by Cary Fagan
“Oh, drat! Why did I mention grasshoppers? Now I won’t be able to stop thinking about them until I have one. Listen, I’ll be back. Maybe you can make up another story.”
“I didn’t make that one up!” Danny said.
But the mole had already turned around again and pulled himself into the hole.
7
The Elements
DANNY STOOD THERE for a while, trying to make sense of everything. Until today, he’d never even seen a nontalking mole. Now he knew that they were small, with whiskers and pink noses at the ends of their snouts. Their small eyes were hard to see, and their ears weren’t visible at all. Their front paws looked like oven mitts, and their curling claws worked better than shovels. And their fur looked really soft.
They looked like they were made up of pieces left over from regular animals.
Not only did this one talk, but he was a regular chatterbox, as Danny’s mother would say.
She had once actually been a good mother, he remembered, taking care of him when he was sick, making him laugh, bringing him applesauce and toast in bed. But at the moment, Danny liked that mole better than he liked anybody in his family.
He felt something.
A drop of rain. Quickly followed by several more drops. Warm rain, since it was almost summer, but still, Danny didn’t want to get wet.
A moment later it became a full shower.
He pushed his backpack against the dirt wall. He sat beside it, knees up, head down. The wall protected him a little, but he was still getting wet, and it wouldn’t be long before he was soaked through and sitting in a mud puddle.
What if he caught a cold or got pneumonia? What if he got a burning fever and started to hallucinate about worse things than talking rodents? What if he started to imagine that zombies were breaking through the walls? Zombies reaching out with their bloody hands, gnashing their rotten teeth and staring with dead eyes as they came toward him?
Danny would never take a roof for granted again.
The rain came down harder. He would have to do something, but what?
He remembered the big garbage bag in his backpack and pulled it out. He could make a poncho by punching in holes for his head and arms, but his head would still get wet and so would the backpack.
Wait a minute.
Danny found the nail clippers. Using the file, he carefully slit the garbage bag along the sides. Unfolded, it was now twice as long. If he attached two corners to the wall and the other two corners to the ground maybe three feet out, he would have a lean-to with a slanted roof that he could crawl under.
But how to attach the corners to the wall?
The paper clips! They were rattling around at the bottom of his backpack.
He fished them out and untwisted the end of one. He hooked it carefully through the plastic bag at the corner. Then he pushed the other end into the wall at an angle so it wouldn’t pull out.
He did the same for the other top corner and then for the two corners on the earthen floor.
The rain battered against the plastic, but it held. Danny grabbed his backpack and crawled underneath. He could sit with his knees up quite comfortably and stay dry. A steady trickle of rain poured off the side of the bag.
He had another idea. He took out his thermos and filled it to the top with the rain water coming off the plastic. He took a drink and topped it up again.
Pretty good, Danny thought with a swell of pride. Pretty resourceful, if he did say so himself.
Too bad there was nothing else to do. He thought about pretending to talk to the mole, but that seemed stupid. Clearly he couldn’t make the mole appear whenever he wanted, which made him think it might be real. Certainly it didn’t feel like a product of his imagination, especially as he didn’t have a very good one, according to his parents.
Since he had nothing else to do, he took out his school notebook and pencil. The only homework he still hadn’t done was his English assignment. He was supposed to write a story based on his family.
Danny hated English assignments. Why did he have to make up a story? Not everybody was creative. It wasn’t fair. He always ended up staring at the blank paper for hours and then finally writing something he knew wasn’t any good.
What could he write about his family?
He remembered the DVD in his backpack.
He felt an idea coming on.
He wrote down the title. The Last One.
Then he started to write.
Jeff Eldridge knew there was a zombie epidemic. After all, he was twelve years old and extremely smart for his age. He and his family had been watching the news for weeks. Jeff saw lawyers, doctors and teachers marauding through the streets. They walked in their slow, Frankenstein way, one foot and then another, seeking out living humans to feed on.
Jeff knew what happened when you were bitten by a zombie. You turned into one yourself. He also knew that not all zombies had bloodshot eyes and rotting flesh. Some zombies looked normal. They sounded normal, too.
But they weren’t. Inside, they were zombies.
When Jeff came home from school and found that his parents had put all their belongings into cardboard boxes, he naturally thought something weird was going on. But what really turned him onto the truth was when he couldn’t find the family dog, Spot.
“Delicious,” said his father, wiping his mouth with a bed sheet.
Yes, that’s right. Jeff’s parents had eaten the family dog!
“I’m still hungry,” said Jeff’s brother, Donald. And then Donald looked at Jeff. Disgusting drool began to drip from his mouth. His brother and his parents began to move toward him.
And that’s when Jeff knew.
His family were all zombies!
Should he run? Or should he try to find a way to turn them back into humans?
Danny was so absorbed in writing his story that it was a while before he realized that the patter sound had stopped.
And that writing sure made a person hungry.
He pulled out a peanut-butter granola bar, tore the wrapper and took a bite. He always liked to carry a few in case he got hungry, and his brother always made fun of him for it. “Expecting to be caught in a hurricane with nothing to eat?” he said once.
