The Wild Things

CHAPTER XXXVIII

Construction began immediately and proceeded with remarkable speed. Carol measured the perimeter of the fort using Ira as the primary unit of measurement — he and Douglas carried him like a giant ruler — and soon the entire foundation had been built of rocks and mud.

The Bull was collecting boulders and trees, throwing them hundreds of yards from wherever he was to the fort site. Building materials were piling up.

By midday the first wall went up, straight and tall, easily thirty feet.

“Wow, this is almost fun, King,” Judith said, and then seemed confused about her own positive attitude. She went away muttering and counting on her fingers.

Douglas strutted by, alive with purpose. “Not bad, King,” he said to Max. “You and Carol together — you plan a smart fort.”

Even Alexander seemed to be enjoying himself. He was finding and packing the mud that held the walls together, and he took great pride in the messy work.

Max found Ira below. “Nice digging!” Max said, genuinely impressed. In just a few hours Ira had already dug a basement bigger than Max’s one at home, and the beginnings of the secret exit tunnels.

“Thanks, King. You know, I’ve never really thought about it, but basements are kind of like holes, except they’re covered. You really like it so far?”

“Yeah, it’s good,” Max said.

“It’s not too crumbly on the side or curvy, uh, on the bottom?”

“No, no. It’s just right.”

“Oh good. Good. I’m really glad,” Ira said, beginning to dig again. “I’m glad I’m digging for you, Max.”

The activity continued throughout the afternoon. Rocks were stacked, vines were woven, Douglas and Judith sank posts into the earth and stomped on them, pogo-style, to drive them deeper.

As the sun headed downward, the structure, though still skeletal, really was starting to look like Max’s drawing, for better and worse. It was a bit crooked here and there — and Carol had been strangely faithful to the half-moon entrance Max had made when drawing around the Bull’s foot — but in all it was an astonishing sight.

Max climbed a nearby ridge to get a better look at the construction. The fort was about eighty feet high already, and was climbing rapidly.

“What do you think, King?” It was Carol, who had come up from behind Max. He, too, was surveying the progress from afar.

“It’s amazing,” Max said. “I just can’t believe how big it is.”

“Is it too big?” Carol asked, suddenly concerned.

“No, no,” Max said, “it’s perfect. I was just surprised now that it’s real and everything. It’s exactly right. You’re doing a great job. The best.”

Carol beamed.

When night came the beasts were exhausted, happily so. They gathered in the main room of the fort-to-be, for a celebratory feast. Again they chose to eat something inedible to Max — it looked suspiciously like seal — and again he sat and watched them eat, his own stomach roaring with hunger.

“You know, I really think we’re onto something here,” Douglas said, sitting back after gorging himself. “I think this is the one that really might work.”

There was general agreement that Douglas had spoken the truth. And Max, hungry as he was, was very happy. His plan had worked, everyone was content, and they were sitting in a real circle, before a warm fire, in the fort he had designed himself, with a stick in the sand.

As he was recounting the day to himself, its many highlights, a sound began to weave itself into the night air. It sounded like a stringed instrument, a cello maybe, round and resonant and full. Max looked up, but no one was surprised or curious. No one else found it unusual.

Then he found Katherine, lying with her head on Judith’s thigh, her mouth open to the sky. The sound, some kind of singing, was coming from her. And soon others joined in. Judith was first, her sound sharper, coarser, but beautiful nonetheless — it seemed to circle and intersect with Katherine’s voice in perfect harmony. One by one the others sent their voices up to weave with the rest, each sound complementing and deepening the whole. It was the prettiest music Max had ever heard, and the fact that it could exist, that it could be made by these lumbering animals, seemed to render small and forgettable any problems that had ever existed among them.