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“Watch!” he barks.
I look inside the front cover and there’s the paper folded in just like Ben said. I unfold it. There’s a hand-drawn map on one side and then a whole buncha writing on the back but it’s all a big block of letters which I ain’t got the calmness of Noise to even try right now so I just look at the map.
Our house is right at the top and the town just below with the river Manchee and I came down off to one side leading into the swamp and that’s where we are now. But there’s more to it, ain’t there? The swamp keeps going till it starts being a river again and there’s arrows drawn along the riverbank so that’s where Ben is wanting me and Manchee to go and I follow the arrows with my fingers and it leads right outta the swamp, it leads right to–
WHUMP!! The world goes bright for a second as something clubs me up side the head, right on the sore spot where Aaron punched me, and I fall over but as I’m falling I swing the knife up and I hear a little yelp of pain and I catch myself before I fall all the way down and I turn, sitting down on the ground hard, holding the back of my knife hand to the pain in my head but looking at where the attack came from and it’s here that I learn my very first lesson: Things with no Noise can sneak right up on you. Sneak right up on you like they ain’t even there.
The girl is on her butt, too, sitting on the ground away from me, holding on to one of her upper arms with her hand, blood coming from twixt her fingers. She’s dropped the stick she hit me with and her face is all collapsed in on itself with what she must be feeling from that cut.
“WHAT THE HELL D’YOU DO THAT FOR?” I shout, trying not to touch my face too hard. Man, am I sick of being hit today.
The girl just looks at me, her forehead still creased, holding her cut.
Which is kinda bleeding a lot.
“Stick, Todd!” Manchee barks.
“And where the hell were you?” I say to him.
“Poo, Todd.”
I make a “Gah!” sound and kick some dirt at him. He scrabbles back, then starts sniffing at some bushes like there ain’t nothing unusual going on in the world. Dogs got attenshun spans about as long as a matchstick. Idiot things.
It’s starting to get dark now, the sun really setting, the already dark swamp getting even darker, and I still don’t have no answer. Time keeps passing and I ain’t sposed to wait here and I ain’t sposed to go back and there ain’t sposed to be a girl.
Boy, that cut really is bleeding on her.
“Hey,” I say, my voice shaky from the charge ru
The girl looks at me.
“I ain’t go
She looks at my eyes. Then she looks at the knife.
Is she understanding?
I lower the knife away from my face and bring it down near the ground. I don’t let go of it, tho. With my free hand, I start looking thru the rucksack again till I find the medipak Ben threw in. I hold it up.
“Medipak,” I say. She doesn’t change. “Me-di-pak,” I say slowly. I point to my own upper arm, to where the cut is on her. “Yer bleeding.”
Nothing.
I sigh and I start to stand. She flinches and scoots back on her butt. I sigh again in an angry way. “I ain’t go
Still nothing. Maybe there ain’t nothing in her at all.
“Look,” I say and I snap open the medipak. I fumble with one hand and take out a styptic pad, tearing away the paper cover with my teeth. I’m probably bleeding from where first Aaron hit me and then the girl, so I take the pad and rub it over my eye and eyebrow. I pull it away and yep, there’s blood. I hold the pad out to the girl so she can see it. “See?” I point to my eye. “See? It stops things bleeding.”
I take a step forward, just the one. She flinches back but not as much. I take another step, then another and then I’m next to her. She keeps looking at the knife.
“I ain’t putting it down, so just forget it,” I say. I push the pad towards her arm. “Even if it’s deep, this stitches it up, okay? I’m trying to help you.”
“Todd?” Manchee barks, full of asking marks.
“In a minute,” I say. “Look, yer bleeding everywhere, okay? And I can fix it, all right? Just don’t get any ideas about any more ruddy sticks.”
She’s watching. And she’s watching. And she’s watching. I’m trying to be as calm as I really don’t feel. I don’t know why I’m helping her, not after she whacked me on the head, but I don’t know what to do about anything. Ben said there’d be answers in the swamp and there ain’t no answers, there’s just this girl who’s bleeding cuz I cut her even tho she deserved it and if I can stop the bleeding then maybe that’s doing something.
I don’t know. I don’t know what to do, so I just do this.
The girl’s still watching me, still breathing heavy. But she ain’t ru
“Todd?” Manchee barks again.
“Shush,” I say, not wanting to scare the girl any more. Being this close to her silence is like my heart breaking all over the place. I can feel it, like it’s pulling me down into a bottomless pit, like it’s calling for me to just fall and fall and fall.
But I keep my nerve, I do. I keep it and I press the styptic pad on her arm, rubbing the cut, which is pretty deep, till it closes a bit and stops bleeding.
“Ya gotta be careful,” I say. “That ain’t a permanent heal. You gotta be careful with it till yer body heals the rest, okay?”
And all she does is look at me.
“Okay,” I say, to myself as much as anyone cuz now that that’s done, what’s next?
“Todd?” Manchee barks. “Todd?”
“And no more sticks, all right?” I say to the girl. “No more hitting me.”
“Todd?” Manchee again.
“And obviously my name’s Todd.”
And there, just there, just there in the fading light, is there a little begi
“Can you . . . ?” I say, looking as deep into her eyes as the pressure in my chest allows. “Can you understand me?”
“Todd,” Manchee’s barking picks up a notch.
I turn to him. “What?”
“Todd! TODD!!!”
And then we can all hear it. Pounding thru the bushes and branches breaking and ru
“Get up,” I say to the girl. “Get up! Now!”
I grab my rucksack and put it on and the girl’s looking terrified but in a not-helpful paralysed way and I shout “Come on!” to her again and I grab her arm, not thinking about the cut now, and I try to lift her to her feet but all of a sudden it’s too late and there’s a yell and a roar and a sound like whole trees falling down and me and the girl can only both turn to look and it’s Aaron and he’s mad and he’s messed-up and he’s coming right for us.
He’s on us in three steps. Before I can even try and run, he’s coming at me with his hands out, grabbing my neck, smashing me back against a tree.
“You little FILTH!” he screams and presses his thumbs into my throat. I scrabble at his arms, trying to slash at him with the knife, but my rucksack has fallen and the strap has pi
His face is a nightmare, a horrible thing I’m not go