For so long he had known only darkness. The small amount of light that penetrated the boarded windows produced a hazy, dim illumination, outlining and silhouetting his whole world in a sandy gray that made everything dull and distorted. Even the creature that came down to him was shrouded in shadows. The small ceiling fixture she turned on seemed to concentrate the dark spots rather than eliminate them.
He could almost smell her as quickly as he could see her. He knew her scent better than he knew the features of her face. From the first day he could remember, she had been rough with him. There was never anything pleasant or soft in her voice, and she gave him no human comfort.
She provided him with food and the blankets and the box in which he slept. She brought down the pails of sand to replace any she took out from the square in which he littered. Long ago, through the inflicting of pain, she had taught him that this was the only area in which he could excrete.
His floor was made of stone and cement. The only soft spots were in his box with the blankets and in the sand, so he developed hard calluses on his feet, on his knees, and on his palms. In the beginning, he scratched and bumped himself often, developing sores and wounds. He never really cried aloud when that happened. Instead, he would utter a short yelp and sob within, his body shaking with the unhappiness. There was no one to appeal to, to seek sympathy from; so he licked his own wounds, stroked and rocked his body, and created a soft, monotone hum to quiet his fear and pain whenever he had any.
He had always had enough to eat and drink, although never in any great abundance. There was a time when the creature fed him. He remembered having to eat very quickly, swallowing almost as fast as she shoved the food at him. Now she merely left it by the box. A few times he had tried to use the spoon and the fork, but he found them too slow, for he was used to wolfing his food, to hovering over it like a rodent, scooping some of it in, chewing, looking about to be sure nothing threatened the remainder, scooping, chewing…
The creature wouldn’t wait to watch him eat. He sensed early on that she wanted the least amount of contact with him as possible. He felt the same way toward her. If she didn’t demand that he come to her, he would linger in the darkness, eyeing her like a field mouse in a hole, waiting for her to drop off the food and leave. Then he would scurry out quickly, before any other little animals could get there, and eat.
She wanted him to wear the diapers or the shorts, but he soiled them so often that she stopped changing him. The last one remained on him so long that it hung off in shreds before she removed it. Periodically, she would come down to wash him in the large basin she had left there for that purpose. He hated the baths, because the water was always so hot it nearly scorched him. She ran the water into the basin directly from the hot-water tank in the corner, mixing only a pail or two of cooler water with it. And she scrubbed him with that vicious vigor, suggesting she wanted to rub the skin off him. It was no use to wail or struggle. If he did, she would squeeze his neck so hard, it would make his eyes pop; or she would smack him so sharply, it burned more than the hot water.
He always knew when she was coming because she flipped on the ceiling fixture first. She would never come down to him in the dark. As soon as the light went on, he would cover his eyes and scurry for a safe spot. Safe spots were the little caverns and openings he had found for himself. There was the area between the hot-water heater and the stone wall foundation; there was the tunnel he had found between the boxes and old furniture stored in the rear. Lately, he had been more inventive about safe places.
Stronger now, his hands more like claws, with his long fingernails and callused fingers and palms, he climbed up the fieldstone walls, inserting his toughened feet in slots and spaces, using the old stones like a ladder to work his way up to the rafters. Here, he would find places to embed himself between studs and corners, pressing his body into the roof or against the wall, so that he could balance and secure himself above the basement floor.
The first thing he learned when he did this was that he could hear and feel what was happening above him. Exploring the roof of the basement from this vantage point, he was able to discover places in the floorboards that were widely separated. Through them, he could see light and shadows and smell the scents of things that were fascinating and remarkable to him.
The good thing about the higher safe places was that they were really safer. The first time the creature came down to find him for his bath and he was up against the ceiling, she was unable to locate him for the longest time. He heard the great anger in her voice when she screamed, “WHERE ARE YOU, IMP!” He pressed himself as hard as he could against the wall and ceiling, instinctively making his body into the smallest target possible.
