“Who’s Nipper?”
Palmer could not think fast enough.
Beans pressed the ball into Palmer’s nose. “Who wrote this?”
He did not want to get Dorothy involved. “I did,” he said.
“So who is Nipper?”
Palmer blurted the first thing that came to mind. “Me. It used to be my nickname when I was little.” He looked at them all. “Before I knew you guys.”
Mutto stepped up beside Beans. “We think Nipper’s a pigeon.”
Palmer made a shocked face. “Pigeon? What would I do with a pigeon?”
“What would you do with that cereal and nachos you got in your room?” said Beans.
Palmer laughed, showing them how wrong they were. “Snacks. I keep stuff in my room so I don’t have to go all the way down to the kitchen.” He wanted to kick himself for forgetting about Nipper’s food.
“And where were you last night?” said Beans.
It occurred to Palmer that he had a right to questions of his own. “Where was I? Where were you?” He glanced at Henry. Henry’s face showed nothing. “Where did you get my ball?”
Beans grinned. “We came to see you last night.”
“You weren’t there,” said Mutto.
Palmer nodded. “I know. I was sleeping overnight at somebody’s. My cousin’s. I wasn’t here.”
Henry was staring at the sky. Palmer saw Henry for what he was: a captive, strong enough to warn him about last night, but too weak to do anything except follow Beans. He saw in Henry something of himself, and worse, what he could become.
Beans scowled at the ball, at Palmer. “You ain’t Nipper. You’re Snots.” He dropped the ball to the ground and stepped on it. When he raised his foot, the foam ball reclaimed its roundness. Beans cursed and stomped on the ball with both feet, flattening it, grinding it into the sidewalk. For a full minute he grunted with the effort, and again the ball popped back to shape. He kicked it away. He yanked on Palmer’s arm. “Let’s go. We gotta find Farquar.”
They found Farquar in front of the deli, eating chocolate cupcakes and drinking Coke.
Beans announced, pointing to Palmer: “Birthday boy. Ten years old.”
Slouched against the deli window, Farquar took a swig of Coke. He swished it around in his mouth. He raised his upper lip, giving himself a rodentlike face, and spit a thin stream of Coke between his front teeth. The boys shot backward.
Farquar peered at Palmer. “Wringer, huh?”
Palmer did not answer.
“He needs The Treatment,” said Beans.
Farquar glared. “You rushing me?”
Beans spread his arms. “No. I’m just sayin’.”
Farquar bit a cupcake in half. Chocolate icing covered his teeth. “What’s it look like I’m doin’?”
“Eatin’?” replied Beans tentatively.
“Eatin’ breakfast,” said Farquar, washing down his mouthful with Coke. The boys took another step back. “You don’t say nothin’ while I’m eatin’ breakfast. Y’understand?”
All four boys nodded. They retreated to the curb and sat down, facing the street, not daring to even look at Farquar.
After a long time they heard his voice: “Okay.” They turned. He was walking up the sidewalk. They got up and followed. He turned into an airshaft between two storefronts and went back to the alley. He stopped. He backed away from them, making space. All faces were grim. No one spoke.
Farquar pointed to the ground in front of him. He looked into Palmer’s eyes. “Step up.”
Palmer stepped up.
“Right or left.”
“Left.”
“Roll it up.”
He rolled his left sleeve up to the shoulder. He blinked several times. He looked around. He rolled his sleeve back down. He took a step back. He shook his head.
Farquar’s brow pinched in surprise. “What?”
“No,” said Palmer. The word came out choked and dry.
“No?” said Farquar. A chocolate crumb was wedged between his front teeth.
“No,” said Palmer, clearly this time. He heard shuffling behind him.
“No what?”
No what?
Palmer moved, away from them all, facing them all.
