Small as an Elephant

by Jennifer Richard Jacobson

  Several of the houses on this street had garages, and one or two had a shed. Just pick one, he told himself, before an old lady looks out her window and calls the police. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Maybe it was because he’d been trapped in a vault for the past three hours, but hiding out in another confining space was the last thing he wanted to do right now.

  The road he was on quickly led to a park — MOSMAN PARK, the sign read — and, although the park was pretty deserted at this hour except for a dog walker in the distance, it was wide open, with no apparent places to hide. Jack continued down to the shore and followed a rock beach, similar to the one he’d seen in Bar Harbor, along the coastline.

  He could see sailboats in the distance, and lobster boats. Maybe, he thought, I could hide away on one of those. Travel by boat to York instead of walking. But so far, his one attempt at stowing away had not exactly been successful. With his luck, he’d end up docking in Canada, and, although he might avoid being arrested, the likelihood of seeing his mother again, he figured, would be much slimmer.

  There was a seawall that lined the beach, and lobster traps were piled along it. Jack crawled behind the bank of lobster traps and plunked down. It was the perfect hiding spot — cozy and well concealed — and yet he could still look out at the sea. I’ll wait here until dark, he decided, then I’ll start walking to York. He’d have to be careful and duck whenever a car came into view, but if no one spotted him walking, he could make it pretty far overnight.

  He dug around in the sand a bit, looking for shell fragments, and figured it was getting close to noon. Noon would mean midday hunger pangs. But he was learning that if he just ignored them, they would lessen in an hour or so. It was strange; hunger was like an alarm clock. It sounded for a while, but if you ignored it, it would eventually give up. The alarm would go off again around dinnertime, he knew, but he’d deal with that when the time came.

  Sudden noises startled Jack: women’s voices and the easily recognizable sound of dog tags. Please let the dog be on a leash, thought Jack. If not, the dog would surely sniff him out, and there was no way he could convince the women that he was a homeschooled kid just hiding behind some lobster traps.

  “Waldo!” shouted a woman. “Stop it!”

  The dog drew nearer. He was big and black and, luckily, leashed. But he was barking and lunging at the lobster traps, and, although Jack could see the owner only from the waist down, he could tell that the dog was succeeding in pulling her closer.

  “Do you think there’s an animal hiding back there?” asked the other woman, whose voice was calmer, deeper.

  Jack tried to disappear into the wall behind him.

  “What, like a seal? Whoa, Waldo! Cut it out! A seal would be sweet.”

  “I was thinking a squirrel, or a cat from one of the houses around here.”

  “Waldo, come!”

  The dog immediately stopped lunging at the traps and began bouncing against the woman’s leg.

  “He knows that command!” said the woman with the deeper voice.

  “He knows that obeying it means a cookie,” said the owner. She gave the dog a treat, and the three of them moved on.

  Jack let out his breath. He was lucky, but he wasn’t going to stay here. The next dog might be off leash, and not nearly as fond of Milk-Bones as this one.

  He gave up on the beach and headed back into a nearby neighborhood, where he took a closer look at the toolsheds and garages. It wasn’t ideal, but it sure beat being sniffed out by a curious dog.

  Before long, he found an open toolshed in the corner of a backyard. The shed mostly contained gardening equipment: plastic pots and bags of soil, clippers and rakes. But in the corner was a faded director’s chair, and next to the chair was a plastic bin filled with dingy mystery magazines from the 1970s. As Jack squeezed past the lawn mower and into the chair, he wondered about the person who escaped to this shed to do a little reading. He decided to move the chair to the one and only window, which gave him a view of the house — and, he hoped, of anyone approaching.

  He read for hours, thankful for the distraction. Once, just after he’d finished a story about a man whose wife had disappeared, Jack heard the back door of the house open. A woman came out and sat for a while on her back step. That was all. She just sat, turning her face toward the sun. Then she got up and went back inside.

  Another time, Jack saw a couple of little kids running across the yard. They seemed like they were in a hurry to get somewhere — maybe down to the beach — and they sure didn’t notice him sitting by the window of the shed. But if they had, wouldn’t that have made the beginning of a great mystery?

