The Stolen Child(40)

"Write it down, boy. If you come across a passage in your reading that you'd like to remember,

write it down in your little book; then you can read it again, memorize it, and have it whenever you wish."

I took out my pencil and a card from the stack I had filched from the card catalog. "What did they

say?"

"Rosencrantz and Guildenstern: the indifferent children of the earth."

"The last of the Mohicans."

"That's us." She flashed her smile before going to the corner to wake our slumbering friend

Smaolach.

We would snitch a few books to take home with us for the satisfaction of lying abed on a chilled

winter's morning under weak sunshine and slipping out a slim volume to read at leisure. Between the

covers, a book can be a sin. I have spent many hours in such a waking dream, and once having learned

how to read, I could not imagine my life otherwise. The indifferent children around me did not share my

enthusiasm for the written word. Some might sit for a good story well told, but if a book had no pictures,

they showed scant interest.

When a raiding party went to town, they often came back with a col-lection of magazines— Time

or Life or Look—and then we would huddle to-gether under the shade of an old oak to look at the

photographs. I remember summer days, a mass of knees and feet, elbows and shoulders, jockeying for a

choice viewing position, their bare skin damp against mine. We stuck together like the slick pages

clumped and wrinkled in the humidity. News and celebrity did not appeal to them. Castro or

Khrushchev, Monroe or Mantle, none meant anything more than a passing fancy, an interesting face; but

they were profoundly intrigued by images of children, particularly in fanciful or humor-ous situations, and

any photographs of the natural world, particularly exotic animals from a zoo or circus or in the wild

reaches of a faraway land. A boy on top of an elephant caused a sensation, but a boy with a baby

elephant was talked about for days. Most beloved of all were shots of parents and children together.

"Aniday," Onions would plead, "tell us the story about the daddy and his baby."

A bright-eyed baby girl peeps up from a bassinet to stare at her de-lighted, grinning father. I read

the caption to them. "'Little bundle of joy: Senator Kennedy admires his new baby daughter, Caroline, in

their George-town home.'"

When I tried to turn the page, Blomma stuck her palm on the photo-graph. "Wait. I want to see the

baby again."

Chavisory chimed in: "I want to see the man."

They were intensely curious about the other world, especially at the distance photography allows,

the place where people grew up, fell in love, had children, became old, and the cycle continued, unlike

our relentless timelessness. Their ever-changing lives fascinated us. Despite our many chores, a

per-sistent boredom hung around the camp. For long stretches, we did nothing but allow time to pass.

Kivi and Blomma could spend a day braiding each other's hair, unravel-ing the plaits and starting all

over again. Or they played with the dolls they had stolen or made from sticks and scraps of cloth. Kivi,

in particular, became a little mother, holding a rag doll to her breast, tucking her toy baby in a cradle

fashioned from a forgotten picnic basket. One baby was composed of the lost or broken limbs of four

other dolls. As Kivi and Blomma bathed their dolls at the creeks edge one humid morning, I joined them

on the bank and helped to rinse the nylon hair till it lay plastered against the dolls' plastic scalps.

"Why do you like playing with your babies so much?"

Kivi did not look up from her task, but I could sense that she was cry-ing.

"We are practicing," said Blomma, "for when our turn comes along to be changelings. We are

practicing to be mothers someday."

"Why are you sad, Kivi?"

She looked at me, the brightness now drained from her eyes. "Because it takes so long."

Indeed it did. For while we all grew older, we did not change physically. We did not grow up.

Those who had been in the forest for decades suffered most. The truly mischievous fought the monotony

by creating trouble, solv-ing imaginary problems, or by pursuing an enterprise that, on the surface,

appeared worthless. Igel had spent the past decade in camp digging an elabo-rate system of tunnels and

underground warrens for our protection. Béka, the next in line, was on a constant prowl to catch any

unsuspecting female and drag her into the bushes.

Ragno and Zanzara attempted to cultivate grapes nearly every spring in hope of replacing our

fermented mash with a homegrown wine. Of course, the soil resisted every enrichment, the days lacked

sufficient sun, mites and spiders and insects invaded, and my friends had no luck. A vine or two would