“Wow,” Kuru said, looking around. “Holy mackerel.”
Day looked around, too. Water everywhere. Everywhere! Swiveling his head in a slow circle, he took it all in. For some reason, it reminded him of a sand castle he had once built on a sandbar in Lake Michigan. Little by little, the tide came in and covered the sand castle. On a lake the tides weren’t that great, but the water did slowly rise and touch the front of the castle, caving it in. That’s what the town looked like now. Water had taken everything and turned it dark and ugly. Maybe it wasn’t a sand castle, he decided. Maybe it was a big, wet rag that was so saturated it couldn’t budge without letting more water free. He had never seen anything like it.
“Amazing,” Ellis said.
“This is not good,” Kuru said. “Not good at all.”
“Is that the post office?” Ellis asked, pointing southwest.
“I think so. And that’s the clock tower. School’s over there,” Day said, beginning to pick up landmarks.
“It’s all underwater,” Kuru said, walking around the roof to get a better look. “And nothing’s moving. I don’t see anyone, do you all?”
“No one,” Ellis agreed.
“Not anything,” Kuru said. “That’s weird. You would think something would be out, looking around. A boat or something. No helicopters, either.”
Day did see something. He squinted to see better, then pulled back as though he’d been hit. Horses. Drowned horses. Three of them, he saw, bobbing in the water like swollen islands. He didn’t want to think too hard about the horses struggling, or about other creatures that might have been trapped by the floodwaters.
“Let’s set out the bowls,” Ellis said. “And we should make a sign or something that lets people know we’re here.”
“Good idea,” Kuru said, starting to untie the bowls and pot from the sheet. “We can write something on the sheet. Make a flag or something.”
“Doesn’t look like anyone’s coming,” Day said.
“Hard to know what’s happening,” Kuru said. “The airports could be flooded. Rescue teams, you never know. They may be trying, but they can’t get out to assist anyone. It’s better to concentrate on what we can control and not worry about who is doing what somewhere else.”
Day nodded. He agreed. He took the spaghetti pot when Kuru handed it to him and studied it for a moment.
“We should get something to funnel more water in,” he said. “Like a shower curtain or something.”
“Good idea. You want to run down and get one?”
“Okay.”
“Bring up more containers,” Kuru said. “Looks like we’re going to be here awhile.”
“And a marker,” Ellis said. “The big one Mom got. It’s in the bowl in the kitchen … you know.”
“Anything else?”
“Not right now. Maybe later.”
“I’ll be right back.”
“Take your time. There’s no rush. Be careful, because anyone gets injured and they’re out of luck,” Kuru said. “Just think of Carmen.”
“I’ll be careful.”
“Man, I wish it would stop raining,” Ellis said. “It’s getting me down.”
Day climbed back through the hole in the door. He paused, wondering if he should take a minute to search for a key or smash it open wider, but decided it didn’t matter. G-Mom wasn’t going to come up on the roof anytime soon, and anyone else from the group could crawl through. He zipped down the stairs and followed the third-floor hallway to his apartment. He pushed open the door and for a second, just a second, a sense of normalcy covered him. It might have been any day, no big deal — the apartment waiting patiently, food in the fridge, his mom due home in an hour or two. He knew what he would do if it was a normal day: an hour of video games, maybe against Ellis, then homework, then chess while they began cooking dinner. As he stood in the kitchen, looking around, that suddenly seemed like the greatest day anyone could have. He wondered why he had never noticed it before. You had to lose something to gain something, he realized.
He went through the refrigerator. There wasn’t much, but he did find some milk that he could bring to the baby. He set it on the kitchen counter. Then he made a pile of some Swiss cheese; some ham slices that didn’t look great; a browned head of lettuce; strawberry jelly; three-quarters of a pound of butter; a half dozen eggs, hard-boiled or not, he wasn’t sure; a half-empty can of spray whipped topping; a jar of sandwich sweet-and-sour pickles; a can of Diet 7-Up; and a sleeve of white crackers. He left it on the counter while he went back into the apartment and pulled the shower curtain off its rings. It made a crackling noise with its stiffness, and it wasn’t easy to fold, but eventually he got it small enough to carry in front of him like an armful of blankets. Passing back into the kitchen, he decided not to bother with the food for the time being. They could get it later. He found the black marker in the bowl where Ellis said it would be, jabbed it into his hip pocket, then looked around to see what he might have forgotten.
