The Caterpillar King (2 page)

Finally, I saw a little terror in his
eyes.

“Wait, it’s coming back to me now,” he
said.

“I’ll bet it is,” I said. “Talk fast, or you
won’t have a tongue to talk with.”

That got him going. “We used to be really
good friends. Madeline and me. Umm…and so there was a dance. Like a
middle school dance. And I don’t know, I thought since we were
always together all the time, it only made sense…”

“You asked her out and she rejected you. Got
it,” I said.

“Well, not exactly. Or at least it’s not
what you think. When I asked her to the dance, she said there was
someone else she wanted to go with.”

“Sounds exactly like what I was thinking,” I
said.

“Would you stop interrupting me?” he
said.

“I’ve got the knife, punk.”

He sighed. “Fine. So anyway, Madeline
confessed to me. The person she really wanted to go with was Amanti
Jordan.”

“A black?” I said.

“A black
girl
,” he said. “Which meant
that Madeline was a total lesbian. She told me she’d always been
attracted to girls, blah blah blah, and so she couldn’t go with
me.”

He took a deep breath, and continued. “I
pretended not to care, but really, it was stupid and unfair.
Everybody knows that you can’t go to the dance with a girl if
you’re a girl, and boys can’t go with boys. Those are rules. We
could’ve gone as friends, but she didn’t want that.

“But…we were still kinda friends, even after
that. I went to her house for this history project we were working
on together, and that’s when I saw her diary. I took it, and I
threatened to tell the whole school her secret if she didn’t go to
the dance with me. But today I changed my mind. I was going to give
her journal back to her tonight, honest.”

The boy finally shut up and sucked in air. I
admit, I felt some sympathy for the boy. We’d all been there
before. But something about his story was fishy.

“Why didn’t you call out to her? Why were
you chasing her like that?” I asked.

“She was too far away,” he said.

“Liar. You thought you would have a little
fun with her.”

“No,” he said. “I was just hoping
I’d…I’d…run into an insane old dude who would kidnap and torture
me. And you know what? Dreams really do come true.” He had that
devilish gleam in his eyes again.

“After all this time, you’re still a smart
guy, Ned?”

He nodded happily.

“Good.” I got up real close and held the
knife to his neck. “You’ll need to be, if you want to survive.” I
brought the knife down hard and fast, toward his hand. He closed
his eyes. The knife missed his fingers by an inch. It stuck out of
the chair like a silver birthday candle.

“Now sit still,” I said. I picked the handle
out of the chair. Then I sawed off the ropes. They fell around the
kid at his feet. He opened his eyes again and looked at me in dumb
amazement.

“You’re letting me go?” he said.

“Sure,” I said. “Try the door.”

He looked at me once more to confirm. I
nodded. He stood up and walked to the door. His legs wobbled like
fettucine. He held himself up by the handle, twisted it, and
pushed. It didn’t open. He turned back to me.

“It’s a pull,” I said. “You have to
pull.”

He pulled the door, but still nothing
happened.

“I think it’s locked,” he said.

“Let me see,” I said. I went over to the
door, right by Ned. I twisted the handle. I pushed and I pulled,
too. It didn’t budge.

“Huh,” I said. Then I leaned my ear up to
the door, like I was listening for something on the other side. The
kid followed suit, turning his head the other way. I took his head
in the palm of my hand and slammed it into the steel. He collapsed
to the floor, unconscious.

“I told you,” I said. “I’m not a good
guy.”

3.

I spent the last twenty-one days at the
bottom of a ditch. The hole was too deep to climb out of, but I
didn’t mind. It was by far the nicest ditch I’d ever been in, and I
decided to enjoy it. There was the smooth brown wall all around me.
There were four sticks and six pebbles, which could be pretty
entertaining. One of the pebbles was even shaped like a heart. I
also had two great friends to keep me company. Their names were
Tika the caterpillar and Old Guy. Tika the caterpillar talked. Old
Guy didn’t.

Tika was about two inches long and had pure
white skin. I think she was self-conscious about her skin, because
she’d never seen a caterpillar that looked quite like her before.
It seemed to bother her a lot.

