find a job, any job. Maybe then Mom wouldn't be so tired all the time, and worried. Maybe she'd turn back into the mom I'd had before. Mostly happy, even happy sometimes to sit still and read to me.

But she'd been way too busy for that for a long time now.

I hid out from the shouting in my room, listening to Mom scream about why her authority was being undermined and Dad yell back about her needing to loosen up.

They fought a lot these days. But never this bad . . . and this time, it was about me. My fault. Every yell felt like a punch in the stomach.

And then the fight got uglier, turned into shouts about Dad not pulling his weight and Mom being a . . . well, Dad started cussing.

He'd never cussed at Mom before.

I had to get out. Laura had locked herself in the bathroom again, with her head under the shower, it sounded like.

Carlie was sobbing in the front room, ignoring the TV, her attention on the fighting. This couldn't be good for her. It sure wasn't good for me.

Maybe Annie had been right. Maybe it
was
time to run away. But not alone.

“Let's go, Carlie,” I said. “I'm gonna show you something.” When I lifted her up, I noticed her diaper was a little heavy, but I wasn't about to go looking for diapers in her room—Dad and Mom might see me walk past their open door. Carlie held her arms up to me. “Peep,” she said sadly. Quietly.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “It is too loud here.” But I knew a place that wasn't.

I hadn't counted on how heavy she'd gotten. Or maybe it was how tired my arms were from hauling fossils all day. But by the time we got to the lip of the valley, I was exhausted.

I couldn't put Carlie down, of course. She didn't have shoes on, and there were definitely snakes. “Look, Carlie,” I said, to stop her squirming. The sun was setting just over the rim opposite us, and the sky was streaked with pinks, yellows, and oranges. It reminded me of the wildflowers in the valley.

“Peep!” Carlie crowed.

“Shh,” I said. “Just look. Watch the light.” She nodded, and I shifted her to my back so she could see—and so my arms wouldn't fall off.

We watched the sunset for a few minutes, Carlie pointing out the vultures that were flying toward a dead tree on one side of the rim and perching there. Maybe they all roosted in the same tree at night. I hoped Doug and Jake never figured out where the birds slept. I had a feeling they'd be happy to go night hunting, just for fun.

Uh-oh. I'd lost track of time. It was quickly growing dark, with a shadow from the hill framing the part of the bowl nearest us, and the shrubs and brush around us taking on darker shades. I could see fireflies flashing below us, in the valley. But none of them seemed to come up over the rim, no matter how Carlie cooed and reached out. “Dight,” she said, pointing. “Dight.”

“Carlie? Did you say a word?” I knew she had. She'd said, “Dight.” I think she meant
light
. She'd only said names before, like “Mom” or “Peep.” I'd been there to hear her first
real
word.

Cool.

“Peep?” Carlie moved on my back, uncomfortable. Or scared? “It's okay, Carlie,” I said. “I'll get us home.”

It wasn't that far, only a short walk back to the house. But it was dark enough that I brushed one ankle against a cactus, stubbed my toe on a rock, and almost dropped my sister when something—a bat?—flew right past my face.

At least it was quiet. Until I was a few feet from the front door, and it flew open.

“Where in the world have you been? Why did you take Carlie? What could you have been thinking?” Mom was obviously done fighting with Dad, but she wasn't all out of fight. I tried to explain that Carlie had been upset, but Mom's shouts were too loud and close together to get a word in. She grabbed Carlie and put her in the playpen. Dad was nowhere to be found. “You sit right there, Mister,” Mom said, her finger shaking at me like she wished it were a gun or a stick or something more violent. “I have more than a few things to tell you about taking the safety of your family—your little sister—so lightly.”

I wanted to laugh. So now Mom cared about Carlie? Where had she been when Carlie was crying with a wet diaper during their screamfest? There was a lot I could have said, but it was no use. And my headache was trying to come back. So I zoned while she lectured, thinking about the valley, and the magic there, and how—if I had my wish—I'd take Annie up on her offer, run away to it . . . and I'd never come back. Never have to be yelled at or forced to talk, to pretend I was someone I wasn't.

I knew for sure that's all I'd get at home for . . . well, forever. I just couldn't compete with all their noise, all their arguments. But if I was honest with myself, I knew the truth. I was too scared inside to yell back. To fight for being me.

