Straw House

by Daniel Nayeri

  Behind Sunny, the first creature sat up. It reached down and pulled out the dart that pinned its ankles together. It limped toward Sunny. Boy shouted, “Sunny!” But Sunny was heaving too loud to hear. The homunculus stumbled the last few steps and tripped toward Sunny. But in the last second, Sunny spun around as the homunculus fell and punched the dart upward into the creature’s heart. He held the man up. He said, “It was love, you idiot, in that damn song. There wadn’t anything else.” Then he let the homunculus drop onto the mulched remains of the other.

  Sunny ran over and fell on all fours next to Pup’s separated parts. The sounds from the attic were like a graveyard coming to life. Before Sunny could say he was sorry, the Growin’ Man stepped into the barn. “Ah saw you kick that po dawg,” he said, “twice.”

  Sunny wiped his face with his shirt and sniffed hard. The Growin’ Man walked toward him. He had the lighter open.

  The rancher saw his dead cattle and said, “Those dumb things. Sometimes they’re only good fo kindlin’.” Then he tilted as he charged, holding the flame out like a knife.

  Sunny swung his arms across his body, and two darts buried themselves in the man’s gut. The Growin’ Man didn’t even seem to notice them as he thrust the lighter at Sunny’s face. Sunny dove to the side and rushed behind the rancher, retreating to the main bay for more space. The rancher put the lighter to the browning limbs of the two creatures on the ground. They blazed into a bonfire.

  Sobrino and the farmer’s daughter came in the back way. Dot’s shovel was broken. Sobrino had a tear in his corduroys, and blood was seeping out. Dot stepped around the fire and gathered Pup. She stuffed the smallest pieces into her shirt pockets. Sobrino reached up and grabbed Boy from the rafters. Only he, with his stilt legs, could have reached, thought Sunny as he circled a bookshelf to keep clear of the Growin’ Man’s advance.

  Above them a thunderclap was either the storm outside or the toy chest in the attic falling on its side. The Growin’ Man lunged at Sunny, lighter blazing. Sunny hopped backward and landed two darts into the fat man’s extended arm. The Growin’ Man yowled and dropped the lighter.

  “Sunny!” Dot shouted from the stalls.

  The bonfire had spread to the piles of feed in the stalls. The mounds in the corners went up like crashing waves into the side walls. The posts were started to singe. Dot cradled Pup in her arms. Sobrino pressed Boy’s face into his collar. “Go!” shouted Sunny. “Get them out.”

  The Growin’ Man yanked the darts out of his arm and picked up his lighter. He moseyed over to a stack of hay bales and held the flame up to a corner. Sunny felt animal panic inside him as the bales turned into a column of fire. The Growin’ Man said, “Yo’ farmah friend should be hanged for givin’ you all those lovely feelings and nothing to do with ’em.”

  The burning column of hay dropped coals onto the nearest bookshelf. The picture books caught immediately — each of them a Roman candle. “Me, I’d give you purpose. I’d brand you all pretty and fine, an’ herd you, make you feel needed on this big ol’ farm.”

  Everything burned. The bookshelves made aisles of fire. The crossbeams crackled. The paint on the stalls had started to peel off. Sunny wheeled around, afraid of every direction. A spark fell on his ear, and he howled, clawing at it. The rancher walked toward Sunny with the lighter. “Ah’ll even let you plant a few rows fo’ me,” he said. “We could both be farmahs.”

  With fire all around him, Sunny wrangled a single clear thought from out of his fear. He glanced up. As the Growin’ Man approached, Sunny threw a hail of darts, staking each of the rancher’s boots to the ground. The Growin’ Man tried to lift his foot but found he couldn’t. Sunny reached up and grabbed the pull string for the attic stairs.

  “Wait,” said the Growin’ Man. Sunny yanked the cord. The Growin’ Man saw nothing but a heap of debris and broken toys, including parts to make a working tractor, a sensible sheep, and three mice with something close to 20/20 vision. The mountainous procession poured over the Growin’ Man. A part of the barn roof made a yawning sound, then collapsed into the attic loft. Sunny had no place to go.

  Outside in the dirt lot near the chicken coop, Sobrino rushed to put Pup back together before it was too late, the wall of flames towering over them. Dot watched him work. She turned to see if Sunny was coming out. Boy stood over Sobrino, shouting, “Pup. Get back together, Pup!”

  The little dog mewled as Sobrino’s long dirty fingers reached into his plastic belly and pulled out two sides of a frayed wire. The old man twisted it back together. Pup jerked fully to life and kicked all his legs trying to scramble away. Sobrino’s hold was firm. He lifted the dog back into Dot’s arms. Pup smelled her and settled down.

  “Thanks,” said Dot. The supports of the barn had crumbled. It seemed to rock back and forth, then the top half folded into the frame. Sparks billowed into the black wall cloud covering up the noonday sun. The entire sky looked like smoke.

  “Maybe it’ll rain,” said Boy.

  “No,” said Sobrino.

  The farmer’s daughter squatted down and turned Boy’s shoulders to face her. She brought his chin up and said, “You’re metal, Boy. You could run in there and save him. You’re old enough.”

