The Pricker Boy Page 20

  I’ve got my foot propped up on the footstool in front of me. The Cricket is decorating my cast using his Magic Markers. I’ve just finished telling them yet again what happened the night of the fire. This feels like an inquisition. I’m present for the discussion, but I’m also the subject of the discussion. I’m not happy being stuck out here on display in front of all of them.

  No one speaks for a long time.

  Ronnie clears his throat. “You keep telling us that he was there.”

  “He was.”

  Emily looks me right in the eyes. “That’s not possible.”

  “Okay, Emily,” I say. “Then explain to me everything that’s happened to us this summer. Starting with the package in the woods.”

  “I can’t,” she admits. But she doesn’t break eye contact with me. She doesn’t back off.

  “Look, I understand what all of you are saying. But if Pete wasn’t out there in the woods with me, then who carried me away from the fire? Even the doctors said that I could barely crawl, let alone walk.”

  No one says anything. No one has an answer. I know in their minds they imagine that I somehow crawled away, or that in the face of the fire my instincts took over and I ran on my broken foot through the woods. But that isn’t what happened. I know that’s not what happened.

  “I’m sorry that I put you through all this,” I say.

  Vivek cuts me off. “You kept things interesting.” My mother glares at him, but the rest of us laugh.

  Robin reaches out a finger, places it on my cast, gently taps it twice. “I’d do it again,” she says. “So long as you promise not to light the woods on fire. I don’t always like you, but when we all thought you were dead … well, it was the scariest thing that I’ve felt all summer.”

  I didn’t expect her to be nice to me. I don’t deserve it. I feel the urge to cry, but I bite it back. It flickers inside me for a moment before settling down.

  “But there’s one more thing,” I say. “Cricket, come here.” He ignores me, so I make the appropriate signs in the air. He puts down his markers and climbs into the chair next to me. “I’m going to tell them what happened,” I say to him.

  The Cricket stuffs his fingers in my mouth and buries his face in my shirt.

  “No, I have to tell them,” I say.

  The Cricket lets out a sound that resembles a muffled “no.” I put my arms around him and begin to tell the story.

  “The day before Pete went missing, he was over here at the house. You guys weren’t here,” I said, motioning to my parents. “It was just me and Pete and the Cricket. We were playing some cards and listening to music. Pete had just heard this new song and he wanted to listen to the radio so that he could hear it again. He said it was awesome. He said that I would love it. The Cricket was humming and scribbling on newspapers with some crayons.

  “I think that Pete’d been up all night with some of his friends. He smelled like cigarettes. I think they’d been drinking. When he first came over, he seemed really tired, but other than that he was … well, the regular Pete. But then something changed. Like that day he gave Ronnie that scar. Something just changed. The Cricket was humming, and Pete was trying to listen to the radio, and he was losing the card game, and he said to me, ‘Shut that kid up.’”

  The Cricket whines and hides his face more. I put my hand on his head and rub his hair.

  “I tried to laugh it off. But I was scared because I could see him change. Could see it so clearly. I said, ‘You know the Cricket. I can’t make him do anything.’ And Pete said, ‘I could shut him up.’

  “I just wanted to forget about it and get back to the card game and the radio. I said something about the song coming on soon, and Pete said that the Cricket had better be quiet by then. I said something again about not being able to shut him up, but Pete said he could do it. I didn’t know what to say. So I laughed, and oh God I wish I’d never said it but I did. ‘I’d like to see you try.’ I just hoped that he’d start laughing too and say, ‘You’re right, Stucks, he never listens to anybody.’ But he didn’t.”

  I kiss the top of the Cricket’s head. He isn’t whining anymore. He’s just lying still and quiet in my arms and listening.

  “He turned to the Cricket and told him to be quiet. The Cricket didn’t listen. It was almost like he wasn’t even paying attention. And then … it was so quick … Pete reached out and slapped him on the side of his head. It was hard, and there was a sharp snap when he connected. I didn’t know what to do. I remember standing up. The Cricket was too shocked to even cry. Pete screamed, ‘You listening to me, kid?’ and he whacked him again, closed-fisted, this time in the ribs. It knocked the Cricket right out of his chair and onto the floor. I don’t know why it took me so long to react.”

