“So Max,” Judith said. “Was this what you had in mind, or did I misunderstand something? You get to the island, declare yourself king, and then try to get us killed half a dozen ways? Was that the idea?”
“Judith, stop,” Carol said firmly. “Everyone was trying to kill everyone. Don’t flatter yourself. Besides, I’m sure Max has it figured out.”
Carol looked to Max and gave him a warm smile. Max tried to smile back, but he was still having trouble squaring the gentle Carol he knew and admired with the Carol who hadn’t felt the least hesitation with seeing his friends flattened by flaming boulders. Max was feeling chopped up inside. Never before had such a disaster so undebatably been his fault. He had brought up the war, and half of the participants had nearly died. It seemed to Max that everything he did, at home or here on this island, caused permanent damage. And Katherine, who alone seemed capable of really listening to him, was nowhere to be found.
“Food’s almost done,” Douglas said, strutting around with his right arm half-flexed, as if hoping for another affirmation of his extraordinary limb.
“Close your eyes, Max,” he said.
Max closed his eyes.
“I made a surprise for you. Your first royal meal.”
Max could smell something being put under his nose. His body shook involuntarily. It was the most potent and wretched smell he had ever encountered. It was like a thousand long-dead fish soaked in gasoline and eggs.
“Okay, now you can look,” Douglas said.
Max opened his eyes.
He almost jumped. It was a huge snake. Or a worm. About a foot in diameter. Wet and brown and purple, about eleven feet long. Douglas had placed it on Max’s lap.
“Don’t worry. We killed him,” Douglas said. He laughed. “You thought it was still alive! That’s funny.”
Max stood up, letting the worm roll off his lap. A thick brown and green residue remained on his white fur.
“Something wrong, King?” Douglas asked.
Max tried to mask his horror.
“No, no!” he said, then found the appropriate answer. “I just wanted to get a better look at it.”
Douglas smiled. “Yeah, I got him out of the lagoon. He was sort of wrapping himself around Judith, so I dove down and grabbed him. He’s probably lived there for a hundred years! And now you get to eat him!”
Douglas was staring at Max, searching for signs of approval. Max tried to smile.
“You can eat the mouth if you want,” Douglas said. “That’s the part with the most texture.”
Max’s stomach was sliding down his legs. He had to come up with a reason he wasn’t going to eat the worm.
He looked around, finding no answers in the dirt or trees, but when he raised his eyes to the sky, he found the solution.
“I’m afraid I can’t eat this dinner tonight. I thank you very much, but the kings where I come from don’t eat on nights without stars.”
The beasts accepted this — “Oh” “Too bad for you” “Kings have it rough” — they said, and began to eat. They grabbed at the wet flesh of the giant worm with their claws, the bloody juice pouring down their chins and between their fingers. Max couldn’t watch. He stared at the fire.
And as they ate it, the worm, Max soon realized, was causing different reactions in different beasts. Ira became quiet and melancholy, his eyes welling as he thought of some distant sweet memory. Douglas tried to fight the effects, his eyes darting around as his mouth went slack and his words began to slur. As for Judith, she became flirty, touching everyone on the arm, the shoulders, giggling and finding a half-dozen reasons to get up and find her way to Douglas so she could touch the back of his neck. But when he slapped her paw away for the last time, her sharper edges appeared again, and she narrowed her eyes at Max.
“I can’t believe we’re still not talking about what’s on everyone’s mind,” Judith said. “The king here is trying to kill off some of us. Is that of concern to anyone?”
No one answered, but it was obvious that the subject was on the minds of at least half the beasts.
“So Max sailed for over a year!” Carol offered, intent on changing the subject.
“That’s a long time,” Douglas said cheerfully.
“A whole year alone,” Ira said, looking up into the darkness. “That’s so sad.”
“Why’d it take that long, King? Slow boat?” Judith asked, her eyes full of menace.
“No, it was a good boat,” Max said.
“So you’re just not a good sailor?” she taunted.
“No, I’m a really good sailor. I mean, the boat didn’t have a motor on it. I was sailing as fast as that boat …”
“Oh, I’m just giving you a hard time,” Judith giggled, without any mirth at all. “Don’t be so sensitive! Really though, have we already experienced the full range of your plans for fixing everything on the island? A parade, a war, and then we all die from molten lava?”
Carol stared Judith down. Finally she looked away and continued eating.
“I’m feeling the void again,” Ira added.
“Don’t worry, Ira,” Douglas said. “Max’ll solve it. He always says the right things. Just wait. Right Max? Go ahead.”
Everyone stared at Max, and Max was surprised to see that their faces were genuinely hopeful, expectant. There was real hope that Max, their king, truly did have a notion.
“Well, I thought …” Max mumbled. He didn’t, actually, have another plan at all. The silence stretched out uncomfortably. Finally he arrived at an idea, though its quality was uncertain. “I thought … I thought I could give you all royal titles.”
Ira looked confused.
Judith cleared her throat.
Alexander snickered.
