The Story Until Now: A Great Big Book of Stories Read online

  4:45 1/60th: With preternatural acuity, the distraught mother hears. “It’s Leonard,” she says.

  At the sound, park police break out regulation slickers and cap covers, and put them on. One alert patrolman feels the ground for tremors. Another says, “I’d put up my umbrella if I was you, lady, there’s going to be a helluva storm.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Mrs. Freibourg says. “It’s only Leonard, I’d know him anywhere.” Calls. “Leonard, it’s Mommy.”

  “I don’t know what it is, lady, but it don’t sound like no baby.”

  “Don’t you think I know my own child?” She picks up a bullhorn. “Leonard, it’s me, Mommy. Leonard, Leonard …”

  From across the park, Leonard hears.

  5 p.m.: The WNEW traffic control helicopter reports a pale, strange shape moving in a remote corner of Central Park. Because of its apparent size, nobody in the helicopter links this with the story of the missing Freibourg baby. As the excited reporter radios the particulars and the men in the control room giggle at what they take to be the first manifestations of an enormous hoax, the mass begins to move.

  5:10: In the main playing area, police check their weapons as the air fills with the sound of crackling brush and the earth begins to tremble as something huge approaches. At the station houses nearest Central Park on both East and West sides, switchboards clog as apartment dwellers living above the tree line call in to report the incredible thing they’ve just seen from their front windows.

  5:11: Police crouch and raise riot guns; the Freibourgs embrace in anticipation: there is a hideous stench and a sound as if of rushing wind, and a huge shape enters the clearing, carrying bits of trees and bushes with it and gurgling with joy.

  Police prepare to fire.

  Mrs. Freibourg rushes back and forth in front of them, protecting the huge creature with her frantic body. “Stop it, you monsters, it’s my baby.”

  Dr. Freibourg says, “My baby. Leonard,” and in the same moment his joy gives way to guilt and despair. “The culture. Dear heaven, the beta culture. And I thought he was eating Mallomars.”

  Although Leonard has felled several small trees and damaged innumerable automobiles in his passage to join his parents, he is strangely gentle with them. “M,m,m,m,m,m,” he says, picking up first his mother and then his father. The Freibourg family exchanges hugs as best it can. Leonard fixes his father with an intent, cross-eyed look that his mother recognizes.

  “No no,” she says sharply. “Put it down.”

  He puts his father down. Then, musing, he picks up a police sergeant, studies him and puts his head in his mouth. Because Leonard has very few teeth, the sergeant emerges physically unharmed, but flushed and jabbering with fear.

  “Put it down,” says Mrs. Freibourg. Then, to the lieutenant: “You’d better get him something to eat. And you’d better find some way for me to change him,” she adds, referring obliquely to the appalling stench. The sergeant looks puzzled until she points out a soiled mass clinging to the big toe of her child’s left foot. “His diaper is a mess.” She turns to her husband. “You didn’t even change him. And what did you do to him while my back was turned?”

  “The beta culture,” Dr. Freibourg says miserably. He is pale and shaken. “It works.”

  “Well you’d better find some way to reverse it,” Mrs. Freibourg says. “And you’d better do it soon.”

  “Of course my dear,” Dr. Freibourg says, with more confidence than he actually feels. He steps into the police car waiting to rush him to the laboratory. “I’ll stay up all night if I have to.”

  The mother looks at Leonard appraisingly. “You may have to stay up all week.”

  Meanwhile, the semi filled with unwrapped Wonder Bread and the tank truck have arrived with Leonard’s dinner. His diaper has been arranged by one of the Cherokee crews that helped build the Verrazano Narrows bridge, with preliminary cleansing done by hoses trained on him by the Auxiliary Fire Department. Officials at Madison Square Garden have loaned a tarpaulin to cover Leonard in his hastily constructed crib of hoardings, and graffitists are at work on the outsides. “Paint a duck,” Mrs. Freibourg says to one of the minority groups with spray cans. “I want him to be happy here.” Leonard cuddles the life-sized Steiff rhinoceros loaned by FAO Schwarz, and goes to sleep.