As Danny chewed, he poked his head from under the plastic and looked up. The sun was coming out again. He crawled out from under the roof, trying to stay out of the muddy spots. He walked around, stretched and shook himself.
He looked up. The circle of light wasn’t as bright as before. An unpleasant shiver went through him at the thought of night coming on.
Danny saw a dark shape at the edge of the hole. It was a dog. A dog was looking down at him.
“Worlff!” said the dog.
“Thwack?” he said. “Is that you, boy?”
Thwack whined and scratched at the edge of the hole, knocking in bits of earth.
“Thwack! It is! It is you! You ran away from the farm, just like I ran away, and you found your way back. You missed me, didn’t you? You don’t want to live without me. Good dog!”
Thwack whimpered and yipped. He darted forward so that Danny was afraid he would fall into the hole, too. But Thwack pulled himself back in time.
He started to run around the hole, yelping and barking.
This was good! Somebody would see the dog acting weird. Somebody would come and find him!
Thwack stopped. Once more he looked down at Danny, one ear half raised and his mouth open as if he was smiling. Then he shook his ears and scratched himself with a hind leg.
A butterfly flitted over his head. He snapped at it.
He trotted off.
“Thwack?”
There was no answer. For several minutes Danny looked up and called, but the dog did not return.
Thwack was a good dog, but Danny had to admit he wasn�
�t the smartest canine in the world. He could be easily distracted. And now he had forgotten Danny.
Suddenly Danny felt intensely lonely. He was still angry at his father and his mother and even his brother, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t be overjoyed to hear their voices and see them looking down the hole to find him.
Maybe they hadn’t even noticed he was missing. Or maybe they were glad. Selling the house and moving away would be a lot easier without him. That sure would solve all their problems.
It got darker and darker. Danny didn’t like the idea of being in the hole when he couldn’t see anything.
He crawled under his garbage-bag lean-to. It made him feel a little safer.
He felt cold and took his sweatshirt out of his backpack. He yanked it on, pulling the hood over his head.
His sweatshirt smelled like home. Like his dad’s spicy vegetarian stew and his mom’s rose incense. He curled up on the ground, the lumpy backpack under his head. For a long time he kept his eyes open in the darkness, listening to faint, distant sounds.
He wished that he had company. Any kind of company.
“Mole?”
But there was no answer. Danny closed his eyes, opened them, then closed them again.
8
O Glorious Dark!
SOMETHING BOPPED DANNY on the head, waking him up.
“Huh?” he muttered.
He opened his eyes. His head and shoulders were sticking out from under the garbage bag. Above him, the sun was shining.
Danny blinked at the circle of bright sky. Then he saw what had bopped him, lying near his nose.
An apple.
Somehow, an apple had fallen into the hole. Maybe the wind had shaken it off a nearby tree, or somebody had thrown it, or it had bounced off a truck.
In any case, he was glad to have it.
Breakfast in bed, Danny thought. He felt the hunger growling in his stomach.
He stood up and stretched. He walked around and ate the apple. It was a Macintosh, crisp and sweet, with only a little bruise where it had hit him. He left nothing but the stem and seeds.
He went to his makeshift washroom to pee. He came back, looked up at the circle of light again and saw a wisp of cloud.
Yesterday he wondered whether his parents were glad he was gone. But in the light of day, he didn’t believe it. In fact, his parents must be freaking out about now. His picture was probably on the front page of the newspaper.
He could just imagine the article under the picture, with a big headline.
Hunt for Missing Boy
Distraught Parents Regret Selfishness
A local family is miserable after the disappearance of their wonderful and amazing son, Danny. The boy went missing yesterday after his parents behaved in an unbelievably selfish manner.
“We don’t blame him,” said Danny’s mother between tears. “It’s all our fault.”
“You couldn’t find a greater kid,” said his grim-faced father. “We don’t even deserve to have a kid like him.”
Danny’s older brother didn’t even try to hide the fact that he had been crying non-stop.
“My brother!” he wailed. “Life isn’t worth living without him.”
Danny’s school friends were also in shock. Several girls said they had broken hearts.
“We hope Danny comes home soon,” his father said. “As soon as he does, we’re going to buy him a guitar, an electric scooter and the biggest chemistry set on the market.”
The search continues.
Were his parents really that upset? Danny hoped so.
Meanwhile, what he really wanted was some buttery toast and scrambled eggs with plenty of ketchup. Just the thought made his mouth water. And then he would take a nice hot shower and watch TV.
He wanted his regular life back.
Suddenly, he lunged at his backpack. He pulled it open, grabbed a granola bar and stuffed half of it into his mouth, practically choking himself. He shoved in the rest, swallowed, and had a coughing fit.
He took a swig of water.
“Help! Help!” he shouted. “I’m down here! In this hole! Get me out!”
From somewhere above he heard a voice.
“Help! Help! I’m up here! Get me out!”
