Dave Eggers - The Wild Things

“So you’re just not a good sailor?” she taunted.

“No, I’m a really good sailor. I mean, the boat didn’t have a motor on it. I was sailing as fast as that boat …”

“Oh, I’m just giving you a hard time,” Judith giggled, without any mirth at all. “Don’t be so sensitive! Really though, have we already experienced the full range of your plans for fixing everything on the island? A parade, a war, and then we all die from molten lava?”

Carol stared Judith down. Finally she looked away and continued eating.

“I’m feeling the void again,” Ira added.

“Don’t worry, Ira,” Douglas said. “Max’ll solve it. He always says the right things. Just wait. Right Max? Go ahead.”

Everyone stared at Max, and Max was surprised to see that their faces were genuinely hopeful, expectant. There was real hope that Max, their king, truly did have a notion.

“Well, I thought …” Max mumbled. He didn’t, actually, have another plan at all. The silence stretched out uncomfortably. Finally he arrived at an idea, though its quality was uncertain. “I thought … I thought I could give you all royal titles.”

Ira looked confused.

Judith cleared her throat.

Alexander snickered.

No one was impressed, not even Carol. The look on his face was more like shock. He couldn’t believe that was the best Max could do. Max tried to spruce up the plan:

“…and I could give you all special duties and, like, those things that go across your chest,” he said, while gesturing in a diagonal across his torso, trying to remember the word for sash .

“Snakes?” Judith guessed.

“No …” Max said.

“We already have snakes,” Judith said.

“No, no …” Max insisted.

“I don’t like wearing snakes there,” Ira said.

“It’s not a snake!” Max snapped. “It’s more royal than that. It’s—”

“A stick?” Douglas said, trying to help.

“No!” Max wailed.

“Sounds like like a snake to me,” Judith said. “And no one likes to wear snakes there—”

“Let me finish!” Max barked.

Max tried to think of the word. “It’s …” he meandered, gesturing across his chest again. “It’s …”

Finally he gave up, defeated. “You’ll have royal titles,” he mumbled.

The silence was profound. Max’s subjects were so under whelmed that they didn’t need to say anything. Max had to move onward and upward as soon as he could, so he stood, thinking he knew what to do. It had cheered his mom up, it had made his sister and her friends laugh hysterically — it would have to work here. He made his arms and legs stiff and began his incredible robot dance.

But as he did the dance — and he did it very well, as good as ever before — the beasts, far from being impressed, were alarmed.

“What’s he doing?” Judith asked. “What is that?”

“Uh oh, somebody broke the king,” Ira concluded.

“Is he sick?” Judith wondered aloud.

“I don’t know, but it’s making me sick,” Alexander grumbled. “What kind of king would do something like this?”

Max gave up. He stopped dancing. The beasts seemed greatly relieved to see him sit down again.

“I think he’s done now,” Ira noted.

“I hope so,” Alexander said.

“What just happened?” Judith asked.

“I was doing a robot,” Max explained. “You’re supposed to laugh.”

No one had laughed. No one was smiling now.

“What’s a robot?” Ira said. He sounded scared.

“A robot?” Max said. “A robot?”

No one knew what a robot was.

“C’mon, a robot ,” Max said. “Robots are the best.”

“What’s that?” Carol said sharply.

“Robots are the best,” Max repeated, less sure now.

Carol seemed genuinely taken aback.

“That’s what we waited for?” Alexander said. “Pathetic.”

“Did that kind of thing work the last place you were king?” Judith asked.

Douglas furrowed his brow. The Bull’s stare was oppressive. Even Carol looked disappointed in Max, profoundly so.

“I’m getting hungry,” Alexander said, staring intensely at Max.

Carol could see where this was headed.

“You just ate,” Carol growled. “No one’s hungry.”

Judith glared at Max and licked her lips. “Everyone’s hungry and you know it.”

Carol stood, imposing his figure over the group. “No. No one’s hungry. Now get up. Let’s go,” he said. The beasts stared at him, as if sizing him up anew — had he lost any strength? Was he vulnerable in any new way? After a moment, it seemed that no, no one could yet challenge his primacy. They all began to stand and prepared to go.

At that moment, a snowflake appeared. Then more — the snow fell in drunken spirals. Douglas’s admiration for Max had faded, and now he looked at Max in an ugly way. “Good thing you destroyed our homes, King.”

Alexander was happy to heap on the scorn. “Thanks, Your Heinous. I mean Your Highness.”

Judith, Alexander, and Ira walked off. Douglas soon followed, shaking his head. As he left the campground he paused, wanting to say something to Max, but unsure just what that something would be.

Carol waited for everyone to leave. He was on the other side of the fire, looking at his hands.

“Robots are the best, huh? I thought I—”

“That’s not what I meant,” Max said. “I didn’t mean they were better than you .”

“But you said they were the best . Who are they, anyway? Are they bigger than me? Stronger? I don’t know how that could be possible.”

“They’re not,” Max said. “You’re the biggest. By far.”

“Then why’d you say they were the best? That means you think they’re better. I mean, forget it. There’s no reason to talk about it. What’s said is said.”

Max was lost. He was so tired and confused he didn’t know what to say. He stared at the ground for a moment, and when he looked up, Carol was crouched down, his ear to the earth.

“I don’t like the sound of this,” he said. “It’s loud and it’s scrambled and it’s very angry.”

Carol turned to leave the campsite.

“Night, Max. I guess you have a lot to figure out tonight. Good luck.” With that, he disappeared into the woods.

Max heard a crackle of twigs breaking. He turned to see the Bull, gigantic and menacing, standing behind him. They stared at each other. Neither blinked. Then, without a sound, the Bull turned and walked away into the night.

Max was alone. The fire was dwindling, it was snowing lightly, he was on an island in the middle of the sea, and he was alone.

All night Max stared into the fire, cold and rattled as the snow continued to fall. He found logs and added them, scooting closer to the flames, trying to stay warm.

Max had to put order to his thoughts, had to straighten out his quail. He started with what he knew, cataloguing what he had learned so far. He knew that Douglas liked having his arm praised as being the best, but he knew that Carol didn’t like hearing that kind of praise directed at someone other than himself, and he certainly didn’t like being told that robots were the best, because presumably, he considered himself the best. He knew that Katherine preferred to be alone with Max. He knew that Judith and Alexander and Ira did not like getting run over by boulders covered in lava and that the possibility of grave injury likely reminded Ira of the void, even the thought of which was to be averted at all costs.

He knew he wanted food. He was nearly delirious with hunger. His head felt light, his stomach jagged. And what he wanted, more than any other food, was soup. Soup would go down easy, would warm and soften everything within him. Any kind of soup would do, but cream of mushroom soup, which his mother made for him when he was feeling sick, would be best.