Thorvald's adventure is over.

Published on Wednesday, April 30, 2008 at 11pm

Still needing a definite title, but it is finished! Enjoy. (16 1/2 pages)

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Thorvald and the Streetlamps (Working Title)

Out into the yellow light he went
And he saw shadows big and small
And he explored until he was spent
And there was no more light at all.

The street came alive as the streetlamps flickered on to signal that it was not late afternoon anymore but, in fact, now early evening. Several children ran inside, ducking under their mothers’ arms, wary that their adventures were now over because of the lamps. As the last adolescent straggler stepped into the safety in the middle of the cul-de-sac, the lights of 1303 St. George Circle turned off, and a mysterious figure walked out.
The figure, who, according to The Mothers on the cul-de-sac, was an Independent Woman (and therefore not allowed to be acknowledged by The Fathers on the cul-de-sac), got into her shoddy hatchback and puttered off. This was not unusual for the Independent Woman, who did this nearly every other night, but it was unusual to The Children of the cul-de-sac, who believed a bevy of things about the Independent Woman.
Josie Goodman, age 6 ¾, believed that the Independent Woman was an advanced form of Praying Mantis who decided to devour her spouse and her young shortly after she moved to the cul-de-sac. “She absolutely has to be one, what other reason could there be for her living in this neighborhood all alone like that?” the girl said as she spun in the middle of the street one morning. Josie, who always announced her age to closest fraction she knew after her aunt had taught her about quarters, shook out her blonde pigtails and admired her toenails as she waited for one of the other children to respond.
“Well, Mummy says that she is just an Independent Woman and she enjoys her priv-a-see,” a rather dirty child by the name of Maxwell said as he poured dirt onto the road from a yellow dump truck, picking out worms and bugs as he did so.
“Did you just say she enjoys her privy? Do they not have bathrooms in The City?” Josie asked.
“No, priv-a-see is not a bathroom, it’s something totally different, I think,” the dirty boy said as he stuffed the worms and bugs into his pockets.
“PRIVACY. You mean Privacy, Maxwell. Geez, I have got to meet some older kids. You don’t even know what Privacy is!” The Oldest Boy on the cul-de-sac said.
“Do too, Thorvald!” Josie retorted, “Privacy is some sort of toilet or something.”
“No, Privacy is something that people have when they are alone; all of the Grown Ups talk about not having it anymore.”
“Oh, well I suppose that makes sense…”
And with that, they continued to play and they thought about Privacy. Some of the children even went so far as to go on a pretend quest for Privacy, which ended in the revelation that Privacy was boring. The Oldest Boy, Thorvald, just sat in what he believed to be the exact middle of the circle. And he waited. A five year old boy named Jeffery, who could have passed as three because of his lack of height and his melodramatic nature, once asked him why he didn’t play, it being summer and all. Thorvald’s reply sent him home in tears.
When he was six, Thorvald wanted a pony. Not so much as a pony but a young horse, not so much as a young horse, but specifically a racehorse named Hershey’s Best. When he was seven, Thorvald wanted a name that was not Thorvald. Not so much as a different name but a cool name, not so much as a cool name, but a name like Tom, which isn’t such an ambitious goal but a whole lot better than Thorvald in his book. When he was eight, Thorvald wanted freedom. Not so much as freedom from oppression, not so much as freedom from abuse, but freedom to be able to play in the dark under the streetlamps. He decided that he would not play in the daytime and he would try his best hardest not to go inside when the streetlamps came on. He was always the first child out on the street, and he was always the last child out on the street. Always.
His diligence was a peculiar thing to his parents, especially his father, who never held a job for more than two years because of what he called his “inability to be tied down.” His mother believed that Thorvald was just going through a rebellious Phase. Phases were common amongst the Children of the Cul-de-sac, and even amongst some of the older Fathers (the children didn’t know what kind of Phases Fathers would have, just that Mothers yelled at them when they did). None of the children quite knew what Phases were, but they knew that Phases got them into a lot of trouble. So the children did their best to stay away from the known Phases; the tracking mud into the house after a game of soccer Phase, the bringing home stray animals that aren’t actually lost but you’ve found them down the street and you’d really like to keep them Phase, and worst of all, the tending to be slow to run home when the streetlamps have turned on Phase.
