Magic Street Page 0,52

something," said Mack. "So I started calling him Mr. Christmas."

"He look like Santa Claus?"

"More than Tim Allen does, yes sir," said Mack.

Word laughed and slapped Mack lightly on the shoulder. "Mack Street. I've seen you walking through the neighborhood your whole life, but I don't think I ever heard you say a word."

"I say lots of them," said Mack. "But mostly when people ask me questions."

"I guess I never thought you knew something I needed to find out," said Word. "Maybe I was wrong."

What Mack was thinking was: You never heard a word from me, and I never felt a dream from you.

That wasn't so unusual - there were plenty of people in Baldwin Hills who never had a wish so strong it popped up in a cold dream. But there was something about Word that said he had a lot of strong wishes, a kind of intensity about him, especially when he looked at Mack. Like he was just the tiniest bit angry at Mack but he was holding it inside. Or maybe he was really angry, and he was barely holding it in check. Something like that. Something that made Mack wonder why a guy with so much fire inside never showed up in a dream.

"No," said Mack. "You weren't wrong. When people ask me stuff, all they find out is I don't know anything much."

"I think," said Ceese, "a lot of them hope that Mack knows good gossip, wandering around the neighborhood like he does. But see, he doesn't tell stories about people."

"What?" said Word.

Mack leaned around Word to see what Ceese was looking at. But Ceese grabbed him by the collar and pulled him back, so all Mack caught was a glimpse. It looked like an alien out of a sci-fi book they made him read at school. Like a big ant. Only when he thought about it, he realized it must have been somebody dressed in black, with a black helmet. Like a motorcycle rider.

Word turned around, but too late. When Mack looked, the alien or motorcycle rider was just turning away, so when Word turned, the corridor was empty.

Mack didn't like it when Ceese acted weird, and he was sure acting weird now, gripping Mack's neck so hard it was like he was trying to break a pencil with one hand. So Mack tore away and took off up the corridor the other way, to ask the nurse at the counter what was happening with the man they brought in.

"I don't know if I should tell you," the nurse said. "You're not his next of kin or legal guardian."

"Well, I was sure his guardian when he needed somebody to find him in the bushes and carry him to safety," said Mack.

"You carried him?"

Mack shrugged. Didn't matter whether she believed him or not. "He wouldn't be here if I didn't hear him in the bushes."

"You're Ura Lee Smitcher's boy, aren't you?"

Mack nodded.

She nodded, too, and picked up the phone.

A few minutes later, Miz Smitcher was down there with them and hearing their story. "I guess we just want to know what's happening with the old guy," said Ceese, when they were through telling just enough of the truth to avoid having to spend time with a psychiatrist.

So Miz Smitcher went off and got permission from a doctor, on the basis that these were the boys who found the man, and she'd be with them. Pretty soon they were in a draped-off space gathered around the man's bed. His leg was in a cast and his chest was wrapped up and he had a needle stabbing the back of his hand, connected up by a tube to a bag hanging from a hook.

But the cast and the wrappings and the sheet were all so clean that it was actually an improvement. And seeing him asleep like that made Mack feel safer somehow. Not that he'd felt all that threatened when Puck was awake. But then, maybe he had felt a little bit afraid, but just didn't admit it to himself.

Talk about fire. Talk about intensity. It's like he thought he was Superman and he was going to use his X-ray vision to bore a hole right through the man's head.

"Did you know him?" asked Mack.

It took a moment before it registered on Word that Mack was talking to him.

"Me? No."

"But you saw him before."

Word shrugged.

"Then why do you hate him so bad?"

Word looked at him, startled, and then laughed. "I never heard you were crazy."

"Then you