  Jack read till the shed grew dark and his eyes hurt. Finally, he felt it was late enough, safe enough, to begin traveling.

  He headed up the road as if he lived in this neighborhood, as if he was a boy who belonged and who had someplace to go. To his surprise, he felt most comfortable while walking down Main Street. After all, would a kid who was on the lam (as the writers of mysteries liked to say) walk boldly through town? It wasn’t until he’d gone beyond the center and was back on the rural roads that he felt conspicuous. He was glad for the cap then.

  For the most part, it was easy to spot cars coming from the opposite direction and to duck out of sight, whether by standing behind a tree, diving into a ditch, or crouching behind some bushes. But not so when he neared the top of a hill or when cars came up from behind him.

  That was why, even after two hours of trying to be careful, to stay focused and to frequently look back as he walked, he didn’t see the van until it was practically on top of him. He scrambled up the bank and into the trees, but the van slowed — and then rolled to a stop.

  The driver’s door opened.

  Jack spun and ran but immediately tripped over a root and flew face-first to the ground. He used his hands to try to break the fall and wrenched his broken finger. The pain rocketed up his arm, distracting him from the stinging of his torn-up face.

  “Jack!” he heard a young-sounding guy yell — a guy who was approaching quickly. A guy who must have watched the news, who knew who he was, knew about his grandmother and his mom, and who knew what else?

  Jack stayed perfectly still, hoping that he wouldn’t be seen on the ground.

  “Jack! I’m here to help. I’m Wyatt. Sylvie’s cousin!”

  Sylvie’s cousin? Was it possible . . . ?

  “I’ll take you to York!”

  York! So he really did know Sylvie.

  “Jack!” the guy bellowed. It was clear that he thought Jack had run off into the woods, that he had no idea Jack was lying on the ground just a few feet away. Jack could stay right where he was and the guy would probably give up. But what if he really did want to help? What if he was willing to drive Jack all the way to York tonight? No more hiding out, no more walking along the highway at night, no more leaping into bushes and taking face-plants in the dirt. He’d see Lydia tomorrow.

  But could he trust him?

  “Jack!” the guy yelled again.

  He’d trusted Nina, and look where that had gotten him. But what were his choices? Spend days hiding and nights walking — or get a ride now?

  “I’m right here,” said Jack.

  “Whoa!” Wyatt was clearly surprised to hear Jack’s voice come out of the dark. “Geez, man, I didn’t see you. You can’t go scaring people like that. You nearly gave me a heart attack.”

  “Are you really Sylvie’s cousin?” Jack asked, standing, adjusting the splint on his throbbing finger, and trying, with his good hand, to brush off the sticks and leaves that had adhered to his bare legs.

  “Yup.” Wyatt — a teenager, Jack could now see — turned and walked back to the road, seeming confident that Jack would follow. “She told me about your little adventure today. I used to be scared to death of getting locked in that safe.”

  “So how did you know to come looking for me now?” Jack asked, hopping up into the passenger seat of the ancient van and
taking a good look at Sylvie’s cousin. Jack figured he was only a couple of years older than Sylvie. He was tall, and kind of skinny, and probably hadn’t had his license for very long.

  “I didn’t even know about you until a half hour ago. Sylvie called me — she was crazed . . . thought you might have waited till dark to travel and was imagining all sorts of creepy consequences.”

  Jack was relieved to hear that not everyone in Maine knew about him and was looking for him. “Yeah, well, thanks for picking me up. And for taking me to York.” He didn’t know whether Sylvie had mentioned why he was so determined to get to York, and he decided not to bring it up now. Telling Sylvie was one thing; telling this high-school kid, who was likely to think he was ridiculous, was another.

  Wyatt started up the van and, with hardly a glance in the rearview mirror, screeched onto the highway. Jack reached over and grabbed the seat belt he’d yet to buckle, clicking it into place just as they barreled around a sharp corner.

  “How long will it take us to get there?” Jack asked.

  Wyatt seemed to be doing calculations in his head, which probably meant that he hadn’t really imagined himself traveling all the way to southern Maine tonight. “Route Three is up ahead. . . . That’s the fastest, I think.”