Danny looked up. About three feet above his head he saw the mole looking out of a hole.
“Are you playing some kind of game?” the mole asked.
“No. And it’s not funny.”
“Hang on a minute. I’m coming down. Oops!”
The mole squirted out of the hole, somersaulted in the air, bounced off Danny’s shoulder and landed flat on his stomach.
“Pha-hoo!” The mole sneezed. “That last step was a doozy. Hey, Darnit, you seem a little down in the dung.”
Danny sighed. “I spent the night at the bottom of a hole. I’ve got nothing to eat but one crummy granola bar. For all I know, my parents have already moved away. At this moment they’re slaloming down some mountain or spitting sunflower seeds off the Empire State Building. So how do you think I feel?”
“I think you need to hear a poem.”
“What?”
“All moles make up poems. We’re famous for ’em. Want to hear?”
Danny didn’t like poetry much. Maybe it was because his brother wrote song lyrics and his mother said they were the same as poems and his dad said that Doug was as good as a lot of famous poets. Plus last year Danny’s teacher made them learn a poem by heart. “The Lady in the Pea-Green Coat” was forty-two lines long and rhymed “transience” with “puissance,” which didn’t even sound like a real word. Learning it had been torture.
But he didn’t want to offend the mole.
“Sure,” he said. “I mean, great. I’d be delighted to hear your poem.”
The mole brushed back the fur between where his ears ought to have been. He scurried back a couple of feet for more room and then stood on his haunches, one paw held in the air like an actor reciting Shakespeare.
Dark, dark, O glorious dark!
Bathe me in blackness, ooohoo ohooo!
Dirt
Dirt
Dirt!
Dig-diggity-diggggg —
Whirr-whirr-whirr
Gree-gree-gree
Ah. Ssssweet the cool deep, ding! ding! ding!
the deep so deep.
Shun the sun, down with day!
Better the smell and touch and inner sight
and the soft, soft, soft mudder earthy
to hug hugg huggggg me.
Ahhhhhhhhh
At the final, whispering sound, the mole lowered his head and remained still.
Danny clapped and whistled. “Wow! That was fantastic.”
Mole looked up slowly and smiled. “Ah, you’re just buttering me up.”
“No, I mean it. That was the best poem I ever heard. Seriously.”
“Aw, gee.” The mole waddled closer to Danny. “I did feel rather inspired.”
Danny looked down at the mole — at his soft fur, his dark snout with its pink tip. He thought of Thwack. His dog loved to be stroked, and petting him always made Danny feel better.
He reached out and said, “Could I pet you?”
“Huh?” The mole jumped a foot into the air and landed on his back. He waved his paws until he managed to right himself.
“I’m sorry,” Danny said quickly. “I didn’t mean to scare you. Your fur looks soft, that’s all.”
“It is soft. And, no, you can’t pet me. What do I look like? One of those little yappy things you carry around in a purse? I have my dignity, you know. Besides, we have extra-sensitive skin. Helps us find our way in the dark.”
“I shouldn’t have asked. Sorry.”
The mole shook himself all over. “Apology accepted. Moles don’t hold gr
udges. And now you can entertain me.”
“Entertain you? How?”
“How do I know? I don’t have a clue what you humans can do other than smash things up. But we’re having a little artistic gathering here, aren’t we? I recited a poem. Now it’s your turn.”
“Well,” Danny said. “I could play my harmonica. But I’m not very good.”
“A harmonica? Anything like a rutabaga? I’m not too keen on vegetables.”
“It’s that thing I was playing when you first came. It makes music.”
“Splendid! I love music. Go ahead. I’m all ears. Ear holes, anyway.”
So Danny took his harmonica out of the backpack. He drew in a breath, put the instrument to his lips and blew gently. A blurry note emerged. He blew harder and used a series of quick puffs, getting louder and louder. Then he tried some in-and-out breaths, the notes bending back and forth.
Eee-aww...eee-aww!
As the mole listened, he nodded his head back and forth. He began shuffling his back legs, claws tapping the earth. A moment later he was doing what Danny could only call mole-dancing, waving his snout in the air and bouncing his rump up and down.
At last Danny was too out of breath to play anymore. He bleated out one final note. The two panted to catch their breath.
“Yee-hah!” said the mole. “We had ourselves a regular hootenanny! Only thing missing was a jug of moleshine. Made me kind of hungry, though. This time of day, with the sun overhead, it’s slim pickings. But there might be some ants still marching. Problem with ants, you eat a few dozen and you’re hungry half an hour later. But they’re better than nothing. See you later, Darnit.”
“You’re going again?” Danny asked.
But the mole just turned around and began to dig a new hole, shoveling with amazing speed as his claws tossed dirt into the air.
Another few seconds, and he was gone.
9
Comfort Food
WITHOUT THE MOLE AROUND, time definitely moved more slowly. Danny decided he needed some exercise. Wasn’t that what people did in jail? In the movies, prisoners always made sure they stayed in good physical shape.
He paced back and forth fifty times.
