Wild children, p.1
Wild Children, page 1
"Wild Children is weird, unexpected, engaging, poignant, sad, hopeful, and absolutely lovely." ~A. Unruh (Amazon Review)
"One thing Richard Roberts does so very well is create an unforgettable character. In this book, he's created a whole crew. Each is so vivid in my mind that I am able to look at the beautiful artwork of the cover and pick out each character by name." ~Laurie Laliberte (Amazon Review)
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I think I was nine the first time I saw a Wild Child. A lot of Wild Children have been tamed, but this one was wild in every way.
Wild Children weren’t allowed in our village. It’s not a rule, but I didn’t understand things like that anyway. I was nine! I just knew I’d never seen one before, and that my parents kept me in on Walpurgis, and that sometimes my mother would be talking to someone else’s mother and they’d mention them. All I understood was they were saying something really, really mean about somebody.
So, I was nine. I was in church, and Father Birch was giving his sermon, or maybe he was reciting the… actually, you can already tell, can’t you? I was bored. I was leaning back in my pew, wondering when there’d be more singing and things would get at least a little interesting again. I knew I was asking for trouble, but I was so bored even getting yelled at seemed like a good idea. My head rolled to the side so that I could stare out the window at the sunny day I was missing – and there was a Wild Boy!
He was a wolf. His ears were all big and pointy and fuzzy, and so was his mouth. He had this nose and mouth like a wolf, and all the hair and fur I could see was grey. I guess it should have been creepy, but it was really cute. And I knew he was a wolf. When you see a wolf and a dog you know which is which, right? But the best part was his expression. I could so tell that he thought Father Birch was full of it, that the whole thing was dumb, like he understood exactly what I was going through.
So here I was, bored out of my mind, and all of a sudden there’s a Wild Boy looking in the window! One second my whole body was heavy and everything dragged, and the next I felt so alive I itched. And I thought, when was I going to see a Wild Boy again? I whispered to mom that I had to go, you know, excuse myself. Man, was she mad. It took a couple of minutes to convince her and I knew I’d hear more about it when we got home, but – a Wild Boy, right?
You get a lot of stares when you slip out the front door during church. There’s no good way to do it. But it’s kind of funny because while they’re giving you a look, other people are giving them a look for not paying attention to Father Birch. Anyway, I slipped along the walls, which is probably the dumbest way to do it, and I got outside and ran around the corner, and there he was, sitting under the window eating something. Jerked beef, I think.
He grinned at me and his teeth were sharp, but not ugly and hooked like real dog teeth, and he was cute like a puppy and at the same time the wildest thing I’d ever seen. I sound like a nine year old, don’t I? He hadn’t said a word, and I was so excited!
Of course, I froze. What to say? I didn’t want to say something stupid. He was so different and he had that grin, and it was like he wasn’t a kid like me, like he’d seen it all. That’s what I was thinking. I felt like an idiot and I didn’t want to make it worse.
Not that I had to worry. He was all confident. He got up and walked right over and leaned against the wall and said, “Ducking out on Father Boring?” I just about busted a gut trying not to laugh!
I don’t know how long we spent talking. I don’t know what we said. I spent most of it feeling like every word out of my mouth was the dumbest thing ever said by anybody, but he never seemed to mind. He didn’t tell me much. He told me Father Birch was trying to keep him out of the village so he couldn’t talk to the other kids. We kind of spent most of the time making fun of Birch for one thing or another, which is why I just about fell on my butt in terror when I heard the Father yelling behind me!
“BLASPHEME!”
I swear, he really talks like that! And the Wild Boy took off like an animal. I’ve never seen a person run that fast, and sometimes he was on all fours. I wish I could have run. Instead I had to turn around and see Father Birch standing over me so mad he was shaking.
“Wicked little hussy,” he snapped, and that may sound hilarious to you but I was shaking like a leaf. “What are you doing talking to that filthy animal? Do you know what he is, girl?”
“Isn’t he a Wild Boy, Father?” It was all I could say!
