Dave Eggers - The Wild Things

“Yeah, it’s kind of twisted,” said the second.

The two gathered themselves up and ran off.

Max squatted down again, determined to watch a bit longer, to try and parse what was happening and why.

One creature seemed to be leading the melee. He had a big round face, sharp horns like a viking’s and dark bags under his eyes. He was getting ready to run toward one of the nests when the rooster-looking creature approached him and put his hand — it wasn’t a wing; he seemed to have hands and claws — on his shoulder.

“Carol, can I speak to you for a second?”

Max was astounded. Had that sentence just been uttered? It was said with such casual sophistication that his conception of the creatures was exploded. They weren’t just grunting monsters: they spoke like people.

“Not now, Douglas,” the big one, Carol, said, and moved the rooster to one side. Then Carol got a running start and barreled into the side of one of the nests, knocking it to splinters.

Meanwhile, a giant bull-like creature was running into various walls at even greater speed. He seemed disconnected, though, not seeking out anyone’s approval or interacting in any meaningful way.

“Good job,” Max said to him.

The bull stared at Max, but said nothing. Then he turned away, moving like a ship, and lumbered off.

Max could now see that a smaller creature was upset about all the activity. This one resembled a goat, standing upright and with white-grey fur. He was the shortest and thinnest of the creatures by far, closer to Max’s size than the others. He was yelling “Stop!” and “Why are you doing this?” and in between whimpering in a way Max thought kind of unappealing. He was pointedly ignored by the rest of the beasts.

Max watched and listened until he had a sense of all of their names and how they fit into what he had begun to understand was some kind of family.

There was the rooster. His name was Douglas. He seemed logical and even-tempered, and didn’t appreciate the way that Carol was trying to amuse himself and the others.

Carol, the main instigator and heartiest of the destroyers, was the biggest, the strongest, the loudest. His fur bore horizontal stripes on his torso like some kind of sweater, and his claws were huge and cleaver-sharp.

There was the female one with the horn and the red mop of hair. Her name was Judith, and she had a sharp, pokey voice and a harsh cackle for a laugh.

Max was having trouble keeping them straight, so using his Kodiak-drawing skills, he started sketching in the dirt under him, attaching names to his crude renderings.

Ira was the bulb-nosed one, and he seemed to be always close to Judith. Max guessed they might even be a couple, though a strange one. He had a sad sort of aura and poor posture.

There was the goat-shaped one, Alexander, with a snarl for a face and pin-thin legs. He was just a little bigger than Max.

And then there was the bull. He was gigantic, maybe thirteen feet high, and seemed built entirely of muscle and stone. He hadn’t said a word yet.

That made six. Six of the beasts overall. Wait. No, seven. There was one who didn’t seem to be participating in the destruction. She had a melancholy face and was sitting off by herself, on a boulder overlooking the chaos. With long straw-brown hair and little ears poking through, she had sweet, gentle eyes and fangs that despite their size (about as big as Max’s hands) seemed kind of cute.

Now Carol, the biggest one, was tossing Alexander, the goat, high into the air. He would toss him twenty or thirty feet, then catch him and toss him higher. It looked dangerous and crazy and Max very much wanted to be the goat. He wanted to be thrown, he wanted to fly, he wanted to knock things down.

After the fourth toss, Carol threw Alexander straight into one of the nests. Alexander emerged from the wreckage laughing what seemed to be a fake laugh, as if he hadn’t enjoyed it at all but wanted to seem up for anything.

Max was more intrigued every moment. The beasts jumped from trees into the nests, they tossed each other into piles, they rolled boulders into the remains of the structures. It was just about the best mayhem Max had ever seen.

But soon there was a lull in the action. One by one the beasts seemed to have quit their destruction. They sat down, scratching themselves and nursing small wounds.

“I’m bored,” one of them said.

“Me too,” said another.

The leader, the one named Carol, wasn’t happy to let it die. “C’mon!” he roared. “Let’s finish this!”

There was no answer from the rest of them. The bulb-nosed one sat down. Carol jogged over to him — they really were agile things, these creatures.

“Ira,” he said to the bulb-nosed one, “we’re not done yet. The job isn’t complete.”

“But I’m so tired!” Ira said. “And uninspired.”

“Hey, don’t think you can rhyme your way out of this. Uninspired? How’s that possible?” Carol turned to address the rest of the creatures. “C’mon, isn’t this fun? Who’s gonna really go crazy with me?”

No one responded. Carol jumped from beast to beast, trying to create some excitement. When he approached Douglas, Douglas questioned the entire endeavor. “Carol, why are we doing this in the first place?” he asked.

A quick cloud came over Carol’s face. His teeth — a hundred of them, each as big as Max’s hand — were bared in something between a smile and a show of force.

“Douglas, I don’t have to tell you, do I? We all know why they need to go. They weren’t good enough. You heard Katherine. She said it was time—”

“That’s not what I meant,” someone said. It was the almost-cute beast on the rock. This must be Katherine, Max thought.

“We all heard what you said,” Carol growled. “You said it was all wrong, that everything we’d made was cruddy and needed to be torn down.”

Katherine sighed, exasperated. “I said nothing of the sort. You mangle everything I say.”

Carol decided to ignore her. “All I need to know now is if there’s anyone on this island who’s brave and creative and wild enough to help finish this job. Is there anyone up to it?”

No one responded.

“Anyone?”

Something clicked in Max. His thoughts lined up, his plan was orderly and clear. He needed to be that someone.

Max dashed down the hill and through the legs of Douglas and Ira, his face a knot of determination. The creatures towered over him, and outweighed him by thousands of pounds.

“Whoa, what’s that?” Ira said, alarmed.

“Look at his little legs!” Judith squealed.

“What’s he doing?” Douglas asked.

Max intended to show them. He took a torch from the fire and threw it onto one of the remaining roofs in the settlement. With a roar and a whoosh, the roof went up in flames.