“Is that a yes?”
Both the children nodded. He held out his hands and said, “Hold on tight and close your eyes.”
A minute later, they were inside the bottle.
* * *
Hank grabbedanother nutfrom a candlenut tree and tossed it onto a nearby pile. The nuts looked like chestnuts and contained a strong oil. When they were strung like beads on coconut fiber and lit from the bottom, candlenuts would burn upward and would give a few hours of flickering blue light.
They needed light. The hut was dark enough in the daytime, but at night it was pitch black inside. The last two nights had been too damn dark.
There was no fuel for the tilley lamp. Smitty had made the fuel they’d had last longer than he thought possible. Now Hank wanted the dim glow from the candlenuts so he could watch them sleep.
Every night, he just stood there as if he expected them to disappear. As if he were waiting to find out that it was all a big joke.
Ha! Ha! The laugh’s on you, Hank Wyatt. Fool. You thought you could have it all? Ha!
“Hank! Hank! Lookit here!”
He shook himself a second, then turned toward the sound of Theodore’s excited voice. And froze.
“Lookit! It’s a baseball an’ a glove an’ a bat! Muddy said Leedee and I could pick anything from inside his bottle to play with. I picked the baseball stuff.” The kid thundered toward him until the baseball cap flew off, and he skidded to a stop. He turned around and grabbed the hat, then dusted it off on his pants. He plopped the hat back on his head and started running again.
He stopped in front of Hank and looked up at him from beneath the long brim of a hauntingly familiar cap. “Look!” His face bright and excited, he held up the ball and bat. “Remember the baseball stuff? Will you teach me to play, Hank? Please?”
Hank felt as if every ghost of his past were gathered around him, all chanting and chiding, there to make him remember things he wanted to forget. He stood there, feeling as if he had lost control and hating it.
He’d had enough trouble dealing with Smitty. Dealing with the stupid, pissant heroic reasons he’d walked away from her when every instinct inside him had been shouting “You’re a chump! Take her! Hell, man, she’s yours. Take her!”
Instead he watched her sleep.
“Will ya teach me how to play baseball, Hank?” He turned back to the tree and reached for a nut.
“I don’t know how, kid.”
“You don’t?”
“Nah.” Hank didn’t turn around.
There was silence. “Haven’t you ever seen a baseball game or nothing?”
“Can’t do it, kid. Sorry.”
There was no sound from the kid. Hank stood there, not wanting to turn around. Finally hegave in.
Theodore was looking the bat and the ball as if they had suddenly broken.
“Tell you what. Tomorrow I’ll teach you how to fish.” He reached for another nut from a branch just above his head. His fist closed tightly over the nut. “But when it comes to baseball, I can’t teach you anything.”
“Oh.” There was a wealth of childish disappointment in that one word.
Hank tossed the nut on the pile without looking at the kid. He turned back to the tree. “You go on now. It’s almost dark. You can’t be running around in this jungle alone.”
“But you’re here. Can’t I stay?”
Hank leaned down and picked up a couple of the nuts. “Here. Put some of these in your pockets and take them to Smitty. Tell her to light them. They work like candles and will burn for about fifteen minutes. I’ll come back in a little while.”
Theodore frowned down at the plump brown nuts in his hand, then turned them this way and that. “What is it?”