They stared at him, waiting. He saw the foot grinding the ball, the name into the sidewalk. He heard the scream, heard it coming a split second before the others heard it, the scream that he knew now had been growing inside him for a long time. He planted his feet and bent his knees and balled his fists and let it come all the way out: “No nothing! No Treatment! No wringer! No Snots!” He thrust his scream at Beans. “I’m not Snots! My name is Palmer! My name is Palmer!” He stepped back, he hunkered down. “No!”
Then he ran.
Down the alleys, down the streets, he ran like he had never run before. If Farquar was with them, he would be caught, he knew that. But if not, he might be able to outrun the guys. He heard their sneakers slapping the pavement behind him. He heard their calls.
“You’re dead meat, Snots!”
“I’m gonna eat that pigeon a’ yours!”
“I’m gonna wring its neck and pull its head off!”
“I’m pullin’ yer head off!”
He ran and ran.
33
A bug crawled down the middle of his back. He tried to reach it. He whipped off his shirt, ran a fingertip up his spine. It wasn’t a bug. It was sweat.
The sun boiled in a cloudless sky. The Dumpster had been slowly reeling in its shadow, so that he now had to sit with his back flat against it and his knees drawn up in order to remain wholly in the shade. The Dumpster’s metal flank felt cool and crusty against his bare back.
His breath and heartbeat had long since returned to normal. The noontime music of church bells had passed an hour ago, maybe two. He was hungry, thirsty. But also safe. The only other safe place being his own house, which was exactly five and a half blocks from this Dumpster behind the GreatGrocer supermarket.
A back door slammed open. Out came a worker dragging two hugely swollen black plastic bags. Seeing Palmer, he said, “You waiting to help me?”
Was the man joking? He wasn’t smiling. “No,” answered Palmer.
With a grunt the worker heaved one bag, then the other into the Dumpster. He looked down at Palmer. He wagged his head. “Made in the shade.” He went back inside.
Five and a half blocks. In his head Palmer plotted a course that, except for the final half block, kept him in alleyways. Even so, streets would have to be crossed, in broad daylight. And anyway, the guys themselves took alleys as often as streets. They could be anywhere, around any corner, behind any parked car. They could be in front of the GreatGrocer right now, asking people, “Did you see a kid…?” They might already be spreading word around town. “Palmer LaRue has a pigeon.” He knew that if that fact had ever been in question, the question had been answered spectacularly by his actions of the morning.
The back door slammed open. The worker came out, but this time there was nothing in his hands but a can of Sprite. He stopped in front of Palmer and held the can down to him. It hadn’t been opened. “You look like you need this, kid.”
It occurred to Palmer that this might be some kind of trick. But he was too thirsty to care. He took the can. It felt blessedly cold. He stared up at the man. He felt like crying. The man’s lips almost smiled. “On the house,” he said, and he was gone.
Palmer snapped open the Sprite and drank the can empty, taking time out only to gasp for breath. He lay his head back against the Dumpster and closed his eyes. In spite of himself, in spite of everything, for a precious few seconds he felt good.
His first idea had been to wait until dark, then make a run for home. As the sun dropped below the roofline of the GreatGrocer, he began to see that the idea was bad. Nipper would be coming home soon, and who could say that they were not waiting for him? Maybe even on the porch roof itself, with stones, slingshots. Suddenly it was clear: He had to get home before
Nipper.
Now.
He dropped the can and ran.
Alley and street, he took the fastest way, driven by images of Nipper flying into a blizzard of stones. As he approached the turn onto his block, it occurred to him that they might be waiting at his front door. It occurred to him that this might be his last minute on earth. He slowed down. And thought of Nipper. And ran on. They were not there. He burst into his house.
He wanted to collapse right then and there, to rub his face in the living-room rug, but he dared not stop. He took the stairs three at a time, flung open the door. Nipper was at the window, on the sill outside the screen, and inside, sitting on his pillow, was the yellow cat Panther, facing the window, its head as still as a statue, its tail sweeping slowly from side to side. It hadn’t even bothered to look at Palmer.
The closest thing was a comic book. Palmer hurled it. The cat hissed, screeched, leaped to the floor and was downstairs before Palmer finished his scream.
