He stood for a moment on the soggy carpet, now dotted with small lakes. Calming down and surveying the damage, he began to have conflicting thoughts about what he had done.
CHAPTER IV
The coming night had colored his room an airless, cottony blue. From his lower bunk, he switched on both of his globes — antiques his father had bought him, from another time, each aglow from a light within. The bulbs resided deep inside, where the earth’s liquid core would be, and gave the globes’ oceans and continents a buttery tint.
Max lay in his bed and thought awhile.
His thoughts, he knew, sometimes behaved like the scattering birds of his neighborhood. Everywhere on Max’s block were quail — strange, flop-topped birds reluctant to fly. One moment the quail would be assembled, in a straight row, a family, eating the seed from the ground, with one standing guard atop a low fencepost, watching for intruders. Then, with the slightest sound, they all would scatter in a dozen directions, swerving and disappearing into the thicket.
Every so often Max felt his thoughts could be straightened out, that they could be put in a row and counted; they could be made to behave. There were days when he could read and write for hours on end, when he understood everything said to him in every class, when he could eat dinner calmly and help clean up, and then play quietly alone in the living room.
But there were other times, other days, most days really, when the thoughts did not line up. Days when he chased the various memories and impulses as they veered and scattered away from him, hiding in the thicket of his mind.
And it seemed that when this happened, when he couldn’t make sense of something, when the thoughts did not flow from one to the other, that on the heels of the scattering quail he did things and said things that he wished he had not said or done.
Max wondered why he was the way he was. He didn’t want to hate Claire and he didn’t want to have destroyed her room. He didn’t want to have broken the window over the kitchen sink when he thought he was locked out of the house — which he’d done a few months ago. He didn’t want to have screamed and pounded the walls of his room last year, when in the middle of the night he couldn’t find the door. There were so many things he’d done, so many things he’d broken or torn or said, and always he knew he’d done them, but could only half-understand why.
And it occurred to him that he might be in real trouble. Until then it had seemed simple enough. He had almost died in the fort, so he soaked his sister’s room and tore up any evidence of any affection he had ever had for her.
But now that simple plan, inevitable and logical, seemed less wise than it had only moments ago. His mom might not appreciate Max having thrown seven buckets of water into Claire’s room. It was so strange to think about: how was it that just minutes ago, doing all that had seemed like the only thing to do? He hadn’t even questioned it. It was the only idea in his head, and he carried it out with great speed and determination. Now he was listening to his mother’s footsteps on the stairs, coming up to see him, and he felt like erasing the past, everything he had ever done. He wanted to say, I know I’ve always been bad, and now I will be good. Just let me live.
“Anyone home?” Max’s mother asked. “Max?”
He could escape. He could slip downstairs and run out the front door. Could he? He could live in another town, he could hop trains, become a hobo. He could leave, try to explain himself in a note, wait it out while everyone calmed down. He was sure that there would be anger, and yelling and stomping, maybe that violent sort of silence his mother had perfected. He didn’t want to be around for all that.
So he got ready to leave home for good.
He retrieved his backpack, the one his father had bought him before they hiked through Maine. But just as he was getting up to put on dry clothes and pack the bag, his mom was there, door open, already in his room, standing over him.
“What’s happening in here? Anything good?” she asked.
She was wearing her work clothes, a wool skirt and white cotton blouse. She smelled of cold air and sweat and something else. God, he loved her so much. She sat down on his bed and kissed his head. He briefly fell apart, disintegrated by her gentle touch. But then he placed the smelclass="underline" it was Gary’s deodorant, which she had begun sharing. It was a wet, chemical smell.
He sat back in his bed and his eyes welled. How could so many tears come so quickly? Stupid crying. So stupid. He threw the covers over his face.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
Max didn’t answer. He couldn’t look at her.
“Are you mad at me?” she asked.
Max was surprised by this question, though it wasn’t a new one. For a second, it gave him strength. It reminded him there were other problems, other people to blame.
“No,” he said.
She pulled the covers down from his face.
“What is it then?” she asked. “Were you crying?”
“Claire’s stupid friends smashed my igloo,” he said. It came out far sooner than he’d planned.
“Oh,” his mom said, running her hand through his matted hair. She didn’t seem very impressed with the crime. He knew he had to make his mom furious at what Claire had done. If he made her angry enough, she might understand what Max had done in response. She might want to pour water on Claire’s room, too, or worse.
“I worked really hard on it,” Max added.
“I’m sure you did,” she said, bringing his head up and to her chest. He heard her heart, smelled her skin.
“I almost died. I was buried in the snow,” he said, his words muffled in her shirt.
She held Max tighter now, and for a moment Max felt hopeful. He was no longer cold, and his face no longer burned. For a moment Max again forgot that he might be in trouble, and that trouble would come as soon as his mom walked into his sister’s room.
“I’m sorry you had a bad day, Maxie,” she said.
It sounded like she was actually sorry, but was she sorry enough to understand what Max had done in return? He avoided her eyes, though he could feel the heavy weight of their compassion.
“Where’s Claire?” she asked.
“Who cares?” Max said.
“Who cares?” she laughed. “I do. And you should. She’s supposed to be here. You can’t be here alone after school. You both know that. Did she leave? I want to ask her about this igloo situation.”
This conversation was becoming very satisfying. It hadn’t occurred to Max until then that Claire was in trouble herself. She shouldn’t have left! She was supposed to watch him but she had gone off in the ugly station wagon to chew tobacco. If Max was careful with this situation, he could divert all the attention to Claire’s misdeeds.
But then came the sound of dripping.
“What’s that?” his mom asked.
Max put on an unknowing face and shrugged.
His mom stood quickly. “Sounds like something’s dripping. Did you take a bath?”
Max shook his head. He hadn’t bathed; that was true.
She left the room. He could hear her in the bathroom, tightening the knobs on the tub. The drip persisted. “Where is that coming from?” she asked aloud.
Then she was in Claire’s room.
She screamed.
Max never thought she would scream.
“What is this?” she shrieked.