D Gillespie - The Toy Thief

“So, I’m thinking we get started earlier tomorrow. If we get at it before lunch, we should have plenty of time to check everything out. I’m thinking we go around the back of the Trails. I’ve never actually been back that far, but I’m pretty sure there’s some—”

“Jack.”

Once we’d dried off and the sun was down, I had walked back into Andy’s room and just started prattling without taking a breath. He was sitting on the floor, staring at the TV, and in my excitement, I hadn’t even noticed it wasn’t on.

“Hold on a second. I was saying, there’re some houses over on one side… I think it might be the back side of Mayer Street, but over on the right, waaayyyy past that field is where the old quarry is. That’s what Robbie said, but of course, he never actually went back there himself. I’m not sure if I believe him about much of anything…”

“Jack,” he said, standing up.

“…but a flooded quarry, now that’s a good hiding spot. Nobody goes back there, and if I was a monster that steals toys, that’s probably where I’d—”

“Stop!” he screamed, staring me in the eyes.

“What?” I said, hand on my hip.

“It’s over.”

My brain didn’t quite process the words.

“What is?”

“This. All this. I mean, jeez, we almost got killed by Barnett today, and he’s just some dude. What’s next? What if we actually find the damn thing? Do you think it’ll just throw up its hands and give your bear back?”

His voice was getting louder, angrier, and he was scratching at his back vigorously, as if he had poison ivy.

“It’s not just about the bear,” I said.

“Of course it is!” he snapped back. “It’s about you. It’s always about you.”

“Andy, I—”

“What, did you think you were helping me?” he asked as he crossed the room toward me, crowding me back against the door. “You’ve never helped me. Never helped anyone. If I have a problem, I deal with it myself. You get someone else to do it for you.”

A look of pain was growing across his face, clouding his eyes as he dug away at the sore patch on his back.

“And another thing,” he said, pointing his finger in my face. We both gasped at the sight of it, the scabby, old blood that he had scratched free, as if he had just killed something with his bare hands.

“Just… just leave me alone,” he said as he pushed past me, throwing open the door and ducking into the bathroom.

I thought back to that afternoon, less than an hour ago, thought of the way he’d stepped in front a rampaging, desperate man to keep me safe. Why was he acting like this? He was always sullen, always just on the edge of some glib comment or outburst, but he loved me. I knew he did. And this thing between us, this secret that had sprung up from thin air, it was important. It meant more than just a teddy bear or a plastic superhero. The Toy Thief was threatening the last shreds we had left of our mom, and so it mattered.

I knew those things then as I do now, but I didn’t have any fight in me. I was drained, wrung out, and I couldn’t keep up this pace for much longer. So instead of waiting for him in his room, forcing him to see things my way, I dropped it. Tomorrow, the world might look different, as it often did after a night of sleep. I trudged to the kitchen and ate something, I couldn’t tell you what, and before the clock struck eight, I was asleep, curled up in my bed, the dull pocketknife clutched in my left hand.

“Jack.”

Confusion.

Dad shaking me awake.

“Wake up, Jack.”

Sun streaming in.

Couldn’t be. Just went to bed a few minutes ago.

“I said, wake up,” he said, his voice growing harder, less patient.

“What?” I said, bleary as I sat up in bed, my eyes still closed.

“Have you seen Andy?”

“In his bed,” I replied as I flopped back down onto the covers. Dad yanked them away, and when he spoke again, I heard an urgency in his tone that was so foreign it felt like a different language. He never sounded like that – so very afraid.

“I said… get… up.”

Again, I sat up, and when I found the will to open my eyes, they found his eyes inches away. His fingers, like bands of iron, locked onto my shoulders as he stared at me.

“Andy,” he said slowly. “Do you know where he is?”

“He was in his bedroom,” I replied. “Last night.”

“You haven’t seen him?” he asked.

“No. Why?”

He closed his eyes and let out a deep, slow breath before saying another word.

“Your brother’s gone.”

We used to play a game in the neighborhood called capture the flag. The rules were pretty simple. Two teams would divide a section of the neighborhood into two more-or-less equal parts. Each team had a flag, usually an old towel or a t-shirt. Didn’t really matter as long as it was white. Then the teams would split up and hide the flag somewhere on their half of the playing field, making sure that the entire flag was actually visible. No stuffing it in a trashcan or anything. After both sides were ready, the game began.

As soon as you set foot onto enemy territory, you were fair game. If they touched you, you were caught, and you had to freeze in place until someone from your side rescued you. That was one way to win the game: simply catch everyone else on the opposite team. But the real goal, the ultimate prize so to speak, was to sneak into enemy territory, find their flag, and get back to your side with it.

We always played at night, and most of us dressed the part, head to toe in all black. Some kids took it further than others, donning camouflage. This one kid, Donnie something, used to paint his face up with football eye grease, thinking it really gave him some kind of edge. It was, for a good portion of the guys in the neighborhood, a kind of fantasy, their opportunity to be soldiers sneaking behind enemy lines.

Those guys sucked at capture the flag.

I wasn’t the fastest, and I didn’t wear camo, but more often than not, I was the first picked when the teams were sorted out, because they all knew. They had seen it firsthand. You see, the game wasn’t just about getting the flag or capturing the other team. None of that really mattered if you couldn’t find the damn thing. We always stuck to the rules when we hid the flag, because there was no quicker way to get shunned from the neighborhood than to cheat. But part of the strategy was to hide it as well as you could without actually cheating. If there was a tree right next to a shed, you could hide it between the two, pinning it up on a low-hanging branch. It might be hard to find, but it was still legal.

It was a thrill once you made it onto the other side, with no one in sight, creeping forward in a crouch through creeks, ditches, patches of trees. But once you were over there, no matter how stealthy or fast you were, it didn’t matter if you couldn’t find the flag. That was where I came in.

I was smaller than everyone else, and I could move through the dead leaves with a lighter step than any of the hulking boys could ever dream of. But there was more to it than just my physical gifts. I knew to steer clear of the streetlamps, those little pools of light that would give you away in a second. I knew which houses had automatic lights that would flip on when you came into range, enough to paint a target on your back and bring the rest of the team running. I knew which of our neighbors raked their leaves in the fall, taking the crunch out of every step. But most importantly, I knew how the other teams thought, because I knew where I would have hidden something.

In short, I was a fucking bloodhound.