I don’t understand.
Mama said that no matter how badly I screwed up, she and papa would always love me. Whenever I fell and got scraped up or got a bad grade in school, she would always say, “Your friends will forget you, your bosses will nag you, and the gods will forget you exist, but your family will stand by you no matter what.”
So why did mama and papa send me away? I tried to be a good boy. I ate my vegetables, I was never late for school, I always did what adults told me to do. I did make Lisa cry, but I apologized when papa said I had to. I don’t understand what I did wrong.
It’s been nearly a week since I left home. I thought I was strong enough to survive. I’m not. My friends would be if they’d been banished. But even though I’m six years old, I’m not even brave enough to sleep without a night light. Maybe that’s why mama and papa sent me away. What warrior’s son needs a night light.
I’m in Portland now. I took a bus here yesterday. I didn’t want to try and sleep in barns anymore. My mama always talked about how big and wonderful the city is. I hate it. It’s large and crowded. Everyone’s mean. I couldn’t find a place to sleep, so I had to sleep outside. It’s so cold.
“Hey, hey, are you alright.”
I open my eyes to see a big boy shaking me awake. Good, just what I needed, a bully.
“Leave me alone, I’m tired.” I say.
He starts shaking me harder. “Look, it’s going to get really cold tonight. If you don’t even have a blanket, you’ll be dead by morning. You don’t want that do you?”
I look up at him. Mama and Papa always warned me not to talk to strangers, and he scares me.
“What’s wrong, kid?” He asks. “You’re giving me a strange look.”
“My mama said never speak to a stranger. You look like you’re dangerous.”
To my surprise, He laughs, “That’s just the charm of revulsion,” He says, pulling up his sleeve and showing me a brand on his arm, “It makes everyone I talk to hate me. Where you from, kid?”
“My name’s Michael. I’m from the village of Big Bend. Who are you?”
“My name’s Zachary. I’m from somewhere. How’d you come to be in Portland.”
I tell Zachary everything. A week ago, papa came home in a panic, saying that the great warrior had been stolen. I told papa he could have colonel jones, my favorite toy soldier, as a good luck charm. My papa took one look at him and said, “Give me this. Now leave and never come back.” I cried and begged to stay, so papa picked me up and threw me out. I thought I was doomed, but then colonel jones came back to me and told me that I wasn’t a bad boy, and that he would stay by me no matter what.
When it’s over, Zachary looks at me and says, “that’s one crazy story.” He pulls out a magnifying glass and looks at it for a bit. “Why don’t you come with me, Michael. I have a place you can stay at and not freeze to death. I’ll help you learn how to survive out here.”
I’m being shaken awake by someone. “Five more minutes mama,” I moan.
“Hey, I ain’t your mother. Now wake up, we gotta go get food before the soup line closes.”
It all comes rushing back to me. I’m not at home, I’m somewhere in Portland. Zachary drags me to my feet and says, “Come on, we gotta go.”
We walk for what feels like forever. Back in Big Bend, we walked everywhere because mama and papa didn’t own a car. They said it wasn’t necessary in a town like Big Bend. If we needed to go anywhere out of town, we could get borrow a car from a friend. I thought it took forever to get anywhere, and mama and papa were always telling me to stop whining.
Portland is much bigger. It doesn’t take long for my feet to start hurting. I’m afraid to tell Zachary though. He might tell me to go away. I don’t have anyone else.
“Why is Portland so big?” I whine.
“I have no idea, but it being big isn’t a bad thing.”
“Why?” I ask.
“You can disappear. If someone gets angry at you, you can just outrun them, and they’ll never catch you. It also means you can’t stay in one spot for too long. Don’t worry, you’ll get used to walking everywhere.”
Eventually we reach a building with a long line stretching outside of it. “That’s a soup kitchen.” Zachary says, “I don’t like to stop at them, but you should know what they look like.”
“Do we have to wait in line?” I ask.
“No, we could pickpocket someone and buy breakfast somewhere.”
“What does ‘pickpocket’ mean?”
“It’s when you reach into someone else’s pocket to steal their wallet when they’re not looking.”
“It’s stealing!” I scream.
Zachary slaps his hand over my mouth and looks around nervously. “Shut up, you idiot, there’s cops everywhere. Do you want the soup kitchen or not?”
I try to close my eyes to keep from crying. “Let’s do the soup kitchen I say nervously.”
“Well, what have we here?”
I turn to see a cop staring at Zachary. Something about his face reminds me of cat looking at a mouse. “It appears I’ve found the pickpocket I was looking for.”
“We weren’t doing any stealing sir.” I say quickly.
The cop looks at me. He doesn’t look like he believes me. “Were you?” He says to me.
Zachary elbows me. “No sir. I don’t know who you’re looking for, but it’s not us. Sir.”
I don’t think Zachary’s telling the truth. He looks like he’s worried and keeps moving his hands around. I don’t know what the cop’s going to do to us, but I’m afraid to find out.
“What’s going on?”
All of us, me, the cop, and Zachary, turn to see a woman with brown hair, glasses, and a dark red hoodie. “Did my brother do something wrong?”
“Which one is your brother?” the cop sounds annoyed.
“Both of them.” The woman says.
“Doesn’t look like you’re related.” The cop says.
“Believe me, sometimes I wonder that myself.”
The cop looks at her. He points at Zachary and says, “I say this boy in Harmony square. There were twenty reports of people losing their wallets. I have at least one eyewitness saying that it was him. If he’s your brother I’d very much like to talk to your mother about him.”
“I can assure you, officer, it wasn’t my brother you saw yesterday.”
“We have eyewitnesses young lady!” The cop screams waving his arms in her face.
She pauses a bit before saying, “As I recall, you said you had An eyewitness. Not eyewitnesses. I also recall hearing that eyewitness testimony is horribly unreliable. Furthermore, I know that he wasn’t at harmony square yesterday because I was tutoring him in math in our kitchen. Louis, why don’t you add 12.71 to 3.46 for us.”
Zachary looks annoyed. “I don’t know, is it something like a hundred.”
The woman smacks her forehead with your head. “Louis, I keep telling you, numbers past the decimal point work just like the numbers in front of the decimal point. You have to add them together and put the extra one on top.” She looks at the officer and says, “No matter how hard I try that boy JUST WON’T LEARN.”
She sighs, “But he’s a good boy officer, he would never break the law.”
“Then who was it I saw yesterday.” The cop growls.
“How would I know? But while you’re standing here yelling at my brother for no reason, the thief could be back in harmony square pickpocketing twenty more people while another eyewitness bawls her eyes out that the police aren’t there to help her. How do you think your boss will like that?”
The cop looks annoyed. He turns back to Zachary and says, “I’ll be watching you boy.” Then he leaves.
I can’t help but be relieved. Zachary turns to her and says, “Why did you do that?”
“In case I need a favor later on. I just ran away from home after all.”
“So you need someone to look after you.” Zachary says.
“No, although finding a safe place to sleep would be nice. I haven’t gotten a good night’s rest in days.” She looks at both of us. “My name’s Jessica by the way.”
“I’m Michael.” I say.
Zachary doesn’t say anything. Jessica looks at him, then at the soup kitchen line, then says, “I’ve got some money, why don’t we find somewhere to buy breakfast then we can get to know each other.”
No comments:
Post a Comment