Thorvald did not know why his mother would keep him in at night. It wasn’t like she’d have dinner prepared, he thought, she is always so slow on that… and it’s not like it’s really dark out, only a little dark… and really, is anyone going to snatch up an eight year old boy named Thorvald? Maybe a boy named Tom, but definitely not a boy named Thorvald.
One morning, in his usual spot in the supposed-middle of the Cul-de-sac, Thorvald listened to yet another conversation about the suspicions about the Independent Woman. Josie, whose palate was satisfied by the idea that she was a Praying Mantis, decided to stay out of it, but her best friend Mary Michael, age 6 ¼, now held the assumption that the Independent Woman was a Russian Spy. She didn’t really know what a Spy was, but she had heard about them on television the night before and automatically knew that the Independent Woman was one.
“She’s not a Spy, Mary Michael,” Thorvald said after she had recounted her story about the television program about Spies.
“Then what is she, then? You think you know everything because you’re the Oldest on the Cul-de-sac. She is a Spy, she has to be.”
“She’s not a Spy, because she is a Witch.”
The Children of the Cul-de-sac all did what they believed to be a smirk at once. Some even stuck their tongues out. Witches were overplayed on the Cul-de-sac, and therefore not believed in, primarily due to the fact that all of the Mothers dressed up as Witches for the Annual Cul-de-sac Halloween Party, No Children After 10.
That night, after a particularly gruesome dinner of None of His Favorites, Thorvald devised a plan. If his parents wouldn’t succumb to letting him play at night, then he would sneak out. He had gotten the idea from a television show; the main character’s night out ended badly and he was caught, but Thorvald was sure that his plan would not fail. He went to his room and got his schoolbag from last year, and he packed his Batman flashlight that shined the bat signal, some chocolates from Easter past, a blanket (in case he wanted to pretend camp), and some of those nasty granola bars his mother made him take in his lunch at school (for firewood). He took the sheets from his bed and tied them together like he had seen in a movie about partying and teenagers (his parents did not know that he had seen it, because he had been peeking from behind the couch) and he tied one end around the foot of his bed. He opened his window and threw the makeshift rope out, and climbed down. This whole action was very unnecessary because his house was only one level and his window was low to the ground, but he still had a lot of fun doing so.
Once out of his house, Thorvald felt exhilarated. He didn’t know what to do first, but it did not matter. The fact that it was nighttime was good enough for him, and he went on his way to the middle of the Cul-de-sac. And he sat. And he waited. He felt like there was nothing to do but to enjoy the sense of delinquency that he was feeling.
He looked at the houses on his street, all somewhat strange looking in the orange glow of the lamplight. On the right side there were the Whatley’s, who send their boy to a boarding school somewhere far away, and when he comes home he stays shut in his room all summer; the Goodman’s, whose daughter Josie did not fall far from the tree (her mother is a huge gossip); the Ford’s, who had three children under the age of four, and whose yard was a mess of toys all year round. On the other side there were the Michelson’s, who gave birth to the dirty child Maxwell and had a backyard which consisted entirely of mud; the Hershey’s, who were not at all related to the maker of the famous chocolate (but they might as well say they are, thought Thorvald, that would be the only thing that Jeffery kid would have going for them); the Marshall’s, who Thorvald thought had a particularly nice house, but only because he lived there; and finally the home of the Independent Woman, which was nestled between the two sides and whose lights were never turned on until she was about to leave.
It occurred to Thorvald that he did not actually know the Independent Woman’s name, so he continued to sit in the middle of the street and he thought about what it could be. “It is probably something simple, like Judy… or Marge,” he thought, and at that moment he heard the front door of his house creak open.
“Thorvald? Are you out there?” His mother called, and he ran to the sidewalk in front of him and hid in the bushes of the Independent Woman’s house. “Thorvald, if you’re out there, come home this minute!”