  “I was trying to avoid the turnpike,” Jack said, as a way of making small talk. “That’s why I was taking Route One.”

  “What — why? You think there’re roadblocks on the turnpike or something?”

  “Well, actually, I was just —”

  “Hey, man. I thought Sylvie was exaggerating. Just being melodramatic, as usual. But the Staties — they’re really looking for you?”

  Jack nodded, not sure whether this information would change things or not. “Yeah, I guess I’ve been on the news a lot.”

  “Cool,” said the kid, whose left leg started jangling like he was nervous. He bypassed the exit for Route 3, probably thinking it was too dangerous. Jack wished he’d kept his big mouth shut; what if Wyatt was too nervous to take him all the way to York, now that he knew he was a fugitive?

  They passed through a fairly busy town, and Jack fought the urge to duck down in his seat; he didn’t want to scare Wyatt any more than he already had. They had just reached the town center when Wyatt’s phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket and glanced at the screen. “It’s Sylvie,” he said, and handed Jack his phone. “Talk to her.”

  “Hello?” Jack said.

  “Wyatt?”

  “No, this is Jack.”

  “Jack! You’re OK! And Wyatt must have found you!”

  “Yeah. Thanks for sending him.”

  “I kept thinking about you, all alone in the dark, trying to get to York. . . . Anyway, I just had to tell someone, and I knew Wyatt would agree to help you,” Sylvie said in a rush. “I hope you’re not mad.”

  “Mad? Are you kidding?” said Jack. “You were awesome at the bookstore. And I really appreciate Wyatt’s help.”

  Before hanging up, he promised Sylvie two things: one, that he’d find a way to call her when he finally saw Lydia, and two, he’d never ever tell anyone that she and Wyatt were involved in helping him. “If my father didn’t kill us, my uncle would,” she said. “Just say you hitched or something.”

  Not long after Jack got off the phone with Sylvie, Wyatt started pummeling Jack with questions, each seeming a little weirder than the one before.

  “How long have you been on your own?

  “Where’s the coolest place you’ve stayed?

  “What’s the grossest thing you had to eat?

  “How did the cops learn about you?

  “Where does your grandmother live?

  “Is she loaded?”

  It was this last question that seemed the strangest to Jack. Why would Wyatt think his grandmother was rich? Maybe he assumed that no one bothered to search for poor kids, or maybe he’d read too many books like The Boxcar Children or The Great Gilly Hopkins, where kids who’d been on their own ended up living with a rich relative. Jack wasn’t sure how to answer. His grandmother wasn’t filthy rich, but she lived in a big brick house in Cambridge, and she’d never worked — or at least, Jack had never known her to work. So Jack just mumbled something like, “Well, she is always offering to pay for lessons or take me on vacations,” and let it go at that. He didn’t bother adding that his mother would never have allowed his grandmother to pay for either.

  “What I wouldn’t do for a little money — a little independence,” said Wyatt. “I’d live on the road like you, traipsing off to see wild elephants whenever I felt like it.”

  So Sylvie had told him. But Wyatt didn’t seem to want to make fun of him.

  Jack realized that getting trapped in the safe with Sylvie was probably one of the luckiest things that had happened to him that week. If he hadn’t met Sylvie, Wyatt would not have come looking for him, and he wouldn’t have gotten all the way to York’s Wild Kingdom in one night. He wondered what he would do when they arrived. Would he find a place to hide until the park opened tomorrow? And how would he pay for admission? He’d been so busy thinking about getting to the animal park that he’d hardly thought about what he’d do once he got there (other than see Lydia, of course). Maybe he’d be better off trying to sneak in tonight. Jack pulled a hand through his very dirty hair. He was tired of thinking. He’d figure it out when he got there, just as he’d figured out everything else on this trip so far.

  And he was starving. Unfortunately, they’d already passed through two towns with drive-throughs, and now they were back on a stretch of deserted road with very few businesses of any kind.

  “Wyatt?”

  Jack’s voice seemed to startle Wyatt out of a dream.

  “Do you think I could borrow some money from you for food tonight? I promise I’ll pay you back — send it to you — when I get back home.”