“And you don’t know what that is, do you?” he yelled back, and I just felt worse because he was right. “You don’t know because you don’t pay attention, you don’t have respect, and you don’t obey. Wild Children are monsters. They’re mistakes. Children who fall from innocence don’t get a second chance. You become like THAT,” and he pointed after the wolf boy, “forever.”
“Is that really so bad, Father?” I had to ask, “He doesn’t seem bad, or unhappy.”
I thought he was going to hit me. I guess he didn’t because of what he saw behind me. Instead he leaned down and looked me in the eyes, and I had to look into his because I knew he really would hit me if I didn’t. But he was so angry even the memory of his voice makes me sick. “He’s happy,” he told me, and he just seemed more furious because now he was quiet about it. “He’s happy because he’s the worst kind of monster. He looks like a wolf because that’s his sin. He preys on the weak and stupid and selfish. On children like you. That is, until he’s caught and caged. A slothful child like you probably thinks that sounds like a good life, but you’re not going to end up like him. You’re going to end up like THAT.”
Father Birch’s hand grabbed my shoulder, and it hurt, and he twisted me around to point at the street. At first I didn’t understand because he seemed to be pointing at a fancy carriage and the young man and woman in it and, well, I’d never seen anyone dressed that well. They were obviously rich. I wondered if they were nobles, even. They weren’t from anywhere near our village, I knew that, and didn’t seem to be stopping. And then I realized what he was really pointing at.
A girl sat on the back of the carriage. She was, I don’t know, ten? Twelve? Only she wasn’t a girl, she was a Wild Girl. She had big, hairy brown ears and a tail, and below the hem of her skirt the legs dangling over the edge of the cart ended in hooves. And her face wasn’t a girl’s face. Like the wolf boy she had this snout, but hers was a donkey’s, kind of bulbous at the end. She wasn’t pretty, but she was certainly cute.
I didn’t want to be her, though. Not at all. Because her hands and feet were in shackles and chains, thick and iron, and she had a collar locked around her neck. She looked so sad, and she just stared at the ground as the carriage rode out of sight.
Not that I got to see it, because Father Birch yanked me around to yell at me some more. “That is what waits for you, tramp,” he told me. I didn’t want to hear that. After seeing that girl, I didn’t want someone to tell me this. “That boy became a wolf because he is evil. You’re just stupid and lazy and disobedient. Take one step too far down that road and you’ll become like her. Children who become wolves are hunted because they’re monsters. Children who become donkeys are sold. We don’t want them corrupting our village with their sin.”
I could tell that he was just getting started. Father Birch can go on for hours. But he’d spent so long shouting at me that the church people were starting to peek out the doors and windows at him. So he gave me back to my mom, and we went home, and she yelled at me too, but honestly I don’t much remember that part. After what happened at church it didn’t seem important.
And then when I was going to sleep the wolf boy peeked in my bedroom window at me. I thought I must have imagined it, but I didn’t.
The next time I saw the Wolf Boy was at school. Mister Thornback is our teacher. We only have one school and one teacher in our village, but my mom and Father Birch say that living as far out as we do we’re lucky to have a school at all.
You might think because I don’t pay attention in church I don’t pay attention in school, or that because Father Birch is such a jerk I have that problem with all adults. Actually, I like school and I like Mister Thornback. Don’t get me wrong, he can be as hard as anybody. I’ve felt his ruler a few times. He broke it on Joseph Wheaton the first year I was in school, but Joseph had caught a squirrel and had his foot on it and was squeezing it slow to hear the noises it made. Thornback just about lost it. That’s how he is. He doesn’t bend much, but he’s not mean. If he gives your knuckles a whack for talking in class, you were talking in class and you earned what you got.
I’m a little soft about him because really, I like school. It’s not my favorite part of the day, but Mister Thornback is smart and he’s got a pile of books he got from all over and he wants you to learn. If you can multiply in your head he’ll mess with your hair and tell you you’re ahead of the class, and then give you a bigger list of harder problems to see how you handle those. If you’re having trouble adding up big numbers he’ll sit down with you and show you how to do it, step by step, even if he has to stay behind after all the other kids go home.
