Small as an Elephant - Jennifer Richard Jacobson [34]
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