Small as an Elephant (8 page)

Jack knew the dog was still down below; he could hear its tags jangling as it scratched itself.
Too bad dogs can’t climb ladders,
he thought. He would have liked that old dog stretched out beside him. For a moment, he contemplated getting down from the loft and sleeping with the dog. But the cushions were comfortable, and he still felt so very tired. That’s what worry did to Jack, made him incredibly tired — tired the way his mom always was after the spinning times. She’d come home and crawl into bed, close the shades, and pull up the covers, and that’s where Jack would find her for days — sometimes even weeks — after a spinning time. Tired like that. He closed his eyes and fell back to sleep.

When he woke again, sunlight was sliding through all the cracks in the walls, giving the barn a sort of comfortable, cozy feeling — until, that is, he remembered that today was the day his vacation was officially over. Then nothing felt comfortable. The cushions were lumpy. His mouth was dry. It felt like mice had made a nest in it while he slept. And he was hungry — boy, was he hungry! He hadn’t eaten anything but a bag of trail mix and two tastes of ice cream yesterday.

I’m on a farm,
he thought as he left his stuff — all but his empty water bottle, that is — and climbed down the ladder.
There has to be a garden, right?
After all, the barn was full of gardening tools. And if there was a garden, surely there would be a hose for watering the garden. He didn’t know which would taste better right now: a big, crunchy carrot or a mouthful of cool, running water. He’d find something to eat, and then he’d figure out a plan.

Not knowing if the farm family had returned, he pushed the barn door open a crack. He and the dog slipped through; then he moved around to the side of the barn where he couldn’t be seen from the house. There it was, the garden. He could see a scarecrow in a back field not far from where he stood. Only problem was, he’d have no place to hide while picking; anyone looking out the back window would see him.

He went around front to see if a car had come in during the night. Mist was rising, hovering just above the fields with hay bales, across the road, and not a car in sight. Not on the dirt road that had led him here, not in the driveway, either. Maybe the owners had gone away for the long weekend. Even country people needed a vacation, right?

Jack guessed it would be safe to help himself to a vegetable or two.
Heck,
he thought as he walked around back through the dew-soaked grass to the garden,
the vegetables are just going to go to waste if these people aren’t here to pick them.

A net, held up by tall poles, surrounded the garden (to keep away deer?), but Jack spotted a place where the netting could be untied and the garden entered. He was barely through when he spotted a ripe tomato calling his name. The skin was warm from the morning sun, and he held it to his nose for just a moment before biting into it like it was a big old apple or a juicy plum. Seeds squirted out, dripping down his chin.

He reached for another.

“So. You think you can just help yourself to my tomatoes?”

Jack jumped, using his forearm to wipe the evidence off his chin. He hadn’t heard the woman approach. But there she was, not more than a few feet from him, standing crossly in her black rubber boots and straw hat. Glancing around, he noticed sheets on a line on the side of the house opposite the barn. There was a basket on the ground beneath them. She must have been hanging the wash.

Of course she’d seen him.

“S-sorry,” he stammered. “The tomato — it’s just —”

“Where’re you from?” She swatted a fly away from her face.

“I was running down your road. Training.” Where did that come from? Jack had never trained for anything in his life, though he had thought about going out for football now that he was going to be in sixth grade this fall.

She was staring at his splinted finger, which was looking pretty dirty already. “Why aren’t you in school today?” she asked. “Or is this one of those years when you don’t start the day after Labor Day?”

He just nodded, having no idea whether the kids in Maine were back today or not.

“You ate from the pantry row,” she said.

“Pantry row?”

“Don’t you garden?”

Jack shook his head.

“Well, then, you wouldn’t know. We’re encouraged to plant one row of vegetables for the food pantry. That way, those in need can have fresh vegetables. Not just Hamburger Helper.”

“Sorry,” he said again as the woman sized him up.

“Tell you what,” she said. “I can’t drive any longer. Stubborn son took my car. So I have no way to get these vegetables into town. If you’ll pick this row and take ’em up to the pantry, I’ll let you bring some home for your family. That way, I’ll get my vegetables harvested before the frost, and you’ll get more training: heavy lifting,” she said, trying not to smile.

No way!
Jack thought. He didn’t need to be gardening and running errands for some old lady he didn’t even know. He had a mother to find. He glanced off into the woods, considered bolting. But his stuff — it was still up in the loft. And what would she do if he ran? Would she know he was lying about living nearby? About school? Would she be suspicious enough to call the police?

He looked down at the garden. There were green beans dangling right next to the ripe tomatoes. The woman did say she’d give him food. . . .

And while he was back in town, he could go back to the library, get online. It was Tuesday; the library would surely be open today.

“It’s a deal,” he said.

She gave him instructions on how to pick the last of the summer vegetables — green beans, red peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes, zucchini, basil, carrots, and potatoes — and then she went back to hanging clothes. Jack was tempted to eat as he picked, especially the carrots, which didn’t look like the ones his mother bought from the store but were palm-size and curled a little, like wiggly goldfish pulled from the ground. He used his fingers to wipe away the dirt on one and glanced at the old woman, who had now moved on to watering her flowers.

She was looking right up at him, as if his guiltiness had called her. Jack went back to picking.

The next time he looked up, the woman was walking toward him. She placed most of the vegetables into a large, netted bag. “Bring these to the pantry,” she said, tying the top. “Tell them they’re from Mrs. Olson. And tell them I need a box of dried milk — they can spare one.”

Jack nodded.

“When you get back, you can take this home with you,” she said, tossing the rest of the vegetables into a paper bag, which she set by the front porch. “Ask your mom to make you a harvest stew. Maybe it’ll inspire you to plant some tomatoes next year.”

