Kit's Wilderness Read online

  I turned it round so that it faced Grandpa.

  “Silky!” he said. “Just as he was.” He stared down into the black. “Aye. Just as he was.”

  “It’s John Askew’s,” I said.

  “He would know. From his own grandfather. Caught him dead right. Little mischief.”

  I looked out of the window, saw Askew far out there, heading away, distorted by the water on the pane.

  “He read the story I did for school,” I said. “Drew it for that.”

  “Clever lad.” Grandpa looked at me. “Thought he was off the team, though,” he said.

  I shrugged. “Aye. I suppose.”

  Mum came in, lifted the drawing, said how good it was. Then realized. “John Askew?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hope he doesn’t think he can buy favor with this kind of thing.” She dropped the drawing back onto the table.

  “Ah, well,” said Grandpa. He grinned. He reached down and touched the glistening boy with his fingertip. “Little Silky, eh?”

  I went upstairs and put it in my room, on the wall beside the drawing of me. Then Mum was calling.

  “Kit! Allie’s here!”

  That day after school I went out alone, climbed the fence. There were dozens of kids playing in the gathering dark. There was a slide on a bare patch of ground. Someone had brought a lantern down. They slid through its pale glow, clashed into each other, went sprawling, laughed and squealed.

  “Kit!” someone yelled. “Come and play, Kit!”

  Then screamed, “Aaaaaaaa! Hahaha!”

  I waved and walked on. The frosted grass crunched and crackled under my feet. The house lights from the opposite bank shimmered on the slow river. Stars brightened as the dark came on. No moon. I looked down and was certain I saw ice forming there at the river’s edge. Cold enough, I thought. Bitter cold.

  I closed my eyes, saw Grandpa as a boy, slipping and sliding on the ice. I smiled to myself, then heard a whispering, a tiny giggling nearby. Opened my eyes, saw nothing.

  “Who’s there?” I whispered.

  I stared into the dark, squinted, heard the whispering again.

  “Who’s there?”

  Then there came a sudden growl, a mutter.

  “Down! Leave him!”

  “Askew?” I whispered.

  He lurched out of the dark, the dog beside him blacker than the night. He stood yards away from me. My breath quickened, heart thudded. I reached into my pocket, gripped the ammonite.

  “I got your picture,” I said.

  He grunted something.

  “It’s brilliant,” I said.

  He held the dog by its collar. Its white teeth glistened in the dark.

  “I know it is,” he said.

  “I put it on my wall, Askew.”

  “You,” he said. “Bloody you.”

  “Me what?”

  “You. Mr. Perfect. Mr. Butter Wouldn’t Melt.”

  “Eh?”

  “Eh? Eh? It was you that spoiled it, Mr. Teacher’s Pet.”

  “Eh?”

  “It was you that brought her running.”

  He stepped closer, gripped my collar.

  “What’s it about you that gets everybody running to protect you?”

  We watched each other.

  “Don’t know what you mean,” I said.

  He growled, and the dog growled at his side. “He’d tear you limb from limb,” he said.

  “Askew,” I said, exasperated with him.

  “You,” he said. “You and that stupid pretty thing.”

  I tugged away.

  “Get off me,” I said. “You’re being . . .”

  He gripped me tighter, so tight I could hardly breathe. He glared, and his eyes glittered with reflected light.

  “What d’you want?” I whispered.

  “From you? Nothing. Nowt.”

  But he held me close.

  “Kit Watson,” he whispered. “Kit Watson, aged thirteen. What’s it like?”

  “Eh?”

  “Eh? Eh? Living death. What’s it like?”

  “Like nothing,” I said. “It’s nonsense.”

  “Aye?”

  He grunted again. He wanted to hurt me with his grip, wanted to frighten me with his eyes. But I could feel that his grip was also a way of clinging to me, that his eyes were also filled with yearning. It was Askew who needed someone to protect him, Askew who needed love.

  “You could be something, you know,” I said.

  He sneered.

  “You could,” I said. “Your drawing’s brilliant. You’re throwing yourself away. You’re being stupid.”