“What if I spent more time in the sun?” she
asked me.

“You’d probably burn,” I said. “And then
you’d turn pink. But aren’t pink caterpillars just as rare as white
ones?”

“You really want me to be unhappy, don’t
you?” she said. Then she slid over to the other side of the ditch,
by the two holes. One of the holes was large, and the other one was
just her size. Once in a while, when she got really angry, she’d
crawl back underground. But that didn’t happen very often. For the
most part Tika was sweet and friendly, and we got along well.

However, there were times when Tika got a
little
too
friendly. Some mornings, I’d wake up and find her
curled in my lap.

“What?” she’d say, all innocently. “I was
cold.”

Other times, when we were playing sticks and
rocks, she’d nudge the heart-shaped stone over to me. “This is for
you,” she’d say. Whenever she did something like this, Old Guy just
sat there with a big grin on his face. He probably thought it was
funny.

A little flirting never killed anyone,
though. I was more concerned with Tika’s
other
desire. For
as long as I’ve been here, she’s been begging me for just one
thing: to go underground with her. She wanted me to slide down the
big hole, while she went down the small one. But to me, that didn’t
seem like such a great idea. After all, I didn’t have the slightest
idea where the holes led. If I went underground, who knew if I’d
ever come back up?

Now, I looked to the other side of the
ditch, to see what Tika was up to. Once she caught my gaze, she
started to crawl back over. She could never stay mad at me for
long.

She snuggled in right next to me. “Finch,”
she said, “Tell me a story.”

“You’re really going to keep calling me
that?”

She smiled. “It is the perfect name for you.
You have a small head like a finch. And dark eyes. And a big nose.
Also, you are beautiful and kind of delicate, too.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I guess.”

Tika looked up at me. “I know you must feel
empty,” she said. “So you should tell me about the things you do
remember. Tell me about…your dream woman.”

The “dream woman” happened to be in my one
and only memory. I’d already told the story a thousand times, but
it was Tika’s favorite. “Well, I remember a woman-”

“No, no,” said Tika. “A true story must
begin with, ‘Once upon a time.’”

“OK, fine,” I said. “Once upon a time, there
was a woman in a room. Everything in the room was black and white.
The woman sat in a rocking chair, and I remember she had the most
wrinkled hands I’d ever seen. She was holding needles and thread,
and it looked like she was sewing something. But no matter how hard
I tried, I could never get a look at the woman’s face.”

“And why not?” asked Tika, even though she
already knew the answer.

“Because I focused on the necklace she was
wearing. It was a string with a circular pendant attached. The
pendant had three lines on it, kind of like an upside-down peace
sign.”

“Draw this for me,” Tika said.

Using my finger, I scratched the circle into
the dirt.

“Ahhh,” said Tika. “Yes, I would like a
necklace like this some day.”

“And that’s it. That’s all I remember.”

“Bad ending,” she said. “Lacking
resolution.”

“Trust me,” I said. “I don’t
want
my
memory to stop there. It just does.”

“Dream woman,” said Tika, clearly enchanted.
“Maybe we should find this dream woman.”

That was just like Tika—always coming up
with something for us to do.

“I wouldn’t have the first clue where to
look,” I said.

“I would,” said Tika. She motioned to the
two holes. “Underground.”

“No way,” I said.

“You are afraid?” she said.

“I’m not doing it.”

“Well,” said Tika, “Why don’t we play a
game?”

“Sure,” I said. I was more than happy for
her to change the subject, and I suggested we play sticks and
rocks. But Tika didn’t seem all that interested. I realized that
we’d been playing a lot recently, so it was understandable.

“Hmm,” said Tika, thinking very seriously.
“Is there some way to make it more exciting? What if we were to bet
something on it?”

I looked around every inch of the ditch.
“Umm…I don’t really have much to bet.”

“How about this,” she said. “If I win, you
go down into the hole with me.”

“No chance,” I said.

“Wait, let me explain more.” She cracked a
smile. “And if
you
win, I’ll never ask you to follow me down
there again.”

That was an offer worth considering. She’d
been asking me to go underground at least a dozen times a day, and
hearing the same question again and again had gotten a little bit
old.