  His mother stands vigil until almost midnight, in case Leonard cries in the night, and across town in his secret laboratory, Dr. Freibourg has assembled some of the best brains in contemporary science to help him in his search for the antidote.

  Meanwhile, all the major television networks have established prime-time coverage, with camera crews remaining on the site to record late developments.

  At the mother’s insistence, riot-trained police have been withdrawn to the vicinity of the Plaza. The mood in the park is one of quiet confidence. Despite the lights and the magnified sound of heavy breathing, fatigue seizes Mrs. Freibourg and, some time near dawn, she sleeps.

  5 a.m. Sunday, Sept. 17: Unfortunately, like most babies, Leonard is an early riser. Secure in a mother’s love, he wakes up early and sneaks out of his crib, heading across 79th Street and out of the park, making for the river. Although the people at the site are roused by the creak as he levels the hoardings and the crash of a trailer accidentally toppled and then carefully righted, it is too late to head him off. He has escaped the park in the nick of time, because he has grown in the night, and there is some question as to whether he would have fit between the buildings in another few hours.

  5:10 a.m.: Leonard mashes a portion of the East River Drive on the way into the water. Picking up a taxi, he runs it back and forth on the remaining portion of the road, going, “Rmmmm, Rmmmmm, RMMMMMM.”

  5:11 a.m.: Leonard’s mother arrives. She is unable to attract his attention because he has put down the taxi and is splashing his hands in the water, swamping boats for several miles on either side of him.

  Across town, Dr. Freibourg has succeeded in shrinking a cat to half size but he can’t find any way to multiply the dosage without emptying laboratories all over the nation to make enough of the salient ingredient. He is frantic because he knows there isn’t time.

  5:15: In the absence of any other way to manage the problem, fire hoses are squirting milk at Leonard, hit-or-miss. He is enraged by the misses and starts throwing his toys.

  The National Guard, summoned when Leonard started down 79th Street to the river, attempts to deter the infant with light artillery.

  Naturally the baby starts to cry.

  5:30 a.m.: Despite his mother’s best efforts to silence him with bullhorn and Steiff rhinoceros proffered at the end of a giant crane, Leonard is still bellowing.

  The Joint Chiefs of Staff arrive, and attempt to survey the problem. Leonard has more or less filled the river at the point where he is sitting. His tears have raised the water level, threatening to inundate portions of the FDR Drive. Speaker trucks simultaneously broadcasting recordings of “ChittyChitty Bang Bang” have reduced his bellows to sobs, so the immediate threat of buildings collapsing from the vibrations has been minimized, but there is still the problem of shipping, as he plays boat with tugs and barges but, because of his age, is bored easily, and has thrown several toys into the harbor, causing shipping disasters along the entire Eastern Seaboard. Now he is lifting the top off a building and has begun to examine its contents, picking out the parts that look good to eat and swallowing them whole. After an abbreviated debate, the Joint Chiefs discuss the feasibility of nuclear weaponry of the limited type. They have ruled out tranquilizer cannon because of the size of the problem, and there is some question as to whether massive doses of poison would have any effect.

  Overhearing some of the top-level planning, the distraught mother has seized Channel Five’s recording equipment to make a nationwide appeal. Now militant mothers from all the boroughs are marching on the site, threatening massive retaliation if the baby is harmed in any way.

  Pollution problems are becoming acute.
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  The UN is meeting around the clock.

  The premiers of all the major nations have sent messages of concern with guarded offers of help.

  6:30 a.m.: Leonard has picked the last good bits from his building and now he has tired of playing fire truck and he is bored. Just as the tanks rumble down East 79th Street, leveling their cannon, and the SAC bombers take off from their secret base, the baby plops on his hands and starts hitching out to sea.

  6:34: The baby has reached deep water now. SAC planes report that Leonard, made buoyant by the enormous quantities of fat he carries, is floating happily; he has made his breakfast on a whale.

  Dr. Freibourg arrives. “Substitute ingredients. I’ve found the antidote.”

  Dilys Freibourg says, “Too little and too late.”

