Free Monkey Island by Paula Fox Page A

chest. His nostrils felt as if they were stuffed with cotton balls, the kind his mother had kept in a glass jar in the bathroom. He could see that jar with a daisy painted on it. He coughed. He sounded like a dog barking.
    â€œWe’ve got to get out of here before the painters come,” Buddy told him.
    It was hard to get up. Why not stay where he was? Let the workmen find him. They’d have to take him someplace where he wouldn’t need to walk all day long and climb into some hole at night and wake up and be hungry most of the day.
    The light was gray and streaky like ink-stained water. He saw now how vast the room was in which they’d spent the night. It came to him suddenly that it was here he had eaten Thanksgiving dinner, probably at that same long table. There were piles of drop cloths everywhere, and mixed in with the smell of paint was the dry powdery smell of plaster. A stepladder stood in a corner. The table he’d wanted to sleep on was the only furniture in the room except for a few folding chairs. The one he’d knocked down last night looked as if it was yawning.
    He got shakily to his feet.
    â€œThere’s a toilet over there behind that door,” Buddy said, staring at him. “You okay? Your face is red.”
    â€œI feel kind of hot,” Clay replied. He went off to the toilet. There was a little mirror on the wall. His face was red. He washed it with cold water. Wet strands of his hair covered his ears. He hardly knew himself. In the mirror he saw, reflected, the toilet cubicles. He thought of the alleys he’d mostly had to use for bathrooms, anxious and ashamed lest someone see him, and he felt a flash of rage and shame as if some stranger had called him an ugly name.
    When he came out, he wandered over to the board he’d touched last night. On one piece of paper was a notice that the parish council would meet Tuesday at 8:00 P.M. to discuss plans for the Christmas program and a dinner for the homeless.
    Clay was faintly surprised. I can read, he thought.
    â€œLet’s go,” Buddy said. “Come on. I’ll boost you up through the window. We’ll go back to the park and see if Calvin turned up.”
    As they walked back, Clay said, “Gerald might come with breakfast.”
    Buddy looked down at him distractedly. “I don’t know,” he murmured. Clay had never heard him sound so sad. Buddy had always set off each morning as though it might be a day of change, a day when his luck would turn.
    Under his breath, Clay heard him say, “Monkey Island …”
    â€œWhy did they come? Why did they howl at us and then break everything up?” Clay asked.
    â€œNothing inside their heads,” Buddy answered. “They got to do something to make sure they’re alive. Can you walk faster? We’ll have to look for Calvin. He can’t take care of himself too well.”
    Had Buddy been taking care of the three of them? Calvin had once said Buddy was ingenious, and had told Clay to look up the word if he ever got next to a dictionary. Clay thought he knew what it meant.
    â€œHere. I got an apple saved,” Buddy said, taking it out of his jacket pocket. “You eat it.”
    â€œI’m not hungry,” Clay said. He sneezed.
    â€œYou’re not hungry?” Buddy said. He smiled. “That’s a first!”
    As dizzy and hot as he was, Clay was relieved that Buddy was friendly again, not the way he’d been last night, so distant and almost cold.
    â€œMaybe there’s more left in the park than we saw last night,” Buddy said. “We’ll go and check it out, and then I’ll look in the alleys around, see if Calvin’s somewhere, and get back in time in case Gerald comes.”
    As they passed the drinking fountain, Clay saw Mrs. Crary’s paperback books lying among their own scattered pages. Under a bench nearby lay a small pillow with torn lace edges.
    â€œI didn’t