  The dog growled, strained against his grip. We watched each other in silence.

  “Watch what you say,” he said. “Just watch it, Kit.”

  I heard wordless whispering around us again, an intake of breath. At the edge of my vision, in the darkness, children crouched and watched us. I turned my eyes from Askew, peered past him, squinted.

  He laughed, low, guttural.

  “Aye,” he said. “There’s them that see and them that don’t. You’re closer to me than you think, Kit Watson.”

  “I know that,” I said. I met his eyes again. “We’re closer than anyone could think,” I said. “And I know we could be friends.”

  He pushed me away at the word.

  “Friends!” he hissed. “Bloody friends!”

  He moved away with the dog.

  “Yes,” I whispered after him. “John Askew, aged thirteen, friend of Christopher Watson, aged thirteen.”

  I stood there, listening, squinting, searching the darkness, then hurried home, and there were skinny children all around.

  “Jeez, Kit. It’s such a drag, man.”

  “Come on,” I said. “We’ll do it together.”

  Allie slumped in her chair and sighed.

  We were working on Pangaea, on the kitchen table. We had to show how it was formed from all the continents that we have now. I stared at the maps, saw how the coasts of Africa and America could be slotted into each other, how India could fit tight against Africa. I read how the movement of continents and countries away from each other continues.

  “It is,” I said. “It’s easy.”

  I started to cut out the continents from the map so that we could fit them together.

  Allie clicked her tongue, picked her nails, sighed.

  “Who wants to know?” she said. “Who wants to go a million million years into the past?”

  I just went on, cutting out, fitting together.

  “Mr. Watson,” she said. She drummed her fingers on the table. “Mr. Watson heading back into the past. Mr. Watson in his element.”

  “Stop it, Allie.”

  “That’s very good,” she said, acting Mr. Dobbs as I went on. “Excellent, Christopher. And did you realize that the continents continue to move away from each other, perhaps as slowly as our fingernails grow? You knew that? Very good, Christopher. Such a fine pupil. Perhaps some of you others should follow Christopher’s example. What’s that, Christopher? Ah, you wish to be a geography teacher yourself someday? Excellent. Excellent. We should have a proper chat sometime. I’ll give you the benefit of my experience. Allie Keenan! Stop dreaming, girl! Get some work done. Yes, sir, Mr. Dobbs. Of course, Mr. Dobbs. Pangaea, eh? How very very fascinating.”

  She giggled. “Jeez, Kit. what a drag, eh?”

  Pangaea was made. I looked at it, all the continents together.

  “Amazing,” I said. “You think the earth’s solid and fixed, but then you find out something like this.”

  “Quite amazing, Mr. Watson.”

  “Anyway, it’s done.”

  “Thank God for that. Dobbs’ll be delighted, eh?”

  Allie started putting her books back into her bag. “D’you never wish it was all just over and done with?”

  “Eh?”

  “Eh? School and books and homework. So you can get out in the world and get going properly.”

  “S
uppose so.”

  Allie grinned.

  “Is that bad little lass still here?” called Grandpa from the living room.

  “Yes!” she shouted. “She’s still in here!”

  “Driving me grandson round the bend and up the pole, I bet!”

  “Aye! And round the twist and all!”

  “Hahaha! Good lass! Good bad lass!”

  Allie giggled again and twisted her face.

  “I do, though,” she said. “It’s all such a drag, man.”

  She stood up and slung her bag over her shoulder. “Tomorrow morning?” she said.

  “Tomorrow morning.”

  Allie dropped her head forward, stood like someone stupid, nodded her head up and down, slowly grunted, “Tomorrow . . . tomorrow . . . tomorrow . . . tomorrow.”

  She was on her way out when we heard a sudden crash from next door, Mum’s scream of terror.

  “Dad!” she yelled. “Dad! Oh, Dad!”

  He was slumped on the floor, head twisted back against the sofa. Face gray, eyes staring. Mum kneeling over him.

  “Dad,” she whispered. “It’s all right, Dad. Stay calm. You’ll be all right.”

