did not. Colby thought about toys. Lots and lots of toys.
Having assembled every catalog or advertisement left lying around his house, Colby had attacked the most expensive and extravagant toys pictured with a black Magic Marker, circling them with gleeful abandon, knowing full well that each was most likely not to make the cut. This was, after all, his chance to ask for the one perfect thing—that bright, shiny indulgence that would make him the envy of everyone around him. His mind reeled as he began to ponder gadgets of the strangest kind—toys achieving almost Seussian levels of combinations—the best of the best melded with electronic gadgets; televisions and games systems embedded with compartments for light sabers and a fold-out pool table. His ability to fathom the ludicrous almost exceeded his desire for something truly spectacular.
He’d begun his search the afternoon before, continuing it under the cover of darkness and blankets—a San Francisco penlight his father had given him serving him well until the battery coughed and died. Then he was up again after a short rest, far before the sun, ready to attack the problem once more with the dedication of a scholar trying to solve the riddles of antiquity.
So, hours later, when his eagerness could swell no more, he dressed to meet his new best friend. He pulled on his crispest slacks and the white button-down shirt he wore every time his grandmother took him to church so they could pray for his mother and some woman named Jezebel. He combed his wet hair to one side with a nice wide part a few inches above his ear. Then the icing on the cake—his Christmas clip-on tie and the whitest socks he could find. He looked perfect. Absolutely perfect.
Thudthudthudthudthudthud. Down the stairs and around the banister, into a perfect slide toward the door. Home free.
Sylvia’s voice broke the morning’s perfection. “Just where do you think you’re going this early, young man?” her voice cracked from the other room.
“Out to play in the woods.”
“Come here and let me have a look at you,” she demanded. Colby poked his head around the wall, peering into the living room. His mother lay on the couch, almost as if she hadn’t moved a muscle from the day before. She blearily eyed him up and down. “Uh-uh. No way. Get back upstairs and change. You are not wearing your church clothes out in those woods. You’ll come back filthy. Get upstairs right this instant and don’t leave this house until I see you dressed right. You got that?”
“Okay, Mommy,” he sighed. Defeated, Colby returned up the stairs, the slow, deliberate thumping of his feet going off like firecrackers in a coffee can inside Sylvia’s head. She growled wearily, but he was too far away to hear it. Moments later he returned, this time dressed far more conservatively: jeans, a T-shirt, and his tennis shoes. Sylvia nodded her approval, reaching out with the last threads of motherly affection she could muster for the day, fussing with his clothes.
“Okay. That’s better. Whatever possessed you to dress up in your Sunday best? Some little girl got you dolled up like that?” Colby didn’t know how to answer, so he stammered a little, flanked with a pause on both sides. “Well, don’t let her break your heart, dear. Someone will always break your heart.”
“Okay, Mommy,” he said reluctantly.
“Now, you go out and be good. Where’s your watch?”
Colby smiled brightly, his arm sticking all the way out.
Sylvia nodded. “All right. Remember, back after five, but not after six.”
“Okay,” he said, smiling. Then out the door, around the corner, and off into the magical kingdom beyond the ROAD CLOSED sign. Crap, 10:53. Four hours.
The hours passed at a glacial pace, as if each second were made almost twice as long by the anticipation, and as Colby entered the final stretch toward three forty-five, his stomach tightened up, his bladder tingling—a nervous, almost sick feeling filling it—while his feet tapped uncontrollably. He spent the last seven minutes staring intently at his watch, each minute seeming longer than the one before it. As the final four changed into a five, he shot to his feet, looking around with wild, excited eyes. But there was nothing to see. No one slipping out of the bushes or from behind a tree. He waited a bit more. “Hello?” he called out. “Yashar?”
Nothing.
3:47.
“What a gyp!”
“You learn that from television too?” asked Yashar, stepping out, smiling, from behind the tree Colby had just spent an hour