  “But our baby.”

  “He’s not our baby any more. He belongs to the ages now.”

  The Joint Chiefs are discussing alternatives. “I wonder if we should look for him.”

  Mrs. Freibourg says, “I wouldn’t if I were you.”

  The Supreme Commander looks from mother to Joint Chiefs. “Oh well, he’s already in international waters.”

  The Joint Chiefs exchange looks of relief. “Then it’s not our problem.”

  Suffused by guilt, Dr. Freiburg looks out to sea. “I wonder what will become of him.”

  His wife says, “Wherever he goes, my heart will go with him, but I wonder if all that salt water will be good for his skin.”

  COMING SOON: THE ATTACK OF THE GIANT TODDLER

  —The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, 1976

  What Wolves Know

  When you have been raised by wolves people expect better of you, but you have no idea what they mean by better.

  Happy comes out of the crate panting and terrified.

  When you have been raised by wolves, you expect better of people.

  Injured in the struggle before the dart bit him and his world went away, Happy blinks into the white glare.

  A dark shape moves into the blinding light. Sound explodes, a not-quite bark. “Welcome home!”

  This is nothing like home. Then why is the smell of this place so familiar? Troubled, Happy backs away, sucking his torn paw.

  He hears a not-quite purr. “Is that him?”

  “Back off Susan, you’re scaring him. Handsome bastard, under all the filth.” The dark shape gets bigger. “Hold still so we can look at you.”

  Happy scrambles backward.

  “Wait, dammit. What’s the matter with your hand?”

  The not-quite bark-er is not quite a wolf. Pink, he is, and naked, except for fur on top, with all his pink parts wrapped like a package in tan cloth. It’s a … Hunter is the first thought that comes. Happy has never been this close to one, not that he chooses to remember. He looks down. His body is choking. There is cloth on Happy too! It won’t come off no matter how hard he shakes. He tears at it with his teeth.

  The not-wolf yaps, “Stop that! We want you looking good for the press conference.”

  Happy does not know what this means. With his back hairs rising, he gives the wolf’s first warning. He grrrs at the man. Man. That’s one of Happy’s words. And the other? Woman. The rest, he will not parse. The man grabs for him even though Happy rolls back his lips to show his fangs. The wolf’s second warning. Now, wolves, wolves know when close is too close, and they keep their distance. With wolves, you always know where you are.

  Wolves don’t stare like that unless they are about to spring and rip your throat out, but unlike the wolf, man has no code. If Happy bolts, will this one bring him down and close those big square teeth in him?

  “Hold still! What happened to your hand?”

  Happy does as taught; he snarls. The wolf’s last warning.

  “Now, stop. I didn’t bring you all this way to hurt you.”

  “Brent, he’s hurt.” The other voice is not at all like barking. “Oh, you poor thing, you’re bleeding.”

  The man growls, “Come here. We can’t let the people see blood.”

  Happy bunches his shoulders and drops to a crouch, but the man keeps on coming. Happy backs and backs. Oh, that thing he does with his face, too many teeth showing. Just stop! The more Happy scrambles away the more the man crowds him. At his back the walls meet like the jaws of a trap. He tips back his head and howls. “Ah-whooooooo …”

  “Quiet! What will people think?”

  “Ah-whoooooo.” Happy stops breathing. He is listening. Not one wolf responds. There is an unending din in this bright place but there are no wolves anywhere. Even though he was running away when the humans caught him, Happy’s heart shudders. He is separated from his pack.

  “Shut up. Shut up and I’ll get you a present.”

  There are words Happy knows and words he doesn’t know, but he remembers only one of them well enough to speak. “Oh,” he barks bravely, even though he is cornered. “Oh, oh!”

  “That’s better. Now, hold still.” When a human shows its teeth at you it means something completely different from what you are taught to watch out for, but you had better watch out for it.

  The woman purrs, “Brent, you’re scaring him!”

  Woman. Another of Happy’s words. The sound she makes is nothing like a howl, but he thinks they are kindred.

