The Wild Things

CHAPTER XXXII

Everyone was gathered around Max. Carol had woken up Douglas and Douglas had raised back his head and had made a bizarre and screeching sound of summoning. The beasts had arrived within minutes from all corners of the island. Everyone, that is, but Katherine. Max decided to proceed without her.

“Okay,” he said, “I have the perfect plan. What does everyone here want?” he asked, though the question, for him, was rhetorical.

“We don’t have homes,” Douglas said. “We’ve been sleeping outside because you wrecked them.”

Max was about to quibble with this claim, but he didn’t. He knew his plan would eclipse small concerns like Douglas’s. “Okay, fine,” he said.

“Some of us are hungry,” Alexander said.

“Okay, sure,” Max said. “What else? What do you want?”

“We want what we want. We want all the things we want,” Judith said, matter-of-factly. She brushed Ira’s mouth off her shoulder. He’d been chewing again, more than ever, it seemed. There were patches, purple and blue, all over her now, where the fur had been gnawed off.

Ira whispered something in her ear. She nodded. “Oh, and we want no more want.”

Max grinned. He really felt like he had the perfect idea to not only address all these concerns, but also those he had recognized himself — the need for togetherness, for camaraderie and entertainment and a sense of purpose. He had expected everyone’s first need to be fun, and guessed that they had simply forgotten that this was the first and foremost need of all. When he mentioned it, they would all smack their foreheads in an expression of Aha!

“What about fun?” he asked.

They all looked confused.

“Fun, like that lagoon business?” Judith asked. “If that was fun, I’d rather have someone eat my head.”

“No, no,” Max protested. “I mean real fun.”

“Oh. Real fun,” she said, nodding. “Wait. What’s that?”

“It’s like fun,” Max said, “but much better.”

They all thought about this, wondering if fun would be the solution. No one spoke up. Each was waiting for someone else to ask the obvious questions. There was a long silence, finally broken when Ira cleared his throat and spoke softly to his toes.

“I’m confused about fun,” he said.

Judith exhaled loudly. “Thank god someone said it. I was thinking the same thing. What does want have to do with fun, and what does all of this have to do with the void? Right, Ira?”

Ira shrugged. He was more confused than ever.

Carol shushed them both. “Fun sounds fine. We just need some clarification. Tell us what to do, Max.”

Now Max warmed up. He had come up with the whole plan in the many-colored meadow, and now he got to do something he was good at: explaining the game and outlining the rules. He was so convinced that his idea would bring everyone together and put them all in a near-permanent state of bliss that he was hesitant to just blurt it out. He decided to heighten the drama.

“You ready to hear the plan?”

They all nodded, hushed in silence.

“You sure?”

They nodded again. They were sure.

“We’re gonna have …” he said, his eyebrows rising and falling conspiratorially, “a war.”

“A war? Like a fight?” Ira asked.

Max nodded. “Yeah, we’ll pick sides and then battle.”

Douglas tilted his head and squinted. “And then everyone will feel better?” he asked, as if just confirming the obvious logic at work.

“Yeah,” Max said. “Pretty much.”

“And we won’t be hungry?” Alexander asked.

Max didn’t know, exactly, if a war would make Alexander less hungry. But then again, he thought, if Alexander was having great fun in the middle of a war, how could he possibly be thinking of food? “You won’t be hungry at all,” Max said confidently.

“And the void?” Ira asked.

“This is the opposite of a void,” Max said, though he still didn’t know what Ira meant by void. But if a void was an absence of something — or everything — then Max could assure him that the battle was anything but that. A void was small, and a war was big. A void was silence, and a war was loud, all-encompassing, full of astounding things to see and think about. If they were at war, how could they think about the void? Impossible.

Now Judith and Ira and Douglas and Alexander were all very interested. They thought a war sounded like a very good idea. Behind them, the Bull was glaring at Max in the most intense way. If Max could read his expression, he would have to think that of all the beasts, the Bull was least in favor of the plan. But because he didn’t talk — he hadn’t said anything since Max had gotten to the island — the Bull didn’t really have a vote in the matter.

“Okay,” Max said. “Who wants to be the Bad Guys?”

No one raised their hand.

Max pointed to Judith. “You can be a Bad Guy.” Now he pointed to Alexander. “And you. You’re a Bad Guy.” Alexander’s shoulders slumped. Max almost laughed. How could Alexander have expected to be a Good Guy? Ridiculous. “And now …” Max said, thinking he was being very gracious, “you guys can pick another.”

“Okay,” Judith said. “We pick you.”

Max was taken aback, but only momentarily. It was so loony that he laughed.

“No, I’m a Good Guy. I’m the king. I can’t be a Bad Guy. I’ll pick.” He pointed to Ira. “You’re a Bad Guy too. And you … um … And you should have one more …”

Max looked up at the Bull, who looked down menacingly at Max. Max looked to the Bad Guys and indicated the Bull with his thumb. “And he’s on … he’s with you.”

Just then, Katherine emerged from the forest.

Judith scoffed. “Look who’s arrived with her aura of mystery and aloofity! She’s come to honor us with her presence.”

“Don’t worry, Judith,” Katherine said, not breaking stride. “No one’s honoring you.”

“Katherine, you’re on our team,” Max said.

Katherine smiled. She walked over to Max as if she would never have guessed at any other arrangement.

“I got you this,” Katherine said, presenting Max with a tangled mess of seaweed. “A gift from me and the sea.”

“Uh, okay, thanks …” he said.

“What are we having teams for?” she asked.

“A war,” Max said, grinning. “It’s gonna be amazing. We’re the Good Guys.”

“Who else is on our team?” she asked.

Max explained that it was the two of them, and Carol and Douglas. With this, Katherine’s smile evaporated.

“Oh,” she mumbled.

By now, Carol, Katherine, Douglas, and Max were standing on one side, Judith, Alexander, Ira, and the Bull on the other. Max got ready to explain the rules. He was in his element, inspired by the upcoming battle. “Okay. Now here’s the ammunition,” he said, picking up a dirt clod. “We’re trying to kill the Bad Guys, and what you have to do is find the biggest pieces, the ones that’ll stay toge—”

And with a loud thwack, his vision went grey. He’d been hit in the head with a dirt clod as big as a pumpkin. He turned to see that Alexander — he who threw it — was getting another clod ready.

“Was that too soon?” Alexander asked. “Not the kind of war you had in mind?”