Ken Douglas - Nightwitch

“ It’s only a little cut, right by your back bone, not even an inch. Don’t move again.” She slid off the bed. “Be right back.”

“ Where are you going?”

“ To get some bandages.”

He took a look around her room while she was gone and was surprised to find that it didn’t look like what he thought a girl’s room should look like at all.

On her bed was a plain, baby blue, chenille bedspread, worn and years old. She had a large, long haired Teddy bear sitting between her two pillows. The ferret was curled up in its lap, watching him. It seemed alert, aware and afraid.

He reached out a hand to her and Sheila scurried into his lap, eager for a calm reassuring petting. He complied and stroked her fur. She wasn’t afraid of him, so he reasoned it must be the red eyes he’d seen looking in the window that had the ferret on edge.

“ How you doing?” Carolina asked, coming back into the room for the second time. Her eyebrows were knitted close together and she was wearing a frown. “Even though it seems like only a scratch, maybe you should go to the doctor. I cut myself on a broken milk bottle once and my mom didn’t take me to the doctor, because she thought it was no big deal and now I have this big scar.”

“ Where?” he asked, wide eyed and interested.

“ On my right arm.” She showed him a two inch scar that started at her elbow and inched down toward the back of her hand. Her frown changed into a smile as she saw him looking at it.

He winced as she applied the peroxide and winced again as she applied three bandages, cross wise because he wouldn’t go to the doctor and get stitches. There was no way he wanted his dad to find out.

“ What am I gonna put on?” he said, again conscious that he was naked from the waist up, that he was roly poly fat, that he was China bone white, and that sweat was pouring like rain from under his arms.

“ I have one of my dad’s old Army shirts.” She went to her bottom dresser drawer and opened it. “Sheila sleeps on it.” She pulled out a faded military green fatigue shirt, shook it, and brought it over to him. “Here.”

He took the offered shirt, pulling an arm behind himself to put it on. Sliding in the other arm, he smiled-he liked the way the old cotton felt next to his skin, and he smiled even broader when he was surprised to see that it fit. It was a man’s shirt. For a second he felt a tinge of pride, then he remembered that the only reason it fit was because he was fat.

“ I was sure lucky you came over tonight,” she said. “You saved my life.” The gratitude in her perfect mint green eyes was real.

He was embarrassed and turned away.

“ No, really,” she said. “If you wouldn’t have come over, one of those bullets would have killed me, because I’d probably have been sitting right there playing with Sheila. And if you wouldn’t have jumped on me, the bullet that sliced your back would have gone right through me. So, no matter if you like it or not, you saved my life. I’m going to have to follow you around forever, until I can save yours. Then we’ll be even.” She smiled.

He looked over at the remains of the smashed Tiffany lamp and noticed a hole in the wall, by her dresser. That bullet would have smashed into her small body and tore up her insides, pulling out blood, guts and gore.

“ We should clean up that mess,” he said, nodding toward the broken glass on the floor.

“ Let’s look outside first.” She picked up her backpack and held it open. The ferret scurried in and she closed it up and slung it over her left shoulder.

He was impressed. She should be scared stiff as a petrified log. Most kids would be crying and shaking, but here she was, wanting to go outside and maybe see who fired the gun into her bedroom.

“ You think that’s smart?” he said. He wasn’t sure he wanted to go out right now.

“ It’ll be okay. There isn’t going to be anybody there. We heard the car peel away.”

“ I was more worried about the police. If they come and find out someone shot into your house, they’re gonna stay till your mom gets home and they’re not gonna let me leave without calling my parents.”

“ The bullets would have to go through the tree first, silly. You won’t be able to see from outside.”

“ What about in here? What about when your mother comes home?”

“ She never comes in here, but I’ll clean up the mess and move my dresser in front of the holes in the wall.”

“ What if the bullets went out the other side?”

Carolina poked her head out the door. “Didn’t go through. My mom will never know.”

“ Maybe you should tell her. And maybe you should call the police. I could go home and you could say that someone drove by and shot off a gun.”

“ No way. I don’t want you to leave. We’ll keep it secret. It was probably some old cat burglar that thought nobody was home and when we turned on the lights, he just shot off his gun because he was pissed.”

“ I could stay. I’ve been in trouble with my dad before and I’ll be in trouble again. How bad could it be?”

“ No way, Arty, we’ll keep it secret.”

“ Okay.” He pushed off the bed. Then he walked to the curtains, pulled them up and put his fingers through the two holes. “We heard three shots,” he said.

“ Who knows where the other one went.”

“ What about the lamp?” he said, looking at the glass on the floor.

“ My mom never notices anything I have. She won’t even know it’s gone,” she said as she was walking out her bedroom door. He followed, unable to think of anymore arguments or any other reason to keep her inside.

She hesitated for a second at the front door, turned to Arty, stuck out her lower lip, blew the hair out of her eyes, and said, “Well, here goes.” She opened the door just in time to see the neighbors from across the street close theirs.

“ I betcha everybody in the neighborhood opened their doors for just a second, then closed ’em right back up again,” Arty said.

“ Bet you’re right, but we’re not chickens like them. Are we?” She had that crooked smile and that twinkle in her eyes that Arty would follow anywhere.

“ No,” he said, puffing up his chest, “we’re not.” He moved past her, walking tall as an eleven-year-old boy can, across the front porch, down the steps and onto the front lawn.

“ Hey, wait for me.” She laughed and charged after him. “Only a few minutes ago I was scared shitless, and now it all feels like a game.”

“ Not to me,” he said, again remarking to himself how it was neat that she could swear without even thinking about it. To her, swear words were just words. And there wasn’t anything dirty about words. At least not to her.

Then he said, “Do you hear anything?” The hair on the back of his neck tingled and cooled, as a northern breeze moved down the block, blowing cold in from the sea not so far away.

“ No,” she said, but she was standing as still as he was. They stayed quiet for a few seconds, trying to hear through the fog that came in with the breeze. Then the fog was around them and it was dark.

“ Still think it’s a game?” he whispered.

“ No, let’s go back inside,” she said, but the fog came in strong, and it came in heavy. They couldn’t see the streetlights at the end of the street. Then they couldn’t see across the street. Then they couldn’t see across the lawn and before they realized it, they couldn’t see the front of the house and then it was hard to see each other.

“ Come over here and take my hand,” he said. She moved close to him without picking her feet up off the wet grass.

“ I’m starting to get scared,” she whispered, taking his hand.

“ Of what? It’s only a little fog. Happens all the time,” he said. This was something he was used to. He’d lived in Palma all his life and to him fog was an old friend, hiding everything it consumed, including him and his overweight, fat, roly poly, porky body.