She began to pull boxes, furniture, and other things apart. Frustrated by her failure to find him, she took off the wide, thick leather strap she always wore when she came down to him and swung it about threateningly. “IMP,” she called. “IMP, GET OVER HERE!” He hadn’t heard the words often enough to really understand their meanings, but he read her gestures and the tone of her voice well enough to understand that she wanted him to come to her. He had seen her pour the pail of water into the tub and set up the hot-water hose. He knew what she was planning for him. So he resisted.
Furious, she went back upstairs and came down with a flashlight. The first time he saw that, he thought it was some kind of fire. He had seen fire in the furnace and she had burned him with a candle to show him that playing with fire was dangerous. He saw the beam moving over the wall, getting closer and closer to him. He was positive that when the light touched him, it would burn him the way the candle had. So just before it reached him, he screamed and came out of his safe place. Even so, she put the beam on him and he screamed in anticipation of the pain. She was at him instantly. As soon as she was able to reach up and take hold of him, she struck him with the belt. He cried and made his pleading sounds, but she was out to teach him a lesson.
She struck him until there were welts all along his thighs and his buttocks. Then she antagonized the pain immediately by forcing him into the hot tub. After she dried him and wrapped him in the towel, she put him in his box and stood over him threateningly. Again, it was only from her gestures and tone of voice that he understood she was warning him. He cowered and squeezed himself together, pulling his legs and arms in, folding himself and burying his head in his body, just as the little animals did when he trapped them in a corner of the basement. After he felt her heavy shadow move off him and saw the cellar light go off, he unfolded.
There, safe in his darkness, he whimpered and hummed, comforting himself with the feel of his own arms around his torso, squeezing as hard as he could to subdue the pain. He listened to the buzz of motors and the sound of water traveling through pipes. He felt a spider crawl over his neck on its journey across his box. He pulled the blankets up over his legs, wrapping himself in his little cocoon, and fell asleep dreaming of field mice burrowing deeply into the coolness and safety of the stone walls.
Thereafter, whenever she came down to find him for some reason, she always brought her flashlight along. And when she called him, he came. The flashlight was too powerful. He believed it could even reach through things to find him. There was no safe place from the beam of light, so it was best to obey. After he came to her, he always curled up instinctively, expecting some blow or reprimand. Sometimes he whimpered for mercy; sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t.
He hated looking directly into her face. There was a fire and an anger there that he felt strongly. But always when she washed him in the tub, it was difficult not to look closely at her. If he tried to turn away, she would grasp a handful of his hair and tug him around. Then he would have to face her, as she scrubbed his cheeks and ears.
Her eyes were always blazing. Although she was big, the biggest creature he had ever seen, she had small eyes—eyes that reminded him of the soft, furry creatures that lived in holes dug between the stone wall foundation and the cellar floor. Once he grabbed a small one and held it tightly in his hands. It struggled to escape and then, when it realized the futility, changed its look of fear into one of hate. It swung its head about, trying to seize the skin of his fingers into its mouth. But he took hold of the top of its head and stopped that. He squeezed it so hard that red liquid emerged from its mouth. Finally, it stopped the struggle and fell over in his hand limply. He flung it into a corner to rot with other things.
She had this look of hate in her eyes, so he feared that one day she might bite him. Her teeth were small and her mouth twisted and turned, the lips squirming like worms. He had nightmares about that mouth. He saw it come down on his neck and shoulders; he felt the tongue pierce his skin.
He knew what it was to be bitten. The little furry creatures had nipped his legs and arms at times, especially when he was asleep. He’d wake with a start and slap out quickly. Often, he struck one hard enough to stop its movement and make it cold. He wished he could do the same to her.
She muttered sounds as she washed him. They had a rhythm to them that he began to recognize time after time. She’d stop in the middle sometimes and hold his head between her hands, while she looked up at the ceiling and muttered. When she dipped his head under the water, she held it down so hard and so long, he sensed a terrible danger. Then he would struggle as fiercely as he could, swinging and flinging his arms about wildly, until she relaxed the pressure. Once, when he did that, he scratched her and she beat him unmercifully, forgetting the rest of his bath.
