Searching for Candlestick Park (5 page)

Mounds of dirt, where moles had tunneled to the surface, dotted the park’s grassy area. Foxey approached a molehill cautiously, and sniffed the dirt. Then he began to dig, pushing the fresh dirt away with both paws.

I thought he smelled the mole and was trying to get
it. I clutched the rope, ready to pull him away if a mole jumped out. Moles have razor-sharp claws, and I didn’t want a slashed cat on my hands.

Foxey dug faster and faster, and then stepped forward and squatted over the hole. I laughed, hoping the moles either had an umbrella or were in a different part of their tunnel. When he finished, Foxey carefully scratched the dirt back into place and continued his walk.

After awhile, Foxey quit walking and just sat, so I carried him back to the picnic table. “If you’re going to sit still,” I told him, “you can do it where I have a place to write.”

Foxey lay in the grass and I got out the small notebook that I had found in Aunt May’s purse. The first page was a grocery list, which I tore out. The rest of the pages were blank. I wrote:
SPENCER’S DEBTS
. On the next page I wrote:

1. Aunt May $14

2. Unknown boy: Bicycle

I had not yet thought of any way to get the bike back to its owner. If I took it to the Seattle police, they’d want to know how I got it. Still, I knew I had to repay that debt somehow.

When I had recorded my debts, I put Foxey under one arm, and walked the bike over to the rest room. Shrubs grew all around the building. I decided to sleep next to the shrubs, where I wasn’t likely to be noticed by anyone going down the street past the park at night. I found a secluded spot between two bushes on the back side of the building, and prepared to spend the night.

I didn’t have a blanket, but I did have a sweatshirt and a stocking hat. I put both of them on, for September nights get chilly. I decided to let Foxey be out of the box overnight. With one end of the rope tied to Foxey’s harness and the other end tied securely around my wrist, I lay down on the ground.

I was glad I had the notebook, to keep track of what I owed. Somehow writing it all down made it official that I was not a thief; I was a person who temporarily needed to borrow from someone else. If an ax murderer got me before I found Dad, the police would find my debt notebook on my body and give it to Mama, and she would know her son was honest to the end.

Thinking about ax murderers did not help me fall asleep.

D
arkness settled around me. On the far side of the park, lights went on in windows, and I wondered about the people who lived in those houses. Were they eating dinner? Watching the news? Reading to their kids? I wondered what Mama was doing.

When I was little, Mama used to make up stories for me, with heroes named Spencer. No, I told myself. Don’t think about the past. Think about the future instead. I squeezed my eyes shut tight and imagined I was sitting in Candlestick Park with Dad, watching the Giants play baseball.

I fell asleep, jerked awake, and fell asleep again. Sometime in the night, Foxey growled. My eyes flew
open. Instantly, every nerve in my body was alert. What had he heard?

Foxey was crouched beside my left shoulder, his tail swishing nervously back and forth, brushing against my cheek. I lay still, listening. I was afraid to sit up and look, for fear whoever or whatever was there would hear me move.

I inched my right hand across my chest and stroked Foxey, hoping to soothe him. He growled again.

Clink. Clink. Clink
. I recognized the sound of a dog’s tags jingling together. Foxey stood up and arched his back. Even in the dark, I could tell his fur was standing out, making him twice his regular size.

Clink. Clink. Clink
. The sound came closer.

I sat up. I couldn’t see the dog through the bushes.

I reached for Foxey’s box, and opened it. If the dog spotted us, I thought it would be safer for Foxey to be in the box. A dog might not even come to investigate a boy with a box but it would go after a cat, for sure.

I untied the rope from my wrist and then reached for Foxey. I planned to put him in the box and put the box behind me. If the dog approached, I would not let it see the box.

Foxey struggled when I picked him up, and let out a loud, “Meow,” when I put him in the box. The dog immediately crashed through the bushes toward us, barking.

Foxey panicked. Before I could clap the lid on the box, he leaped out of my grasp and streaked around
the end of the rest room. I still had the rope in my hand, with the other end attached to Foxey’s collar, but the dog saw Foxey go, and bolted after him.

I jumped to my feet, which made my right leg throb.

I had to make a fast choice. I could hold onto the rope and keep Foxey from running away, but if I did that I knew the dog would reach Foxey before I could pick him up. Or I could let go of the rope, and hope Foxey would be able to run fast enough to get away from the dog. If he did, where would he go? Would I be able to find him again?

I let go.

I had to. I was afraid if I held Foxey back, the dog would tear him to pieces before I could get there.

Woof. Woof. Woof
. As the end of the rope slid out of my hand, the barking was loud and excited.

The dog chased Foxey, and I ran after the dog. “Go away!” I yelled. “Get out of here, dog.” I clapped my hands. “Shoo!” I cried. “Go home!”

The barking grew more high-pitched. I followed it around the rest room. As soon as I got away from the bushes, I could see that it was a big dog—a German shepherd, perhaps, or some kind of a setter. I hoped it wasn’t a trained hunting dog.

We dashed across the grassy field in the center of the park: Foxey first, the dog gaining on him, and me limping after. Every time my right foot thumped down, I felt a jolt of pain up my leg.

Woof! Woof!

The dog suddenly stopped running, but kept barking. Did he have Foxey cornered? Had Foxey made a mistake and gone somewhere that he couldn’t get out of? I pushed myself to run faster. “Hey, dog!” I yelled, hoping to distract it.

The barking grew louder.

As I got closer I saw that the dog was standing at the base of a tree, barking upward into the branches. Good old Foxey had climbed a tree. The dog stood on its hind legs, with its front paws on the tree trunk, still barking.