“Dear, I think I heard him in the den, come inside,” His father yelled from inside the house. Thorvald let out a sigh of relief, the kind of sigh you only see in the movies when the good guy narrowly escapes being shot or run over or caught or something.
“No, George. I checked in the den and he’s not there. He has to be outside. I’m going to the neighbors to see if he is over there,” Thorvald’s mother said from his front door, and she was now walking towards the Independent Woman’s house, straining her eyes to see down the walk. Thorvald panicked and ran to the Independent Woman’s car, tried the door handles quickly and without luck, and then finally tried the hatchback door; miraculously it lifted open. He climbed inside and closed it behind him.
Although muffled, he heard his mother sweep past him in her bathrobe as she walked to the Independent Woman’s door and knocked. After about half a minute, the door opened and he heard his mother say: “Have you seen my Thorvald?”
“Have I seen your what?”
“My son, Thorvald.”
“What kind of name is that?” The Independent Woman sounded a bit hysterical.
“It is a perfectly respectable name, thank you, and I would like to know if you’ve seen him!?” His mother sounded a bit obnoxious.
“Oh, well I haven’t. Sorry, but I’m on my way out now,” She sounded a bit peeved.
“Oh, just go on and leave. What is it that you do all night?”
“It’s no business of yours, I’m sure.”
Thorvald could hear his mother make the breathing sound that she only makes when she is utterly exasperated, and then he heard her walk off towards the house on the other side of theirs, and he sighed once again. The he heard the Independent Woman walk towards the car, get in, crank the engine, and reverse out of the drive way. Thorvald put his hands over his mouth to keep from screaming, and he kept as close as he could to the floor of the car. He could feel the car come out of reverse, and into forward, and he could feel it stop at the stop sign of the Cul-de-sac. There was no way out of the car without getting into massive amounts of trouble, so he was leaving the Cul-de-sac.
The City that Thorvald’s Cul-de-sac was connected to was like any other city in any other country, and therefore needs no introduction. Just think about being eight years old and going to a big city at night, and you’ll be thinking about the right one. Thorvald had only been into the City for school clothes and once when his parents took him to a circus, so he did not know his way around very well. He thought about the fear of being lost, and never seeing his parents ever again, and werewolves attacking sea monsters, and how the car’s puttering was making him sleepy, so sleepy. He thought about staying awake, and how important it was to stay awake, but he could not figure out if he was asleep or not.
…
Thorvald awoke to the sound of what he automatically knew to be Techno Music. It sounded like a cross between a robot and something that could have been a wildcat. He sat up in the Independent Woman’s car and looked around. All he could see was an ancient warehouse that had a lot of lights flashing inside it and a line of people outside of it. He got out of the car, stretched his legs, and thought for a moment about getting back into the car and just staying there until the Independent Woman unknowingly took him home. He ultimately decided that this idea would not make for a very good adventure and made his way towards the warehouse.
He walked toward the back of the building, and with a little searching, he found an entrance to the warehouse. He then realized why there was a line of people at the door; every inch of space in the building was filled with scantily-clad, dancing people. He searched for the Independent Woman, who he had seen bypass the line and walk inside, but he could not discern any faces in the sea of people due to the flashing lights overhead.
He pushed through people who paid him no heed and tried to move to the middle of the dance floor, where there was a large platform on which a lady was playing music. He felt safer in the middle, above the tramping feet and the waving arms. He pulled himself onto the platform and stood there with his back to the lady. The woman looked up from her turntables only to say, “No one on the platform,” and she looked back down again.
Then she looked up, “What the heck? You’re just a kid!”
Thorvald turned around to look at the woman, and then immediately turned back around. It was the Independent Woman. “Hey kid, don’t you live on my street?!” she cried over the blaring music. Thorvald ran as fast as he could through the Sea of Dancing People. The Independent Woman ran towards him, but a man with slick hair and a gray business suit caught her by the arm.
“What do you think you are doing?” the man asked.