No one was impressed, not even Carol. The look on his face was more like shock. He couldn’t believe that was the best Max could do. Max tried to spruce up the plan:
“…and I could give you all special duties and, like, those things that go across your chest,” he said, while gesturing in a diagonal across his torso, trying to remember the word for sash.
“Snakes?” Judith guessed.
“No …” Max said.
“We already have snakes,” Judith said.
“No, no …” Max insisted.
“I don’t like wearing snakes there,” Ira said.
“It’s not a snake!” Max snapped. “It’s more royal than that. It’s—”
“A stick?” Douglas said, trying to help.
“No!” Max wailed.
“Sounds like like a snake to me,” Judith said. “And no one likes to wear snakes there—”
“Let me finish!” Max barked.
Max tried to think of the word. “It’s …” he meandered, gesturing across his chest again. “It’s …”
Finally he gave up, defeated. “You’ll have royal titles,” he mumbled.
The silence was profound. Max’s subjects were so under whelmed that they didn’t need to say anything. Max had to move onward and upward as soon as he could, so he stood, thinking he knew what to do. It had cheered his mom up, it had made his sister and her friends laugh hysterically — it would have to work here. He made his arms and legs stiff and began his incredible robot dance.
But as he did the dance — and he did it very well, as good as ever before — the beasts, far from being impressed, were alarmed.
“What’s he doing?” Judith asked. “What is that?”
“Uh oh, somebody broke the king,” Ira concluded.
“Is he sick?” Judith wondered aloud.
“I don’t know, but it’s making me sick,” Alexander grumbled. “What kind of king would do something like this?”
Max gave up. He stopped dancing. The beasts seemed greatly relieved to see him sit down again.
“I think he’s done now,” Ira noted.
“I hope so,” Alexander said.
“What just happened?” Judith asked.
“I was doing a robot,” Max explained. “You??
?re supposed to laugh.”
No one had laughed. No one was smiling now.
“What’s a robot?” Ira said. He sounded scared.
“A robot?” Max said. “A robot?”
No one knew what a robot was.
“C’mon, a robot,” Max said. “Robots are the best.”
“What’s that?” Carol said sharply.
“Robots are the best,” Max repeated, less sure now.
Carol seemed genuinely taken aback.
“That’s what we waited for?” Alexander said. “Pathetic.”
“Did that kind of thing work the last place you were king?” Judith asked.
Douglas furrowed his brow. The Bull’s stare was oppressive. Even Carol looked disappointed in Max, profoundly so.
“I’m getting hungry,” Alexander said, staring intensely at Max.
Carol could see where this was headed.
“You just ate,” Carol growled. “No one’s hungry.”
Judith glared at Max and licked her lips. “Everyone’s hungry and you know it.”
Carol stood, imposing his figure over the group. “No. No one’s hungry. Now get up. Let’s go,” he said. The beasts stared at him, as if sizing him up anew — had he lost any strength? Was he vulnerable in any new way? After a moment, it seemed that no, no one could yet challenge his primacy. They all began to stand and prepared to go.
At that moment, a snowflake appeared. Then more — the snow fell in drunken spirals. Douglas’s admiration for Max had faded, and now he looked at Max in an ugly way. “Good thing you destroyed our homes, King.”
Alexander was happy to heap on the scorn. “Thanks, Your Heinous. I mean Your Highness.”
Judith, Alexander, and Ira walked off. Douglas soon followed, shaking his head. As he left the campground he paused, wanting to say something to Max, but unsure just what that something would be.
Carol waited for everyone to leave. He was on the other side of the fire, looking at his hands.
“Robots are the best, huh? I thought I—”
“That’s not what I meant,” Max said. “I didn’t mean they were better than you.”
“But you said they were the best. Who are they, anyway? Are they bigger than me? Stronger? I don’t know how that could be possible.”
“They’re not,” Max said. “You’re the biggest. By far.”
“Then why’d you say they were the best? That means you think they’re better. I mean, forget it. There’s no reason to talk about it. What’s said is said.”
Max was lost. He was so tired and confused he didn’t know what to say. He stared at the ground for a moment, and when he looked up, Carol was crouched down, his ear to the earth.
“I don’t like the sound of this,” he said. “It’s loud and it’s scrambled and it’s very angry.”
Carol turned to leave the campsite.
“Night, Max. I guess you have a lot to figure out tonight. Good luck.” With that, he disappeared into the woods.
Max heard a crackle of twigs breaking. He turned to see the Bull, gigantic and menacing, standing behind him. They stared at each other. Neither blinked. Then, without a sound, the Bull turned and walked away into the night.
Max was alone. The fire was dwindling, it was snowing lightly, he was on an island in the middle of the sea, and he was alone.
CHAPTER XXXV
All night Max stared into the fire, cold and rattled as the snow continued to fall. He found logs and added them, scooting closer to the flames, trying to stay warm.
