Danny
He hadn’t seen the three-legged deer in a while. Danny figured she must have gone off to be with her family or something. Maybe she had a baby to tend to or was looking for something to eat. Or maybe the deer knew that Danny was nothing but trouble and the best thing for her would be to leave him lost in the woods to fend for himself. Seemed like everything he was around ended up getting hurt or worse. His folks. Uncle Brett. Now Mindy. He didn’t mean for people to get hurt, but trouble always seemed to follow him around. If he could take it all back and be the one who drowned in the pond that day instead of his parents, he would do it in a second.
Danny wished that the doe were still with him but understood why she wasn’t. Besides, how could a deer really help him? A deer was just an animal that was even dumber than him. An animal couldn’t help him figure out what to do.
But the doe did help him with something—she made him realize that he couldn’t fend for himself out in the woods alone and that he needed to find someone he could trust. Someone who was nice to him and would believe that he didn’t do nothing wrong. He felt bad for Carl and his kids and all, but he didn’t want to get in trouble for something he didn’t do. Aside from Mindy, Mr. Bennett had been nothing but good and honest with him for a long time. Mr. Bennett would know that Danny wouldn’t hurt no one.
Mr. and Mrs. Bennett had Danny over for dinner one time a few years back. Mrs. Bennett had made a meat loaf with mashed potatoes, buttermilk biscuits, and fresh wax beans. He had never smelled or tasted anything so good in his whole life. Danny had three helpings and could have had a fourth, but he saw the way they were looking at him and he figured he should stop. Then Mrs. Bennett brought out a deep dish of peach cobbler, and Danny thought that he had died and gone to heaven. If that was what heaven was like, Danny wouldn’t mind so much going there.
Danny remembered that they just let him eat his dinner and didn’t ask him a bunch of questions or make him feel dumb or anything. Mrs. Bennett thanked him for coming, said it was an honor having him as a dinner guest, and gave him a big hug before Mr. Bennett took him back to the laundromat. That was the first hug he’d had since his mama and papa went away. That was one of the best nights in Danny’s life for sure.
Danny noticed that his head was starting to feel funny. He put his fingers to his forehead—it was all slick with sweat and hot to the touch. That didn’t make sense to Danny. It was real, real cold outside, so how could his head be hot? His jaw still hurt a little, but his feet and hands felt far away from the rest of his body, like they weren’t even connected to him anymore. Maybe he had a fever. He remembered once when he was little, he had felt the same way. Kinda dizzy and light-headed. Uncle Brett made him go to school anyway, because he didn’t want Danny at home with him. Danny went to school and felt real sleepy the whole time. He had trouble keeping his eyes open at his desk, his head snapping back and forth when sleep would take him for a second. He sat at the rear of the classroom where Miss Bradley made him sit. She didn’t call on him like she did the other kids. She didn’t even make him take tests. She told him to color on a piece of scrap paper or look at a picture book while the rest of the kids took the test. Miss Bradley said that he wasn’t smart enough to take tests or do homework, so she acted like he wasn’t even there. She wasn’t mean or anything, but Danny could tell that Miss Bradley wished he weren’t in her classroom with all the normal kids. But on that day when he was feeling sick, he remembered that she put her soft palm that smelled like lotion on his forehead and gave him a look that he had never seen her give him before. She sent him to see Doc Pete straightaway, and after that he stayed at home for over a week. Doc Pete said that his fever was real high and he shouldn’t be around the other kids. Said he could be contagious. Danny remembered that big word because it rhymed with “outrageous.” Uncle Brett got real mad, because Danny was supposed to be in bed and not go to school, so Danny stayed in his room and tried not to bother him. He ate Cap’n Crunch cereal for a week, because Uncle Brett didn’t make him soup like his mama used to make for him when he was feeling sick.
Maybe Mrs. Bennett would have medicine or something for him. When you got sick, you were supposed to drink bad-tasting medicine to make you feel better.
Danny came to a place where the trees thinned out a bit and he could see a lot more daylight. He kept moving and stopped in front of an old road at the edge of the woods. He was pretty sure that this was the road that led up to the Bennetts’ house.
He decided to stay in the cover of trees just in case someone was driving around looking for him, and he moved in the same direction as the road. He walked for a ways, not really thinking about much or paying attention to where he was going.
After a while he got to thinking about the doe again. He didn’t understand why folks like his Uncle Brett enjoyed hunting and killing deer. Uncle Brett made him eat venison for many dinners even though he never much cared for the taste. Uncle Brett sure enjoyed it, but Danny thought it was too chewy, and the fat stuck to the roof of his mouth. But even the thought of a food that he didn’t like all that much still made him feel hungry. The last meal he’d had seemed like days ago. He wondered if he would ever get to drink hot chocolate and have a batch of scrambled eggs at the Friedenshutten again. Probably not.
He caught a whiff of smoke in the air. He thought maybe he was imagining the smell because he was hungry and liked to eat food cooked over a fire, but then he took another sniff and could definitely smell the smoke of burning wood. Probably from a chimney or something. And if it came from a chimney, that meant he was close to someone’s house. Danny sure hoped that it was Mr. and Mrs. Bennett’s house.
He looked up into the blue sky and saw a cloud of black smoke drifting in the wind. He felt tired and wanted to go back to sleep but knew that he should keep going. Mr. Bennett would know what to do.
The smell of burning wood grew stronger, and Danny kept moving his feet forward. That faraway feeling in his body was getting worse. If he was dreaming, he sure wished he would wake up.
Over the last few hours, his walking had turned more into a stagger, feet barely lifting off the ground. He moved up a slope and stopped at the crest of a hill. There in front of him was a small house, painted blue like a robin’s egg. Mr. Bennett’s Jeep was parked in the driveway and had about a foot of snow piled on top of it. A small porch ran along the front of the house, and two rocking chairs were partially hidden under a heap of snow and ice. Icicles hung from the rain gutter like crystal daggers—sharp and glistening wet.
Danny wanted to smile at the sight but knew that it would hurt his jaw. He made his way down the slope and walked across the front lawn, where a birdbath and a few colorfully painted birdhouses were hanging from the limbs of birch trees.
He climbed the steps to the porch and stopped in front of the door. It had a doorbell, but Danny decided to knock instead.
