Page 85 of Only the Small Bones
“Sometimes, when her boss is away, she takes me into the office with her, and we go on those walks together. She says my new bedroom will be big enough to fit a whole orchestra.” I chuckled weakly at the thought before turning sad again. “Her boss was away the day I was taken. I was riding my bike in the park near her job when I saw the nice lady. It was early, so the park was pretty empty.” I wondered if my mom still wanted to live there. There may not have been drug dealers in that park, but there were people hanging around there who stole kids. My grandpa always said the grass isn’t greener on the other side. I got what he meant now.
“My grandpa’s sick,” I bit down on my bottom lip when it started shaking. “He coughs a lot like you do, but he does it into a rag, and there’s always blood there after. He has cancer, but some days he seems like his old self. I bet he’s looking for me too. I know he is. I-I need to get back to see him. I haven’t gotten a chance to play the song I’ve been working on for him.” I squeezed my eyes shut when they began to burn, holding Asher tighter.
“None of my friends will miss me, because I don’t have any. I’m not like the other boys in my school. My mom said that’s okay. But I have you now, though, and we’re alike. We don’t havefathers, we both play instruments, and we’ve both been stolen away. We’ll always understand each other.”
My sore throat began to feel worse from all the talking, so I pried Asher’s fingers from my hair, patting his back to calm him when he began reaching and panting in his sleep. I quickly ate a little bit of the cold soup, then drank a full bottle of water while eyeing Asher’s medicine. I was getting sick, and what good would that do us? If something happened to me, who would look out for him?
I took half the amount I’d given to him, because I wasn’t as sick, and because I didn’t want him to not have enough.
“Malcolm?” Asher whined, reaching his hand back again. I settled in behind him, guiding his fingers to my hair.
I started talking again, sharing the titles of my favorite books, the composers of my favorite songs, and my dreams of earning a scholarship to the Berklee College of Music. Then I ran down the list of famous Black maestros, promising I’d be added to the list one day.
I didn’t stop talking. Not even as the days passed and he coughed less. Not even when he woke up long enough to eat more, or when he regained enough energy to shower. I’d talk because I realized the bad voices in my head were quiet when I did. The voices sounded like me, but they said things I’d never say.
The only time I went silent was when Declan showed up with more trays of food. He’d stare at me like he wanted to hurt me, like he hadn’t forgotten what I’d done to him. I’m sure it didn’t help that we’d been given his room. Was he forced to sleep in ours? Washenow using the bucket as a bathroom?
I didn’t ask him if we were almost at our destination, never asked if Asher and I would be safe there, or ever get to go home. I simply curled over Asher’s sleeping body protectively, not taking a real breath until we were alone again.
Five days passed before Asher seemed more like himself. “You talk too much, Malcolm,” he complained, letting go of my hair to sit up and rub at his eyes. “I can’t sleep when you’re talking.” He’d slept just fine while I talked for the last five days.
“I thought you liked talking to me,” I sat up too, brushing his hair back.
“Not when you talk all the time, and not when I’m sleeping.” He stretched his arms over his head then smiled.
“You woke up in a good mood. Or are you happy because I finally shut up?”
Asher laughed, surprising me, and I wanted to check to see if his fever had come back. “We’re gonna be okay,” he said. “We’re gonna get out of here.”
“We are?” I gave into the urge to feel around his face for warmth.
“Yeah,” he pushed my hands aside. “Gargantuan is gonna save us.”
“Gargantuan?”
“He came to me in my dreams,” he said excitedly. “He’s gonna get us out of here. It’s his job.” Asher untangled himself from the covers, nearly tipping over the edge of the bed in his rush to get off it. He ran over to the small table.
“Hey,” I said, “Slow down, you’re not all the way better yet. And who’s Gargantuan?”
He turned to me with a gasp. “You don’t know who Gargantuan is? He’s a Freedom Fighter. The library has all their books. I like libraries,” he said, getting off track. “Gargantuans’ job is to rescue the Small Bones.” Asher climbed onto the chair, and I jumped from the bed to catch him when it tilted to the side.
“Okay, please slow down and tell me what’s going on?” Adrenaline raced through me so fast I thought I might throw up. Asher went from being too tired to use the bathroom on his own,to bouncing around and talking a mile a minute about being rescued by some person in charge of bones.
“Gargantuan is a Freedom Fighter,” he started, now standing on the floor again. “They’re superheroes, and they each have a job to do. Gargantuans’ in charge of saving the Small Bones. He told me he would save us.” He turned back to the chair.
“What does that have to do with you standing on a chair?”
“Because I have to keep an eye on the sky. He’ll come through a portal, then I’ll wave so he can see me.”
Superheroes weren’t my thing, but I’d at least heard of most of them. I didn’t know who the Freedom Fighters were, but I was sure they weren’t going to leap from the pages of their books to save us. Sometimes I forgot how old Asher was, and how much younger than six he could sometimes seem.
“So who are the Small Bones?” I sat on the chair he wanted to stand on again.
Asher blew out a breath, sending his curls fluttering. “They’re kids, like you and me. All kids are Small Bones in Galasia, because our bones are small.”
I assumed Galasia was the world the stories were set in.
“Bad things happen in Galasia. Kids are taken for their raw powers. Gargantuan finds them and brings them home. He’s strong and powerful.”