He had gotten so he hated the sound of her, the feel of her, the scent of her. In the confines of his small world, there was nothing he feared and despised more. None of the small creatures threatened him. He was amused by them and even welcomed them, for they were company and amusement in a world of solitude and loneliness.
There was one thing that he did long for even more than food when he was hungry and water when he was thirsty. That was the other creature, the smaller creature. He hadn’t seen her as much, but the few times he did, he instinctively recognized a warm, loving feeling between them. When she spoke, she spoke in soft, kind tones. The two times that she touched him when she was here, she touched him gently and affectionately. He wanted her to touch him more, to talk to him more, and to be with him more.
When he discovered that he could hear her and even feel her through the roof of the cellar, he was ecstatic. It filled his life with a terrific new pleasure. Sometimes he waited in his high safe spot for hours, just for a momentary sound, whether it be the sound of her footsteps or the sound of her voice.
For a long time he had been trying to attract her attention by blowing through the cracks in the roof. He was afraid that the bigger creature would hear him, so he was as careful as he could be about when he would do it. One day, the nicer creature realized it and blew back at him through the floor. He let her warm breath wash over his face like a kiss. Whenever she did it, he would turn his head, taking the air over as much of his head as he could. After she stopped, he would call to her with his tiny whimper or his own breath.
One day he discovered a board that would move just a little. There was enough of a space for him to squeeze a finger through it. She realized what he had done and put her hand over the opening to keep him from pushing too far up and revealing himself to Mary. That was when he touched her.
The feel of her skin sent an electricity of warmth through him. Never had he felt this ecstatic about anything. He got so excited about it that he pressed his face into the ceiling too hard and the wood scratched his skin. But he didn’t mind the pain. The pleasure of her skin went beyond any pain. For this he would risk anything, everything. She let him touch her for as long as she could.
This became a ritual between them. He got so he could tell when it would happen. His natural clock kept him aware of time and events. If it were possible to do it at any other time, she would call to him softly. She didn’t use the same word the big creature did. Instead of “Imp,” she said, “Baby.” He liked the sound of that much better, especially the way her voice traveled over the vowel and ended in the soft “e.”
He had amazing hearing, his audio sense compensating for his diminished eyesight due to the darkness and grayness of his world. He could hear a rodent digging, a snake slithering, a fly buzzing across the basement. He got so he could distinguish between upstairs sounds. He knew the smaller creature’s footsteps. The larger creature hit the floor with a sharper, harder step. He thought she was continuously angry.
But there were many upstairs sounds he didn’t understand—the whistle of the teapot, the slamming of doors, the sounds of pots and pans, the frightening sound of churning motors in blenders and mixers. He liked the sound of music and recognized something soft and warm in much of it. Even the heavy organ music of Mary’s religious programs was attractive to him. He moved along the wall, trying to get as close to the music as he could. There he would sit or hang for as long as the music was on. Sometimes he fell asleep to it; sometimes he simply went into a blissful trance. Whatever he did, he welcomed the sound as one of the few pleasures in an otherwise dismal existence.
Of course, he didn’t know it as dismal. He knew it as his world, the world to which he had grown accustomed. In it there was little warmth and much hardness and roughness, unpleasant odors, confinement, and darkness. But all this made him harder and stronger, rather than weaker and puny.
His tiny body elongated into a wiry, muscular form. Like a monkey, he had gotten so he could grasp with his feet as well as his hands, and swing and hang on rafters and pipes. He climbed everywhere—over the stone wall, across the ceiling, up the water heater, and around the boxes and old objects that were stored in the basement. Most of his day was spent exploring, fingering and tasting objects and things he had found. There was always something new: whether it be opening an old dresser drawer and then spending hours inspecting the contents, or working his hands over a machine, digging his fingers into openings, finding and removing loose parts.