With permission, he filled up his water bottle at the hose and took off.

It wasn’t until he had walked for about ten minutes that he realized a tomato wasn’t exactly the most filling of breakfasts and that, well, he could just hide this food in the woods and tell the woman he’d delivered it. Or not tell her anything at all — just sneak back and get his stuff from the loft and the bag of vegetables from the front porch.

But what about the dried milk?
asked a voice inside his head.

He remembered the woman’s half smile.
I was just what-iffing,
he answered. He wasn’t going to take these vegetables. He didn’t have to steal this time. She was giving him food. No, he was
working
for food.

But boy, was he hungry. Really hungry. Suddenly, something new occurred to him. This food he was carrying? It was for people who couldn’t afford to buy food. He couldn’t buy food. It was for people like
him.

He thought about the homeless people that he recognized in Jamaica Plain: the woman who sat outside the Laundromat and sometimes asked passersby to brush her hair, and the man who was dressed in a suit — a ratty suit, but still, he always wore a tie — and offered to write a poem for a dollar. Once, Jack had paid him, and the man had written this:

How had those people ended up so needy? Were they living comfortably one day and on the street the next?

And now he was one of them. No food and no money to buy it. That being the case, the people at the food pantry probably wouldn’t mind if he ate just one carrot. Just one. So he did. One fresh, wiggly carrot.

And, walking along, chomping on that carrot, trying to make it last as long as he could, he realized two more things: one, he had no idea where the food pantry was located, and two, he was heading right back into Bar Harbor — the place where just yesterday he had run from.

The outside of the Jesup Memorial Library, where Jack knew he could find directions to the food pantry, looked like half a dozen libraries he and his mom had visited: it was a small brick building with large, decorative windows.

He didn’t think walking in with a big sack of vegetables was wise — not if he wanted to remain unnoticed — so he hid them to the right of the book-return box, behind some low shrubs. He doubted anyone would notice them.

The inside of the library surprised him. It was elegant, like a mansion — all polished wood and heavy furniture, the kind of fancy furniture that filled his grandmother’s house. The ceilings were high — way high — with massive chandeliers.
I must stick out like a sore
—
Like my sore pinky,
he thought, looking down at the mess of a bandage. It was tattered and covered with dirt from the garden, and so loose he could easily slip it off — which he did, tucking it in his pocket. No use bringing more attention to himself.

There were a few old people in the main room, and one family with little kids heading into the children’s room, but no kids his age. Of course not; they were all back in school. But that was OK — he was from Massachusetts, and school might start later there, or heck, his mom could have kept him out of school for their vacation.

He tried to act as cool as possible when he approached the librarian. “Excuse me.”

She looked up.

“Hi, I’m visiting from Massachusetts, and I was wondering —”

“Aren’t you lucky! Kids in Maine went back to school today.”

He smiled and nodded. “Are there — is there a computer I can use?”

She looked as if he’d just presented her with an insurmountable problem. “Well, normally you have to have a letter signed by your parent,” she said.

He waited, trusting she’d give in.

“Oh, I don’t think it could hurt,” she said, moving from the back of the desk to the front. “Follow me. I’ll log you on.” Jack followed the librarian down the stairs to a small room with more book stacks and three computers. “There isn’t room for all our books upstairs, but we can’t bear to part with them. We call this room our treasure trove,” she said.

Jack glanced at some of the titles that had been considered too precious to let go of while she leaned over and logged him on. When she left, Jack slipped into the chair and typed
Rebecca Martel.
It took him longer than usual because his big, fat pinky kept hitting the wrong keys. He figured that Big Jack and the bartender were right, that his mom was on her way to the Bahamas, but he still wanted to put his mind at ease, to know for sure that she hadn’t been hurt or arrested.

He began to read the entries, several of which he’d seen before. There was a lawyer in Washington, D.C., named Rebecca Martel, and a real-estate broker in Iowa. He skipped ahead a few pages, making sure that her name wasn’t in the news. It wasn’t, and the muscles in his neck and shoulders relaxed. Then he clicked on his mom’s YouPage, wondering if she had access to a computer and, if so, whether was she making entries — or leaving messages on other people’s pages? On his page?

He couldn’t look while the page was loading. Instead, he glanced over at the woman at the next computer, who was typing with a baby in her lap. A pacifier popped out of the baby’s mouth and rolled onto the floor. The mother leaned over, picked up the pacifier, sucked on it herself, and then slid it back into the baby’s mouth.

He made himself look at the page. Not a trace of recent activity anywhere.

He clicked on his own YouPage. A message would say so much — that she’d been thinking about him, that she knew he’d be smart enough to get to a computer. It might even tell him what she was thinking or, at the very least, what he should do next.

Nothing. Jack’s throat dried up. He took a swig of water from the bottle he was carrying, hoping he wouldn’t get in trouble for drinking in the library.

Maybe it was better that his mom hadn’t written. Leaving a note would mean that she wasn’t spinning, but was rational and making decisions. Decisions like,
I’ll write Jack a note.
Decisions like,
I’m going to leave Jack in Maine.

Don’t be stupid,
he said to himself. She wouldn’t
decide
that.

It was like the elephant he stole yesterday. Right now, it was sitting on the box back in the barn. He had no intention of leaving it there — that elephant was special. It was like it was meant to belong to him. But something could happen, right? Something could prevent him from going back to get it. Mrs. Olson could discover his things and call the police, who would arrest him when he returned. Or maybe the woman from the gift shop would be standing right there on the sidewalk when he walked out of the library, and she’d grab him. Then Jack would
have
to leave the elephant. These things happened.