Onward they scurried with their pails and with a determination that the river had to be close. Just a few blocks more and they would see it. After their experience with the homeless people they were very afraid to walk into the river bed, but they convinced themselves that they could do it because poor toads deserved to be helped.
Around Meyer Street they began to sense someone far behind them who was going along in a funny manner that seemed a lot like he was following them.
Dogged by the strange sensation of being tailed, Yadira shot a glance behind. “Is someone there?” she whispered.
Stacie spun around. “Who’s there?” Her voice echoed down the street. The dark adobe houses on either side of the street had unlit windows. Some of the homes were boarded up.
“Come on, let’s go faster. The river has got to be close,” said Yadira.
In the dark, at about a block’s distance south, the barely discernable figure of a larger-than-normal male child with squinty eyes, a smooth face and too much forehead appeared. He was trailing them with a smirk and a loping step. He yanked up his loose pants as he walked. Hippity hop, hippity hop, the strange, worrisome creature came closer, sauntering along. He craned his head curiously forward to see what the three big chicas carried in front of them.
At one point he hovered beneath an overhanging cactus, worked a lighter out of his front pant pocket and giving it a quick flick, got the yellow flame glowing. He lifted the lighter and held it to one cactus pad. He watched the skin boil and he didn’t pull the lighter away until he had set the helpless cactus pad smoldering.
As he bore in on them, he snuck between cars.
“Don’t let him see us looking,” Yadira warned too late.
They rushed around the street corner.
When they had gone a ways down the street, Stacie looked backwards. “That creepy little boy…he’s right behind us,” whispered Stacie worriedly. Too late, they began shuffling forward faster.
“What’s he doing?” asked Tiffany.
“It looks like he’s trying to catch up with us!”
“What? Come on, let’s get out of here!” said Yadira.
Jaunty was his walk from then on.
“Hey, what’s in the fuckin’ pans?” said the little boy, racing up behind them and stomping the heel of Tiffany’s platform sandal. Her foot ripped out of the shoe and a very shocked Tiffany lurched forward horribly, tripped, and spun and with the pail tilting dangerously vertical. She imagined the toads spilling out on the pavement. With a wild panicky yelp she snapped the pail upright, gripping the toads tightly to her chest. Two hops sideways and she slammed into a low retaining wall of sharp volcanic rocks, fell over and sat hard on one sharp rock.
Stacie whirled upon the smirking boy, “Why, you awful little shit...”
He strutted up to Tiffany’s forlorn shoe and kicked it; it banged against the hubcap of a parked car and dropped on its side in a large pool of motor oil in the gutter. The boy marched toward Stacie with a strutting cocky movement that spoke of his disdain for the two of them. “You, caca head,” he addressed Stacie imperiously, poking a very stubby and dirty finger at her, “What do you have? You show me now!”
“Go home,” Stacie ordered.
“Caca,” he said smugly, crossing his arms at his chest and smirked at her in the most insulting of expressions with a curled lip and sneering, laughing eyes that defied her to do anything to him. His head bobbed about happily as he scowled at her. He had hair that was black and plastered to his head like Frankenstein’s monster. His ears stuck out of his head farther than Yadira had ever seen. He tapped his foot around on the pavement and looked self-satisfied.
Suddenly, his crossed arms whipped out and he snatched Stacie’s pail away from her in a clean move. He tried to wheel around and run away but before he could with an equally quick countermove Stacie wrenched the pail back.
“Caca!” he shouted.
By now Tiffany was standing up. She joined Stacie.
“Caca heads, I’m talking to you,” he forced himself between them jostling Stacie toward the curb and grabbing the sides of the pail Yadira carried.
“Let go!” she shouted, pulling it up.
He immediately gave up on that and seeing an opportunity back where he’s been, grabbed at the sides of Stacie’s pail. “Get away!” Stacie hollered.
Tiffany took the opportunity to find her shoe and slip it on putting the pail on the car’s roof. Immediately the car’s alarm went off. It wailed and whined shrilly in their ears.
Stacie took off in a stumbling run. Tiffany jammed her foot in the oily shoe and followed. The little boy went with them, chasing them the whole way, snatching at the pails and kicking their shins and feet in a vicious, tormenting manner.
When they’d rounded the corner Yadira hollered, “I have a horrible side ache. Stop! Stop!”
“Now give me those,” said the arrogant boy.
“Who lets you out at night?” said Tiffany.
Someone chirped the car alarm and shut it off.
“I’m no cat. I let myself out. And in. I gots a key,” he proudly shook a metal chain strung around his neck.
“Well, go use it then,” Yadira ordered.
“Not until you show me what’s in the pails,” he threatened.
“No,” said Stacie.
“Show me!” he screeched. He grabbed at the pail again and began wrestling Yadira for control.
“Let go, you creepy little monster!” Yadira hissed.
The pail turned this way and that and tilted precariously and the side warped with the struggle. Stacie tried to put her pail down to help her friend but he immediately made a move as though he would take the abandoned pail, so Stacie and Tiffany had to stand by helplessly.
“I said, go home and leave us alone,” Yadira said.
“Or we’ll spank you,” Stacie added ominously.
“Don’t give me none of your caca, lady,” he pointed at Stacie squinting ominously and wagging his head in a rakish attitude.
“Who taught you to talk like that?” Stacie asked.
“I taught me. Who cares and why don’t you shut up, caca brain,” he said with a hideous sneer.
“You’re horrible,” said Yadira.
“Caca. So, give me those pails. Now!”
“No,” said Tiffany.
“I said now!”
Again he snatched violently at the sides of the pan that Yadira carried.
“Let go!” cried Yadira, battling with the young boy to regain control of the pail with the toad.
“Caca,” he said, practically spitting it at her.
“Can’t you say anything else?” asked Tiffany.
“Yeah, I can say—caca!”
A squad car rounded the corner. The three of them looked at it, but the little boy grimaced and began feeling his way backwards quickly. He put an arm out to touch the stone wall. Step by step, he retreated down the sidewalk while keeping his eyes on the approaching officers.
“Oh, oh. Popo. I’m in big caca. Bye, bye.” He whirled around and ran, his shoes beating the pavement thud, thud, thudding away in the night.
Chapter Twelve