"I *know* that. It's also an egg for a
bug. Living inside there. I can see it hatching. Next week." He closed
his eyes. "It's orange! Pretty. We should come back and find it once it
hatches."
Alan hunkered down next to him. "There's a bug in here?"
"Yeah. It's like a white worm, but in a week it will turn into an orange
bug and chew its way out."
He was about three then, which made Alan seven. "What if I chopped down
the plant?" he said. "Would the bug still hatch next week?"
"You won't," Billy said.
"I could, though."
"Nope," Brad said.
Alan reached for the plant. Took it in his hand. The warm skin of the
plant and the woody bole of the pod would be so easy to uproot.
He didn't do it.
That night, as he lay himself down to sleep, he couldn't remember why he
hadn't. He couldn't sleep. He got up and looked out the front of the
cave, at the countryside unrolling in the moonlight and the far lights
of the town.
He went back inside and looked in on Benji. He was sleeping, his face
smooth and his lips pouted. He rolled over and opened his eyes,
regarding Alan without surprise.
"Told you so," he said.
#
Alan had an awkward relationship with the people in town. Unaccompanied
little boys in the grocery store, at the Gap, in the library and in toy
section of the Canadian Tire were suspect. Alan never "horsed around" --
whatever that meant -- but nevertheless, he got more than his share of
the hairy eyeball from the shopkeepers, even though he had money in his
pocket and had been known to spend it on occasion.
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