Small as an Elephant (12 page)

Eventually, Jack’s eyes adjusted to the dark; still, he reached into his backpack and pulled out his flashlight. Would it work? He knew that wet batteries corroded, but it hadn’t been wet that long. His thumb pushed on the switch —

Light!

As he moved out of the dressing room and into the main part of the store, he realized how foolish he was being. People outside could probably see the flashlight beam through the large windows. They would think the store was being robbed!

Flashlight off!

The store was even cooler when it was empty. There was the futon to stretch out on, and plenty of warm, dry sleeping bags to borrow for the night hanging on the back wall.

The first thing Jack did was head to the main doors to make sure he’d be able to let himself out come morning. To his relief, he noted that just above the handle was one of those half-circle locks you simply have to turn and a bolt moves side to side. Now he just had to hope opening the doors from the inside wouldn’t trigger an alarm. But he’d deal with that tomorrow.

Next he explored the camping accessories on the shelf near the front of the store. He found a box labeled
First-Aid Kit for Sporting Dogs
and wondered if it would have dry gauze for his cold and achy finger. Sure enough, it was on the list of enclosed items, but something prevented Jack from just tearing into the package. Except for when he took the elephant, Jack had never deliberately stolen from a store. He decided he’d rewrap his finger using the old gauze once it had dried out.

But what about food? He only had one cereal bar left. Wasn’t taking food — something you absolutely needed — different from taking something just because you could? He was pretty sure that if the owner of L.L. Bean knew about his situation, he’d want him to eat.

Jack looked around to see if there was anything edible. Maybe they would have that freeze-dried stuff hikers ate. Once, Nina had gotten a bag of freeze-dried beef stew from her uncle for Christmas. They’d mixed it up together, and at the time, it had tasted pretty awful, but he bet he’d like it now.

Unfortunately, the only food items he could find in the store were maple syrup, different flavored jams, and gummy worms in a fake tackle box. All of it sounded really unappealing (what he wouldn’t give for a Big Mac), but he broke into and ate a package of gummy worms anyway. For some reason, they tasted worse than he expected.

He grabbed his water bottle and filled it up in the single restroom. When he came out, he noticed two large swinging doors with small windows at the top. He stood on his tiptoes and peered into a large room filled with boxes of inventory. There seemed to be as much merchandise in the back room as there was in the store. He started to back away from the doors, knowing they were for employees only, and then realized it didn’t matter. Tonight he could go anywhere he wanted to — he could see it all. He pushed cautiously on the right-hand door; he was entering a forbidden world.

Shelves were lined with boxes of sunglasses, fishing rods, and wading boots.
It must be fun to work here,
he thought, especially if you got to be the one to open the boxes, to see what you’d be selling that week. But the storage room wasn’t the only section off-limits to customers. On the far side of the room was another door. It also had a window, but a curtain blocked the view of what was inside. This time he didn’t hesitate. He went over and turned the knob.

It was a small room with a large table, a couch, and a tiny kitchen area, but to Jack it looked luxurious. He went directly to the refrigerator and found leftover lunches: partially eaten sandwiches, mysterious Tupperware containers, an apple, a can of Diet Coke. In the freezer were Lean Cuisine meals. He looked around and spotted a microwave. He was going to have a feast!

Right after he finished investigating.

Off the little room were two doors. Jack tried the first, but it was locked. He tried the second and thought it might be locked also, but it was simply stuck. With a little extra push, the door swung open to reveal a small office — an office with a computer, a computer that was no doubt hooked up to the Internet.

For the first time in days, Jack did a happy dance, whooping and hollering and jumping in place. He wasn’t sure what to do first — go make dinner or check the Internet for reports about the missing boy and his mom. He made himself calm down.
You have all night,
he told himself.

So he ate. He ate half a turkey sub and the apple. Then he zapped some lasagna and a frozen panini. He felt like he should keep eating, but his stomach must have shrunk over the past five days. One more bite and he would barf for sure. He stretched out on the couch for a while to give his stomach a break. And that’s when he saw it: a small TV hanging from the wall above him. He located the remote control between two cushions on the couch and turned it on. For a few moments, he was content to watch reruns of
The Simpsons,
and then he realized the news was probably on. Maybe he’d catch the story about the missing boy. He switched channels, but stories about fighting in countries he’d hardly heard of made him impatient. Jack turned off the TV and went into the office to use the computer instead.

Fortunately, the computer was not password protected. In no time at all, he was checking both his YouPage (
No messages from Nina — weird
) and his mom’s. Still no cyber signs of her. So he held his breath and searched for
missing boy maine.
He was dying to know if the reports were about him and, if so, who had gone to the police.

His picture came up immediately on a Bangor news website. Not only was it his picture staring back at him, but it had the word
Play
written across his chest. He clicked on it to watch a video of the actual broadcast.

He watched it three times in a freaky kind of amazement. His grandmother (his
grandmother
?) had gotten a call from a man en route to the Bahamas, and although she couldn’t understand much from the call, she’d figured out that his mother was headed there and he was not. So she called the only other person she could think of: Nina. Nina had told Gram that he and his mother had been vacationing in Maine and that Jack hadn’t returned for school. Nina. The only person on this planet other than his mom who knew him from the inside out. Who knew that the last thing he’d want was for anyone,
especially
his grandmother, to know where he was and what had happened.