“Go home, dog,” I said. “Stop that!” I didn’t raise my hand or go close to the dog, though. I like dogs, but I didn’t know anything about this one, and I didn’t want it to come after me.

The dog leaped against the tree trunk, barking shrilly.

A porch light came on across the street, at one of the houses I had seen earlier.

A woman in a blue bathrobe stepped out onto an open porch. “Here, Peppy!” she called. “Here, Peppy!”

The dog stopped barking and turned to look at her.

“Peppy!” the woman yelled. “Come home!”

The dog circled the tree again, nose to the ground.

The woman quit calling and started to whistle.

The dog looked up into the branches one last time, and then trotted toward the woman. I waited until I saw her let the dog in and close the door before I went
to the base of the tree. I walked around it, hoping the rope would dangle down far enough for me to grab it. I knew I couldn’t haul Foxey out of the tree that way, but at least if I held the end, I would eventually be able to get Foxey back. I didn’t see any rope.

“It’s okay, Foxey,” I said. “He’s gone. You can come down now.”

I don’t think Foxey believed me. I stared up into the dark branches. There was no sound, and no movement.

“Here, kitty, kitty. Come on, Foxey.” Nothing.

My flashlight was on the ground next to the bicycle; I wished I had grabbed it before I ran after the dog. Now I didn’t want to leave the tree to go get the flashlight, because I was afraid Foxey might jump down while I was on the other side of the park and who knows which direction he might go. I decided to wait at the base of the tree, and hope he would come to me.

I sat on the ground, leaned back against the tree, and waited. After a few minutes I called him again. No response. Poor Foxey, I thought. He’s terrified, and I don’t blame him.

Maybe I wasn’t being fair to Foxey, taking him with me on this trip. Maybe I should have done what Mama said, and tried to find him a good home. If I had showed his picture around school, lots of people would have wanted such a beautiful, smart cat. Some rich kid might have adopted him and Foxey would be sleeping
on a heated pillow and eating tuna out of a glass bowl, instead of shaking with fear at the top of a tree.

“I’m sorry, Foxey,” I said.

I waited and called, waited and called, for about an hour. Then a new worry hit me. What if Foxey wasn’t in the tree? The dog could have made a mistake. I never actually saw Foxey go up the tree; I only saw the dog barking at the bottom. Foxey might have run partway up, to fool the dog, and then run right down the other side and kept going. By now, my cat could be miles away, still running.

I stood up, called one more time, and then jogged across the park, to get the flashlight. All this running wasn’t doing my sore leg any good, but I was more worried about Foxey than I was about my leg. I grabbed the flashlight, and ran back to the tree.

I turned on the light and aimed it into the branches, waving it back and forth. I looked at the large lower branches first, and them aimed the light higher and higher. Nearly at the top, two green eyes gleamed in the light.

“Silly old cat,” I said, as relief filled me. “Come down from there.”

He lay on his stomach, his front paws extended in front of him, holding onto the branch. The rope was tangled in the branches below him; it was probably the reason Foxey wasn’t higher than he was. He couldn’t keep climbing because the rope held him
back. Was it also keeping him from climbing down? If it was, I had a serious problem.

I turned off the flashlight, not wanting to call attention to myself. Now that I knew where Foxey was, I decided to wait awhile longer and see if he could get down by himself.

I sat against the tree again, and waited. My eyelids kept closing and twice I had to stand up and walk around the tree to keep myself from falling asleep.

I tried talking softly to Foxey, encouraging him to come down. After about forty-five minutes, I turned on the flashlight. Foxey now faced the opposite direction, with his head toward the tree trunk. But he wasn’t any lower.

I squinted upward, trying to see if the rope was the problem. I couldn’t tell.

Once when he was still a kitten, Foxey had gone up our neighbor’s chestnut tree and I had been afraid he didn’t know how to climb down. I wanted to call the fire department, but Mama said, “If the cat got up there alone, he’ll get down alone.” Dad said, “Don’t worry, Spencer. I’ve never seen a cat skeleton hanging in a tree.”

They were right. Foxey came down the next morning, but not until I had skipped supper and breakfast because I was too upset to eat.

This time, I couldn’t wait until morning. Once daylight came, I didn’t dare hang around this tree too long
without someone wondering who I was and why I was not in school. And I couldn’t leave the tree and take a chance that Foxey would jump down and run away. Besides, Peppy’s owner would no doubt let him out again first thing in the morning, and he would probably beeline right over here.

I stuffed the flashlight in my hip pocket, and walked to the closest picnic table. I pulled on the table, hoping it wasn’t chained to a pole or cemented to the ground.

It moved. I yanked harder. It took all my strength to drag the picnic table across the grass. After I pushed one end of the table against the base of Foxey’s tree, I crouched under that end and stood up. My back helped my arms lift the heavy table and I leaned the raised end against the tree, centering the table on the tree trunk so the table wouldn’t wobble.

When it was as steady as I could make it, I climbed up the tabletop, the way little kids climb up the slope of a slide. Then I stood on the top end of the table, and stretched my arms above my head until I grasped the bottom branch of the tree. I pulled myself up, scraping both arms on the bark, and sat on the branch.

I shined the light on Foxey again. He had not moved.

I held the light against my chest so that it illuminated my face. I wanted to be sure Foxey knew it was me coming up the tree.

“Good boy,” I told him. “Good Foxey. You can come down now.”

I turned the light off, put it back in my pocket, and stood up, holding fast to the next branch up. It was three feet above the one I was on; I climbed up to it easily. From there on up the branches got smaller, with short branches sticking out from the main ones. I kept climbing.

“Meow.”

Foxey was only about six feet above my head when he greeted me. I was afraid to go any higher. The branches were thin up this high and I wasn’t sure they would support my weight.