The Wild Things

CHAPTER XLIV

Max entered the remains of the fort, with Judith, Ira, the Bull, and Alexander close behind.

“So wait,” Alexander said, “The sun’s not dead? That’s the same one?”

“Yes it’s the same sun,” Judith snapped, looking intensely at Max. “It was just nighttime!” She stormed up to Max. “Things sure have gotten messed up since you got here. We just got scared out of our minds because you made Carol think the sun was going to die!”

Alexander, hiding behind Judith, added his own invective: “Douglas lost his arm because you needed a fort,” he said. “It was a bad idea.”

“I know that!” Max said.

“Well, you have a lot of bad ideas!” Judith said.

“I KNOW!” he said.

Judith loomed over him. “I’m hungry. Aren’t you, Ira?”

Ira, even Ira, had narrow eyes for Max. “Kind of. Yeah.”

“No you’re not,” Max said, standing his ground. “No one’s hungry.”

Judith looked at him as if he were a grape who had learned to speak. “Who says?”

“I do. I’m the king.”

Alexander scoffed. “King? You’re just a boy pretending to be a wolf pretending to be a king.”

Max glared at Alexander. He’d never hated a face more than he hated Alexander’s. “I’m not pretending to be the king!”

Alexander rolled his eyes. “Then you’re just not a very good one.”

“Yes I am!” Max yelled.

“You don’t even know who you are!”

Max lunged. He tackled Alexander against the fort wall. Alexander hit his head hard and fell to the floor. Max leaped on top of him and began beating him with his fists. He’d never hit anyone so hard and so many times. It felt so good, his knuckles against Alexander’s scratchy face, Alexander’s arms flailing to block the blows. Max punched and punched until his arms were tired and his knuckles were sore. He punched until Alexander had stopped shrieking and crying and was curled tight, waiting for it to end.

When Max finished and rose to his feet, the beasts were staring at him with what seemed to be a new respect.

“I kinda liked that,” Judith said, then burst into a quick trill of a laugh.

“Me too,” Ira said.

Max was dazed. He couldn’t look at the beasts. He didn’t want to be near them or anyone. He needed to be away from them and everyone for a while. If he could leave his own skin, he would have.

He left the fort and wandered toward the sun, which was hovering low over the water like a mother over her children.