It was then, as he opened the screen to let Nipper in, that he knew his pigeon must go.
34
Dorothy was crying.
“Why tomorrow?”
“Because they know,” he said for the third time. He pounded the bed. “They know, they know, they know. And they’re not gonna wait. Plus Pigeon Day is coming up. It’s only gonna get worse.”
“Henry wouldn’t hurt Nipper.”
“Henry doesn’t count. It’s the others.”
She implored. “But why? Why can’t you just hide him in the house? Or in my house?”
“They’ll find out.” He spoke wearily, pacing. “They were right in this room last night. The cat was here today. They know everything. They won’t give up. What we really ought to do is take him out tonight, under cover of darkness.”
She blurted, “No!”
“So,” he shrugged, “tomorrow.”
She slumped facing the wall, her forehead leaning into it. “Why don’t they just let him alone?” She looked at him as if the answer were his to reveal. “What did he ever do to them?”
He looked up to the closet shelf, where Nipper was roosting. “He was born a pigeon, that’s what.”
“But how can you do it?” she whined.
The months of spring and summer had filed his nerves to a point. He was nearly galloping back and forth across his room. Though he muffled the volume of his voice, lest his parents hear, his entire body screamed, “How can I do it? How can I do it? Can’t you get it through your head? They’re gonna kill him! Do you want him dead?”
Earlier in the day Dorothy had seen the unflattenable Nerf ball in the street and had retrieved it. She stroked it now in her lap. Her voice was barely audible. “I just don’t want him gone.”
He went to the window. A quarter moon was out. He began to weep. “Do you think I do?”
The next morning they met at six o’clock, with bikes. Dorothy’s bike had a wicker basket fixed to the handlebars. That’s where the shoe box went. Palmer had dumped the toy soldiers onto the bed, poked air holes in the lid and deposited the pigeon.
They had told their parents that they were going on an early-morning breakfast picnic to the park. In the basket also lay a box of donuts and mini-cartons of iced tea.
They rode to the park, and out of the park, and out of town. They rode past the barbecue restaurant and the burnt-out barn and the golf course, whose dew-topped greens looked like silver ponds. They stopped only to switch bikes when Dorothy could no longer bear to transport the basket. They pedaled down roads they had seen only from a car before, and then down roads they had never seen at all. The only sounds were the whir of spokes, the crunch of tires. Up and down hills they rode and rode until it seemed they must be in another state, if not another country.
Palmer, leading the way, pulled off the road by a field where horses were grazing.
“Let’s eat,” he said.
Dorothy took the donuts and drinks from the bike basket. “Is this where we let him go?”
“No. Not far enough.”
“Not far enough?”
He punched a straw into an iced tea carton and took a long sip. He shook his head. “We have to go as far as we can. Pigeons can find their way back from a long way off.”
Dorothy broke off a piece of donut and stuck it under the lid of the shoe box. It was immediately snatched from her fingers. “I can’t even find my way back from here.”
“You’re not a pigeon.” He bit into a donut. “Even far’s not enough. It has to be confusing too.”
She was alarmed. “What do you mean? You’re not going to blindfold him?”
He sneered. “No. But something else. You’ll see.” He had taken only one bite of the donut. He slipped the rest into the shoe box. “Let’s go.”
Another endless stretch of riding brought them to an unfenced meadow. Palmer said, “Here,” and veered into it. “Wait,” he called back.
Dorothy stopped at the roadside and watched Palmer drive her bicycle deeper into the meadow. The wheels jumped, the basket bounced over the clodded earth. Thistletops erupted, wildflowers wobbled as the bike charged in reckless patterns only a fly could follow: circles, figure eights, zigzags, crazy doodles. This went on for many minutes when suddenly the bike bolted on a beeline into the woods beyond.
