man he assumed was her father. She smiled in anticipation, but he mugged a sorrowful expression, signaling with a jerk of his head and a shrug that he was trapped into going home. She grinned, and mimed holding up a noose around her neck, her eyes popping, her tongue hanging out, and walked on, with a single glance over her shoulder before the crowd closed in again and she was lost.
Finally, when a buzzing began deep in one ear, he shoved himself to his feet and took hold of his father's arm. Norman tried to brush him off without looking, then turned and saw the boy's face. A wavering that Don wanted to slap from his face before he said one last word into the mike held toward his lips. A smile, a shake of hands, and Don felt himself being led toward his mother. The mayor was long gone, a handful of men and women in his place; one of them was Harry Falcone.
'Joyce,' Norman said with a brusque nod to the teacher, 'we have to be getting home.'
She balked and the others groaned at his unsociable behavior until he took her arm and pointed at Don. 'Oh, god, I'm sorry,' she said, was flustering in her farewells and did not object when Falcone congratulated Don with a handshake, Norman with one as well, and kissed Joyce's cheek with both hands on her shoulders.
In the station wagon Joyce kicked off her shoes and whooped. 'Keerist, did you see them?' she yelled as they pulled away from the curb. 'Jesus, I had them eating out of my damned hand!'
'What about the other committee members?' Norman asked, taking a corner too quickly and squealing the tires, braking too abruptly and almost sliding her into the well.
'Hell, they had their glory, too, don't worry,' she grumbled. 'God, a woman can't even have a moment in the sun around here.'
'You did a great job, Mom,' Don said hastily from the backseat, his medal beside him, the box still unopened.
'Thank you, darling.'
'He's right,' Norman agreed with an expansive show of good humor. 'Great job, Mrs. Boyd. If you run for mayor, I want to be dogcatcher.'
'You got it,' she said.
'It was still a great job.'
She grunted, 'Damn right,' and less than five minutes later they were in the driveway, and the wind picked up before they reached the door; it bellowed down the street ahead of a cloud of dust and leaves and clattered branches together, caught one house's shutters and banged it hard against the wall. A garbage can tipped over and rolled into the gutter, a dog howled, and somewhere near the corner someone's window was smashed.
They tumbled laughing into the foyer, brushing back hair and staggering toward the kitchen, Joyce declaring a moratorium on coffee in favor of their best brandy.
'What timing,' she yelled from the den while Norman fetched three glasses. She peered through the back door curtains, twirled on her toes and presented the bottle to her husband, who poured. 'Fantastic! One more encore and we would have been drenched.'
Don was about to tell her it wasn't raining yet when he heard it begin in a lull of the wind, slapping the windows, hissing in the grass. A downpour that wouldn't last more than ten minutes, but she was right-the timing was so perfect, she must have a divine guardian somewhere. Then he blinked when his father pressed a warm glass into his hand.
'It's okay,' Norman said laughingly to his surprise. 'It's a special occasion. I'm not trying to corrupt you.' He cleared his throat and took hold of a narrow lapel. 'I think ... to us.'
'Damn right,' Joyce said, grinning, and emptied her glass at a swallow.
Don was cautious, sniffing the liquid first and wrinkling his nose, swallowing hard against the burning when he took his first sip. He didn't see what all the fuss was about, but he wasn't going to spoil anything by refusing the drink; by the time his glass was empty, the fire in his stomach had been reduced to gentle embers, a furnace in winter that would warm him until dawn.
He yawned.
The telephone rang, and Joyce answered, indicated with a thumb it was for her and disappeared into the living room, the cord trailing behind.
He yawned again as the brief storm ended and Norman poured himself another glass.
'You'd better go to bed,' his father suggested while he toed off his shoes and sat at the table. 'School tomorrow.'
'Jeez, don't I even get a day off for good behavior?' He made himself laugh to prove it was a joke. 'Besides, Dr. Naugle said I should rest, remember?'
To his astonishment, his father considered the idea seriously and compromised by telling him they'd discuss it in the morning. He didn't push it; he headed straight for the stairs, blew a loud kiss to his mother, who blew one back absently, and ran up two steps at a time, kicked into his room and dropped onto the bed.
The velvet box was still in his hand. He switched on the light over the headboard, winked at the panther still licking its paw, and pulled up the hinged lid.
'God,' he said. 'Hot damn.'
It was as big around as his palm, heavy and gold, elaborately embossed with the words For Public Service, Donald Boyd. He read them aloud for his friends to hear, then placed the box on his desk. Deliberately not looking at the wall, he turned around and unbuttoned his shirt, kicked off his shoes and trousers, and yanked back the coverlet. He could feel the poster behind him, could feel the emptiness, the fog, the weight of the trees.
When he switched off the light, he could feel the dark at the window.
He yawned so hard his jaw hurt; he stretched so hard his leg muscles ached; he closed his eyes, rolled onto his side and punched at the pillow, sighed as a signal for sleep to get a move on, rolled onto his stomach and felt the pillowcase cool against the flush on his cheek. His feet tangled in the sheets.
The blanket was too warm; the sheet alone not warm enough.
He went into the bathroom and brushed the brandy's taste from his mouth.
He stood at the head of the stairs and listened to his parents talking in the kitchen; he listened for almost half an hour and not once heard his name.
'Way to go,' he said quietly as he returned to his room. 'Good job, son, we're really proud of you, you know.'
The lamp was still out, and he stood at the window, watching the wind toss the neighborhood under glimpses of the moon that found cracks in the clouds.
I'm feeling sorry for myself, aren't I? he asked the night sky. Mom worked hard for all this; she doesn't want me to take it away.
But it was only a gesture, this attempt at understanding, and he knew it, and knew he should feel worse for it. He didn't. He felt as if something had been taken away before he could make it his own, as if something uniquely his had been lost from the moment he had heard Brian's voice sneering in the park.
He stretched out his right hand, and his fingers caressed the head of the bobcat; up a shelf, to follow the lines of a leopard. His breath condensed on the pane. The clouds reclosed, and there was only a glow from a house a block over, and the dark against dark of the grass and the trees.
If you're real, he thought then, where are you? Where are you?
And he didn't move at all when he saw the slanted green eyes that opened slowly, and looked up.
NINE
He slept until well past noon, scarcely moving, not dreaming, waking only once-when Dr. Naugle came by on his way home from the hospital to check on what he called his celebrity patient. A soft nervous laugh-his mother standing in the doorway, a light coat over her arms as if she were ready to go out, to get back to the business of celebrating the town. Don's mind was fuzzy, disconnected, and he barely heard the man recommend that another day in bed wouldn't hurt to regain the strength he had lost, more emotional than physical.
Joyce agreed, and Donald didn't argue-he didn't like the weakness that had infiltrated his muscles, and he didn't like thinking what would happen if he should show up at school and have a fainting spell or require someone's help to walk before the day was out.
And he didn't like thinking what would happen should he inadvertently mention the horse.
He slept, then, and this time came the dreams.
Of the bedroom, whose walls expanded slowly outward, leaving his bed in the center of a cavern with caves