His eyes passed over the snake without seeing it.
Or rather, he saw it, but he didn’t register it. It was like one of those perception problems you sometimes got in school — which object does not belong? — and his eyes slid right over the snake and onto the two ancient bananas his mother had hung from the banana holder thing.
Day backed his eyes up. Once he finally picked out the snake, it was impossible to see anything else.
“Hey,” he said to no one. He moved the shower curtain a little more carefully in front of him.
The snake wasn’t hissing or aggressive. It lay like a rope across the kitchen counter, not far from the stove, its head secured on the bread board, but the rest of its body draped casually downward across the face of the cupboards. Day didn’t freak. He didn’t love snakes, it was true, but he also didn’t fear them. Ellis loved them, and so did Teddy in a sort of gruff, professional way, but Day simply respected them. They were creatures, somewhat valuable creatures, and he didn’t mind picking up a few extra dollars taking care of them when Teddy wasn’t around. But taking care of them while they rested under a heat lamp in a wired aquarium was one thing. Standing in front of one, eye to eye, so to speak, was a different equation altogether.
He wondered how long it had been watching him. He wondered how he could have missed it.
Day moved in a careful semicircle away from the snake. He kept the shower curtain in front of him the entire time. When he made it to the door, he trotted to the stairs, then bolted up them. The snake had given him the willies. Even if it had attacked, which was unlikely, he probably would have been okay. He could have carried the snake upstairs and called for Ellis and Kuru.
Still, the snake had triggered a primitive shiver down in his brain stem and he ran up the stairs, feeling like a lion chased him. It was almost funny. He jammed through the door, shoving the shower curtain ahead of him, then scrambled out onto the roof.
“I saw one,” Day said as soon as he came to a rest beside them. “A snake. A red-tailed boa.”
“Where?” Ellis asked.
“In our apartment. On the counter.”
“That means they’re everywhere,” Ellis said. “That means they could be anyplace.”
“I hate you both so much right now,” Kuru said. “I hope you know that.”
“We should tell the others,” Day said.
“G-Mom is going to freak,” Kuru said, emphasizing each word. “Pigs and snakes. She will not be happy.”
“I thought I saw one under the couch when I picked up the baby this morning,” Ellis said. “I couldn’t be sure, but I thought so.”
“We should get down there fast,” Day said. “They’re probably hungry.”
“How do you find them?” Kuru asked, taking the shower curtain and spreading it out. She propped part of it on a ventilation shaft, then tucked the plastic into a funnel-ramp that ended in the spaghetti pot.
“Teddy told us if a snake went missing,” Ellis said, “you should check any pl
ace where they can hide. In backpacks, in seat cushions, under a bookcase, anywhere. They depend on hiding, then ambushing their prey.”
“You think Zebby is too big for them?” Day asked. “I think he might be.”
“Not too big for Big Monte,” Ellis said. “Big Monte could take him down.”
“Who is Big Monte?” Kuru asked. “I don’t really want to know, but I feel that I should.”
“He’s the meanest snake Teddy ever raised,” Day said. “And the biggest.”
“Teddy sold him to a guy and the guy brought him back because he was afraid of him. This was a tough guy, too,” Ellis said, “so it was a big deal for him to admit he was afraid of a snake. He had to have three people hold the snake if he wanted to move him.”
“Big Monte could eat Zebby for sure,” Day said. “I’d bet on it.”
Before they could say anything, they heard a scream from inside the building. It went on a long, long time, and it was so filled with terror there was no mistaking what it was. Day ran toward the door and snatched up the ax as he went. He heard Ellis and Kuru scrabbling after him.