  I can’t look at my parents anymore. I can’t even look at my friends.

  “It was like I couldn’t move. I wanted it all to stop. Then I saw Pete heading toward the Cricket again, and I jumped between them. At first I thought that Pete was going to come after me. But he just laughed. I wanted so bad to say something, but I couldn’t think of a single word, and when I tried to open my mouth, all that came out was a shaky whisper. The Cricket was on the floor, screaming bloody murder. Pete went toward the door. He turned around again and said that if my parents did that to the Cricket every once in a while, the Cricket would do as he was told and we wouldn’t have so many problems with him. Those were his exact words. ‘Wouldn’t have so many problems with him.’”

  “I didn’t know that we had many problems with the Cricket,” my father says. I look up at him. His face is deep crimson and his eyes look ready to burst.

  “Pete left, and I locked the door. I took care of the Cricket as best I could, and after a while I got him calmed down. He had a huge bruise on his side. I told him I was sorry and that Pete would never, ever come into the house again.

  “About twenty minutes later Pete came back. He stood at the door and begged to come in. He apologized and shouted and pleaded with me to unlock the door. When I wouldn’t do it, he started pounding on the door frame. He screamed at us to let him in. I remember I went to my room and got my baseball bat just in case he broke down the door. I was standing next to the door with one hand on the Cricket’s shoulder and the bat in the other, waiting to see what Pete would do. Finally he went away.

  “That night I saw Pete head out onto the ice with an ax. But I was so angry with him that I didn’t care where he was going. I didn’t even think … it never occurred to me … I swear it never occurred to me what he might do. But now it seems so obvious. And then he was gone. I supervised bath time and bedtime for the Cricket for the next week or so. That’s why you guys never saw the bruises. And when the Cricket stopped talking, I told you it was because of a game we’d been playing.”

  Ronnie stops me. “Stucks, there’s no way you could have known what was going on in his head. You can’t read minds. I probably would have done the same thing.”

  “You can’t say that. You don’t know. You’ve never even seen the winter out here, Ronnie. Pete and I used to use a hatchet to chop our way through when we wanted to check the thickness of the ice. What else would he have gone out there to do?”

  When no one answers, Emily steps in to speak for them. “You still couldn’t have known.”

  They’re right. But knowing that they’re right and feeling it are two different things. “That’s easier to say than to believe,” I say. I have to force myself to believe it, though, because I’m not the only one who’s locked this up so tightly, and if I can’t accept it, then I can’t help him accept it either. I pull the Cricket away from me so that I can look him in the face. “What happened to Pete. It had nothing to do with you. Do you hear me?”

  The Cricket doesn’t respond. He also doesn’t stick his fingers in my mouth to stop me from speaking. I try again because I need to know that he hears me. “It had nothing to do with you. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  Ronnie comes over and knee
ls by the chair. He holds out his wrist toward the Cricket. “You see this?” he says, pointing at his scar. “Pete hurt me too. He did it long before he hurt you. And it wasn’t my fault either. Pete had problems, and those problems weren’t because of me and they weren’t because of you.”

  The Cricket reaches out with his finger and touches the scar on Ronnie’s wrist. He pulls his finger away and looks at me. He leans in very close to me, puts his mouth up to my ear. He speaks so softly that I can barely hear him.

  “Not because of me?” he whispers.

  “Not because of you,” I answer. I hug him tightly. “And not because of me.”

  And then the tears come, years’ worth of tears, tears like the thunderstorm that killed the fire, tears so strong I’m afraid I’ll never be able to stop.

  No matter what they believe, I know that Pete was here with me this summer. But I also know that this was his last summer. He’s never coming back. I should have acted earlier. I should have asked him more questions about what was going on with him. Maybe if I’d gotten him talking, it would have taken a little off his shoulders, just enough for him to keep himself alive or to ask someone for help. I’ll be asking “what if I had …” for the rest of my life. That question is never going to go away.