“Think about it this way,” she said. “You
win, and I stop bothering you. But even if you “lose,” you’ll have
a great time, going on an adventure. What else will you do
today?”

It was hard to argue with her there.

“So,” I said. “If I win, you’ll really stop
bugging me?”

She frowned. “That’s not funny,” she said.
But I could tell she didn’t mean it.

“OK,” I said. “Let’s play.”

I gathered up the six sticks and four
stones. The game was simple: I had to throw all the sticks and
stones at least halfway across the ditch. If they landed clean side
up, I got a point. Dirty side up, I lost a point. Old Guy kept
score. First to ten points wins.

Since Tika was too small to throw, I took
her turn for her. But before I made the toss, she always liked to
arrange the pieces in my hand just so. She thought she could change
the outcome with her strategy.

“You first,” she said. It wasn’t often she
let me start, but I took it gladly. I tossed the pieces across the
line, and they scattered in every direction. One even bounced back
towards me, which meant it didn’t count. Old Guy held up two
fingers.

“You must get me a four,” said Tika. “
At
least
a four.”

After I rounded up the pieces, Tika crawled
into my hand. She nudged one rock all the way into the middle of my
palm. Then she organized the sticks so they were touching at the
corners. It looked like a honeycomb.

“Throw it, Finch,” she said. “Throw it
now.”

I tossed the bundle. Even before it landed,
I knew it was a good one. As the pieces bounced across the line, I
saw a bunch of clean sides. After they settled, Old Guy held up an
eight. That was a fantastic score. I had the feeling that I was
going to be burrowing any minute now.

“At this game, I am the world champion,” she
said.

Going underground was bad enough, but losing
to Tika would be the worst. She’d hold it over me forever. So I
came up with a plan. I’d put together the sticks and stones just
like she did. That way, I’d get an eight, too. It was my best
chance.

“I hope you enjoy your biggest failure,”
Tika said, laughing. But I wasn’t paying attention to her. I was
arranging my sweet victory. “Hey, what’re you doing?” she said.
“You cannot-”

I let the honeycomb go with a standard toss.
It landed in almost the exact same place as hers did. Old Guy held
up a six. Now the score was eight to eight, and I was only two
points away from winning.

“That’s not fair,” said Tika.

Old Guy gave her a blank look, which I think
meant, ‘play on.’ I grabbed the pieces and Tika shuffled them
around. This time, she tried a kind of zigzag formation. “I would
like to see you copy
that
,” she said.

But it was my turn to play a little trick on
her. Instead of my normal, underhanded toss, I pulled back and
launched the bundle at the wall as hard as I could. Tika gasped.
“What in the…” The sticks fell flat, while the rocks bounced off
and rolled back towards us. I scanned over the result, and it
looked like an even zero. I was happy.

And then Old Guy held up two fingers.

“Aha!” said Tika. “I know you are not much
of a student, so let me explain: eight plus two equals
ten
.”

“But that was a zero point throw. Where are
all the clean ones?” I asked.

Old Guy pointed at a few of the sticks and
rocks. Last but not least, he stabbed a finger at the heart-shaped
rock, which was obviously on its dirty side.

“Are you serious?” I said. “The heart isn’t
clean! The heart isn’t clean at all!” I flipped it over to show him
the other,
cleaner
side. He shrugged.

“There is no use in arguing,” Tika said.
“Now you must go in the hole.”

I crawled over to the black space.

“Can’t we just do this some other time?”

“In the hole,” said Tika. “
Now
.”

I looked at Old Guy. He was smiling
again.

“For the entire time, I will be right beside
you,” said Tika.

She readied herself next to her usual
passage, while I crawled forward just a little. The ground slanted
down into darkness. When I put a hand out to test the area, I
already started to lose my balance. I couldn’t see in very far, but
I have to say, it did not look like it would lead to a ‘great
time.’ I climbed in anyway.

4.

Tika and I crawled down our tunnels side by
side in total darkness. Thick walls pushed against my body, but I
was able to slither through. As we moved further along, the
pressure loosened up, and before I knew it, I could breathe again.
Even so, it was still almost completely dark, and I had no idea
where I was.