—Maniac Magee—
by Jerry Spinelli

Chapter 45

 

"Magee!... Magee!...."

Maniac's first groggled thought was that it was the buffalo calling to him. Then he thought, It's the Superintendent. He's discovered me, and he's come to kick me out.

He propped himself on his elbow, swatted a straw from his ear, and gave a better listen.

"Magee! . . . Magee!"

Mars Bar.

It was the second night following the morning at the trestle. Maniac had been asleep in the buffalo lean-to.

He stood.

"Magee!"

"Where are you?"

"Here. Over here."

He headed toward the voice over the hoof-chopped earth. The moon was full. He could see Mars Bar's dark form against the fence. Then he could see his eyes.

"What're you doing here?"

"I been lookin' for ya. I heard you hung out here."

"Where did you hear that?"

"Amanda Beale. You really sleep here, man?"

"What do you want?"

"Where's the buffaloes? I can't see 'em."

"They're sleeping. Like every other person that's got sense. What're you doing out here at this time of night?"

"I snuck out. I'm not there when they wake up, they'll figure I'm out running, like usual. Ain't you afraid in there?"

"No."

Both fell silent. Crickettalk and fireflies held the night.

"Magee ?"

"Yeah?"

"I got to ask you something."

"Go ahead."

"Why'd you... why didn't you go after the kid? Why'd you go away?"

Maniac didn't answer.

"Listen, man, I know you wasn't scared. I know it. So I had to come ask ya."

Maniac's voice came faintly, "Is he okay?"

"I asked you first."

Maniac drew a long breath. "You want to come in?"

Mars Bar laughed. "You kidding? Ain't no buffalo gonna eat this dude."

"They don't eat people."

"You come out here, man."

Maniac climbed the fence. He started to walk. Mars Bar walked with him. Maniac told him the story of his parents' death. He told about his problem with the trestle, how he had learned to avoid it. "And then, all of a sudden, there I was, on the platform, looking out at it, closer to it than I ever was before, up on the same level. I always saw it from below before. Now I was up there, too, where they were, looking down, and it was more real than ever. The nightmare was worse than ever. I saw the trolley coming... I saw it... f-falling... them... them..."

They walked in silence past the silo-shaped cage of the broken-winged golden eagle.

Mars Bar swallowed hard. His voice was hoarse. "I knew you wasn't scared."

Maniac sniffed. "I don't remember much. Next thing I knew, I was somewhere on Swede Street."

"Somebody come down the East End like you did, all by hisself, a fishbelly, get all up in my face" --- he rippled a stick along the deer-pen fence --- "I knew scared wasn't it."

"So," said Maniac, "what happened?"

Mars Bar laughed, wagged his head. "Happened? Man, I still don't believe it." He rippled the fence. "That little honky, he looks at me all his crybaby face and says okay, can I go out and get his brother? I look 'around, like, is somebody else here? I says to him, `Who you talkin' to? Me?' I'm just pullin' his chain, only he don't know it. 'Cause I'm ticked a little, y'know, 'cause there he was hollerin' for you up the street, and there I am standing right alongside the damn stupid white potata, understand what I'm sayin'?"

Maniac nodded, and out of the darkness came the strangest sound --- a kind of amplified gulp.

Mars Bar jumped. "What's that?"

"Emu," said Maniac. "There."

Behind the nearest fence loomed a tall, thin neck topped by a small head. "E-what?"

"E-mu. Second-largest bird in the world, after the ostrich. They're from Australia."

"I don't remember studyin' about no emu. You buddies with all these dudes?"

"No, just the buffalo. So, go ahead, what happened?"

"What happened" --- Mars Bar snorted --- "what happened was, I went out and rescued the dumb fish. Like to get myself kilt."

Maniac touched Mars Bar's arm. "He's okay?"

Mars Bar snickered. "Yeah, he's okay, but that ain't the main part. The main part is, how he was all grabbin' on to me comin' off them tracks. Shakin'. Shiverin'. Huggin'. Like he wanted to climb inside me. I was afraid" --- he shook his head, giggled - "afraid the fishbelly was gonna kiss me."

They laughed. Maniac tried to picture it, the two of them, making their way across the trestle, tie by tie, arms wrapped around each other.

"And even that ain't the mainest part," said Mars Bat, his voice rising in wonder. "Even when we got off, the midget wouldn't let me go. 'We're off it,' I says to him. 'You're rescued.' But all he does is grab me harder, like he's a octopus or somethin'. Off the platform, down the steps, out to the street --- he's still doin' it. I couldn't pry him off nohow."

"So," said Maniac, "what did you do?"

"Wha'd I do? I took him home."

Maniac stopped dead. "What?"

Mars Bar shrugged. "I figured, let my mom pry him off me. 'Course, the other one had to come too. But I made him leave them muddy sneakers outside." He put his nose to a fence. "What's in there? I don't see nothin'."

"Prairie Dog Town. They're' underground. So, what then?"

"So, my mother took over. She pried the one off me, and soon's she does, he jumps right onto her, like a octopus. I go to pull him off and she gets all mad at me and says let him go, let him go. She gets the wet one dried off. Takes off his clothes and puts my old stuff on him. Stuff she been savin' case I get a little brother someday. But I won't, 'cause my mom can't have no babies no more. And I ain't even come to the craziest part yet."

"What's that?"

"They didn't wanna go home. They stayed all day. My mother babyin' 'em, feedin"em. I tell her not to, she swats me away. Sometimes my mom ain't got no sense. She makes me play games with them. Monopoly and stuff. Finally my father drives them home. It's after dark. They're getting out the car, and know what they say to me --- I'm in the car too --- " He wagged his head. "They ask me to come in and play that game-a theirs. Rebels. They, like, beg me. They say, 'Come on --- pleeeeese --- if you play with us, we'll let you be white.' You believe that?"

Maniac chuckled. "I believe it."

They walked on.

"Magee?"

"Yeah?"

"I had to ask you something. Now I gotta tell you, something."

"What's that?"

"You smell like a buffalo."

Ears of a hundred different shapes prickled at the long, loud laughter of the boys.

"Magee?" Mars Bar said, after a spell.

"Yeah?"

"My mother wants to ask you something, too."

"Your mother?"

"Yeah. Like I told her about you, y'know. Actually, she already heard about you."

"So?"

"She wants to know, like, uh, why don't you come to our house?"

Maniac turned, stared directly at Mars Bar. Mars Bar looked away. He said nothing more.

They walked on, silent among the crickets and fireflies.

 

Having made a full circle of the zoo, they were back at the pen of the American bison. Maniac said, "I can't."

"Why not?" said Mars Bar. "My house not good enough? My mother?"

Maniac struggled for words. "I didn't say I didn't want to. It's just... I don't know... things happen... I can't..."

"Look, man," Mars Bar snapped, "ain't nobody sayin' come live with us. All we sayin' --- all she sayin' --- is, you wanna come for a little, you know visit? You want to? Well, come on, you can. That's all. Don't go makin' no big thing, man. Ain't no big thing."

Maniac shuddered. He turned his eyes to the sky beyond the flickering fireflies to the stars. If there were answers, they were as far away as the constellations. "I gotta go," he said, and before Mars Bau could react, he was over the fence and hurrying foi the lean-to.