Small as an Elephant - Jennifer Richard Jacobson [20]
He thought of his mother, thought of her leaving him here on an island, thought of her laughing and spinning and seeing magical things with some guy on a sailboat. . . .
He did it.
He slipped the elephant into his pocket and ran toward the door.
“Hey!” the woman yelled. “Stop!”
He didn’t stop. He pushed his way through hordes of tourists and out the door.
“Jack!” he heard. The voice was a deep bellow. It must be Big Jack from the restaurant. He kept running.
Then he heard his name again. This time, a woman’s voice: “Jack!”
Mom? He looked over his shoulder.
But no. It was just the woman from the store. Standing next to her was Big Jack, hunched over from running.
Jack kept going, shouts of “Get back here!” fading behind him.
Jack ran straight out of town. Not only had he stolen something (more than one thing, if you counted the cans and bottles he’d taken from the B&B), but people knew he had stolen something, and they knew his name. He was only a sighting away from being caught.
He ran away from the crowded sidewalks, past the gazebo on the village green, down sidewalkless, winding island streets for about twenty minutes, until he came to a dirt road. Would they search for him down there? Not likely. After gulping down the entire contents of his water bottle, he followed the rutty road to a single farmhouse surrounded by fields.
There didn’t seem to be much activity at the house. No cars in the driveway, no tractor in the distance. An old black-and-white dog came out of the barn and ambled up to him, like it was his regular job to greet guests and be petted. Didn’t even bother to bark.
“Hello?” Jack called, having no idea what he would say if someone appeared. But no one responded.
Jack noticed the house was a lot like this dog: nice but worn down. Kind of tilted in some places and bulging in others. After a few pats, the dog strolled back into the barn. Jack followed him.
At one time there might have been livestock in this barn, cows or sheep, maybe, but not any longer. Now it was being used for storage of old, rusty equipment and gardening tools.
Cool! There was a loft. Ever since his third-grade teacher had read the part in Charlotte’s Web where Avery and Fern swing from a rope in Mr. Zuckerman’s barn, Jack had wanted to look down from a loft. He climbed the wooden ladder cautiously, trying not to put weight on his sore finger.
There were some cushions and some scratchy wool blankets up there, and a wooden box turned over to make a table of sorts. Jack guessed that kids used to play here — maybe even had sleepovers. But it was clear from the look of things that it had been a long time ago. Mouse droppings were everywhere.
Even though Jack was from the city, mouse poop didn’t gross him out. Heck, in the city he’d seen rats — and their apartment had plenty of roaches. Mice were nothing at all. Jack shook one of the blankets out and covered the cushions. Then he sat down and tried to imagine that he lived on this farm. That this loft belonged to him. He pulled the elephant out of his pocket and placed it on the box where he could see it. It was his now.
He yanked his sleeping bag out of his backpack, and his comic books, too. He’d rest here for a little bit, and then he’d figure out what to do.
It was night when he woke with a start. He’d fallen asleep, and it was pitch-black in the barn. Without his cell phone, he didn’t know if it was ten o’clock at night or two o’clock in the morning. He lay there, wondering what he was going to do. What if the bartender had been wrong? What if his mother was looking for him? Maybe I should go back to the campsite tomorrow, thought Jack.
But school started tomorrow. How long will it be, he wondered, before the guidance counselor starts looking for me? Would he just be wasting valuable time by hoping his mother showed up?
“On her way to tropical beaches,” the bartender had said.
Round and round went his thoughts, each one feeling momentarily promising . . . and then hopeless. Night sounds — crickets, a truck horn