  My father was on the phone.

  “Come on!” he said. “Answer, answer!”

  He saw me standing there, held his hand up. “It’s okay, son. He’ll be all right. Come on, answer!”

  I turned to Allie. She was in the doorway.

  “Kit!” she whispered.

  “Answer!” said Dad. “Answer!”

  Allie stared, and tears poured from her eyes, just like when she looked down into the den.

  Silky came that night, long after the doctor had gone, long after Grandpa had been put to bed, long after I’d gone to bed myself, long after the moon shone in through my window. Long after the moon had been blotted out and the snow began to fall, long after I’d tried to sleep and couldn’t sleep and simply watched the snowflakes thicken on my windowsill.

  Just a glimpse, from the corner of my eye. A shimmering like silk. I caught my breath. “Who’s there?” I whispered.

  Nothing. Then again, nothing but a flickering. Nothing. I closed my eyes, saw the boy running away from me, glistening as he headed down the tunnel.

  “There he is!” I called. “After him! After him!”

  I ran. Endless tunnels, heading further and further into the earth. Kept thinking I’d lost him, then saw him again. Just a glimpse, then gone. I followed, lost him, saw him, lost him. A little blond boy in shorts and boots. I kept on running into the endless dark but he was nowhere. Then again.

  “There he is! There he is!”

  He stood, head turned back to me, watching. Our eyes met. I gasped. I knew he was waiting for me, that he was leading me. He ran again, into the endless deep dark, nothing to be seen but his flickering before me, nothing to be heard but the thundering of my heart and the gasping of my breath and the thumping of my feet. We ran an age, a million years. Far into the earth through secret unknown tunnels, a boy in front and a boy behind and darkness all around. And then a final flickering, and he was gone for good. Where was I? Deep inside the earth, deep inside the dark, alone. I stretched my hands out, inched forward, seeking a way out. Tiptoed forward, feet on the hard earth. Nothing, nothing to be seen. Then touched him, the man standing there beside me. Touched the shoulders, the face, the icy cheek, the open eyes. “Grandpa,” I whispered. No answer. He was dead still, dead stiff. “Grandpa.” I moved in close, put my arms around him. “Grandpa. It’s all right, Grandpa. Stay calm. It’ll be all right.”

  I held him tight. I held him tight for hours, for a million years, till at last we heard the footsteps in the tunnel, saw the distant light of the lamps, heard the voices of the men who’d come to find us. And Grandpa sighed and shook his head.

  “Here they are,” he whispered. “We’re okay, son. Here they are.”

  I opened my eyes to dawn. Snow lay thick on the windowsill. Great flakes drifted across the panes.

  “Grandpa,” I whispered.

  I pressed my cheek to the wall. I heard him moving in his bed, then his frail voice:

  “When I was young and in me pri-ime . . .”

  Snow. Not a breath of wind. The flakes tumbled thickly from the low white sky, filled the gardens and lanes, rested thick on the rooftops, carpeted the wilderness. Snowmen appeared: coaly eyes, carrot noses, pebble-studded grins. The slides lengthened and widened. Parents rushed across the snow, pulling squealing children on sleds and plastic trays and trash bags.

  Each morning we woke to a brilliant new layer. It was wonderful to be the first across the fence each morning, to stamp the first fresh footprints there. It was great to trudge with Allie through it on our way to school, to hear her giggles muffled by the dead still snow-padded air. We made huge light balls of it, heard them thump softly onto fence posts and house walls, slung them at the others who walked around us. Snowballs everywhere, arching up into the misty air and down with a thump to the world again.

  Allie danced across the snow in her brilliantly colored clothes, kicked a storm of white around her, grabbed my arm and tugged me and made me join in with her. We fell down with our legs and arms askew and printed the shapes of our bodies in it. We lifted our faces and opened our mouths and felt the single flakes melting gently on our tongues and laughed at each other and danced again. Our hands stung and our cheeks stung and even our hearts stung with the joy of it.