When Mom finally wound down, she asked, “And what do you have to say for yourself?”

“I'm sorry,” I said. The words were sour in my mouth. I wasn't really sorry at all. But I had to get away. “Can I go to my room?”

She stood there, her mouth flopping open, like she had thought I would defend myself. Like she expected something more.

“Can I?” I repeated after a few seconds.

“Yes,” she finally managed, clicking her teeth shut. Her chin wobbled, like she was trying not to cry. Huh. What did
she
have to cry about? “And you think about what I said, Peter Stone. You just think about it.”

“I will,” I lied. Instead, I went to my room and started thinking about Annie. How brave she was, and how smart. I sort of wondered why she even liked me.

Then I remembered. Annie had been blown away by how still I could hold. But a rock could do that. I needed to show her I was smart, too. What could I come up with that might impress her? It had to be art. Something new, different, not fossils and flower petals. But what else?

Maybe something with mud, I thought, falling asleep. I dreamed of snakes made out of mud all night long, snakes that left long trails for me to follow, miles and miles of clean pathways that led me so far from home I couldn't hear any yelling at all.

“W
here do you think you're going?” Laura said to me in her snottiest voice the next morning. I'd slept late for once. Laura was already dressed, and she had a plate of frozen waffles in one hand. “Mom said you were grounded, right?”

I wasn't about to get into it with Laura. Anyway, I wasn't doing anything wrong. “Taking out the trash,” I said, holding up the plastic bag from the kitchen. “You want to do it?” I smiled. “Sorry about the dishes yesterday.”

“Dishes?” She rolled her eyes, but she was fidgeting with her hair, the way she did when she was really upset about something. “I wasn't mad about the dishes. I was scared, Peter. After last spring? You . . . you can't just vanish like that.”

“Yeah, well, I won't vanish again,” I said, trying not to feel guilty for worrying her. Trying not to show my surprise that she
had
worried. “Now that I'm grounded for the rest of my life, thanks to you.”

She made a disgusted sound, said, “How about apologizing for stealing Carlie? Mom had a fit, and I had to listen to it,” and left the room before I could even answer. After a few seconds, I heard her tapping away at the keys on the computer.

I was glad she hadn't questioned me. The bag I was holding wasn't full of trash. It was full of food.

Dad had slipped a note under my door in the night, I guess, or that morning. He was taking Carlie to try out a new daycare in Henly while he auditioned for a one-time gig playing drums at the Wimberley Rodeo. He'd be back at four. I was supposed to stay at home.

Yeah, right. I'd already stuffed enough food for breakfast and two lunches in the bag I held, along with a few more supplies. I only had to dig one more cactus spine out of my ankle that I hadn't managed to get the night before, and then I was gone until four.

I had a thought and ran back to my room. I flipped on the radio, loud enough so that Laura wouldn't check on me—she would just figure I was hanging out. But I put a note on my pillow just in case:
Went for a walk
on our property,
so don't freak. Back soon.

And I was free. If I hurried, I'd have time to do something with the mud before Annie got there. So I ran.

I stopped on the lip of the valley, sort of saying good morning. I saw something moving across from me, two hills over. It looked like the Colonel's wife. Whoever it was held some sort of metal tool and lifted it to wave at me. I waved back and began to race down the hillside, amazed at how firm the rocks felt underfoot, how springy the soil.

It was almost like the valley couldn't wait for me to get started either.

At the streambed, I pulled out my supplies. A larger spoon from the kitchen, a metal bowl, and some of the pottery tools Mom had bought when she'd hoped my being quiet had meant I was destined for a future as a sculptor. As a surprise, in fourth grade, she'd signed me up for pottery classes. She'd let me quit after I came home with clay stuffed in my ears and nostrils, courtesy of one of the other kids who had “boundary and anger-management issues.” I guess his mom had signed him up to help him control them. That hadn't worked either.

I scooped up a handful of clay, feeling it squelch between my fingers, and wondered what Mom would think if she could see me. Would she be proud of me trying to make art, real art?

Probably she'd have a fit. This wasn't really clay, after all. It was mud. And I wasn't making pots and pencil holders. Nothing useful. I was making snakes.