  “Or your grandmother could send it to me,” said Wyatt.

  “Yeah, maybe.” He figured it wasn’t worth trying to explain the grandmother situation.

  “What do you want to eat?”

  A Big Mac was the first thing that came to mind, but Jack doubted they’d find a McDonald’s on this stretch.

  “Anything,” said Jack. “Maybe there’s a store coming up. I’m sure I could find something.”

  “Yeah, that’s the way to do it on the open road,” said Wyatt. “Just stop and see what life brings you.”

  Yeah, life or the grocery truck, Jack thought, and instantly realized that that was what his mom would have said. He felt a burning in his chest and was grateful that they didn’t have to travel far before Wyatt pulled into the parking lot of a Citgo station with a convenience store.

  “Here’s a ten. Let me know if you need more,” said Wyatt as they were hopping out of the van.

  “Thanks,” said Jack. “I’m going to hit the men’s room first.” He entered the store and walked toward the back, keeping his head down and his cap pulled low.

  He took one look at his bloody, scratched-up face in the mirror and wondered, What was I thinking? His face would definitely raise questions. He’d be stupid to try to buy something, especially since he was so close to getting to York. No. He’d figure out what he wanted and ask Wyatt to get it for him while he waited in the van.

  He washed his face as gently as he could and then drank from the faucet.

  As he left the restroom, Jack could hear Wyatt’s voice. Dang! If Wyatt was talking to someone, it would be hard to get his attention unnoticed. Jack stayed where he was, in a deserted aisle next to the Cheerios and cornflakes, hoping that Wyatt wouldn’t talk long.

  “How far is York from Warren? Can you look it up?” Wyatt asked.

  Jack listened for a response but didn’t hear anything.

  “Holy cow,” Wyatt said.

  He must be talking on his phone, Jack thought. Was he talking to Sylvie? He started toward Wyatt, planning to signal that he needed his attention.

  “Search his name. See if his grandmother
is offering a reward.”

  A reward? Dang! Was Wyatt going to turn him in? And if he was, would he wait until after they’d arrived in York? Will he at least let me see the elephant first?

  “Right there,” said a soft-spoken woman from somewhere behind him.

  Jack looked up. There were round mirrors in the corners of the store. He moved forward until he could see two women behind the counter — one his mom’s age, one a teenager — both staring at the same mirror. Could they see him? Suddenly, whether Wyatt was going to turn him in or not didn’t matter anymore. He’d probably raised enough suspicion already, just standing frozen in the cereal aisle, to get himself caught. Jack casually backtracked to the entrance and bolted out the door.

  Once Wyatt discovered he’d fled from the store, he probably wouldn’t be able to resist telling others that Jack was the missing boy. Maybe he hoped they’d still give him the reward, if there even was one.

  So, how far was York from Warren? Jack wished he’d heard the answer. He must have run a mile when he looked over his shoulder and spotted headlights. He immediately leaped into the brush on the side of the road. The thorny branches scratched his already battered face, and gravel dug into his knees. His finger throbbed worse than ever.

  Crouched in that ditch, bruised and battered, Jack was overcome with despair. He was right back to where he was before Wyatt came along: traveling in the dark, hungry, tired, having to jump every time a car came. And, even though he knew he was closer to York, he didn’t know how far he had yet to go. What if it was days?

  Maybe he’d been too hasty in bolting. Maybe there was time to catch Wyatt before he started blabbing to the store clerks. He could eat something, try to persuade Wyatt to help him out — to turn him in after he got to York, at the very least.

  He turned around and jogged back toward the store, still careful to duck out of sight whenever a car approached.

  Finally, the convenience store came into view.

  Jack’s heart stopped.

  A police car was parked outside.

  He crouched in the shadow of a tree. It was too late to catch a ride with Wyatt. And he had no way of knowing how far he was from York. What if he just stopped running, just walked right up to the officer and said, “Hey, looking for me?” It would be so much easier. He’d get a hot meal, a shower, a bed. But then what? Would they arrest him for running away, for stealing the elephant and the bike and making everyone in the state of Maine look for him?