Small as an Elephant - Jennifer Richard Jacobson [47]
“I’m Jack,” he said, and left it at that. He took a deep breath. “The reason you can’t tell anybody is because if you do, I’ll be . . .”
He could feel her staring at him, waiting.
Just like that, all the fight drained out of him. He put his head in his hands. “I’ll be taken away from my mother,” he whispered.
Sylvie was silent for a moment more and then asked, “Because she left? That’s what happened, isn’t it?”
Jack nodded.
“Permanently?” Sylvie asked.
His head snapped up. “No! She’s gonna come back, I know she will. I just don’t know how long she’ll be gone.”
“OK, OK. I believe you,” Sylvie said, soothingly. “But what I meant was, do you think they would take you away from her permanently?”
Jack was glad for the darkness. It was easier to talk to her when she couldn’t see him. “I don’t know,” he said. “But it’s bad, right? I mean, could she go to jail for something like this?”
She paused. “I suppose,” she said, as gently as anyone could say such a thing. “I think it qualifies as abandonment or child neglect or something.” He could tell she was thinking. “So, what were you planning on doing?”
“Before I got locked in a vault?” Jack asked.
Sylvie laughed. “Yeah. Before that.”
He looked up. “I was going to see an elephant.”
“Would you like half of my sandwich?” Sylvie asked. They’d been trapped in the vault for at least two hours. “Or maybe we should each eat a quarter. Who knows how long we’ll be in here.”
Jack eagerly accepted and popped the entire portion of the egg-salad sandwich into his mouth before wishing he’d savored it.
“So, tell me another elephant story,” said Sylvie.
He gave himself a moment to finish chewing and asked, “Aren’t you tired of them?” though he was hardly tired of telling them. When Sylvie had questioned him about his determination to see Lydia, Jack had tried to explain his obsession with elephants by telling her some of the most amazing elephant stories and facts that he knew. He didn’t think he’d convinced her not to turn him in, but he had convinced her that elephants were pretty darned cool.
“Well, then, tell me how you were planning to get all the way to York,” Sylvie said.
“I don’t know. Walk, I guess. I’ve gotten this far.” Jack took off the hat he’d found. It had grown increasingly warm in the vault.
“Yeah, but everyone is looking for you now,” said Sylvie. “It’s all anyone wants to talk about . . . the missing boy.”
“Really?” Jack found it hard to believe that there wouldn’t be more important things to talk about — more important people to pursue — in Maine. Certainly, the state must have had its share of murders and burglaries, too.
“You’ve got to admit, it’s a pretty gripping story. An eleven-year-old kid, all on his own, has somehow survived without any food or money or help. Plus, it’s just driving people crazy that the entire Maine state-police force hasn’t found you yet. But I did,” Sylvie added with a good deal of satisfaction.
Jack declined her offer of some grapes, even though he’d eaten very little. He had to face the fact that at some point, this vault was going to be opened and Sylvie was going to announce to the world that she had found the missing boy. He’d be carted off, his grandmother would be called, and all the struggles of the week would have been for naught. In fact, maybe he’d be in a whole heap of trouble for not having gone to an adult — not to mention for stealing the elephant and the bike. Maybe he and his mom would both be going to jail.
But if he could just hold on a little longer, just make it as far as York’s Wild Kingdom, maybe by then everything would be OK. Maybe all he needed was to look into Lydia’s eyes, and he’d know what was supposed to come next, how this would all work out. He couldn’t give up now, not when he was so close.
Jack cleared his throat, not quite sure where his thoughts were going. “If you knew that you were going to be taken away from your mother, if you knew you’d never live with her again, is there anything