“I have to go catch that kid! I think he hitched here with me…”
“You aren’t going anywhere. I’ve paid you until two, you are staying here until two,” he said, and then motioned to two men at the back of the building. “Mike, Tony, make sure the nice lady stays right here, won’t you?”
Thorvald ran to the door and ran to the car, and then he decided that was not far enough and ran down the street. Then he regretted running. The buildings were scarier than any scary movie he had seen by peeking behind the couch. Even through the darkness he could see the eyes of mannequins staring at him and complex contraptions cast shadows that made him think he was being followed.
He found the corner of the street and sat with his back against the streetlamp. He took his blanket out of his schoolbag, draped it over himself, and he whimpered. He did not cry, because his father told him one time when he had skinned his knee that boys were not supposed to cry, and since then he had only ever managed a whimper. He tried to think happy thoughts, but he was tired and cold and hungry and scared and all sorts of things an eight-year-old boy should never be.
He got out his Batman flashlight and tried to signal Batman, to no avail. “I’m so lost, even Batman can’t find me,” he said aloud. He began to whimper some more until he heard noises to his right. Slowly, he removed the blanket from over his head and looked towards the sound, his eyes straining because of the lack of light. He thought he saw the outline of a man against the shadows, and the man appeared to be coming closer. Suddenly he was followed by another man, and yet another. They were creeping towards him at a snail’s pace.
Thorvald was shaking and silently cursing himself for being loud. He tried to run, but he could not move his legs from fear. “‘Ello there, little boy, my name is Theodore,” the first man said. His voice sounded soapy, as if he were gargling, and he was dressed in rags. “Are you lost? Would you like some candy?”
“We’ve got loads of candy,” the deathly pale and short second man chimed in. Thorvald eyed the scar on his inner right arm.
“Candy that’ll make your troubles roll away and then you won’t be lost anymore,” the last one said. His voice was slimy, just like his hair, and Thorvald didn’t like him at all. He didn’t like any of them at all and he wanted to run but his legs wouldn’t work and they were inching closer every second and he was scared they would catch him. He wanted to cry and say something like “I know karate” or “my parents are just down the street” but neither were true.
All he could muster was, “I don’t accept candy from strangers.”
“But this is great candy, and we think you really, really ought to have some,” Theodore said while he continued to get closer to Thorvald.
“I already have some candy of my own, see?” Thorvald pulled out the chocolates from Easter past. As he bent to put them back in his bag, Theodore leapt at him.
“I’d have given you the chocolates if you had just asked!” Thorvald cried as he struggled to get away from the man.
“I don’t want your stupid chocolates, boy! You will make a nice little slave for my boss,” Theodore grunted, wrapping his arms around the boy’s flailing limbs.
“It’s a shame you couldn’t have been a nice boy,” the Scar Man chuckled, “you really would have liked our candies.” The Scar Man and the Slimy Man then went down different alleys. Theodore pulled Thorvald, who continued to kick and scream, down the street. Thorvald went limp, as if he had fainted, and Theodore lost his grip on the boy.
Theodore reached into his schoolbag, grabbed the granola bars, and with all of his strength he shoved them into Theodore’s face. The granola crumbled into his eyes, and the man staggered backward in pain. The boy grabbed his Batman flashlight, hit Theodore twice on the head with it, and ran away.
He ran into the Dancing Warehouse, through the Sea of People, and onto the Platform. The Independent Woman was still there, fiddling with her turntables. But now there were two other people there, too—big muscle-ly men with shirts that said “SECURITY” on them. “Make yourself scarce, kid, you’re not supposed to be here,” the larger of the two men said as he flexed the muscles in his arms to show his authority. Veins rippled across his bald scalp. Once again, Thorvald ran.
He ran the opposite way this time, thinking about where he could go. He was a hungry, eight year old boy who was alone in the City without a dime to his name. He noticed that this length of the street was slightly brighter than the other side, and he started to look into the store windows. He walked past empty restaurants, shoe stores, and other boring businesses until he came to a store called MR. McDRINKLEY’S EXOTIC BIRDS, COBRAS, IGUANAS, AND A HAMSTER. He decided that this would be as nice a place as any to stop, and he leaned himself against the window, covered himself with his blanket, and fell asleep.
