—Maniac Magee—
by Jerry Spinelli

Chapter 34

 

It was during the second night in the cabin that he heard the little voices. They were not soldiers' voices.

"I'm goin' in this one."

"No, that one. That one's bigger."

"I'm tired. I'm stopping."

"You stupid meatball, it's right there. Another two seconds."

"I'm stayin'."

"Great, you beef jerky, stay. I'm going to that one. Good-night."

Silence; then: "Hold on! I'm coming!"

That was all. The ghostly soldiers returned, their haunted eyes seeking warmth, food, life.

 

There was no morning, only daylight in the doorway. He pushed himself up, dragged himself outside into the blinding light. The saltines lay in the brown, frozen grass. The next cabin was nearby.

January slipped an icy finger under his collar and down his back. He pulled the blanket tighter about himself, but it was too late. The finger had touched the last warm coal in his hearth, and his body, fanning the ember, shook itself violently.

He walked to the next cabin, looked inside, and saw a body huddled in the corner. An eye opened, stared at him. Then, in succession, three more eyes opened. The body divided and became two. Two little boys.

"Get a load of this meatball," said the one with a front tooth missing. "He walks around with a blanket on. Hey, meatball, why'nt you bring your mattress along, too?"

"And your pillow, too!" screeched the other.

Then Missing Tooth whipped off his woolen cap and smacked Screecher in the face. Screecher retaliated, and Maniac had to step back while a two-kid tornado swirled around the cabin. When they finished, they rolled onto their backs, shook their legs at the ceiling, and laughed as long as they had fought. The volume coming from Screecher was incredible, as though a microphone were embedded in his throat.

Finally Missing Tooth rediscovered the stranger standing in the doorway. "Hey, meatball, you running away too?"

"No, not really," Maniac replied.

"Well, we are!" went Screecher.

"Where are you going?" Maniac asked.

The answer came from both: "Mexico!"

Maniac bit back a grin. When they stood, he saw they couldn't have been more than four feet tall or eight years old. "Well," he said, "it's good and warm down there, but it's pretty far, you know."

"Yeah, we know," growled Missing Tooth. "You think we're meatballs like you?" He grabbed a supermarket bag in the corner, opened it. "Look."

It was filled with candy, cupcakes, pies, even a pack of butterscotch Krimpets. Maniac's stomach rasped against itself. He remembered how thirsty he was. "Where'd you get all this?"

"We stold it!" Screecher blurted.

The other smacked him with his cap. "Shut up, Piper, you stupid sausage. You don't go telling people you stold stuff."

Piper returned the cap slap. "You shut up, Russell I didn't tell him where we stold it."

This time the fight was over in less than a minute. But it started up again when Maniac asked where they were from, and Piper said, "Two Mills," and Russell said, "Shut up! He might be a cop!" and bopped him good.

When they settled down, they stared at him warily. Piper snickered. "He ain't no cop. He's a kid."

"Yeah?" sneered Russell. "That's how much you know. They got cops that look like kids. That's how they catch kids."

They stared at him some more. They moved in cautiously, one on either side. They opened his blanket. They patted him all over. "What're we doing this for?" Piper wanted to know.

"We're feelin' for a gun," Russell explained.

"Oh."

After the patting, they backed off. "So," said Russell, "you ain't a cop?"

"Not me," said Maniac. He moved in from the doorway. "I'm" --- and with only a moment's pause, the story came to him --- "a pizza delivery boy. We have a contest every week, and you two were chosen for a free pizza."

The two gaped at each other. "We were?"

"Yep. A large."

"Where is it?" demanded Russell, glancing around.

"At Cobbles Corner. You have twenty-four hours to claim your prize."

He waited while they bickered over what to do. Valley Forge was a good five or six miles from Two Mills. These kids might not have made it to Mexico, but they had come a long way and stayed out overnight, and someone somewhere must be worried sick about them. And he had a feeling they weren't kidding about stealing the food.

He figured he'd better help them make up their minds. "You know," he said, "you're taking the long way to Mexico. If you come back to Two Mills with me, I'll show you a shortcut."

That did it. Soon the three of them were trekking past the Washington Memorial Chapel, Russell and Piper with their bag, Maniac with his satchel.

It was early afternoon when they walked into Cobbles Corner at Hector and Birch. Maniac produced his certificate for conquering Cobbles Knot, and twenty minutes later the young runaways were attacking a large pizza with pepperoni. Maniac confined himself to three glasses of water and half a dozen Krimpets.

The boys agreed with Maniac that they ought to stay the night in their own house before setting out for Mexico in the morning. They were barely a block from Cobbles when Maniac heard a familiar voice. Bellowing and barreling down the street was the fearsome fastballer, king of the Cobras, Big John McNab himself, and he was roaring mad.

Maniac might have taken off, but he found himself clung to and clutched by the two little urchins. They huddled behind him like babies on a possum's back as Giant John came red-faced and huffing up to them. "Where you been?" he yelled.

As Maniac considered what to say, the urchins peeped from behind him: "We wasn't noplace, John. We was right here. With this here kid. And he ain't no cop neither. We checked him out."

For the first time Giant John looked straight at Maniac. A smile crossed his face. "Well, well, the frog man." The smile vanished. "So what're you doing with my little brothers?"