Well, not exactly snakes. These didn't have heads or tails. Just long, snakelike bodies. I started with one coming up out of the mud itself on the bank. Like it had been born there, formed itself from the mud. I kept going, clearing a sort of path with my sneaker toe to make a way for the mud snake across the mulch. I rolled the snake's body up and over some of the larger stones by the streambed and—seeing one of the limestone cavelets that hid the water on that side—let it disappear into the hole.

I hopped the streambed over and over as the snake wound farther away from the clay. I wished I'd brought a bucket—it was hard to hold enough mud in my hands to make more than a few inches of snake at a time. I peered up through the leaves when I thought I'd been working for a few hours. Sure enough, the light was filtering through the branches straight overhead. It was probably noon.

I stepped back for a minute to see how far I'd come. The sunlight that reached through the sheltering leaves had started to dry the mud and clay in patches, so the snake was changing color: darker brown on the still-wet places and a lighter tan on the drying lengths. It reminded me of the rattlesnake I'd seen the first day. I held still for a few minutes, remembering that day, that moment.

I think it was because I was holding still that I heard the snuffling in the grasses. I stood quietly, listening to what I was sure was a deer, coming through the brush toward the stream.

Maybe it was more than one. It made more sound than a single deer would. But when it stepped out of the brush, I saw I was wrong.

It was a hog. A black, bristly-haired wild pig, with small tusks on either side of its mouth. When it crossed to the stream to drink, it did so carefully. Was it . . . limping? I couldn't tell. It reached the mud snake, sniffed at it cautiously, and swung its head up to look around, although with those small black eyes I wasn't sure it could see much. I hoped not. Those tusks looked wicked, like it could protect itself if it needed to.

Herself.
She had a low-hanging stomach and two swollen rows of teats underneath. And one foot that was swollen as well. Bitten by something, or scraped.

She was a mom. But where were her babies? The question was answered in a few seconds, as the pig let out a grunt and four small black piglets came rushing through the underbrush to join her. I was hidden in the shadows of the leaves, and I watched as they played. One of the piglets stepped onto the mud snake and left a small hoofprint there. I didn't care. It looked like a fossil. Maybe someday it would be.

One of the piglets had just wandered toward me when I heard something else. Another creature heading in our direction.

Or two creatures.
Crud.
These ones had voices I recognized.

“Hey, Doug, I think the pig came down to this stream. You get up here with the .22. I'll chase her around from the other side. She can't move fast.” Jake sounded like he thought he was whispering, but every sound was amplified by the water. I understood something suddenly.

The scrape on the pig's leg—it wasn't a scrape at all. It was a bullet wound.

It wasn't right. Everything had babies this time of year, babies that would die if their mothers were killed. I couldn't let the boar be like the turkey vulture, slaughtered and thrown into a pond for fun. But there wasn't much time—the boys weren't far. I moved slightly, hoping to scare the pig away.

Bad move.

The sow bristled up, scraped the ground with one hoof, and looked like she might charge me. “Please,” I whispered. “Run.”

And then—I swear—the pig nodded. The babies had fled into the brush at their mom's first indication of trouble. She was gone a few seconds later, but she'd hobbled in the direction of Jake's voice. Not good.

I had to distract the guys.

“Hey, Doug, Jake. What's up?”

I wiped my hands off on my shorts and walked toward their voices. But they were there before I got a few feet from the stream.

“That you, Pete?”

“Yeah.” I tried for the same tone my dad used when he had friends over. Casual, cool. I wasn't good at it. But I didn't want the boys to kill that mother pig. “You guys want some lunch?”

“Sure,” Jake yelled. “Just a sec. Doug, you see her? Pete, you see a pig down here?”

“No,” I lied. Then I realized there were tracks in the mud all around me.

“Dang,” Jake said, stepping out of the tree cover. “We been tracking a sow since dawn. Doug shot her in the leg, we think. Wanna track her with us, Pete?” The guys were at the stream, on the other side. They leaped the water in one bound, Doug's boots slipping enough that he fell on his butt. He held a gun—a different one than the day before, bigger—up over his head as he slipped, though, like it was a baby. The water he splashed landed on the snake, and when I helped him up, his boot smashed it—but it also obliterated the hoofprints the pig had left in the mud. They wouldn't know I'd seen it.