These explorations, the excitement of the discoveries above, the experiences he had with little animals and small creatures, and the terror of dealing with the big creature were the events of his life. There wasn’t much more, until the day he began to sense, with an ever-increasing intensity, that beyond the confines of the stone foundation lingered newer and even more wonderful discoveries. He began to think about it more.
And then, one day, purely by accident, while he was climbing over the stone foundation, he felt a rock loosen. He paused to inspect it with his “impish” curiosity and discovered that he could move it some more by pushing it from side to side. A tiny opening appeared, letting in the smallest amount of light. At first he was shocked and frightened by it. He pulled his hand away, expecting it to be burned or stung. When that didn’t happen, he approached the rock cautiously again and jiggled the stone, until the hole grew wider and wider. Finally, it was wide enough for him to put his eye to it.
The sight filled him with life; he was like someone resurrected. Impatient with the strands of his long black hair that fell between his eyes and the hole, he tugged them away roughly and painfully. When he looked again, his gray, brooding face lit up with wonderment. The toughened, sandpaper skin of his wide, protruding forehead wrinkled with curiosity. His small, flat nose wiggled from side to side, as he widened the nostrils to gather up scents. His lips, pale and thin, opened and closed with a nervous rhythm. In his excitement, his prehensile fingers, with their long, sharp fingernails, dug into his own thighs.
The colors were the most exciting thing he had ever seen. There were the greens and the browns and off beyond them was something very blue and very soft. The pinhole view was enough to create a ravenous hunger for knowledge. Now, working as would a starving animal, he attacked the stones fiercely, pushing and pulling with all his strength. He was able to widen the opening only a trifle more. Disappointed, he sat back and moaned as he stared at it.
It was tormenting him; it was torture. He had to get a bigger view. He looked about helplessly and then retreated from the opening, as though he were going to sulk. He continued to stare in its direction, but his frustration was turning into anger—a vicious, nearly uncontrollable rage. He flung something at the wall. He gnawed his teeth. He rushed it and scratched at the rocks, until he was exhausted from the effort and the tips of his fingers began to bleed. Then he curled up to rest.
Just before he drifted off to sleep, something began to show itself in his mind. He saw his finger pressed into the opening, unable to go far or push the rocks further apart. But he understood that shoving it in there was the right kind of work. It was just that his finger was too soft and too short. His mind began to wander as fatigue took hold. But he was well along the way, for he realized that there had to be something else, something longer and stronger that he could shove into that hole and work back and forth, just the way he worked the rocks.
Something … something … he would find it; he knew he would, and that sense of optimism brought a smile to his face. It was one of the few times that happiness had emerged out of an idea. A warm feeling grew from the smile and lay over him like a soft blanket. He pulled the pleasure around him, curled his body tighter, and fell into a restful sleep.
He dreamed about the hole and the dream was so vivid, that as soon as he awoke, he pursued the task again, this time knowing exactly what to do. There was a piece of half-inch pipe behind the water heater. He didn’t know what it was; he knew only that he could do the right work with it.
He rushed back to the hole and shoved it as far in as he could. Then he leaned back and pushed forward, leaned back and pushed forward, doing it continually until the whole fieldstone broke loose. When he pressured that, it caused another stone to loosen and another. Carefully, he pulled the stones toward him. The lime mortar around them gave, but held other stones from collapsing.
With every stone he removed, another fascinating piece of the world outside was revealed. The large soft blue behind the green and brown things had turned darker. He saw tiny silver speckles all over the blue background. Each time he removed a stone, he sat and stared at the new sights. What a wonder. His heart began beating fast and hard. He put his hand against his chest to quiet it, but it would not stop. It annoyed him, but he didn’t have time for it now. There was too much to see; too much left for him to do.
He worked faster, tugging and chipping at the stones, until the hole was as large as him. When he realized that, he stopped; but he was too frightened to do anything else. A long time passed. The blue turned almost as dark as his basement world, but those little specks of light grew brighter. He was intrigued by them and wondered if he could touch them.