Carmen heard the pig get hit.
It sounded dull and thick, like someone swatting a carpet hanging on a line with the end of a baseball bat. Thunk. Or thud. Then she heard something whisper, something slithery and quick, and the next thing she knew she heard the pig let out a squeal. It was amazingly loud. It filled the apartment and threatened to break the windows for all Carmen could tell. Inside the sound, though, she heard the scaly crawl of the snake, its strength pushing something aside, the leg of a chair or something, and Carmen’s own mouth opened to scream beside all the other noise, but her neck went into spasm and wouldn’t let her emit a sound.
Then things became even crazier. She heard yelling and running and G-Mom’s voice came over everything. G-Mom screamed, but it wasn’t a ’fraidy-cat scream, but a battle cry instead, and she watched as G-Mom tottered forward with a standing lamp. She jabbed the lamp base at the bundle of snake and pig, and the pig responded with more squealing and the snake continued roiling around the pig, finding him with all of its body.
“Get off him, get off him!” the girl in black boots shouted, and she kicked at the fighting animals. “Get off him!”
“Pull at his head,” G-Mom said. “He’s got his bite in him.”
Pandemonium. Another lamp went over. The pig struggled and tried to run, but the snake weighed too much. Nevertheless, he managed to run a little ways with the snake around him like a pool float tube. She didn’t know if she imagined it, but she seemed to hear the pig wheezing. He was losing his breath, she thought, and she wasn’t sure why that was happening.
“Oh, you evil, evil thing!” G-Mom yelled. “You leave that animal alone!”
Then, like superheroes, Kuru and Ellis and Day arrived. They flashed into the apartment, and Carmen watched as Ellis fell on the pig and snake and worked his hand behind the snake’s head. He said something about it not being Big Monte, whatever that meant, and he cursed once while he tried to wrestle the serpent’s head free from the pig. Day seemed to know what to do, too, because he began unwinding the snake, removing it loop by loop from the pig’s torso. The pig now lay still as if in shock.
“Grab him and pull him away!” Ellis said to the new girl. “Peel him off Zebby.”
“I don’t want to touch him!” the girl said.
“Well, if you don’t Zebby’s going to die.”
That persuaded the girl, Carmen saw. She hooked her hands around the belly of the snake, while Kuru took what would have been the shoulders on any other animal. Little by little they uncurled the snake, extending it to its full length. It still tried to tuck and pull together. It nearly jerked the new girl off her feet a couple times.
Zebby did not move, but he seemed to be breathing, Carmen saw.
“What are we going to do with him?” Ellis asked from the head. “The cages are all downstairs.”
He held the head carefully away from his body. Carmen couldn’t tell who he addressed, but Day answered.
“We’ll take him upstairs and throw him off the roof.”
“Are you crazy?” Ellis asked, struggling to maintain control of the head.
“What else are we going to do with him?”
“Chop him in half,” G-Mom said. “Just get rid of him.”
Then they made a few communicating motions apparently, because the next thing Carmen knew they started carrying the snake toward the door. It forced them to back up twice and thread the needle of the doorway because its strength kept throwing them off. It was a spectacle to see them weave out, the snake connecting them like a diamond-studded rope.
“What are we going to do with him?” Kuru asked, her breath rasping and thin.
They stood in the hallway, the snake stretched out between them. The snake continued to move and twist, and Kuru couldn’t believe its strength. It had attacked the pig, wrestled it, and now it twisted and fought against its own capture. Like it or not, it was an amazing creature. Nevertheless, the simple fact was they had no place to put the snake. They couldn’t hold it forever.
“There’s a storage closet at the end of the hall,” Day said. “We can stick him in there.”
“They have really sharp teeth,” Ellis said, “and the teeth point backward so it’s hard to get them out if they bite you. We’ve got to be careful when we let him go.”
