The Wild Things

CHAPTER XXIX

The beasts took off in seven different directions. Then, one by one, they turned to see where Carol was running, and they changed directions to follow him. Even Katherine dropped from the branches above to run and to follow Carol. Max did too.

“Carol!” he yelled. Max was running faster than he’d ever run and could barely speak, but he needed to know what was happening. “Why are we running?” he managed to say, heaving and holding his side.

Carol didn’t answer him. He didn’t even look his way.

“Carol!” he yelled. Carol was going thirty miles an hour, Max figured. Max couldn’t hope to keep up. Just as Carol disappeared down a ravine, Max spotted Ira following him.

“Ira!” Max yelled. Ira was slower, but still far faster than he looked. Heaving and crying, he almost ran over Max, seeming not to have seen him at all. He didn’t say a word as he sped by.

Not one of the beasts seemed concerned about leaving their king behind. They were barreling into anything, knocking any and all in-the-way foliage flat. They were huffing and moaning, their eyes tearing and their arms grabbing at the air in front of them. They were crazed. All Max could do was follow the wide swath their stampede cut through the trees and underbrush.

Max ran until he was ready to throw up. Leaning against a tree and catching his breath, he finally spotted them beyond the woods, all six beasts, in a many-colored meadow. The grass there was long, soft, and arrayed in a patchwork of clashing colors — ochre and black and violet and fuchsia. The beasts were all gathered in the middle, in a loose circle, heaving. A few had collapsed on the ground. As Max approached, they seemed to take little or no notice of him.

Max found Carol. “What was it?”

“What was what?” Carol asked.

“The sound. Whatever we were running from.”

“You don’t know?” Carol asked.

Max shook his head.

Carol looked surprised, or feigned surprise.

“You really don’t know?” he asked again.

Suddenly Carol was spun around. It was Judith, her claw on Carol’s shoulder.

“Where’s Douglas?” she asked, a panicked look on her face.

Carol shrugged. He turned to Max. “You see Douglas out there?”

Max hadn’t. Carol gave him an exasperated look, as if to say, What do you know, King?

“Maybe he wasn’t with us in the first place,” Carol said.

“Of course he was,” Katherine said.

But everyone else seemed suddenly unsure.

Katherine turned to Max. “Did you see Douglas with us?”

Max had, and was about to say so, but Carol interrupted him, placing his gigantic paw over Max’s mouth. “Don’t do that, Katherine. Don’t bring him into it. Douglas did not come.”

“Of course he did,” she said, astonished. “He was with us a few minutes ago.”

“Sorry. You’re wrong,” Carol said dismissively.

“I can’t believe you,” Katherine said. “Do you really not notice who’s around you? Are you really that self-centered that you can’t remember which four or five of us are near at any given time? Do you look at or hear any of us?”

This made Carol boil. But before he could formulate an answer, Katherine turned to the rest of the group.

“Okay, whoever thinks he was with us, stand up. And whoever thinks he wasn’t, sit down.”

Everyone began to sit down and stand accordingly, though they all were apprehensive to be picking sides.

Carol was exasperated. “No, no! Whoever thinks he wasn’t with us, stand up. And whoever thinks he was, lie down.”

“No,” Katherine said, her face reddening, “I was already standing! Why do you have to do that, even change the way I set it up? You make everything ten times harder than it needs to be.”

“No I don’t.”

“Yes you do.”

“Do not.”

Katherine turned back to the group, who were all watching the debate intently, like children at a puppet show. “Okay, everyone who thinks Carol makes things ten times harder than they need to be, raise your left hand. If you think he doesn’t make things harder, raise your right hand.”

Everyone began, tentatively, to raise one arm or the other.

“Wait,” Judith said. “Should we be sitting down, too? Or is that part over? I don’t like sitting down when people tell me to sit down. It takes the pleasure out of it—”

“Forget it,” Katherine said. “It’s not worth it.” And she walked away, disappearing into the forest shadows before leaping upward.

A moment later, a rustling came from the woods, and Douglas emerged from between two trees and entered the clearing. He looked dazed, exhausted.

“Did you find out what it was?” Judith asked him.

Douglas shook his head. “No.”

“Did you hear anything?” Ira asked.

“No. Or maybe,” he said. “I don’t know. I did hear a loud, rhythmic sound, like a huffing. It was really loud, and lasted the whole time I was running. Now it’s gone though.”

Ira and Alexander looked worried. Carol nodded solemnly, as if this, unfortunately, confirmed his suspicions. Only Judith thought to second-guess it. She rolled her eyes and sighed elaborately.

“That was your own breathing, Douglas. Of course it stopped. You stopped running.” But though Judith was skeptical of Douglas’s account of the sounds underground, she didn’t doubt the existence of the chatter. “Carol,” she said, “when you heard it, did it ever sound like huffing?”

Carol was diplomatic. “I think it might have, somewhere down there. And it sounds different to different ears, of course. You might hear something more jagged and angry, Judith. It might be chatter specifically about you, and all the things you’ve done wrong. Ira might hear something open and hollow, like an empty, void-ish sound, the sound of a well with no bottom. They really know how to get to us.”

Judith was staring hard at Max. “So what should we do, King?”

“About what?” he asked.

“What do you mean, about what? About the sounds that run under the ground and are mean to us. What else?” she said. “We need to kill it dead, right, Carol?”

Carol nodded.

Max had no plan at all. “So what does it sound like again?” he asked.

Judith was apoplectic. “Wait. You don’t know about the chatter? I don’t know what’s worse — the chatter, or the fact that our king doesn’t know anything about it. How can you rule this place if you don’t know about the sounds in the ground?”

“I didn’t say I didn’t know,” he said. “I just was asking you guys what you thought it was. Where I come from the chatter just sounds different.”

Max got on his knees and listened to the earth. “Yeah, I hear it for sure. But it’s just quieter than where I come from. Our chatter is super-loud and it sounds like teeth.”

This had everyone’s attention.

“So what did you do about it?” Douglas asked.

“Oh, a lot of things,” Max said, having no idea at all.

“Like what?” Ira asked.

“Well, one thing is that we yelled a lot. We yelled out in the air a lot because then we didn’t hear the chatter.”

This didn’t seem to impress anyone.

“And the other thing was that we stomped on the ground really hard. We stomped like we did at the parade. We did that all the time, to let the sounds know how big we were. Sometimes with heavy boots.”

This was somewhat more convincing to the beasts.

“Okay,” Judith said. “So you scared it with the boots. What else? I’m assuming you got rid of it?”

“Oh yeah, pretty quickly. It was easy,” Max said.

“How?” Carol asked, his eyes pleading.

Now Max was up a creek. He couldn’t see or hear the thing they feared, but he had to think of a way to kill it. He was sure he could find a way to kill anything in the world if he could see it — especially with seven giants on his side — but if he knew nothing about it? He was stuck. He had to stall for time.

“I can’t tell you today …” he said, “but tomorrow I can. Tomorrow I will.” It was lame, Max knew it was lame, but it was working. They were nodding, as if acknowledging that such a problem needed a day of kingly consideration. He added the finishing touches to the lie. “I just need to stay here awhile, testing the ground and, uh, seeing which one of my killing methods will work best.”

They all nodded vigorously, picturing the many killing methods they knew themselves.

“You heard the king,” Carol said, shooing everyone away. “He needs time to think. Let’s give him some room.” He hustled them out of the meadow. Before he left Max by himself, Carol turned back to him.

“I really hope you kill it, Max,” he said. “It would really help us a lot. I feel like I haven’t slept in years.”

And with that, he left.