His grandmother had called the Maine State Police, who reported having found a tent and an air mattress in the woods. After the news story aired yesterday, Mrs. Olson reported seeing Jack at her farm. The food-pantry guy, the woman from Sherman’s (who mentioned his broken finger to the reporter), the Island Explorer bus driver, and one of the women from the Lamoine General Store had also come forward.

He got up and paced around the small room.

Concentrate!
he told himself. Just because people were looking for him did not mean he would be found. He just had to think.

He took his wet sleeping bag out of his backpack and placed it over the table to dry. He retrieved his still-damp clothes from the dressing room and hung them off the chairs. He looked in the refrigerator for any food that he could carry with him. He selected some packaged veggies and dip, a slice of pepperoni pizza, and a questionable-looking piece of birthday cake, and packed them in the outside pockets of his backpack. It was like the time they predicted a really big blizzard in Boston. He and his mom went into preparation mode, buying canned goods and water, getting out the candles. He knew he was preparing now; he just didn’t know for what.

Streetlights lit up the store well enough for Jack to see without the flashlight. He grabbed one of the dry L.L. Bean sleeping bags and began to curl up on the couch in the staff room. That’s when he noticed it: BO — his own! Even though he’d been out in the rain all day, he was really beginning to stink. Maybe it was time to take a sponge bath.

About twenty scratchy, soapy paper towels later, he crawled into the sleeping bag and turned the TV on, but he didn’t hear a word that was spoken. His mind went in circles.

He knew that the moment he came out of hiding or was found, his life would change forever. He would no longer live with his mother. He would no longer live two bus stops away from Nina, and maybe no longer even go to Curley Middle School. He thought of Nina — Nina, who should have known that even hinting that his mother wasn’t taking good care of him, hinting to his
grandmother,
of all people, could ruin everything.

His thoughts turned to his grandmother. She had looked older — older and worried. But the worried part, that was probably just for show. His mother had told him that ever since she was a little girl, her mother had tried to control her, tried to destroy her life. “She’s crazy, Jack,” his mother had said. “You have to trust me on this.” Now, once again, his grandmother was trying to take him away from his mother. And this time she’d probably succeed.

It would serve Mom right,
Jack thought, but immediately regretted it.

He reached for his still-unnamed elephant. His mom was spinning, and she couldn’t be held responsible for what she did during the spinning times. Maybe he could find a way to get to the Bahamas, too. Maybe they could live there, where people wouldn’t know anything about them and wouldn’t even consider taking him away from her. They could live in a hut on the beach. Catch fish. Maybe after thinking about what she had done, she’d stay on her medication forever. (She had promised that before. Still . . .)

He thought of getting back on the computer and blasting Nina but had heard that people could be traced by their computer activity. Now that he knew they were looking for him, he wouldn’t be signing on to his YouPage again.

He had to have more time to figure things out. How could he travel without being seen? Maybe in the dark. He could travel at night now and not during the day. But the thought of walking the dark roads at night, by himself, made him shiver.

If only there was a subway in Maine, or a bus system like the Island Explorer for the rest of the state. He didn’t have money, but he could have stowed away.

There had to be a faster way to travel.

Wait a minute . . . what about a bike?
There were all those bikes in the front of the store. No one would expect a missing kid to be riding a bike somewhere. Especially if he was wearing a helmet! And his identity would be well hidden beneath a helmet. He wouldn’t have to travel at night after all.

He went back out front and inspected the bikes by flashlight. There were six bikes there — two about the right size for him — and none of them were locked. Boy, things sure were different in Maine.

Light suddenly flashed into the store.

Jack ducked behind the bikes and turned his flashlight off. A car had pulled into the parking lot, and its headlights had swung into the store.

His heart threatened to leap right out of his chest.

Had someone seen him? Seen his flashlight beam and called the police? Did they think he was robbing the store?

A man got out of the car and tried the door. The rattle echoed in the building. Was it a cop? The glaring headlights made it hard to tell.

Jack held his breath; still, the flashlight shook in his left hand. At any moment he expected a voice from a bullhorn to tell him to stay where he was.

The sound of a radio — a walkie-talkie radio — came from the car. It had to be the police, didn’t it? The officer went back to the car, slammed the car door behind him. Jack lifted up his head and watched the now-visible cruiser move on.

He let out a gust of air and sat there, his head resting on his knees, until he could no longer feel his blood banging against the walls of his veins.

A dog barked in the distance.

And I was worried about eating the gummy worms,
he thought.
If I get caught stealing a bike, I’m going to juvie.

Was it worth it? Was stealing a bike worth the risk?

One of the things his mom always said when teachers and guidance counselors started poking into their business was, “Can’t they see what a good kid you are? Can’t they see that I’m raising you right?”

Would stealing a bike mean that Jack had proved the opposite? Maybe he was turning out to be a bad kid after all.

But what were his choices? Without the bike, he would have to walk at night. Wouldn’t that be more dangerous? He could explain, he reasoned, that with the bike, he was being smart, playing it safe — doing what his mother had taught him.

He pulled himself up and went back to the computer to figure out logistics. He hadn’t biked in a long time — not since the time he and his mother rented bikes and rode around Jamaica Pond. And that was a really easy ride. He pulled up a map of the area. He could take the Maine Turnpike home, but he remembered seeing a sign: no bikes, horses, or walkers allowed. Plus, he’d probably be more noticeable riding along a major highway. So he investigated the minor routes and finally decided on Route
1
. He’d try to get to Bucksport — which was about twenty miles away — tomorrow. Jack printed the map.