In case you can’t tell, I’m the ‘multiply in her head’ girl.
Now, the school is sort of a barn. Not a literal barn, but that kind of feel, you know? One big wooden room, all by itself. I think maybe there’s an attic and Mister Thornback lives there. There’s a couple of windows, but they’re big and high up on the walls. I couldn’ t reach them. I couldn’t reach them standing on a barrel. I never found out how the wolf boy ended up peeking in through them, or why none of the other kids saw him, but he kept doing it all day. I’d finish spelling the word ‘sassafras,’ which was tough because I have no idea what that is, and I’d look up and there’d be these eyes and gray hair and pointy ears looking over the window ledge behind Mister Thornback.
You know what I did? I didn’t do anything. I wasn’t even sure what I wanted to do. School wasn’t like church. I didn’t want to get in trouble here. And I was scared too, but I was mad at Father Birch for the way he treated me. Mostly I didn’t want to make the teacher mad.
And then Mayor Pomter stopped by and had a chat with Mister Thornback, and he told us that he was needed in the village. He handed out a bunch of worksheets and said he’d be back. Eventually.
Only a couple of people started to goof off. It’s not that Thornback expects us to finish the worksheets. Some of that stuff was crazy hard. But if you don’t know when he’ll get back, even the lazier students get kind of diligent.
I don’t think of myself as one of the lazier students. Okay, I get bored really easily, but digging through the teacher’s book pile to find out what the difference between a Vandal and a Visigoth is sounds like time well spent. How often do you get to see the word ‘pillage’ used in a sentence? But a wolf boy at the window raised a whole new level of curiosity. I helped a couple of kids dig out a book and then, you know, I kind of sidled out the front door for a breath of fresh air.
There he was. Insouciant (it was on the worksheet) grin and everything. This time I felt less like an idiot. Instead my head was just racing around! It had to be an act, right? But you know, with what Father Birch said, that meant he got turned into a wolf because he was really like that already?
“You don’t have a lot of fun, huh?” he asked me, “What’s your name?”
“Jenny.” I tried not to pull on my hair or mess with my skirt. Was I still that nervous? Sheesh. Also, I couldn’t believe we hadn’t asked each other our names the first time we met. “And you…?”
“Wolfgang.” He grinned wider.
“Nuh-UH.” I couldn’t help myself. I sounded like an idiot, but did he expect me to believe that?
He laughed, and I knew I’d caught him even before he spoke. “Okay, but see, when you become a Wild Boy, you get a new name. You’re never allowed to keep your old one. I guess nothing’s stopping me from going back to being Pepper, except maybe it’s a stupid girl’s name. But I don’t.”
I had to giggle too. “It is, isn’t it? Wolfgang or Pepper, huh? I can let you get away with Wolfgang, then.”
Then he grinned some more, and now you couldn’t doubt it was real. He looked so proud, like nobody I’d ever met. “Nobody has to let me get away with anything anymore. I get away with stuff all by myself.”
“No wonder Father Birch thinks you’re evil. If he heard you say that he’d have you in the stocks or something.” That didn’t seem to faze Wolfgang in the slightest, so I pressed on. “So, is it true? You really get turned into an animal for your sins?”
“I don’t know. What’s a sin?”
“You know exactly what a sin is,” I told him. I wasn’t going to let him talk down to me! Even if he was charming while he did it. Were all Wild Children like this?
“Yeah, I know,” he told me, and then he leaned close and I got that ‘stupid’ feeling again. His eyes were grey, everything about him was grey, and they and his teeth were all I could see for a minute. “Listen, Jenny. I’m older’n most of the adults you know. Wild Children don’t live forever, but you know, we never have to grow up. I don’t need adults anymore. I can live in the woods and eat mice if I gotta. I bet you go ‘yuck’, but I get the thrill of the hunt that you or an adult will never have.”