  “Are you going to help me or what?” The man lunges. Should Happy attack? Other words rush in. Clothes. Arms. Clothes cover the man’s stiff arms and he is waving them madly. How can Happy tear out the throat with all that in the way? Can he bring the man down before he pulls out his …

  Another of Happy’s words comes back. Gun. It makes him shudder.

  “Brent, he’s shaking.”

  “I’m only trying to help him!”

  “Oh, you poor thing.” Sweet, that voice. She sounds like his … Another word he used to know. Mother. Parts of Happy change in ways he does not understand. She says, “Look at him Brent, he’s shaking!”

  “Oh,” Happy barks hysterically. “Oh, oh!”

  “Come on, now. Calm down or I’ll give you another shot.”

  The man makes a grab for him. In another minute those hands will close in his fur. Grief touches Happy like a feather, for like the man with his grasping fingers and not-quite barking, Happy is more pink than fur. It is confusing.

  “Don’t be afraid,” the woman says. “Come on, sweetie, come to Mother.”

  Happy will not know exactly who he means when he thinks, This is nothing like Mother. It does not explain, but measures the extent of his confusion. In this and every other circumstance, Happy’s position is ambiguous.

  This is not one of Happy’s words: ambiguous. He has been pulled out of a place he can’t explain into a world he doesn’t understand and it makes him sick with grief.

  He doesn’t belong anywhere.

  “Oh,” Happy yelps. Then more words come. “Oh, don’t!” Although he has outlived his mother Sonia and half his littermates, in wolf years, Happy is still a puppy.

  He does what any puppy does when cornered and outnumbered. He rolls over and shows his throat.

  “For God’s sake, kid, get up. What will people think? Get him up, Susan, they’re staring.”

  Others come. Men. Women. People with—how does he know this—cameras! People are pointing their cameras. Kept out by the rope that protects the live baggage claim area, strangers jostle, straining to see.

  There are words Happy knows and words he does not choose to understand. She growls, “You should have thought about that before you snatched him.”

  “Not snatched,” the man says firmly. He says in a loud voice because they are not alone here, “Rescued. This is not what you think,” he shouts to the onlookers. “This is my long-lost brother, I went through hell to save him.”

  “Stuff it, Brent. They don’t care who he is or what you did.”

  “I rescued him from a wolf pack in the wild!”

  She says, “They aren’t interested, they’re embarrassed.”
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br />   He shouts, “They stole him from our family!” He is trying to get Happy on his feet but Happy flops every whichway, like any puppy. Brent tells the crowd, “When they found him, the police called me.”

  Happy gnashes at his hand.

  “Ow!” Brent shouts over Happy’s head, “Olmstead. My name is on the dogtag!”

  Dogtag. It is confusing. Is he less wolf than dog?

  “Hush, Brent,” the woman says. “Let me do this.”

  Flat on his back with his paws raised, Happy lifts his head.

  Unlike the pink man, the woman is gentle and she smells good. Hair. Not fur. Nice hair. Clothes like flowers. “Sweetie, are you all right?

  Oh, that soft purr. Happy wriggles, hoping to be stroked, but there will be no stroking. What was that word he used to have?

  Ma’am. It doesn’t come out of his throat the way it’s supposed to. At least this part comes back: if you can’t speak when they make a question, you nod. Happy nods. She shows all her teeth (“See, Brent?”) and he shows all his teeth right back to her in … Oh! This is a smile. You do it because they expect it. You always did. From nowhere Happy can name, there comes a string of words: Songs my mother taught me. Now, why does this make his heart break? He doesn’t know what it means and he doesn’t want to know where it’s coming from. Songs my mother …

  She touches his hair. Parts of Happy go soft and—oh! Another gets hard. Smile for her, she is soft in interesting places. At eighteen Happy feels like a puppy, but he isn’t, not really.

  Then she prods him with her toe. Her voice drops so he will know she is serious. “OK then, get up.”

  Slowly Happy rolls over and rises on his hind legs, although he is not all that accustomed. Susan shows her teeth at him, but in a nice way, and her voice lightens. “That’s better. Let’s get him in the car.”