Max had to put order to his thoughts, had to straighten out his quail. He started with what he knew, cataloguing what he had learned so far. He knew that Douglas liked having his arm praised as being the best, but he knew that Carol didn’t like hearing that kind of praise directed at someone other than himself, and he certainly didn’t like being told that robots were the best, because presumably, he considered himself the best. He knew that Katherine preferred to be alone with Max. He knew that Judith and Alexander and Ira did not like getting run over by boulders covered in lava and that the possibility of grave injury likely reminded Ira of the void, even the thought of which was to be averted at all costs.
He knew he wanted food. He was nearly delirious with hunger. His head felt light, his stomach jagged. And what he wanted, more than any other food, was soup. Soup would go down easy, would warm and soften everything within him. Any kind of soup would do, but cream of mushroom soup, which his mother made for him when he was feeling sick, would be best.
Maybe, he thought, he should go home. He wasn’t sure that sailing home was even possible, because the continent he’d come from seemed to have disappeared altogether a few hours after he’d left its shore, but he certainly could try. And if he didn’t make it there, there were surely other islands, with other animals or people he could lord over.
But even if he could make it home, he was sure his family had forgotten him. He’d been gone for days, and by now they would assume he was dead and gone, and they would likely be happy for it. Maybe the house had fallen in on itself from all the damage he’d done to it. Maybe his mother and sister had been crushed under the weight of the beams he’d weakened with all that water. No, no, he convinced himself. They were alive, but happy to be rid of an animal like him.
He thought again of going where he’d meant to go in the first place, to his dad’s apartment in the city. He could still do it. If he sailed south-southwest, he would have to get there eventually. And once he got there, he could live there, and he knew how happy his dad would be to have him.
The first problem would be the bed. His dad only had the one bed, and it wasn’t so big, so Max usually slept on the fold-out in the den, and the mattress was thin and the joints of the couch-bed creaked. The room was cold and the sounds of the street were loud and unpredictable. All night there were bursts from the never-sleeping city: sirens and arguments, cackling laughter, bottles shattering in Dumpsters, the hissing of trucks. And when his dad had company over, there were other sounds, too.
Her name was Pamela.
She was pretty in a loud way, with big green eyes and a wide glossy mouth. She worked at a restaurant or owned it or something and they had eaten there, the first time Max had ever sat at a table at a place like that, with a candle in the middle and the whole place amber-colored and dim. It was so boring he wanted to scream.
Pamela had ordered food for all of them, a succession of small dishes, greasy and mud-colored, and Max had ended up eating little but bread. Max’s dad had given him imploring looks, but Max knew he wouldn’t yell at him for not eating, not in front of Pamela.
Afterward she took them down to a basement full of bottles and finally Max was intrigued. He wanted to own that place. Not for the bottles, but for all the wooden shelves, the cubbies, the arched doorways and dark corners. It was like a castle, a dungeon, the labyrinth underneath an ancient kingdom. But for Pamela it was just a place to keep wine. She pulled two dark bottles from the wall and they went up the stairs.
After dinner the three of them took a taxi back to his dad’s building. At the front door, she had said goodbye to Max and Max’s dad, but then there had been some whispering, a quick giggle, and she’d walked off, around the corner, a bottle in each hand.
Max was put to bed, but couldn’t sleep. He lay awake, thinking about the labyrinth under the restaurant, how safe he felt there within its stone walls, its cool dark solidity, until he heard the door squeal open and the drop of two shoes. The sound of bottles clinking together, followed by a volley of shushes. Then footsteps shrinking down the hallway and the closing of his father’s door.
Max couldn’t go to his father’s apartment. He couldn’t sail there, he couldn’t sail home, and the probability of finding and becoming king of another island seemed remote. He had to try to make this one work. How hard could it be to tame this place and please everyone at all times?
Max awoke in the night, his shoulders shaking. He had fallen asleep before feeding the fi
re properly, and now it was gone. The snow had stopped and the night was black. He couldn’t see a thing in any direction, just vague patches of grey where snow had gathered. He put a handful in his mouth to quench his thirst but he knew he was in trouble. With the temperature dropping and no way to make or find fire, he could easily freeze this night. If he walked in any direction he would be eaten or stung or fall down some interminable hole. He couldn’t go anywhere.
And finally he cried. When the tears came, they felt so good. His chest shook, and the hot tears warmed his face, and he laughed at how good it all felt. They kept coming, so many tears, one for every frustration and fear he’d known since he left home. Oh man, he thought, this feels so good. He loved the hot tears, the release of it all. He loved that he could do it here, alone, in the blackness, unseen by anyone. He could cry as much as he wanted and no one would ever know.
He cried for what felt like hours but the crying and shaking and slurping up great amounts of mucus served to somehow keep him warm as the early hours grew colder, and the tears and the cold and everything he’d been thinking about combined to form in his mind something like an idea. And the idea told him to get a stick, and his hand began to move the stick around the dirt and ash, and before long he had drawn up a notion that had a chance to do everything that needed to be done for him and every other beast of the island: it would fill the void, it would eliminate the chatter, it would connect everything and everyone that had been unconnected, and it would, best of all, ensure that never again would he sleep in the snow, without a fire, alone on an island in the middle of the sea.