He awoke to the sounds of birds shrieking and cawing shortly after. Thorvald realized, much to his dismay, that it was still dark, he was still hungry, and most of all he was still alone. He looked behind him to view the commotion. A doddery old man with coke-bottle glasses was feeding some of the animals. Something caught the man’s eye toward the front of the store and Thorvald found himself having a staring contest with the man. The man won. He walked to the door, undid some of the locks, and opened it. In a gruff but kind voice, the man spoke. “Hello. Would you like a hamster?”
“Um, no sir… can I use your phone though?”
“I don’t know. Can you?”
“What?”
“You were supposed to say ‘may I use your phone’ not ‘can I use your phone’.”
“May I use your phone?”
“You could if I had one, but I have an irrational fear that phones cause cancer.”
“Oh, well thank you anyway.” And with that, Thorvald turned to leave.
The old man called out to him, “Would you like some scrambled eggs?”
Thorvald’s mouth was watering already. “Yes sir.” He followed him inside. He passed several glass cases filled with slithering, colorful snakes and statuesque lizards. The man was naming them as he passed, but Thorvald was so hungry that he was not paying attention. Birds he had only seen on cereal boxes swept past him in staggering displays of aerodynamics—swooping this way and that with little difficulty. The room seemed to be filled to the brim with strange animals, and then, in a dark corner, one that seemed to be the oddest of all: a single, ordinary hamster.
“Sir? Do you really have only one hamster?”
“Why yes, I do. Are you sure you don’t want it?”
“I’m sure.” And on they went, up the stairs to a tiny studio where the walking space consisted of the skip to the kitchen from the bed. The man went to the fridge, took out a carton of eggs, picked up a frying pan from the top of it, turned on the stove, cracked the eggs into a bowl, whisked them, poured them into the hot pan, and scrambled them without taking another step.
He retrieved two dishes from his solitary cupboard and without looking asked, “Bowl or plate?”
“Um, plate.”
“Good choice.”
“…Thank you.”
The man put the eggs onto the plate and into the bowl, got a fork for Thorvald and a spoon for himself, and placed them onto the table. He then got out a coffee mug and, with a little searching, found a juice glass. Thorvald watched as he haphazardly poured orange juice into the cups. Then the man looked at Thorvald, smiled, and ran back downstairs. He reappeared with a stepladder, which he placed at the table for a makeshift chair. They sat down to their meal and began to eat quietly—the man chewing carefully, Thorvald eating voraciously.
“So what is your name, young man?” the man asked between bites.
“Thorvald,” he said with a mouthful of eggs.
“What?”
Thorvald swallowed his eggs. “Thorvald.”
“So I wasn’t mistaken. Hmm.”
“What is yours, sir?”
“Mr. McDrinkley.”
“You’re not going to kidnap me, are you?”
“Who would kidnap a kid named Thorvald?”
“I don’t know. Men who like giving people candy.”
Mr. McDrinkley smirked, a true smirk, and then took the dishes from the table. “So why are you out in the City this late? It must be after one, that is pretty early.”
“I don’t know anymore. I thought it was an adventure. Why are you awake, Mr. McDrinkley?”
“Some of these birds aren’t used to the time zones yet. I have to feed them at certain times to get them used to being here.”
“Oh, well that makes sense.”
“So, Thorvald, where are your parents?”
“They are probably asleep in the Cul-de-sac, having nice dreams about waking up and eating pancakes.”
“I see. And how did you get here?”
So Thorvald told the man with the coke-bottle glasses everything. About the sheet-rope and the streetlamps and his cul-de-sac and the Independent Woman and how she was just a deejay the whole time instead of a witch and Theodore and the Scar Man and the Slimy Man and then he got mixed up about what was what and he started talking about Privacy and the City and the Independent Woman’s hatchback and how he didn’t even know her name. Thorvald got very confused but Mr. McDrinkley just sat there and nodded at some bits and looked shocked at the right parts. All in all, Thorvald thought he was a very good listener.