Kuru had every intention of being careful. She walked down the hallway, holding the snake against her body to still it. Alice walked in front of her. Day led them to the storage closet and paused. It wasn’t going to be easy, Kuru saw, to get the snake inside, release it without getting bitten, then close the door on it.
“How do you want to do this?” Alice asked.
“The trick is to let it all go at once,” Ellis said. “If I let go of the head first, it might bite one of us.”
“Let me open the door,” Day said, “and see how big it is inside. Hold the snake tight.”
He kept one hand on the snake and used the other to open the door to the storage closet. Kuru saw the closet looked to be in rough shape. The shelves it had once had on the wall had fallen off and stood like jackstraws in a tangled mess. The drywall wasn’t in good shape, either. Hunks of it had pried off the wall, and Kuru wondered if putting the snake inside would only make them feel like they had done something. The snake might be able to get out through the holes in the wall. It was impossible to know what a snake could do under these circumstances.
“We could kind of throw the snake inside,” Ellis said, his eyes studying the closet. “Just swing it in and let it go on the count of three. Then I would have the head, and I could throw it last.”
“You’re the boss,” Alice said.
“It’s going to want to bite something,” Day said. “That’s all it knows how to do. It will bite and hold on. We need it to retreat.”
“Let’s try it,” Ellis said. “We can always unwind it again and start all over.”
It was awkward, Kuru reflected. They couldn’t all fit through the doorway to the storage closet at once or in a coordinated way. One person had to let go of the snake, then the next, and so on. Ellis came up with another suggestion.
“I’m going to put the head down first,” he said. “I’ll put it inside the closet and maybe the snake will just crawl away.”
“What if it tries to bite us?” Alice asked.
“Then we’re in trouble. But I don’t think it will. It’s scared and tired. It may just want to get away.”
“This is crazy,” Kuru said, because it was. It felt crazy.
“Let’s try it,” Ellis said. “Ready? I’m going to lower its head to the ground and you all let the body go one by one. Be gentle. You don’t want to corner it or make it feel threatened.”
Ellis didn’t wait for an argument or further discussion. He put the snake’s head on the inside of the storage closet. The snake didn’t try to bite or do anything except slither away. Kuru dropped
her portion of the snake, then Alice, and finally Day. Ellis had to butt the door against the last portion of the snake. Then, with a final flip of its tail, the snake disappeared behind the door into the closet.
Ellis high-fived his brother. Then they all high-fived. It felt good, Kuru realized, to work as a team.
“That was intense,” Alice said, her color bright. “That was wicked intense.”
“You need one person per four feet of snake,” Ellis said. “According to Teddy. They can kill you inside of two minutes.”
“I’ve got to go check on Zebby,” Alice said, as if suddenly remembering. “What a nightmare for him.”
Maybe it was the mention of Zebby, or the solid sensation of having a door between her and the snake, but Kuru’s mind suddenly cleared.
“Where was the baby?” she asked. “When we went in to help, I didn’t see the baby.”
“I put him in his crib …” Alice began, but didn’t finish.
They ran. Kuru ran the fastest, but they all ran.
Kuru stopped so suddenly, Ellis couldn’t help piling into her. She braced herself in the doorway, staring. Ellis heard the baby make a fussing sound. Day skidded to a stop behind him. Then Alice.
Ellis saw the baby in G-Mom’s arms. The baby was fine.
“What?” G-Mom said, evidently reading the alarm on their faces.
“We just worried …” Kuru started to explain.
“I know what you children were worried about,” G-Mom said, her voice raising to a scolding level. “But I’ve got the baby right here. Right in my arms. Now I want you to get in here and tell me every last thing about these snakes. I’m so angry right now I could pop a vein. I surely could. Who is responsible for these snakes being in this apartment building? Is it one of you boys? Step in here and tell me straight. We only fear what we don’t know.”
Ellis wanted to curl away and head for the roof, but Alice pushed past him and went to Zebby. The pig no longer rested on his side, but he wasn’t on his feet, either. He appeared stunned and confused. Alice reached in her pocket and gave him some kibbles. He barely bothered with them.
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