Coming home was very strange. There were a lot of police cars and a lot of lights going flash flash flash across the lawn and the house and the policemen and -women who were staring at Billy and Ollie as they walked into the yard.
“We surrender!” said Billy, putting his hands up. “We crossed a lot of streets without permission. . . .”
Then Billy’s mom came running down the porch faster than Billy had ever seen any mom run. And she was in her pajamas and robe! In front of people!
She reached out and practically knocked Billy over as she picked him up and hugged him tight. So tight.
“Billy! Billy! Billy!” she kept saying in a funny crying sort of way. She was hugging so hard that Ollie was getting squeezed out of the backpack. She ran with Billy in her arms across the lawn and up the steps to the house.
Ollie asked Billy, “So are we in trouble?”
“I’m not sure,” Billy whispered from within his mother’s crushing hug. And as she ran through the open front doorway, Ollie fell out of Billy’s backpack and landed on the floor of the entrance.
Ollie sat there on the threshold. Not inside or out, but in between. The stillness of dawn seemed to quiet the sounds of the fading night. The thunders, winds, and roiling leaves, all the shouts and cries and songs, seemed now to have been a very vivid dream. He couldn’t see Billy or his mom; they were down the hall in the TV room where Billy’s dad and the police people seemed to be talking all at once. Ollie wasn’t really hearing them.
He was sitting there and wondering about everything. He wondered about Can Man, and the lost favorites and his junkyard friends. He wondered about Zozo and Nina. But mostly he was wondering about the future. He knew that everything would change. He knew that Billy would grow up. Pretending couldn’t stop that. Can Man’s face was what comforted him the most. Can Man’s look of remembering. Remembering. “Remembering” was a word that made Ollie feel real. It didn’t matter if something was pretend or real; if it was remembered, then it was true. If it was remembered, then it didn’t go away.
“Remember” is a good word.
Ollie knew this now.
Billy would always remember.
And Ollie would never forget.
As he sat there, he heard footsteps coming toward him from down the hall. But it was dark inside. He hoped it was Billy. And he waited for the next part of his long Aventure to begin.