Finally, his curiosity overcame his fear and he moved forward into the hole. The first thing that struck him was the scents—there were so many different and interesting ones. Right before him, the earth was soft. It felt different from the sand in his box and it had a more pleasant odor. He didn’t care for the taste, but he liked the cool feel of it. Then there were all those green things coming out of it. Some of them ripped easily. They tasted funny, but tolerable.
He moved further out until his entire body was nearly through the hole. The darkness around him wasn’t prohibiting for him. His eyes were used to it and, in fact, he favored it. He curled up outside the hole, listening to, feeling, and smelling all that was around him. Without having to go more than a foot or so from the house, he had found enough to interest him for hours. He couldn’t taste and touch enough. And every few minutes, he had to look up at those silver specks and stare at them, until his neck ached.
Suddenly, he heard the most frightening sound of his life and looked to his left. He couldn’t see the road, but two large flashlights were flying through the darkness, roaring down toward him. Instantly, he cried out and rushed back through the hole. He hurried over the floor to his box and curled up under the blanket as quickly as he could. There he remained, shaking and whimpering, expecting whatever it was to come after him through the hole.
But nothing happened; nothing happened for the longest time and it was very quiet again. His heartbeat slowed and he felt himself gain confidence. He sat up, listened, watched the hole, and then slowly crawled back to it. He peered out timidly, waiting, but he heard nothing threatening, and all those scents and sights called back to him. He went through the hole again.
This time he moved a few feet further. He found and explored a bush. He went a few feet further than that and then turned around. It was then that he saw the house, saw the lit windows, saw the immensity of it. The sight frightened him, but he held his ground. He listened hard. He could hear the small creature; he was sure of it. His mind began to work. This that he saw was what was always above him, what he climbed to hear. What did that mean?
He moved a little further away, over the cool green blanket of soft earth, until he could see even more of the lit window. He heard the small creature’s voice again. It sounded so close. Then the most wonderful thing of all happened—she appeared in the window, standing there looking out at this wonderful place. Did she see him? What if she did? Would she tell the big creature?
Instinctively, he knew that would be bad. The big creature wouldn’t want him out here. There were so many more places to hide. He could move faster than she could and she would never be able to catch him to put him in the hot bath. She mustn’t know; she mustn’t know what he had done to the wall. He would have to put the stones back when he went back in. He understood that, because he knew it was something he had to do to protect himself.
The smaller, warmer creature moved away from the window. He longed to see her again, but she was gone. He waited and listened to the many strange sounds. Some frightened him; some intrigued him. He looked beyond the fields into the darkness where he could see the lit windows of another house. He wondered if there were other small, warm creatures in those windows, like there was here. It was something to think about; something maybe even to go to see. For now, though, he was afraid.
He scurried back to the hole, took one more look at this wonderful new place, and disappeared within the basement. A moment later, the rocks began to fall into place. Although the mortar was gone, the rocks fit like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and he had a great sense of configuration. He enjoyed working the stones tightly and perfectly against each other, until there was barely any visible difference from the way they were before he had discovered the pinhole.
When he was finished, he went back to his box and sat there with his blanket wrapped around him, thinking. He catalogued all the sounds and scents he had just experienced. He reviewed the structures—the trees silhouetted against the dark sky, the bushes around the house, the tall grass that covered the long fields, making them look like large, dark bodies of water.
And then he thought about the window again and the small, warm creature captured in its light. Because it was lighter around her, she looked different. She looked even warmer. He was anxious to touch her again and feel her breath.
There were so many things out there; so many more things to do. He couldn’t wait until he would do it again. Again, through instinct, he sensed that it would be safer to go out there when there was less light, when the blue was darker and those silver specks appeared. The big creature wouldn’t see him then and he would be in the biggest safe place of all.