And then he stopped for a second, and … and I thought he was going to kiss me. And, again, I was barely nine. I’d have said that wasn’t just sinful it was gross, until he was so close I didn’t know how I felt. Instead he whispered to me, “Well, maybe you will. It’s not too late for you. Because Father Birch has one thing right. Maybe the only thing. I became a Wild Boy for my ‘sins’, alright. But did God curse me, or was it a blessing? And it’s not easy. He told you you just have to put a foot out of line, right? If that were true, do you know any kids who wouldn’t be Wild Children?”
I could certainly think of plenty of kids in the village who ought to have changed, yes. Like Rose (I hate that name) Creeper, who right then walked right out the door and saw us. I bet she just gave up on the work and was going home. That is, until she saw a Wolf Boy and yelled, “Oh god, oh god… get out here, Ivy! Everybody get out here! There’s a Wild Boy!”
And that was it. I mean, for me talking to him. He didn’t run away. I think he liked giving that grin to other kids, ‘cause he just stood there and grinned at them as everybody in school rushed out and stared and stared. And the funny thing was, they all stood right behind me until they figured out he wasn’t going to run away or bite them or something. Then Ivy pushed herself in front of me and goes, “You’re a Wild Boy?”
And he goes, “Uh-huh.”
And she asks, “How’d you get into the village?”
And I didn’t even hear the answer because suddenly everybody was talking at once, and I guess he answered some questions, but I couldn’t make anything out. I wasn’t really trying. I was pretty mad. I was also wondering when Mister Thornback was going to come back.
He didn’t. Eventually we all went home. The next day he apologized, kind of stiffly, but that’s Mister Thornback. Said the Mayor really needed him. He was pretty upset – I could tell.
After that Wolfgang was… around. I’d see him, sometimes at school, sometimes at church, sometimes at home. I didn’t get to talk to him much. Most of the time I didn’t have the chance. When I did have the chance I’d drop off a bucket of rutabagas or something in the kitchen, slip out the back, get as far as “Hey, Wild Boy,” and five other girls would be standing around us and they’d start yammering at him. And where you’ve got five other girls, you’ve soon got five other boys. And in about ten minutes some grownup would see a bunch of kids gathered around and start yelling something about what’s going on, and everybody would scatter. Wolfgang could move so fast I wouldn’t even see where he went.
And then Ivy mouthed off to Father Birch.
Maybe it was because she’d gotten to talk to Wolfgang way more than I did. I wouldn’t sneak out of school, right? But she would. And she’d always shove herself to the front to be the one to talk to him. Ivy’s a couple years older than me, and she’s acted like that ever since I met her. She didn’t like church, I knew that, but she didn’t like school either, or… well, anything that inconvenienced her.
I’m sorry. I shouldn’t talk bad about her. I just never got along with Ivy. That morning she didn’t even pretend to pay attention in church. Her head lay back on the pew and I could hear her snoring from across the aisle. Ivy gets away with a lot of stuff because her uncle is Mayor Pomter, and I don’t know, maybe she thought she could get away with this. I was stewing and jealous that she was skipping out on the Parables, but I forgot all about that when Father Birch stopped the service and started walking down the aisle to her row.
I stopped feeling mad at her and started feeling sorry for her.
She wasn’t even awake until he started yelling. Her folks didn’t try to wake her, didn’t try to cover, nothing. I could see it in their face that they were as afraid of old Birch as I was, but she was their daughter! My mom woulda- I hope she would. I always thought she was trying to protect me.
“Sinning harlot!” bellowed the old man, and when I say ‘old man’, listen, Father Birch was a big guy. His hair may have been grey and white, but he could have broken me or Ivy in his bare hands. When he yells, you’re afraid. And as she jumped he grabbed her blouse and dragged her out of the pew and threw her down in the aisle, I know it hurt. “Little Ivy Pomter believes that sleep is more important than God. Is that it, Miss Pomter?”
I could see her fear in her face – and I could see that she wasn’t afraid enough. And then she actually opened her mouth and told him in front of everyone, “Yeah, I guess I do.”
