Харлан Кобен: The Boy from the Woods

From the North Jersey Gazette

April 18, 1986

WESTVILLE, N.J. — In one of the most bizarre cases in recent history, a wild-haired young boy, estimated to be between six and eight years old, was discovered living on his own in the Ramapo Mountain State Forest near the suburb of Westville. Even more bizarre, authorities have no idea who the boy is or how long he had been there.

“It’s like Mowgli in the ‘Jungle Book’ movie,” Westville Police Deputy Oren Carmichael said.

The boy — who speaks and understands English but has no knowledge of his name — was first spotted by Don and Leslie Katz, hikers from Clifton, N.J. “We were cleaning up from our picnic when we heard a rustling in the woods,” Mr. Katz said. “At first I worried it was a bear, but then we caught sight of him running, clear as day.”

Park rangers, along with local police, found the boy, thin and clad in tattered clothes, in a makeshift campsite three hours later. “At this time, we don’t know how long he’s been in the state forest or how he got here,” said New Jersey State Park Police Chief Tony Aurigemma. “He doesn’t recall any parents or adult figures. We’re currently checking with other law enforcement authorities, but so far, there are no missing children who match his age and description.”

For the past year, hikers in the Ramapo Mountain area have reported seeing a “feral boy” or “Little Tarzan” matching the boy’s description, but most people chalked up the sightings to urban legend.

Said James Mignone, a hiker from Morristown, N.J., “It’s like someone just birthed him and left him in the wild.”

“It’s the strangest survival case any of us have ever seen,” Chief Aurigemma said. “We don’t know if the boy has been out here days, weeks, months or heck, even years.”

If anyone has any information on the young boy, they are asked to contact the Westville Police Department.

“Someone out there has to know something,” Deputy Carmichael said. “The boy didn’t just appear in the forest by magic.”

How does she survive?

How does she manage to get through this torment every single day?

Day after day. Week after week. Year after year.

She sits in the school assembly hall, her eyes fixed, unseeing, unblinking. Her face is stone, a mask. She doesn’t look left or right. She doesn’t move at all.

She just stares straight ahead.

She is surrounded by classmates, including Matthew, but she doesn’t look at any of them. She doesn’t talk to any of them either, though that doesn’t stop them from talking to her. The boys — Ryan, Crash (yes, that’s his real name), Trevor, Carter — keep calling her names, harshly whispering awful things, jeering at her, laughing with scorn. They throw things at her. Paper clips. Rubber bands. Flick snot from their noses. They put small pieces of paper in their mouths, wad the paper into wet balls, propel them in various ways at her.

When the paper sticks to her hair, they laugh some more.

The girl — her name is Naomi — doesn’t move. She doesn’t try to pull the wads of paper out of her hair. She just stares straight ahead. Her eyes are dry. Matthew could remember a time, two or three years ago, when her eyes would moisten during these ceaseless, unrelenting, daily taunts.

But not anymore.

Matthew watches. He does nothing.

The teachers, numb to this by now, barely notice. One wearily calls out, “Okay, Crash, that’s enough,” but neither Crash nor any of the others give the warning the slightest heed.

Meanwhile Naomi just takes it.

Matthew should do something to stop the bullying. But he doesn’t. Not anymore. He tried once.

It did not end well.

Matthew tries to remember when it all started to go wrong for Naomi. She had been a happy kid in elementary school. Always smiling, that’s what he remembered. Yeah, her clothes were hand-me-downs and she didn’t wash her hair enough. Some of the girls made mild fun of her for that. But it had been okay until that day she got violently ill and threw up in Mrs. Walsh’s class, fourth grade, just projectile vomit ricocheting off the classroom linoleum, the wet brown chips splashing on Kim Rogers and Taylor Russell, the smell so bad, so rancid, that Mrs. Walsh had to clear the classroom, all the kids, Matthew one of them, and send them all out to the kickball field holding their noses and making pee-uw sounds.

And after that, nothing had been the same for Naomi.

Matthew always wondered about that. Had she not felt well that morning? Did her father — her mom was already out of the picture by then — make her go to school? If Naomi had just stayed home that day, would it all have gone differently for her? Was her throwing-up her sliding door moment, or was it inevitable that she would end up traveling down this rough, dark, torturous path?

Another spitball sticks in her hair. More name-calling. More cruel jeers.

Naomi sits there and waits for it to end.

End for now, at least. For today maybe. She has to know that it won’t end for good. Not today. Not tomorrow. The torment never stops for very long. It is her constant companion.

How does she survive?

Some days, like today, Matthew really pays attention and wants to do something.

Most days, he doesn’t. The bullying still happens on those days, of course, but it is so frequent, so customary, it becomes background noise. Matthew had learned an awful truth: You grow immune to cruelty. It becomes the norm. You accept it. You move on.

Has Naomi just accepted it too? Has she grown immune to it?

Matthew doesn’t know. But she’s there, every day, sitting in the last row in class, the first row at assembly, at a corner table all alone in the cafeteria.

Until one day — a week after this assembly — she’s not there.

One day, Naomi vanishes.

And Matthew needs to know why.

The hipster pundit said, “This guy should be in prison, no questions asked.”

On live television, Hester Crimstein was about to counterpunch when she spotted what looked like her grandson in her peripheral vision. It was hard to see through the studio lights, but it sure as hell looked like Matthew.

“Whoa, strong words,” said the show’s host, a once-cute prepster whose main debate technique was to freeze a baffled expression on his face, as though his guests were idiots no matter how much sense they made. “Any response, Hester?”

Matthew’s appearance — it had to be him — had thrown her.

“Hester?”

Not a good time to let the mind wander, she reminded herself. Focus.

“You’re gross,” Hester said.

“Pardon?”

“You heard me.” She aimed her notorious withering gaze at Hipster Pundit. “Gross.”

Why is Matthew here?

Her grandson had never come to her work unannounced before — not to her office, not to a courtroom, and not to the studio.

“Care to elaborate?” Prepster Host asked.

“Sure,” Hester said. The fiery glare stayed on Hipster Pundit. “You hate America.”

“What?”

“Seriously,” Hester continued, throwing her hands up in the air, “why should we have a court system at all? Who needs it? We have public opinion, don’t we? No trial, no jury, no judge — let the Twitter mob decide.”