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Now there were only eight left, and he emptied the little cloth bag onto the car seat, making certain no buttons slipped between the cushions.
He turned them all up, so their rounded tops were full toward him. He rotated them so the Phantom and Secret Agent X-9 were not upside-down. Then he put them in rows of four; six rows with four in a row. Then he put them in rows of eight. Then he just scooted them back into the bag and jingled them hollowly at his ear.
It was the having, that was all.
“How long have I been?” Mommy asked from outside the window. Behind, at her right, a fat, sweating boy with pimples on his forehead held a big box, high to his chest.
He didn’t answer her, because the question had never really been asked. Mommy had that habit. She asked him questions, and was always a little surprised when he answered. Davey had learned to distinguish between questions like, “Where did you put your bedroom slippers?” and “Isn’t this a lovely hat Mommy’s bought?”
So he did not answer, but watched with the interest of a conspirator waiting for the coast to clear, as Mommy opened the front door, and pushed the seat far forward so the boy could put the box in the back seat. Davey had to scrunch far forward against the dashboard when she did that, but he liked the pressure of the seat on his back.
Then she leaned over and kissed him, which he liked, but which made his hair fall over his forehead, and Mommy’s eyes crinkled up the nice way, and she smoothed back his hair. Then she slammed the door, and walked across the street, to the bakery.
Then, when Mommy had gone into the bakery, he got out of the car, and walked across the summer sidewalk to the A&P. It was simple getting in, and he knew where the cereals were brightly stacked. Down one aisle, and into a second, and there, halfway down, he saw the boxes.
A new supply! A new batch of boxes since last week, and for an instant he was cold and terrified that they had stopped packing the comic buttons, that they were offering something worthless like towels or cut-outs or something.
But as he came nearer, his heart jumped brightly in him, and he saw the words FREE WITH THIS BOX! on them.
Yes, those were the boxes with the comic buttons.
Oh, it was going to be a wonderful day, and he hummed the little tune he had made up that went:
“Got a nickel in my pocket,
“Go
“Got my buttons in my pocket,
“Go
Then he was in front of them, and he had the first one in his hands. He held the box face-toward-him, hands at the bottom on the sides, and he was pressing, pressing his fingers into the cardboard joint. It was sometimes difficult, and the skin between his first and second fingers was raw and cracked from rubbing against the boxes. This time, however, the seam split, and he had his fingers inside.
The packet was far from over and he had to grope, tearing the box a little more. His fingers split the wax paper liner that held the cereal away from the box, but in a moment he had his finger down on the packet and was dragging it out.
It was another Sandy.
He felt an unhappiness like, no other he had ever known except the day he got his new trike, and scratched it taking it out the driveway. It was an all-consuming thing, and he would have cried right there, except he knew there were more boxes. He shoved the button back in, because that wouldn’t be the right thing to do-to take a button he already had. That would be waste, and dishonest.
He took a second box. Then a third, then a fourth, then a fifth.
By the time he had opened eight boxes, he had not found a new one, and was getting desperate, because Mommy would be back soon, and he had to be there when she came to the car. He was starting his ninth box, the others all put back where they had come from, but all crooked, because the ripped part on their bottom made them sit oddly, when the man in the white A&P jacket came by.
He had been careful to stop pushing and dragging when anyone came by...had pretended to be just reading what the boxes said...but he did not see the A&P man.
“Hey! What’re ya doin’ there?”
The man’s voice was heavy and gruff, and Davey felt himself get cold all the way from his stomach to his head. Then the man had a hand around Davey’s shoulder, and was turning him roughly. Davey’s hand was still inside the box. The man stared for an instant, then his eyes widened.
“So you’re the one’s been costin’ us so much dough!”
Davey was sure he would never forget that face if he lived to be a thousand or a million or forever.
The man had eyebrows that were bushy and grew together in the middle, with long hairs that flopped out all over. He had a mole on his chin, and a big pencil behind one ear. The man was staring down at Davey with so much anger, Davey was certain he would wither under the glance in a moment.
“Come on, you, I’m takin’ you to the office.”
Then he took Davey to a little cubicle behind the meat counter, and sat Davey down, and asked him, “What’s your name?”
Davey would not answer.
The worst thing, the most worst thing in the world, would be if Mommy found out about this. Then she would tell Daddy when he came home from the store, and Daddy would be even madder, and spank him with his strap.
So Davey would not tell the man a thing, and when the man looked through Davey’s pockets and found the bag with the buttons, he said, “Oh, ho. Now I know you’re the one!” and he looked some more.
Finally he said, “You got no wallet. Now either you tell me who you are, who your parents are, or I take you down to the police station.”
Still Davey would say nothing, though he felt tears starting to urge themselves from his eyes. And the man pushed a button on a thing on his desk, and when a woman came in-she had on a white jacket belted at the waist-the moley man said, “Mert, I want you to take over for me for a little while. I’ve just discovered the thief who has been breaking open all those boxes of cereal. I’m taking him,” and the moley man gave a big wink to the woman named Mert, “down to the police station. That’s where all bad thieves go, and I’ll let them throw him into a cell for years and years, since he won’t tell me his name.”
So Mert nodded and clucked her tongue and said what a shame it was that such a little boy was such a big thief, and even, “Ooyay onday ontway ootay airscay the idkay ootay uchmay.”
Davey knew that was pig Latin, but he didn’t know it as well as Hobby or Leon, so he didn’t know what they were saying, even when the moley man answered, “Onay, I ustjay ontway ootay ootpay the earfay of odgay in ishay edhay.”
Then he thought that it was all a joke, and they would let him go, but even if they didn’t, it wasn’t anything to be frightened of, because Mommy had told him lots of times that the policemen were his friends, and they would protect him. He liked policemen, so he didn’t care.
Except that if they took him to the policemen, when Mommy came back from the Woolworth’s, he would be gone, and then would he be in trouble.
But he could not say anything. It was just not right to speak to this moley man. So he walked beside the man from the A&P when he took Davey by the arm and walked him out the back door and over to a pickup truck with a big A&P lettered on the side. He even sat silently when they drove through town, and turned in at the police station.
And he was silent as the moley man said to the big, fat, red-faced policeman with the sweat-soaked shirt, “This is a little thief I found in the store today, Al. He has been breaking into our boxes, and I thought you would want to throw him in a cell.”
Then he winked at the big beefy policeman, and the policeman winked back, and gri