  Maybe the monster from our childhood didn’t get to Pete. Maybe he wasn’t taken away by the thorn-studded boy who hid behind every tree, who scratched at the side of the tent just a little past midnight, who lay motionless in the deep muddy puddles waiting for an ankle to wade by. Maybe it wasn’t him, but it was a bogeyman for sure that whispered in Pete’s ear that January and convinced him to do what he did, convinced him to take the ax and walk off into the bitter cold by himself.

  I saw the Pricker Boy a few nights ago. He came to me in a dream. He had grown older. Many of his thorns had fallen off, as if he were shedding scales. He stared at me, but I didn’t fear him. He was gathering things together from the woods: bits of animal fur, a few sharp stones, a tattered baseball cap, two red-tissued packs of firecrackers, a frayed jump rope.… He was gathering them together and retreating into the woods. I tried to walk toward him, but he clutched his prizes tighter and skittered away. He went beyond the thorns, beyond the hill, beyond all the paths … he would keep going until he hit the swampy areas deep in the woods, and there he would get swallowed by the muck and the slime. I tried to call him back, to tell him that it was okay, that he could stay in these woods if he chose to, that no one would mock him or beat him or play with his trust, but he wouldn’t listen. He just kept running away from me, running and coveting every toy and treasure we had ever left for him on the offering stone in the Hawthorn Trees.

  I’m waiting now, waiting for this summer to end. When it goes, there’ll be no more night breezes through the open window. No more charred hot dogs off of Dad’s grill. No more baseball on the radio. No more bare feet. No more staying up late at night just to look for shooting stars. It’ll all go: the frogs and the birds and the crayfish and the lightning bugs and the screaming cicadas. Sitting in the shade under the leaves. Lying back in the grass.

  And my friends. They’ll go too.

  I’m scared of what’s coming in their wake. I’m scared of the winter and the frost and the cruel ice creeping across Tanner Pond.

  It’s the last day of summer and I’m sitting by the edge of the pond. Boris is stretched out on the ground next to me. He’s probably half-asleep, but if I were to say his name he’d leap to his feet, ready for action. My foot is propped up on one of the lawn chairs. The cast is a mash of bright colors, having been the Cricket’s Magic Marker drawing pad for a few weeks now. He and I are keeping an eye on Nana as she swims. It’s late August, but there’s September in the air. That doesn’t stop Nana. She’s floating in the water and singing to the Cricket, asking him over and over to come in and swim with her. I’m surprised when I hear a splash, and I look up to see the Cricket paddling around with her, his legs kicking into the air over the surface of the water.

  Emily shows up, blond hair pulled back in a ponytail, walking slowly. She is wearing shoes, which tells me that her family has finished packing and that she is coming to say goodbye. She sits down next to me, so close that I forget how to breathe.

  “We’re just finishing up,” Emily says. “My dad is bleeding the water lines, and Mom is cleaning out the fridge. I’ve got everything packed.”

  Now that she is leaving, I can’t think of anything to say. I take the gold ring from my pocket and begin moving it from finger to finger. I keep looking at that ring and my fidgeting fingers.

  “I just wanted to stop over and say goodbye,” she offers.

  “I know.” I raise my head to her.

  The awkward silence that follows is one of the longest moments of my life, but it is also incredible, because she is looking right at me, and I am looking at her, and I can feel my heart thudding inside my chest. We listen to Nana and the Cricket splashing in the water. I look down toward the water just in time to see the Cricket place a hand on the top of her head. She goes under, pretending that he has dunked her. She comes up and spits water at him. “Stanley, you’re just as bad as your grandfather was!” she says cheerily, gleeful about having a swimming partner.

  “He’s still not talking?” Emily asks me.

  “He will. Eventually.”

  Another long silence.

  “Did you notice anything strange about all those things from the offering stone in the Hawthorns?” Emily asks me. “Each one of them pointed.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, each one of them somehow related to someone else. Robin’s comics were written with Ronnie. Ronnie’s book had my clover in it. Vivek’s baseball cards, you used them to help teach him math. Everything had to do with someone else.”