  Boy shook his head. “I’m only tin,” he said, showing her his hands.

  “I know it’s a lot to ask, Boy, but Sunny’s in there.” Dot looked like she might bolt toward the burning barn herself. Boy was summoning tears to help make his case.

  “I’m not a real soldier,” he said. “I could die.”

  “Boy!” said the farmer’s daughter. “You’re a daggum —”

  Sobrino’s hand on her shoulder kept her from finishing her sentence —“toy.” The old giant leaned down. “Tranquilo,” he whispered.

  Tranquilo meant nothing to the farmer’s daughter. She hugged Sobrino’s waist, her arms reaching all the way around and back to her own shoulders. She said, “He could go.” Sobrino’s cotton shirt smelled like mold.

  He said the same word again. “Half alive is still something,” he added. “Something” sounded like soam-tink, and it meant “precious.”

  Dot pulled away from Sobrino and stared straight up toward his face. He smiled. His teeth were marbled like thick-cut bacon. He leaned over and whispered to her, “Sobrino del Mago, nice to mice, Pa to straw, can do majeek, eh-eh-eh.” He was strange, surely, but he was no longer a stranger. He turned and ran into the burning barn. A droplet of rain hit Dot in the face, and another pinged off Boy’s metal hat. It had come too late to console anybody.

  Sobrino took two long strides, coiled like a spring, and dove into a gap in the flames. He flew. He crossed the charcoal grill of the horse stalls sideways like a rocket, then rolled and came up standing in the main bay. Sunny was curled up in a ball on the charred ground. At any second the attic would fall and crush him. He was surrounded by burning shelves. They swayed and threatened to topple. Cindered pages floundered through the air on clipped wings. Sunny clenched his eyes and whispered to himself the only thing he could remember, the song the farmer sang to him in the early dawn light.

  A lit ember landed on Sunny’s neck and seared through. Sunny squealed and scratched at it like a wild animal. He scraped out the burning straw and shook his hand. He looked up, his face covered in soot. All he could see was Sobrino’s filthy hand reaching down to him.

  In the muddy lot, Dot and Boy and Pup keened in the rainstorm. The side of the barn was a massive curtain of fire. Without warning, it tore into smoldering planks. The whole structure collapsed. The barn had burst. Sunny’s body was flung out. His hat and one leg caught fire as he flew through the flames. He landed hard on a shoulder. Dot ran to him as Sunny squirmed in a puddle and rolled around in the mud. Then Dot helped him to his feet.

  Sobrino had hurled him like a villain from a saloon. But the fire had buried the old giant with the attic toys and the Growin’ Man as well. Sunny put his whole weight on Dot’s shoulder. He weighed practically nothing. What had
happened in the red barn was unbearable.

  He quit believing good men were good killers. Her eyes were still the color of fresh basil.

  If you enjoyed this novella by Daniel Nayeri, you may also enjoy his other novellas published in e-book format:

  Read all four novellas — including Wood House,

  available only in the printed book —

  in Straw House, Wood House, Brick House, Blow

  www.candlewick.com

  DANIEL NAYERI was born in Iran and spent a couple of years as a refugee before immigrating to the United States at age eight with his family. He is the coauthor of a popular young adult series set in Manhattan that began with Another Faust. He has worked as a stuntman and a pastry chef and is now a writer and editor in New York City.

  Of this collection, he says: “For me, stories can be about anything. In any medium. But they have to be in a world at least half as interesting as this one. The characters have to be a little tweaked, a little obsessed. I like people who are wildly broken or wildly uncomfortable or wildly hard to deal with. Everyone a little wild. That’s one reason why writing this whole thing on an iPhone makes a weird kind of sense. Each form of media out there is completely different, sure, but all my favorite books, games, movies, comics share the trait of great storytelling. And, hey, I’m into that. I’m pretty sure we’re all into that.”

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.

  Copyright © 2011 by Daniel Nayeri

  Illustrations copyright © 2011 by James Weinberg

  Cover illustration copyright © 2011 by Lauren Vajda

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.

  First electronic edition in this format 2011

  This novella is also available as part of Straw House, Wood House, Brick House, Blow: Four Novellas by Daniel Nayeri

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the complete hardcover edition as follows:

  Nayeri, Daniel.

  Straw house, wood house, brick house, blow / Daniel Nayeri. — 1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: A collection of four novellas in different genres, including a western about a farmer who grows living toys and a rancher who grows half-living people; a science fiction story of the near-future in which the world is as easy to manipulate as the Internet; a crime story in which every wish comes true and only the Imaginary Crimes Unit can stop them; and a comedic love story in which Death describes himself as a charismatic hero.

  ISBN 978-0-7636-5526-6 (hardcover)

  [1. West (U.S.) — Fiction. 2. Science fiction. 3. Mystery and detective stories — Fiction. 4. Love — Fiction. 5. Short stories.] I. Title.

  PZ7.N225Str 2011

  [Fic] — dc22 2011013675

  ISBN 978-0-7636-6014-7 (electronic)

  The illustrations were created digitally and with ink.

  Candlewick Press

  99 Dover Street

  Somerville, Massachusetts 02144

  visit us at www.candlewick.com