John Saul: Creature

The alarm went off with a soft buzz, and Mark Tanner lazily reached over to turn it off. He wasn't asleep-hadn't been for at least ten minutes. Rather, he'd been lying awake in bed, gazing out his window at the gulls wheeling slowly over San Francisco Bay. Now, as the alarm fell silent but Mark still made no move to get up, the big golden retriever that lay next to the bed stretched, got to his feet, nuzzled gently at the boy's neck, lapped at his cheek. Finally, Mark threw the covers back and sat up.

"Okay,Chivas," he said softly, taking the dog's big head in his hands and scratching him roughly behind the ears. "I know what time it is, and I know I have to get up, and I know I have to go to school. But just because I know it doesn't mean I have to like it!"

Chivas'slips seemed to twist into an almost human grin and his tail thumped heavily on the floor. As Mark stood up, he heard his mother calling from the hall.

"Breakfast in ten minutes. And no bathrobes at the table!"

Mark rolled his eyes atChivas, who once more wagged his tail. Then the boy stripped off his pajamas, tossed them into the corner of his room, and pulled on a clean pair of underwear. He went to his closet and, ignoring the clothes his mother had purchased for him only two days earlier, fished a pair of worn jeans out of the pile of dirty clothes that covered the closet floor. He pulled them on, and as he did almost every morning, glumly surveyed his image in the mirror inside the closet door.

And, as always, he told himself that it wasn't his fault he was so much smaller than everyone else. The rheumatic fever that had kept him in bed for almost a year when he was seven seemed to have stopped his growth at the five-foot mark.

Sixteen years old, and barely over five feet tall.

And not only that, but with a narrow chest and thin arms.

Wiry.

That's what his mother always told him he was, but he knew it wasn't true-he wasn't wiry at all, he was just plain skinny.

Skinny, and short.

His mother always told him it didn't matter, but Mark knew it did-he could see it in his father's eyes every time Blake Tanner looked at him.

Or looked down on him, which was not only the way Mark always felt, but was the absolute physical truth as well, for his father was six-feet-four and had been that tall since he was Mark's age. In case his father forgot to mention it-and it seemed to Mark he never did-the proof was all over the house, especially in the den, where the walls were covered with pictures of Blake Tanner in his football uniforms-first in high school, then in college-and well-polished trophies gleamed in a glass display case.

Most Valuable Player three years in high school and two in college.

All-Conference Quarterback his senior year in high school, again repeated in college.

As Mark pulled on a long-sleeved denim shirt and shoved his feet into his sneakers, he could picture the trophies lined up in the case and see the empty shelf at the top, which his father always said was being saved for Mark's own trophies.

Except, as both he and his father very well knew, he wasn't going to win any silver cups.

The deep secret-the secret he'd never told his father but suspected his mother knew-was that he didn't care. Though he'd done his best to get interested in football, had even spent all the preceding summer dutifully practicing his kicking-a skill his father insisted didn't require size, but only coordination -he'd somehow never managed to figure out what the big deal was. So what if a bunch of oversize jerks went charging down a field at each other? What did it mean?

Nothing, as far as he could tell.

He glanced once more at himself in the mirror and swung the closet door shut. WithChivas trailing after him, he left his bedroom, went down the hall to the family room, then slid the glass door open and stepped out into the backyard. He paused for a moment, breathing in fresh morning air that wasn't yet made acrid by the smog that sometimes threatened completely to choke the area around San Jose. The wind was coming off the bay this morning, and there was a tang to the air that seemed to cut right through Mark's dark mood. Suddenly he grinned, andChivas, knowing the morning routine, trotted ahead and disappeared around the corner of the garage. When Mark caught up with him a moment later, the big dog was already sniffing at the cage full of Angora rabbits. Mark had been caring for them ever since he was twelve. It was another bone of contention between him and his father.

"If it wasn't for those damned rabbits," he'd heard his father telling his mother several months before, "maybe he'd start getting some exercise and build himself up a little."

"He gets plenty of exercise," Sharon Tanner had replied mildly. "And you know perfectly well his size doesn't have anything to do with how much exercise he gets. He's never going to be as big as you, and he's never going to be a jock. So stop worrying about it."

"Ohcom'on!" his father had groused. " Rabbits ?"

"Maybe he'll be a vet," his mother had suggested. "There's nothing wrong with that."

And maybe he would be a vet, Mark thought now as he opened the big plastic trash barrel that held the rabbit food and scooped out enough to fill the dish inside the hutch. He hadn't really thought much about it before, but since he'd overheard that conversation, he'd been thinking about it a lot. And the more he considered it, the more he liked the idea. It wasn't just the rabbits, andChivas. It was the birds out in the flats by the bay, too. As long as he could remember, he'd liked to go out there by himself, to wander around the marsh and watch the birds. Every year he'd waited patiently for the migrations, then watched as some of the flocks passed by while others came down to nest in the marshes and tidal flats, raising their young during the summer, then moving on again.

A couple of years ago his mother had given him a camera for Christmas, and soon he'd begun photographing the birds. Once, while he'd been stalking the birds, searching for a perfect shot, he'd come across one that was injured and rescued it, bringing it home to nurse it back to health before taking it back to the marshes and releasing it once more. To watch the small creature take flight had been one of the most satisfying moments of his life. The more he thought about it, the more his mother's suggestion to his father seemed to make sense to him.

He opened the rabbit hutch andChivas tensed, his eyes fixed on the little animals within. As Mark bent down and reached in to pour the food into the feeding dish, one of the rabbits saw its chance and slipped out of the hutch, hopping madly across the lawn toward the fence that separated the Tanners' house from the house next door.

"Bring him back,Chivas," Mark called out, though his words were unnecessary since the big dog was already bounding across the yard after the fleeing rabbit.

With the scoop of rabbit food still in his hand, Mark stood up to watch. The chase was over in less than a minute. As always, the rabbit reached the fence a few yards ahead of the dog, froze for a moment, then began frantically running along the fence, searching for a way to get through.Chivas caught up and, reaching out with one of his large forepaws, pinned the rabbit to the ground. The rabbit squealed in protest, but the retriever ignored the squeak, picked the wriggling creature up by the scruff of its neck, then proudly carried it back to the hutch. His tail wagging furiously,Chivas waited while Mark opened the cage door and dropped the rabbit inside. The white-furred animal, unharmed as always, scuttled away, then turned and stared dumbly at the dog, almost as if it couldn't understand why it was still alive.