She took about three sips and then we both heard it. We heard those boys coming back, retracing their steps along this avenue under the freeway bridge.
I could feel her gather her breath in, like gearing up to cry, and I almost panicked and put my hand over her mouth, but I didn’t.
Because I remembered a story we read in school.
It’s actually weird how much of it I couldn’t remember, like I didn’t know if it was a true story or fiction, and I didn’t remember if it was from a war, like World War II. I think it was World War II, and I think the people who were hiding were Jewish and hiding from the Nazis, but it could have been a lot of different wars and a lot of different kinds of people, because a lot of bad stuff has happened in this world, let me tell you.
I just remembered this lady, this young mother, covering her baby’s mouth with her hand so she couldn’t cry and give them away. And then when the soldiers were gone she saw that she had suffocated her own baby, which I thought was just the saddest thing I’d ever heard in my whole life.
But the thing I think is weirdest to not be able to remember was whether it was a total accident or not. I mean, did she know the baby couldn’t breathe? Maybe in her panic she didn’t know that. But the really scary thing is that maybe she knew full well what she was doing but it was still better than the other way around, because maybe her baby dying on her lap, in her hands, was better than what would have happened if the soldiers had found them.
Anyway, I know I’m getting off track, but I just had to say that I remembered that awful story, and that’s why I didn’t put my hand anywhere near that baby’s mouth.
Instead I just held up one finger and put it to her lips, because everyone knows that means “shhh,” even a baby.
I whispered, barely with any sound at all, “Brave girl, quiet girl.”
And she whispered back, “Brave girl, kiet girl,” and I swear it was even quieter than when I said it, which I didn’t think was possible.
They were talking to each other a lot down there, just passing under the freeway bridge again, right near where we were hiding. I figured that was good that they wouldn’t shut up for even a split second, because the more noise they made, the less likely they were to hear us.
“The problem is,” the dumb one said, “there are just too many places. In a city like this we just sort of have a problem with the number of places. You know what I mean?”
The smart guy said, “I never know what you mean. Not once that I can remember in all the time I’ve known you. And that’s such a long time it’s depressing just to think about it.”
There was also a quiet one, but he didn’t say anything—why do you think I call him the quiet one?—but I swear he was the most dangerous one of all.
“There’re too many places in the city where someone would hide and we wouldn’t think to look. It’s like they go on forever. There’s a word for that, but I can’t think of it. I can’t think what it is. What’s that word I’m trying to think of? When there’s no end to something?”
“Don’t try to use big words, idiot. They don’t suit you. Just say there’s no end to it.”
“But now I can’t think of that word, and it’s driving me crazy.”
“Ubiquitous,” the smart one said.
“What?”
“I think the word you’re looking for is ubiquitous.”
“No,” the dumb one said. “I don’t think it is.”
“Infinite,” the quiet one said.
Which was weird, because I’d literally never heard his voice before. The only reason I’m saying I thought it was him is because I could tell it wasn’t either of the other two.
“No,” the dumb one said. “That’s not it either. This is driving me cra—”
“Hey,” the smart guy said. I wish I knew their names to talk about them, but I never did. “We didn’t look behind that box.”
My blood turned right away to ice, and my gut, too—this really fast, sudden deep freeze, because I figured they were talking about the flattened box we were hiding under.
“Go up and look,” the smart guy said.
But I don’t know who he said it to.
“Me?” the idiot said. “Why should I go?”
“It’s steep, and my shoes are bad.”
“Your shoes? Your shoes are bad? Your shoes are heaven compared to my shoes. I would trade you in a heartbeat if your feet weren’t so small.”
“I’ll go,” the quiet guy said.
You could tell by the way he said it that he was sick of both of them. Just sick of the whole thing.
Then nobody said anything, and I figured he was coming up. And he was really the last one of the three of them I would want finding us.
My blood got even colder, and my heart started pounding so hard that I could hear it and feel it in my ears, and it actually hurt a little because it was throbbing so hard. And it made a lot of noise in my ears, but I could still hear the little girl suck in her breath to cry, so I pressed a finger to her lips again and said, “Brave girl, quiet girl,” with barely any sound, partly just to be quiet and partly because I barely had any breath.
And she said, “Brave girl, kiet girl” back to me.
And that was when I knew I couldn’t just sit there any longer. I wanted to, but I couldn’t. If he was coming, I had to know. I had to know the exact moment he was about to get there, so I could fight him. Maybe I could use surprise to beat him, even though he was big, because he wasn’t expecting somebody to jump out and knock him over backwards on that steep hill.
But then a second later I’d have all three of them on us and I would lose. I already knew I would lose, because I can’t beat three older guys who are all bigger than I am, no matter how important it is to try to win.
But I still had to do it. I couldn’t just sit there and do nothing and wait for them to come take her away from me. I had to try. Maybe after I bought some time by knocking him down the hill, I could climb up onto the freeway and flag down a car. I’d been thinking about it anyway, earlier that night—climbing up the high side of that bridge onto the freeway, but I didn’t think I could do it with the baby in my arms, and besides, it would’ve been dangerous to take her on the freeway. What if there was hardly any shoulder to stand on? And nobody was going to stop for us anyway, because it was the freeway, and they would only get crashed into from behind if they tried, and how did I know the person who stopped for us wouldn’t be even worse than what we were running from?
But I had to do something, even if it was something dangerous, because what was headed our way was too dangerous for me to just sit there and let it catch up.
I decided I had to look out and see how close he was, so I could surprise him and not the other way around.
So I lifted that cardboard again, only about an inch, so one eye could look out. And what I saw made all the air rush out of me at once, with a sound. But it didn’t matter.
He was on the other side.
He was climbing the hill on the other side of the street. There was a big cardboard box sitting under the other side of the freeway bridge, but not flattened—a regular set-up box, and that was what they wanted to look behind. They must not ever have seen the flattened boxes we were hiding under.