  “Almost everything,” I say, looking down at the ring.

  She reaches out with her finger and pulls my chin so that I have to look at her. She points to her neck. Her locket is dangling there. She holds her finger under the chain and lifts it. “Here, open it,” she offers.

  I reach out and try to get my fingers around the locket, but when they get close to Emily’s body they fumble over the shiny metal. She rolls her eyes and reaches up and opens the clasp herself. “There,” she says. “Now take it out.”

  There is a tiny piece of paper inside, folded over and over and over. It has yellowed over the years. I take it out and unfold it. Inside, written in the rounded script of a young girl, are four words: I LOVE STUCKS CUMBERLAND. I chuckle. Emily smiles. “Isn’t that sweet?” she asks me.

  I don’t even know who leans in first. Our lips meet and hold. This is not the kiss of the schoolyard, the smack and escape that I had played as a child. This is obvious; this is intentional. This is feeling my heartbeat in my throat; this is suddenly being out of breath. We only kiss for about five seconds, then one of us laughs, and we break away. Neither of us can look at the other.

  “That was, that was … uh, nice,” I stumble. My lips are tingling, every nerve overloaded. They feel swollen, like all the blood in my body is rushing to my mouth to try to grab a little lingering piece of her.

  I shake my head. “No, that’s not what I want to say.” I wait until she can look at me. “I mean that was my first. My first real kiss.”

  She nods. “Me too. It was nice, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’ve been ‘interested’ in kissing you for a while.” She winks.

  We laugh again.

  The door to the back of the house opens. Robin steps out and, seeing us, mumbles an awkward sorry and turns to go back inside.

  “It’s okay,” I say.

  She turns hesitantly, looking to Emily for confirmation. At Emily’s nod she comes out and sits in one of the chairs in the circle. I hear Nana singing down by the water. “Stucks and Emily, sittin’ in a tree …” The song is interrupted when the Cricket dunks her again.

  Ronnie appears, walking across from his grandpa
rents’ cottage with Vivek. They take a couple chairs, and Vivek eyes the ring in my hand. “I found a ring this summer too,” he says. “It was around my bathtub.” We all laugh.

  “I’m still trying to remember which one of us left this out there,” I say. “We all got our stuff back, but we still haven’t placed this ring yet.”

  “I’m still wondering which one of us left that package out there in the Hawthorns,” Ronnie says.

  “I think it was Stucks,” Robin says.

  “What are you talking about?” I reply. “I told you guys—” Emily jumps in. “We all said that we didn’t do it. But one of us must have. Someone must be holding something back.”

  “Or forgetting. Not sure themselves,” Robin says.

  “Look,” I say, “I know that I’m crazy. I don’t even trust my own brain to tell me the truth anymore.” Emily reaches over and takes my hand.

  “I don’t think you’re crazy,” Ronnie says. “I mean, I believed it, and it was my story.”

  “Stucks, I’m not saying you’re crazy,” Robin says. “But you’ve been walking in your sleep since we were kids. And you did wake up out there on the first morning of the summer. So who’s to say that it wasn’t you?”

  “Because he didn’t have the items to place in the package,” Emily says. “The answer to the mystery is figuring out who would have been brave enough, even as a kid, to go back there alone and collect those items after they’d been placed out there. I think it was Vivek.”

  Ronnie chimes in. “He always made jokes. He never took it seriously.”

  “But I’m a big, fat, fraidy-scared coward!” he replies.

  “And you were the one who first ‘discovered’ the package,” Ronnie adds.

  “It might have been Robin,” Emily says.

  “Me?”

  “Yes. More than any of us, you hate going home at the end of the summer. Sometimes you’ve had to leave early, and I know you always worry about what you might miss—or that we won’t miss you, which is ridiculous. And you’re sentimental. You’re the one most likely to collect mementos. To hold on to the summer, even if just for a little bit.”