His happiness made him make a new sound. He didn’t know what it was, but he liked it and did it again. He did it until he grew tired of it. Now, when he looked around his basement world, he was bored. This was nothing compared to what he had just seen. In fact, he was intolerant of it and couldn’t wait until he had his next opportunity to take the rocks out and go through the hole.
It took all the self-discipline he could muster to wait, but he had the clever patience of a cat on a hunt. He had often sat for hours watching a field mouse emerge from a hole. He studied the way it sniffed the air and listened for danger. The creature came out very slowly, taking a step and freezing its body, taking a step and sniffing. He didn’t move either, learning early on that when he made the slightest gesture, the rodent would scamper back into the safety of its hole. But, if he were quiet and still, the mouse would come forward, almost right up to him. Then he could pounce on it if he wanted.
It was only a game, but it taught him things—things that would be of great benefit to him later on. He couldn’t verbalize it, but he understood the power of timing. He had the speed of a snake, the caution of a mouse, the sensitivity of a bat, and the sleekness of a cat.
Because of his kinship with the animal world, he felt an affinity for the wildness outside. The darkness beyond the stones called to him with a voice he wouldn’t resist. All that was primeval in him lingered out there in the bushes and trees. He was anxious to join it and become one with the new night.
Seven-year-old Billy O’Neil slid off his bed quietly and slowly. When his feet touched the carpet, he turned and listened. Downstairs, the television program ran on with its canned laughter and abrupt and loud commercials. He had gotten so he didn’t hear it anymore when he went into his room to sleep. Even his mother’s and father’s and his big brother Bobby’s laughter didn’t disturb him. He wove those sounds in with the drone of the television.
Because the set was on so loud, none of them heard Captain barking. He had just told his father about it today; how Captain barked and barked the night before, how he had gone to the window in his room and looked out back and saw Captain standing there barking out at something in the field. He told his father it must be something Captain was afraid of, because he didn’t go near it; he just barked at it. His father said Captain was too stupid to be afraid of anything. What about the porcupine last summer? Did you forget all those quills in his snoot? Billy thought that made sense, but if Captain wasn’t afraid of something out there, why did he just bark at it?
“I don’t know,” his father finally said, impatient with the constant questioning. “I never wanted the mutt to start with. Your mother was the one who fell in love with him. Anyway, what’s the difference what he’s barking at? That dog would bark at his own shadow.” His father liked his own joke and went off laughing about it.
But to Billy there was a difference and that difference was a mystery. He went to the window and looked out. The half-moon cast enough illumination over the field for him to make out familiar shapes—bushes, small trees, the old garbage can he used for slingshot practice, the half a treehouse he and Bobby were forever building, even the path that led to Mrs. Oaks’ property down the road. And there was Captain, standing at the edge of their cleared backyard, growling and barking, growling and barking.
Billy opened the window screen and stuck his head out.
“CAPTAIN,” he yelled, “CAPTAIN.”
The four-year-old cross between a collie and a police dog turned and looked up at him, wagging its tail almost immediately.
“WHAT IS IT, HUH? WHAT? A BEAR? A WOLF?”
The dog looked at him a moment longer and then turned and began to growl again. Billy studied the field and squinted to get a clearer, closer view. Something was out there in the brush. He could see the wild vegetation moving gently and he could almost hear the branches separating. Something was definitely …
His eyes widened and his mouth opened. He nearly leaned too far out of his window and had to tighten his grip on the sill. Then he pulled himself back and turned around in confusion, knowing instinctively that no one would believe him. They’ll just have to go out and see for themselves, he thought; they’ll just have to.
He ran out of his room and down the stairs. No one looked away from the set, until he was in the room screaming.
“I SAW IT! I SAW IT!”
“What?” his father turned halfway from the set, drawn to the program, yet pulled by Billy’s outburst.
“Calm down, Billy,” Cindy O’Neil said. She wore that habitual half smile that made it seem as though she took few things seriously in her life. It, plus her custard-smooth skin and dancing blue eyes, gave her a very youthful appearance. Dick O’Neil was often kidded about his marrying a child bride, even though only three years separated them. “Now, what is it?”
