Monkey Island by Paula Fox Read Free Book Online Page A

the ground beside him were two small wrinkled apples.
    Clay stood silently a moment. He felt timid in front of the old man with his long beard and his strange, cold glance. Buddy was so different, almost neat even when he had worn the raggedy coat over his blue jeans and T-shirt. His crinkly curls grew tight on his head like a black cap, his skin was smooth and dark brown, and he was quick to smile.
    Calvin looked up. “You want one of my apples?” he asked. “They fell off a fruit cart.… They’re a bit old, but sweet, I’d guess.” He held one out to Clay, who took it and ate it, more out of gratitude that Calvin had given him something than from hunger. He felt a little sick. The candy bar had been a mistake.
    â€œWas she there?” Calvin asked as if he already knew the answer, which he went on to show he did. “Well, of course not. Or else you wouldn’t be here.”
    Clay said nothing.
    â€œI haven’t thought much about these matters,” Calvin continued. “I do not think about children anymore if I can help it. But I am sure you ought to take yourself off to the local police station. Someone may be looking for you. Don’t look so frightened. You’re not a criminal.”
    â€œThere are agencies,” Clay said hurriedly. “They would take me away to someplace for good. I won’t be able to look for my mother anymore.” His voice had risen, though he had meant to try and speak calmly. He moved further away from Calvin. “What if she comes back and I’m gone?”
    â€œThen she would go to such an agency and find you,” Calvin said. He spoke evenly, not looking at Clay. “Foster homes. They can be good and bad. At least you’d have a bed of your own and three meals a day, and you’d go to school.”
    He looked up at Clay. “You must go to school,” he said. “If you don’t learn a few things in this world, you’ll be as empty as that can you’re carrying.” Clay dropped the can on the ground. “Besides,” Calvin added, “the world will be a dull, dead place if you stay ignorant.”
    Clay’s attention was distracted by a movement he glimpsed on the sidewalk. A skinny dog was loping along, cringing as it looked up at the people walking around it. Clay felt awful about lost animals, the kittens set loose in the hotel corridors to starve, the dogs picked up by kids from the street, only to be abandoned or beaten. They were like babies, all the lost animals, babies who couldn’t tell you how they were suffering.
    Clay squatted down, facing Calvin. “If I go to a foster home,” he said, “I’ll never see my mother and father again. We’ll be lost from each other forever.”
    â€œYou don’t know that,” the old man retorted. “None of us knows what’s ahead.”
    â€œFolks!” cried Buddy as he hurried toward them down the path.
    â€œIt’s folk ,” said Calvin dryly. “A collective noun like sheep or fish .”
    â€œOkay. Folk,” Buddy said, laughing. “Listen to what happened to me. I was looking for my cans and I found this little shopping bag at the bottom of a trash basket. Inside it was a bunch of credit cards, a driver’s license, and stuff like that. So I went to a phone and got the number from information for the name on the license. And a man answered, and I told him what I’d found. And he said his wife’s purse had been snatched this morning on the subway. He couldn’t thank me enough, he said. We made an arrangement, and he drove down from the Bronx over to the corner of White Street, where I was waiting. He was this elderly fellow and he looked me over and I gave him the bag and he gave me thirty-five dollars. Folk! We’re going to eat tonight! I’m taking you to the diner over on Ninth Avenue. I tell you there are saints in this world!”
    â€œThere are no