of. You’ll like it.” He peeled off the top slice and held it up. “I’m not sure if I’ll be able to Frisbee this over to you, but we’ll see.” Toby decided that he probably should have tested its aerodynamic properties beforehand, so that it didn’t splat onto the ground two feet in front of him and cause the monster to rush over. Fortunately, the light wind was at his back and he figured he should be able to throw it far enough to keep himself in the safety zone.
He flung the meat disk at Owen. It sailed through the air with much more accuracy than Toby would have expected, landing just a few feet in front of its target. Owen pounced upon it, impaled the bologna upon the talon of his index finger, then scooped it into his mouth.
It looked back at Toby. The message was clear: “More, please.”
He threw the other slices of bologna at Owen, one after the other, with Owen stuffing them into his mouth as quickly as they landed. Toby was proud of himself-he was pretty good at the throw, and none of the slices hit trees.
When the last piece was consumed, Owen looked at Toby again. The message was even clearer this time: “More, now.”
Toby threw the pork chop at it. “It’s got a bone,” he warned.
Owen chomped down on the pork chop, bone and all. He swallowed and looked at Toby expectantly.
Okay, the bologna and pork chop had been pretty safe bets. Now the real testing began. Toby took out a candy bar, unwrapped the foil, and held it up. “This is chocolate,” he explained. “It’s bad for dogs but I’m sure it’s okay for you.”
He tossed the chocolate at it. Owen devoured it with as much enthusiasm as he’d shown the meat, but then seemed to grimace.
“Not a fan of chocolate?” Toby asked. “It’s good stuff.”
Next up: an apple. A nice green Granny Smith one. Toby tossed it underhand to Owen, and let out a small yelp of amazement when the monster caught it. Owen held it between his fingers, inspecting it for about half a second, then popped the entire thing into its mouth. One crunch and a swallow later the apple was gone.
Owen enjoyed the other few pieces of food that Toby brought, particularly the raw bacon, which elicited what Toby took to be a smile. Owen gulped down the mint without chewing it. Toby took out his second-to-last item, a red-hot fireball candy, rolled it around in his palm for a moment, then decided not to push his luck and shoved it back into his pocket. He ended with a sure thing and tossed Owen a raw hamburger patty.
“That’s all,” he said, holding up his empty hand.
Owen let out a low growl. Toby wished he’d packed a little more food.
“I need to go,” Toby told him. “I’ll be back, though. I won’t be able to bring as much stuff next time, but I’ll definitely bring you a treat or two. Sound good?”
Owen continued to growl, and then licked his lips.
Toby waved. “Good-bye, Owen.” He continued waving in a slow, exaggerated motion, hoping the monster would mimic him. After a few moments he decided that it wasn’t going to happen and lowered his hand.
He turned and began to walk away. Then he heard shuffling behind him and knew that Owen was following him. He’d figured that this might be a risk, but hadn’t quite determined how he was going to handle the situation if it happened. Worst-case scenario, he could point the shotgun at the monster again, though he’d avoid that if at all possible.
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “You can’t come. Stay by your cave. I’ll be back some other day.”
Owen gestured to his mouth. It was an eerily human gesture, although Toby wasn’t familiar enough with primate behavior to know if apes or chimpanzees did this kind of thing on a regular basis.
“No more food. You ate it all.” He wasn’t sure what the universal gesture for “you already ate all the food” would be, so he mimed chewing and then held up his empty hands again. That didn’t seem to get the point across. “All gone.”
He took a step backward. Owen took a step forward.
“Stay,” Toby said, pointing at Owen. “Stay there. Or, you can have the entire rest of the forest except for the part I’m using to get home.” He decided that he was saying too much and confusing the monster with his gibberish, so he repeated his previous command: “Stay.”
Another step backward. This time Owen didn’t follow him.
“Good,” he said, continuing to slowly move away. “Very good, Owen.”
When Owen was out of sight, Toby picked up his pace, just in case the monster changed its mind and tried to follow him again. On a purely scientific basis, he hadn’t really learned much, except that Owen liked to eat most stuff, but it was a trip into the forest well worth making. He’d definitely be back.
As Toby dragged bags of kitty litter out of the grocery’s stockroom, he realized that there were few things in the world more frustrating than having to work a stupid job when there was a fantastic creature in the forest just waiting for him.
“One of those bags is leaking,” his boss, Mr. Zack, pointed out.
Toby looked back. The trail of kitty litter was about thirty feet long.
“Trying to mark your path so you don’t get lost on the way back?” Mr. Zack asked with a smile.
“I’ll clean it up.”
He stood at his locker, trying to remember if he needed to bring home his history book, when Nick walked over.
“I need to talk to you,” Nick said.
“You’re not supposed to talk to me.”
“Look, I don’t blame you for being mad…”
“You don’t blame me? Well, that’s nice to know. I could barely sleep at night thinking that you might have negative thoughts about me. My conscience is cleared now.”
“I’m trying to be serious. What we did went too far. Everybody knows it. We got punished.”
“You got a dinky little slap on the wrist. One-week suspension. Oooooh, wow, I feel avenged!”
Nick let out a frustrated sigh. “I’m here to apologize, you little freak. Believe me, it’s a lot harder for me to apologize than it is for you to forgive me.”
Now Toby felt kind of bad, although it was a fleeting sensation and he quickly reverted to intense dislike. He needed more than an apology to forgive Nick. He needed bags of gold.
Still, there was no reason to get himself beat up again. “Okay, so apologize.”
“I just did.”
Toby was pretty sure he hadn’t, but didn’t dispute it. He supposed that having Nick not wishing him dead was better than the alternative.
“Okay. Apology accepted.”
“But I need to warn you about something.”
“What?”
“Larry. He’s…there’s something wrong with him. It’s like he’s obsessed or something. I’m afraid of what he might do to you.”
“Seriously?” Social stigma or not, Toby wasn’t going to just let Larry hunt him down. He’d tell a teacher, or his parents, or the cops if necessary, but he couldn’t let fears about being dubbed a tattletale cost him his-
“No.” Nick let out a mean-spirited chuckle. “He doesn’t give a crap about a zit-faced loser like you. Don’t be so gullible, Floren.”
Toby had no response. He braced himself in case Nick intended to start throwing punches.
“By the way, somebody took a dump in your locker,” said Nick, chuckling again as he walked away.
For a second, Toby considered flinging one of his text-books at the back of Nick’s head. The thick hardcover history book would leave one hell of a skull dent. But, no. It would cause far more trouble than it was worth.
He tried to think of something biting and clever to shout after him, something that the other kids would chant for the rest of Nick’s high-school career, but the best he could come up with was “Fatso!” And Nick wasn’t overweight. So he remained silent.
Oh well. He didn’t need friends like Nick anyway. He had Owen.
As Toby trudged through the forest, he wondered if considering Owen his friend was kind of sad. Even having a human friend who didn’t talk and lived in a cave that took over an hour to walk to might be a little sad by itself. When you added the whole “monster in the woods” element, this might be absolutely pitiful. And scary.
Well…so what? It wasn’t as if he and the monster were making babies. If he enjoyed coming out and