“Just like in the movies,” Billy said in a dramatic, loud whisper. “Just like . . . E.T.”
“Oh shit,” Bobby said.
“Bobby! Now Billy, what are you talking about? We’re watching a show, one of your father’s favorites.”
“I saw it. I saw it. Captain was barking again and . . .”
“Oh, not that damn dog,” Dick said. He turned back to the television program and tried to ignore the interruption.
“What about the dog?” Cindy asked.
“He was barking, so I got out of bed and looked out my window.”
“So?”
“There it was.”
Dick O’Neil turned to look at his wife and shake his head.
“What, Billy? We still don’t understand.”
“He must’ve had a dream,” Dick offered without looking back at them.
“Lucky he didn’t piss in his bed,” Bobby said.
“Bobby! Dick, will you speak to him.”
Dick O’Neil, frustrated and annoyed, spun around on the couch. Bobby flinched, expecting his father to strike him. He knew his father had a hairpin temper that reflected only two degrees of anger: mad and very mad. Often he didn’t distinguish much between the seriousness of things, either. He could come crashing down on him or his little brother for the simplest of offenses.
Although Bobby was six feet one and a high school senior, he was no match for his father, a two hundred and forty pound, six feet four inch construction worker. It still took Bobby two hands to lift what his father lifted with one. Bobby spent his summers working with him on jobs. From time to time he did some independent contracting and the two of them would work on weekends during the spring and the fall. Presently they were working weekends for Robert Miller, the newest neighbor on Wildwood Drive, building a deck on the rear of the house.
“Do you have to contribute to this problem?”
Bobby turned away quickly and pretended to be interested in the television program again.
“Now Billy,” Cindy said, reaching forward and taking her small son’s hand into hers, “speak calmly, slowly, and tell me what you saw.”
Billy looked up at Bobby’s hurt expression and his father’s red, angry face. The laughter on the television program suddenly made him feel sick.
“Nothing,” he said. “Captain was barking again and I looked out the window.”
“I told you,” his father said slowly, making his great effort to control himself obvious, “it can’t be anything. Maybe it’s another porcupine and that dog smartened up since last summer, that’s all.”
“That’s probably it,” his mother said. “Is he still barking?”
“So, it went away, right?” She waited. Billy looked down at the floor. He wanted to blurt it out, to say he knew they were wrong and what he saw was more exciting than their television program. He had seen the real thing! But, his mother’s tone of voice put an end to it. He felt himself settle into resignation. “Right?” she repeated, putting her hand under his chin to lift his face.
“Right.”
“Good. Now why don’t you try to go back to sleep. Tomorrow, I’ll take a walk out there with you and we’ll see if there’s anything there, OK?”
“It won’t be there in the daytime,” Billy said. He felt confident that what he had seen was a thing of the night.
“We’ll see.” She pulled him to her and gave him a kiss. “You want me to come up with you and see you into bed?”
He shook his head. Bobby smirked at him and his father was completely involved in his show. Billy retreated slowly. Before he reached the stairs, he heard his mother ask a question about the television program.
“How do I know?” his father replied. “I couldn’t hear half of it with all this damn nonsense. We oughta bring that animal up to the pound.”
“We will not. That’s a terrible idea. You know what they do to them there.”
“It’ll happen anyway. He’s about the dumbest dog I’ve seen.”
Billy ran up the steps. He rushed into his room and looked out the window again. Captain wasn’t barking anymore, but he was sitting and staring out toward the field. Billy studied and studied the backyard, waiting for another sighting. It didn’t come and he grew tired.
He crawled back into his bed and lay there a while with his eyes opened, thinking. It could be true, he thought; it could really be and only he knew it. Maybe he wouldn’t tell them again. The kids in E.T. didn’t tell. That’s it. He’d keep it a secret and tomorrow he would try to figure out a way to be there the next time Captain barked and it appeared.
He went to sleep dreaming of fingers of light.