“So why don’t we go find this Independent Woman and see if she can’t get you safely home?” Mr. McDrinkley said when the boy was finished.
“But I would be in an awful lot of trouble…”
“It seems to me that you are in an awful lot of trouble anyways.”
“I suppose you are right.”
They went down the stairs, and Thorvald waited while Mr. McDrinkley got something out of the back room and he went over to the hamster’s cage. He put the hamster in a red plastic hamster ball and handed Thorvald the cage. “Carry this.”
“What for?”
“I’m giving you the hamster.”
“But I don’t want it.”
“You need it. It will keep you out of trouble.”
“What is its name?” Thorvald asked, looking at the furry brown mass scurrying in the ball in the man’s hands.
“Tom.”
“Oh.”
“I’ve been trying to get rid of that thing since I bought the place from the old owner almost ten years ago. He sold boring pets, but I was able to sell all of them except this guy.”
“So he is really old?”
“Older than you, but younger than me. That animal has gone past his life expectancy three times over. He’s magic.”
Thorvald looked at the hamster, Tom. Tom looked up at him, and the boy believed that he saw the animal wink. Mr. McDrinkley put the ball on the floor, watched the hamster roll to the door and stop, as if it was waiting for someone to open the door. The man motioned Thorvald to follow, and they walked behind the rollicking hamster until it arrived at the Dancing Warehouse, which was now silent. One car remained in the parking lot. The Independent Woman’s. Tom raced towards the hatch back and nudged the foot of the Independent Woman, who was standing by the car.
“Excuse me, Miss, but do you live on this boy’s street?” asked Mr. McDrinkley.
“Thorvald! Oh, yes sir, I do. I am going to take him home right now!” she cried.
“Very good—bye Thorvald,” the man said. He waved, turned around, and walked back to his store. Thorvald stood there for a second, hamster cage in hand, and just stared after the old man. Then the Independent Woman said something about him telling his parents that she absolutely did not kidnap him and this whole thing was of his own volition, and Thorvald just nodded, picked up Tom, and got into the passenger seat of the hatchback.
He did not say a word until he got home, where he witnessed a huge commotion on the Cul-de-sac. There were police cars and policemen everywhere; every man, woman and child was out on the street and in the bushes and the back yards looking for Thorvald. The Independent Woman waded her way through the cars and into her driveway without being seen by anyone. Thorvald petted Tom as a thank-you and he got out of the car.
He tapped his mother on the shoulder. She whipped around and gasped as she set her eyes on her son. “Thorvald! Where have you been?”
“I was in the den, Mum, hiding in the linen closet.”
“But I could have sworn I checked there!”
“But you didn’t! I ran in there because I had a bad dream and I just fell asleep, I guess. I’m very sorry, Mum.”
“I have caused such an uproar looking for you Thorvald, but I suppose since you are safe, it is okay… where did you get that hamster?”
“Oh, I have been meaning to ask you… I found him yesterday… can I keep him?”
“Well, I suppose so… Just go to bed this instant!”
“Yes ma’am.”
Then Thorvald watched his mother go up to one of the policemen and try to tell him that her missing son had been at home the whole time without her looking like a complete psychopath. Thorvald went to the Independent Woman’s house and knocked on her door.
As she opened it she cried, “I didn’t take him I swea—,” and she looked down at Thorvald and decided not to waste her breath. “Oh. It is you.”
“I just wanted to say that I am sorry. I didn’t mean for it to happen and I am very thankful that you got me home safely. And I have a question.”
“Yes?”
“What is your name?”
“Oh, well, it is Carla.”
“I will see you tomorrow, Carla.”
And with that, Thorvald went home, set up Tom’s cage on his dresser, and crashed into his bed. As he slept, he realized that he was no longer hungry, tired, and alone. He was a normal eight-year-old boy once again, or as normal as any boy named Thorvald could be.