Free The Zigzag Kid by David Grossman Page B

an indecent proposal, he beckoned again, this time with his long, slender forefinger, and the engineer stared as it drew him closer, till before he knew it, he was huddling with Felix, his bullneck, dirty undershirt, and fiery bald dome against the leonine head with the wavy white mane.
    They were whispering together. The engineer kept shaking his head. A muscle bulged out on his arm. Felix tapped the rebellious biceps, soothing it with a barely perceptible touch. The engineer was listening now, his bullneck calm, his shoulders drooping. I knew that something had been settled between them, though Felix continued to whisper sweetly into the big, hairy ear that was more accustomed to the din of screeching brakes.
    The engineer observed me sideways through his little left eye with its network of veins, looking so weary that he seemed to be on the verge of surrendering to some mysterious force.
    It was there, inside the racing locomotive, that I first saw Felix use this dark magnetic power. In the days that followed I was to have several more occasions to witness the phenomenon, and years later, when I conducted research on the subject, I heard many more such stories about Felix and his power to overwhelm people—there’s no other word for it—and bend them to his will.
    The amazing thing is that he rarely used violence—quite the contrary, in fact: it was almost as if he were able to create a chasm between himself and others, cushioned with kindness and the caring smiles people need so much that they let themselves float off in a fairy-tale trance. And that’s when Felix would zip the chasm over their heads, leaving them to wake up at the bottom of what was now a trickster’s suitcase.
    And me? Why did I go on believing his story? And what did I feel? I felt as if I’d been split down the middle: One part of me tried to cry out to the engineer and deny all the lies Felix had been telling him. And as I’ve already admitted, there was another part of me completely underthe spell of Felix’s flashing blue daredevil eyes. Still a third part of me (I guess I was split in three) kept thinking, What an idiot you are, Nonny; has any other kid in your class ever driven a locomotive? Who else do you know who’ll get a chance like this! What would Dad say if he found out you wasted it after all the trouble he went to for you?!
    â€œOkay,” grumbled the engineer, straightening himself up with difficulty, “but only for a little while, for half a minute, no longer, it’s against the rules …”
    He was still leaning heavily against the wall in front of me, shaking his big bald head, but his arms hung limply at his sides and his eyes were in a fog. “But only for a little while. This isn’t right …” he mumbled, nodding vigorously, as though to cancel any memory of the deed.
    â€œNow, Eliezer”—Felix smiled happily—“please to drive engine.”
    I sat down on the driver’s swivel chair with my right hand on the throttle. I kept my left hand on the emergency brake, as I’d seen him do. He stood over me, tightening my grip around the brake, but I didn’t need his advice. It seems I had memorized his movements, as though guessing in advance that Felix would offer me this chance to drive. I picked up a little speed, and the engine obeyed with a roar. It was too abrupt, for a beginner, at least. I pulled down the brake that stops the engine, let some air out through the one above it, and suddenly I knew how to drive. Dad’s like that, too: get him into any vehicle and he’ll drive away in it, though I doubt that he’s ever driven a locomotive.
    But I wasn’t thinking about Dad just then. If I had been, I might have realized that there was something really weird going on. All I could think about was having to skip this part when I told my adventure to the kids at school. They would never believe it. But at least the story