“No, I can't. I sneaked out of my house this morning. I'm still supposed to be grounded.” The guys laughed, and Jake grabbed my sack off the bank, rifling through it. He pulled out a sandwich and tore open the plastic baggie. “Thanks for lunch,” he said, waving off a cloud of flies that settled immediately on the sandwich in his hand. “We had to sneak out, too.”

“Why?” I watched as he threw the plastic bag into the stream.
Really?
I wanted to go grab it and put it back in the sack, but I didn't. I was going to keep an eye on these two.

Doug sat down, too, and took the other sandwich Jake handed him. My sandwich. So much for “sharing” lunch. Of course, as soon as they touched the sandwiches, flies and gnats attacked the food, crawling all over the bread even while the guys were eating. I grabbed a granola bar before they were gone, too, and settled onto a flat stone.

Doug spoke between bites. “Took my gun back. Picked the lock on the gun cabinet. Dad don't know.”

“Whoa,” I said. “Aren't you going to get in trouble?”

“Not if we bring back a hog,” Jake said, waving a yellow jacket away from his head. “Bacon for a month, you bet.” An acorn fell off the tree overhead and smacked him right below the eye, leaving a red welt.

“I hate this valley, though,” he said. “We'd never have come down into it if that pig didn't already have a bullet in her.”

“You shot it somewhere else?”

“Yeah,” Doug said, “your house. Right out back.”

They had been on our property? With guns?
I had a strange thought.
Were they watching me?

“Isn't it dangerous to shoot around houses?” I said, then realized too late that made me sound like a wimp.

“Yep, sure is,” Jake said, tossing the crusts of the sandwich into the stream. “If you're a wuss. You a wuss, Petey?” He grabbed my arm and started to throw me into the water. I twisted out of his hold, but only because he slipped on some algae near the edge of the rock.

“Don't be a jerk.”

“Careful how you talk to me, Petey with no gun,” Jake said, taking the gun from Doug and clicking the safety on and off, the barrel pointing a little too close to my legs for comfort.

I edged away. “What?” I said, swallowing to wet my suddenly dry mouth. “You gonna shoot me?”

Jake smiled, lifted the gun, and said, “Maybe.” He sighted down the barrel, and I watched his finger squeeze the trigger. I swallowed again, hard, not believing what was happening.

He
was
going to shoot me.

I froze. I couldn't make a sound, but the insects in the trees near us did, a dozen cicadas suddenly humming so loud they were practically screaming. Jake ignored them, ignored the moths and flies that flew directly in front of his view, in front of the gun barrel. As if moth wings could stop a bullet.

At the last second, he pulled the barrel to one side and shot at something behind my head.

“No shooting people, Jake,” Doug said, taking the gun back. He said the words like he'd memorized them. Like it was a rule he'd had to hear over and over to get it right. To remember. Doug's eyes narrowed. “No shooting Peter,” he repeated, his voice harder now as he added my name to the refrain. “I like him.” Convinced that his brother wasn't about to murder me, Doug turned to me slightly. “You don't talk much. Like me.”

“Wasn't gonna shoot him. It was a squirrel,” Jake said. “Ran off.” He looked like Doug had just taken away his favorite toy. “That hog's long gone. If we don't bring back something, and Dad figures out we took the .22, we're gonna be the ones getting shot.”

I looked behind me. There hadn't been any squirrels down here when I arrived. I was almost positive he was lying.

“You shoulda seen your face, though,” Jake said. He'd gone back to using my lunch supplies, fishing out the chips I'd brought and handing them to Doug. “Scared as a rabbit. You gotta get a better game face or the kids at school gonna eat you up.”

“Like cake,” Doug said, nodding. “Got any?”

I realized he meant in my bag. “No, sorry. No dessert.” I was worried. If we stayed here too long, Annie would arrive, and if they were happy to aim guns at me, what would they do to her? She was exactly the sort of girl who got picked on by kids like this. Small, scrawny, too smart, and smart-mouthed. I had to get them out of here.

“Guys, I gotta go.”

“Diarrhea?” Doug asked, matter-of-fact. “You been eatin' bad berries?”