  Even Dobbs joined in with the excitement of it. He put Pangaea aside. He told us about the Ice Age, when the great glaciers crept down from the north, scouring the earth, forcing valleys into the greatest mountains. He told us about our ancestors, who moved southward as the cold intensified, as the world around them froze. A brilliant white world, he said. A world of ice.

  Burning Bush talked of how they sheltered in caves as they moved, how they gathered in terror around magical fires in there. Maybe this was how stories started, she said.

  “Imagine them there, crouched around the fire in the smoke. They painted pictures of beasts on the walls, huge mammoths and bison, the tigers and bears that brought such terror to them. They painted little figures of themselves, little fragile men and women and children in a massive terrifying world. Imagine one of them, the storyteller. He wears animal skins. His hair is shaggy, his skin is blackened by smoke. He holds a burning torch. ‘Listen,’ he tells them, and they all lean closer to the fire, wide-eyed, staring at him, all agog. He casts the torch across the paintings on the wall, and the beasts, the terrifying world, the tiny men and women and children flash before their eyes. ‘Listen,’ he says, ‘and I’ll tell you the story of the boldest of us all, his endless quest across the ice, his struggle with the Bear, his vision of the Sun God. His name was Lak . . .”

  Burning Bush paused and looked at us.

  “That’s your story for this week,” she said. “The first sentence: His name was Lak.”

  I lifted my pen and pondered.

  His name was Lak, I wrote.

  Evening. The first break in the clouds for days. I climbed the fence. The sky was thick with stars. I stared up and found the Great Bear and Orion the Hunter. The flashing lights of an airplane moved beneath them. A shooting star streaked down toward the river. The snow was crisp, its surface brittle and icy, crackling as I walked. Many built fires out here now. They gathered logs, wooden boxes, pallets, lit them, sat in little groups around them, roasted potatoes in the embers, told jokes and scared each other with tales of ghosts and monsters. All across the wilderness the fires glowed and hunched figures leaned toward them.

  “Kit,” called one group as I passed by. A bunch of little ones, little shining eager faces. “Come and tell us that story again, Kit.”

  I laughed. “Later,” I said.

  Walked on, into the deeper darkness above the river, saw by the light of the stars and the opposite house lights that the ice was taking over, beginning to creep out from the river’s edge. How long would it take for the ice from the edges
to meet up and cover the river beneath? I hunched down and watched, and I heard again the tiny whispering all around me. I saw children shifting at the edges of my vision. I squinted and saw the skinny silhouettes, saw the round eyes catching the light from stars.

  Maybe I knew he’d be there as well. There was no surprise when I heard him, when I saw him from the corner of my eye, hunched over, further along the bank.

  “Down,” he whispered. “Leave him.”

  Silence. Just the gentle running of the river, a distant giggling, far behind.

  “Askew,” I said.

  Nothing. I moved closer to him. I spoke his name softly, as if he was an animal in pain: likely to attack, but desperately in need of comfort and love.

  “Askew,” I whispered. “Askew.”

  He sighed, grunted something, pulled his collar close, yanked his woolen hat down. The dog stirred as I drew nearer.

  “You’ll catch your death,” I said.

  He grunted again.

  Silence.

  “What do you do all day?” I said.

  He clicked his tongue.

  Silence.

  “You seen the ice?” I said.

  No answer.

  “It covered the whole river once,” I said. “They walked from bank to bank. A boy drowned when it melted.”

  Nothing.

  “Askew?” I said.

  He yanked his hat again. “You’ll catch your death,” I said.

  “You,” he whispered. “You, and that stupid pretty one.”

  “What?” I said.

  Nothing.

  We watched the water and the ice. I felt the cold creeping into me, into my bones, saw the starlit eyes watching from the dark, heard the shallow breath, the whispers. Shuddered.

  “I’ve done more stories,” I said. “You could do pictures. We could be a team.”

  Askew grunted.

  “Team. Bloody team!”

  “The other one you did was great,” I said.

  He lowered his head, gazed down. I saw the starlight caught in the dog’s eyes, in its teeth.

  “Afterward,” I said. “I dreamed about it. I dreamed that I was with Silky.”