Dorothy waited as long as she could before becoming impatient, then worried. She could not see an inch into the dense treeline. The sun was directly overhead, making a shadowless desert of the meadow. The handlebars of the bicycle were hot. Then, there he was, popping from the woods, pedaling furiously straight at her, the donut box flying in the basket. As he came closer she saw that his face was red and wet, his mouth twisted. The shoe box was empty. He did not stop nor look at her, but charged with a clatter onto the road.
It was a long time before he slowed down, allowing her to catch up. They switched back to their own bikes. They rode in silence. They asked directions at a gas station. They bought sodas and threw away the donuts. When they coasted the final hill into town, the streets were in shadow. Wearily they climbed the stairs to Palmer’s room. Nipper was waiting on the windowsill.
35
He thought of not feeding Nipper. Of not letting him in. Sooner or later the pigeon would get the hint and fly away forever. He told Dorothy of his idea, hoping she would forbid it. She did. She yelped so loud he had to clamp his hand over her mouth.
“Okay, o-kay,” he said. He began pacing. “But we have to do something. We gotta get rid of him.”
Dorothy did not argue.
“They’re not gonna give up. No way. Not till they get him.”
Pacing, pacing.
“They’re gonna keep sneaking the cat in. They’re gonna spy on the house. Day and night. Day and night. They’ll wait and wait. Slingshots. BB guns. Maybe even poison. Poison!”
Pacing. Arms upthrust.
“They’ll put poisoned cereal on the roof!”
Dorothy was laughing.
Palmer stopped, scowled. “What?”
She was on her back on the bed, on the toy soldiers, howling at the ceiling. She dragged herself up, found her voice. “Do what you were doing.”
“What?”
“Walk.”
He took a step.
“No no. Walk.” She swept her hand. “Back and forth, like you were.”
He resumed pacing, suddenly conscious of his feet. He looked down—and saw what she was laughing at. Nipper was pacing, turning when he turned, tracing his every move back and forth across his room.
He halted. The pigeon halted. He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
The next day his mother confessed.
It happened after breakfast. He was in his room. He heard his mother’s footsteps coming up the stairs. Normally the footsteps would turn and head for the bathroom or her own bedroom. This time they came straight to his door.
She knocked. “Palmer? Can I come in?”
Quickly he glanced about the room. He noted two white powdery droppi
ngs that he had neglected to clean up. And a cereal box on the floor. He had been getting lax lately. At least the bird itself had left for the day. He kicked the cereal box under the bed. He composed his face.
“Come in.”
She came in smiling. “Hi,” she said. She waved, as if she hadn’t seen him in the kitchen two minutes ago.
“Hi,” he said. He did not wave. He was standing on one of the powdery poopies. The other was on his desk. Which was exactly where she sat, her left hand, palm down, no more than an inch from the white deposit.
He expected her to look around, to inspect the place that she had been asked to stay away from for months now. But she kept looking only at him, smiling, and he saw now that it was not quite her regular smile. There was a goofy quality to it, it was changing, breaking down.
“I have a confession to make,” she said. Her face was sad now, droopy; but it wasn’t real, it was pretend, clownish.
He said nothing.
The smile was back, real and regular. “We know you have a pigeon.”
He could not move or speak.
She laughed. “Palmer—breathe.”
He breathed.
She held out her arms. “Come here.” He went to her and was swallowed entirely in her embrace. All strength drained out of him, and all of a sudden he understood how alone he had been and how much he had missed his parents’ support. He sobbed. She held him tighter, swaying.
From beyond her heartbeat he heard her voice.
“Didn’t you notice things weren’t always the way you left them? Didn’t you notice that it never got dusty in here? Did you really think you could keep your mother out of a room in her own house?”
Actually, yes, he had thought so.
She held him at arm’s length. He had never seen such a smile. Her eyes were gleaming, radiant. “Didn’t you notice that a new box of Honey Crunchers magically appeared in your closet whenever the old box was almost empty?”
He stared at her, blinking. Yes, he had noticed, and that’s exactly what he had thought: magic.