Sammy threw himself around. He couldn’t breathe and his nose was clogged. The gag stuck to his skin.
He was in a little room, not really a room, more like a cave. Not even a cave. More like a hole scooped out under some rocks. A torn piece of plastic hung over the opening. A scrap of dirty green rug was on the ground, and a mattress and some cardboard boxes and plastic pails.
The wild kid came back. He grabbed Sammy by his jacket, and pushed him into the back of the cave. He knelt on his hands and knees, staring at Sammy, his face so close, Sammy could smell his stinky breath.
Sammy stayed still, afraid to move. The kid went through Sammy’s pockets and took his dollars and change. “Who are you?” he asked. He tore the tape off Sammy’s mouth. “Where’d you come from? What’s your name?”
Sammy licked his lips. “Sammy,” he said. “What’s your name?”
“How’d you get here?” He had a snake tattoo around his wrist. “Where you from?”
“I got lost. I’m sorry I fell on your house. Let me loose, please. I’ll go away, I promise.”
“Who sent you?” He talked funny. He had teeth missing.
“Nobody.” Sammy shook his head as hard as he could. “Somebody took my bike, and then I got lost. Can I go home now?” Sammy glanced at the snake tattoo. He didn’t like snakes. His stomach hurt, and he was sore all over.
The kid pulled a knife from his belt and pointed it at Sammy. “You know what I can do with this?” He drove it down into his own hand.
Sammy gasped, and the kid laughed. “Gotcha!” He had driven the knife between his outspread fingers.
“That’s a good trick,” Sammy said. He kept licking his lips.
The wild kid stabbed at his spread fingers, again and again, the darting blade coming close, but missing each time. “You ever see anybody do that?”
“No.”
“You bet. Nobody’s got the nerve, but me. Who else is with you?” he said suddenly.
“Nobody. I told you.”
“You’re a liar.”
“I don’t lie. Only bad boys lie.”
The kid stared at him with a look that, even in the dimness, Sammy recognized.
“How old are you, anyway?” the kid said.
“I’m twelve. In twenty-eight days I’ll be thirteen.”
“So, what are you, dumb?”
“No. I’m Down’s.” Sometimes it was okay to tell, but sometimes people teased. “I’m young for my age. I’m a special person.”
“You’re a dumb person,” the kid said. “Only a dumb person like you would find me.”
“Because I lost my bike.” Sammy explained how he’d left his bike for five minutes and ten seconds, and how he’d run after the stealer, and about getting in the truck, and being chased into the woods and getting lost and climbing the tree and falling down.
“And then I fell on your house.” He wanted to demonstrate the way he’d tripped and tumbled down, but it was hard to do without using his hands and feet. All he could do was yell, “Uh! Oh! Oh!” the way he had yelled falling down the hill.
“You’re stupid,” the kid said. “You don’t leave your bike where somebody can take it. If I saw it, I would have taken it in a minute. You’re really dumb.”
“I’m not dumb. You can be retarded and not dumb.”
“Dumb.”
“That’s not nice,” Sammy said.
“You got it right that time, dummy. I’m a bad guy, so look out, Mr. Goody Boy. I suppose you never did anything bad?”
Sammy said nothing.
“Well, did you?”
Sammy nodded. “Sometimes.”
“Right! I got you, you little hypocrite. Don’t look at me with those big baby eyes and lie to me. I can tell, just by looking at you, that you lie all the time. Now, you’d better tell me the truth. You going to run away if I untie you?”
“No. I promise.”
The kid freed Sammy’s hands and then his feet. Sammy rubbed his wrists and his ankles.
“Just remember, you try anything, and I can tie you up again in a second,” the kid said. He wadded up the tape and threw it away, then crouched by the entrance, looking out. “What am I going to do with this dumb kid? What’s he want?”
Who was he talking to? Sammy crept closer.
“I let him go, and what? He goes back and tells everybody he found this guy in the woods. He starts blabbing about Kevin in the woods, and they say, ‘So that’s where he is!’ And then the whole army and air force and helicopters and search dogs come looking for me. They’ll get me and lock me up, and that’ll be the end of Kevin. I’ve got to kill him.”
He turned and shoved Sammy into the back again. “You got me in a fix now, dummy!”
“I can go home,” Sammy said. “I will. I’ll go right straight home.”
“You’ll be home, and I’ll be back at Fieldstone, that rat hole. They’re going to say, ‘Where’d you get this kid from?’ They’re going to say I kidnapped you. Anything I tell them, they’ll say it’s a lie.
“Fieldstone?” Sammy said. “Is that where you live?”
“Fieldstone is where they send me if they catch me. It’s a school you can’t leave. No way, man. Nobody’s grabbing K-Man and locking him up.”